Chapter 53
The Administration of President Joseph F. Smith
1901–1918
The Presidency Re-organized
At the regular weekly meeting of the apostles, held in the Salt Lake Temple, October 17, 1901, the First Presidency was re-organized. Joseph F. Smith, the senior apostle, was sustained as President of the Church, and he selected John R. Winder and Anthon H. Lund as his counselors. Brigham Young, Jr., was chosen president of the council of the twelve apostles. John R. Winder, the first counselor in the First Presidency, was at the time of his appointment second counselor to Presiding Bishop William B. Preston. Anthon H. Lund was a member of the council of apostles. Both counselors were men of wide experience, careful and conservative, and well fitted for this new calling. One week later (Oct. 24) Hyrum Mack Smith, eldest son of President Joseph F. Smith, was called to fill the vacancy in the council of the apostles.
A Special Conference
A special conference of the Church was held in the tabernacle, November 10, 1901, and the general authorities of the Church were sustained by the vote of the people. Each quorum of the Priesthood voted separately, and then the entire body of the Saints, according to the regular custom when a new First Presidency is sustained.
President Joseph F. Smith
November 13, 1838, Joseph F. Smith was born at Far West, Missouri. A few days before his birth his father Hyrum Smith and his uncle, Joseph Smith the Prophet, and others, had been taken prisoners by the mob-militia of Missouri on the false charge of treason, and were under sentence to be shot. As a child Joseph F. Smith passed through the trying scenes of Missouri and Illinois, and in 1848 (Sept. 23) he entered the Salt Lake Valley with his mother. Although but a boy nine years of age, he drove an ox team across the plains from the Missouri River. In 1852 his mother, Mary Fielding Smith, died, and two years later, May 27, 1854, he left for a mission to the Hawaiian Islands, when but fifteen years of age. He performed active and faithful missionary service in that land and later in Great Britain and was ordained an apostle by President Brigham Young, July 1, 1866. October 8, 1867, he was chosen as one of the council of the twelve, succeeding Amasa M. Lyman. With the exception of the interim between the administration of President Taylor and that of President Woodruff, he served as a member of the First Presidency from October, 1880, until the death of President Snow.