President Woodruff’s remains were brought to Salt Lake City, where a public funeral was held in the tabernacle, September 8, and his memory was honored by all the citizens of the state. President Woodruff, at the time of his death, was in his ninety-second year. His life was one of marked simplicity and virtue. He served for many years as Church historian, and kept remarkable journals, recording in detail all important events of which he was a witness.
Chapter 52
The Administration of President Lorenzo Snow
1898–1901
The Presidency Re-organized
Eleven days after the death of President Wilford Woodruff the apostles met in council and re-organized the First Presidency. Lorenzo Snow, then in his 85th year, was sustained as President of the Church, and selected the same counselors who had served with President Woodruff. The reason for this immediate action in reorganizing the First Presidency was a statement by President Woodruff, shortly before his death, that “it was not the will of the Lord that in the future there should be a lengthy period elapsed between the death of the president and the re-organization of the First Presidency.” At the October conference (1898) the usual procedure was followed in presenting the new officers of the presidency, and all the authorities of the Church were unanimously sustained. Elder Rudger Clawson, president of the Box Elder Stake, was called to the apostleship and was ordained, October 10.
President Lorenzo Snow
President Lorenzo Snow was born April 30, 1814, in Mantua, Portage County, Ohio. In June, 1836, he was baptized by John F. Boynton, and the following winter was ordained an elder. He immediately entered the ministry and was laboring in Kentucky when the Saints were expelled from Missouri. In the early forties he labored in Great Britain, his fields being Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and London. After the departure of most of the apostles from that mission he acted as assistant to Elder Parley P. Pratt, who presided over the British Mission. He returned to America in 1843 and made his home at Nauvoo. In 1849 he was called to the apostleship, and took a mission to Italy, where he introduced the work, but met with little success. During the anti-polygamy crusade he was sentenced by Judge Orlando W. Powers, under the “segregation” ruling, to serve three terms of imprisonment of six months each, making a period of eighteen months, and to pay three fines of three hundred dollars each. The supreme court of Utah confirmed the sentence and an appeal was taken to the court of last resort. After he had served eleven months of his imprisonment the supreme court of the United States reversed the ruling made in his case, denying the right of the Utah judges to inflict punishment by “segregation,” and he was released from confinement. This ruling also released others who had been illegally sentenced by the judges of the Utah courts. President Snow was sustained as the president of the Twelve Apostles when the First Presidency was re-organized in 1889, and was also called to preside in the Salt Lake Temple when that building was opened for work (1893), which position he retained until his death.
The Roberts Case
At the general election held November 8, 1898, Brigham H. Roberts (Democrat) and a member of the presiding council of the seventies, was elected as Utah’s representative in Congress, and Robert N. Baskin was elected to the Utah supreme court. During the campaign much was said by the enemies of Mr. Roberts, because he had a plural family, and the agitation became nationwide. It had been understood when Utah became a state that there should be no more plural marriages, and the Utah constitution contained a provision as follows: