by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel

Joseph F. Smith inherited not only his uncle’s name, but his legacy of having his name known for “good and evil.”

Joseph F. Smith, the sixth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was born into the caldron of intense persecution on 13 November 1838 at Far West, Missouri. Named after his uncle (Joseph Smith the Prophet) and after his mother (Mary Fielding Smith), Joseph Fielding Smith was known as Joseph F. Smith during his lifetime.
To Be Known For Good and Evil
When the Angel Moroni visited Joseph Smith in 1823, he told the young man that his “name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people” (Joseph Smith-History 1:33). Later events proved the prophesy to be true.

Joseph F. Smith inherited not only his uncle’s name, but his legacy of having his name known “for good and evil.”(1) The name Joseph, which brought comfort and joy as well as ridicule and hatred, was not selected without some thought. His mother and father chose his name as a way to honor each of their families–and the young infant as well.

Of all the modern Presidents of the LDS Church, only Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and Joseph F. Smith experienced intense and continuous personal attacks during most of their ministry, having as it were their names known “for good and evil.” John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow rarely were exposed to personal abuse. John Taylor, along with the other Latter-day Saints, was persecuted during his presidency, yet he was rarely personally vilified by enemies of the Church as his predecessors had been before him. Those men who followed Joseph F. Smith in the First Presidency, beginning with Heber J. Grant and George Albert Smith, rarely were faced with the kind of defamation of character that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and Joseph F. Smith were subject to during their lives. In most cases the Church leaders who followed Joseph F. Smith were generally honored in the press (George Albert Smith appeared on the cover of Time in 1947 with a very complimentary article on the Church).

Never since the days of Brigham Young did newspapers, magazines, and book authors and publishers direct vicious and cruel attention on the President of the Church, as they did during Joseph F. Smith’s presidency.

Joseph F. Smith, ca. 1898. C. E. Johnson, Photographic Archives, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University (Used by Permission). This rare photographic image was taken from the original glass plate negative revealing a crack in the glass plate down the center and some of the emulsion on the plate lifting on the edges.

Loyalty to His Name
Joseph F. Smith declared during a General Conference address: “We should set an example; we should be true to the faith, as Brother Stephens sings to us; true to the faith! We should be true to our covenants, true to our God, and true to one another, and to the interests of Zion, no matter what the consequences may be, no matter what may result. I can tell you that the man who is not true to Zion and to the interests of the people will be the man who will be found, by and by, left out and in a pitiable spiritual condition. The man who stays with the kingdom of God, the man who is true to this people, the man who keeps himself pure and unspotted from the world, is the man that God will accept, that God will uphold, that he will sustain, and that will prosper in the land, whether he be in the enjoyment of his liberty or be confined in prison cells, it makes no difference where he is, he will come out all right.”(2)

Loyalty was important to Joseph F. Smith, and loyalty to the Prophet Joseph Smith, after whom he was named, was a constant throughout his life. One former missionary companion recalled a story that demonstrated his loyalty to that name. The story deals with Joseph F. Smith’s experience shortly after boarding a ship for his Hawaiian mission: “After working two months in the harvest field to earn his passage money, Joseph with the other elders, sailed steerage passage, on the bark Yankee, for the islands. As soon as the ship was clear from the wharf, the passengers were lined up on the deck and their names read off to see if there were any stowaways. When the purser called, ‘Joseph Smith’ the captain asked, ‘Any relation to old Joe Smith?’ ‘No, sir,’ was the prompt answer, ‘I never had a relative by that name; but if you had reference to the Prophet Joseph Smith, I am proud to say, he was my uncle.’ ‘Oh, I see,’ said the captain, and he did see a man who had the nerve and manhood to demand that proper respect be shown to the name of the Prophet, whom he loved and honored.”(3)

This loyalty to the name “Joseph” explains in part, the honor and the animosity Joseph F. Smith experienced in his life.

Vilified in the Press
Shortly following President Lorenzo Snow’s funeral (October 1901) and before Joseph F. Smith was sustained as his successor (November 1901), Juab Utah Stake President James W. Paxman reported a recent dream he had foretelling in part the struggles and final victory that lay ahead for the next president of the Church: “He had beheld a mighty struggle between [Joseph F. Smith], the [Salt Lake] Tribune & Herald which wore ugly mask, worn by men. Prest. Smith conquered and crushed the life out of both of them.”(4)

From the beginning of his presidency and through 1912, President Joseph F. Smith was in a mighty struggle with the press, especially the Salt Lake Tribune, the leading anti-Mormon newspaper in America at the time. Gary L. Bunker and Davis Bitton, authors of the comprehensive study of the graphic image of the Church, wrote: “In terms of sheer numbers no other newspaper, could equal the Salt Lake Tribune when it came to cartoons about Mormonism. Some eight hundred cartoons focused on the Mormons during this period [1890-1914] with more than six hundred of these appearing in the four years from 1905 to 1909.”(5)

While different aspects of the Church and in some case individuals were targeted, more than three hundred of the cartoons appearing at this time depicted President Joseph F. Smith. Bunker and Bitton noted: “His conservative appearance was frequently caricatured, and he often appeared in a butterfly bow tie, dark glasses, checked pants, striped cuffs, a top hat, and spats. In many illustrations a battered halo dangles over his head. He was drawn as a spider, rat, elephant, turtle, and turkey or referred to as ‘profit.’ Joseph F. Smith, became, as Brigham Young had, the focus for much of the hostility that was intended for the Mormon religion.”(6)

What was true in Utah was also true in the United States as well during this particularly ugly period of yellow journalism. LDS historians James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard summarized the situation at the time: “In this climate the Church did not escape renewed criticism and a revival of many old charges. The most direct attack came in the years 1910 and 1911 in such popular magazines as Pearsons, Everybody’s Magazine, McClure’s, and Cosmopolitan. . . . A Cosmopolitan series entitled “the Viper on the Hearth,” by Alfred Henry Lewis, accused the Church of laying plans to subvert the family structure of America and take over the country both politically and economically.”(7)

While the Salt Lake Tribune was among his most vocal critics, attacking him almost daily during some periods of his ministry, the tone and tenor slowly changed. By 1912, the Salt Lake Tribune printed less and less of their vindictive cartoons and dropped most of their personal attacks of Joseph F. Smith. The climate changed so drastically, that the Salt Lake Tribune honored Joseph F. Smith at his passing in 1918 with this tribute: “It seems but a little while since President Joseph F. Smith was a familiar figure on the streets of Salt Lake City. With his alert glance, his erect figure, his brisk walk, his benign countenance, his dignified bearing and his cordial greeting, he was a striking personality wherever he went. For many years, even before he reached a place of high authority, he was the idol of his people, a zealous champion and a fearless crusader, ever ready to meet all comers without counting the odds, believing in himself, in his creed, in his organization, in its leaders and in the traditions of his church.

“Born eighty years ago, amid the scenes of conflict which marked the forced migrations of his relatives, he was thought to have inherited much of the bitterness of those times. In his earlier days he was fiery, fearless, impetuous and uncompromising, and was therefore looked upon as a fanatic intolerant of moderation and irreconcilable to opposition. But with the coming of age, the assumption of authority, the increase of responsibility and the consequent contact with his fellow men, came a broadening of vision and a softening of his nature which gained for him a recognition of those sterling qualities for which he will be remembered longest and best.

“Joseph F. Smith was sincere and intense in whatever he believed; he was loyal and courageous under whatever banner he marched, whether as a churchman, as a partisan, as an advocate of war or of peace, as a business associate or as a personal friend.

“In later years he made many friends in every walk of life, in every circle of society, in every cult or congregation with which he came in contact. He was a preacher of the gospel as he understood it, and an orator of exceptional power and eloquence. He was a leader upon whom his people leaned because of the simplicity of his character and the frankness of his disposition. Against his doctor’s orders he arose from bed during his fatal illness to take his dying message to the general conference of the Mormon people last month.

“As president of the Church and trustee-in-trust of its many holdings and undertakings, and because of the influence of this position, Joseph F. Smith was identified with many commercial concerns. He was not regarded by his closest friends as a business man, in the ordinary understanding of that term, but his integrity, his interest and his sympathy made him a welcome and influential member of every board on which he served.

“He will be mourned throughout the west and missed by all classes of our citizens, because, after all is said and done, he was very much a man, with the courage of his convictions and a sincere affection for his followers; he exhorted them to obey the laws, to honor the flag, to aid and defend the government in the war just ended, and he goes now to his final rest covered with all the earthly glory he ever sought or that his people could bestow.

“Even those who differed radically from him in the past have doubtless forgotten it in the presence of death, if it had not already passed from their memories in close acquaintance through mutual interests and activities of later years.”(8)

Conclusion
Given a common name at birth, Joseph F. Smith proved to be more than a common person. Preserved and prepared by the Lord in significant and miraculous ways, he lead the Latter-day Saints from 1901 until his death in 1918. During his life-time he remained loyal to his name, his uncle (the Prophet Joseph Smith) and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And like the Prophet, his name was literally known for “good and evil.”

However, before he died in November 1918, those that once hated and abused him in print had for the most part silenced their voices. Of them, many in fact, joined in honoring him as one of the great leaders of the twentieth century. Of course, during this same period, hundreds of thousands honored him as a mighty apostle, prophet, seer, and revelator. Their testimonies, letters, diaries, and reminiscences speak of his name with reverence, fulfilling the prophecy that his name would be known for “good” also among many people and nations. By the time he passed from this life, Joseph F. had become “a tender father figure for a whole generation of Western Latter-day Saints who grew up in the first two decades of the twentieth century.”(9)

Notes
1. There is an important body of biographical and historical writings which provides details, insights and interpretations of the life of Joseph F. Smith: Joseph Fielding Smith, Life of Joseph F. Smith: Sixth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1938); Preston Nibley, “Joseph F. Smith,” The Presidents of the Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1941), 222-269; Richard S. Van Wagoner and Steven C. Walker, “Joseph F. Smith,” A Book of Mormons (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1982), 295-302; Norman S. Bosworth, “Remembering Joseph F. Smith: Loving Father, Devoted Prophet,”13 Ensign (June 1983): 21-24; Leonard J. Arrington, “Joseph F. Smith: From Impulsive Young Man to Patriarchal Prophet,” John Whitmer Historical Journal 4 (1984): 30-40, Francis M. Gibbons, Joseph F. Smith: Patriarch and Preacher, Prophet of God (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1984), (Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992) Bruce Van Orden, “Joseph F. Smith,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 5 vols, (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992) 3: 1349-52; Amelia Smith McConkie, “Grandpapa Joseph F. Smith,” Ensign 23 (1993): 12-15; Scott Kenney “Joseph F. Smith,” in Utah Encyclopedia (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994), 505; and Jill Mulvey Derr and Heidi S. Swinton, “Joseph F. Smith: Following the Prince of Peace,” Ensign 30 (January 2000): 37-43.

2. Conference Report, October 1906, 9.

3. John R. Young, Memoirs of John R. Young (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1920), 275-76.

4. Abraham O. Woodruff Journal, 16 October 1901, Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

5. Gary L. Bunker and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Graphic Image, 1834-1914: Cartoons, Caricatures, and Illustrations (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1983), 56.

6. Ibid., 68.

7. James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 476.

8. As cited in Joseph Fielding Smith, Life of Joseph F. Smith: Sixth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1938), 483-84.

9. Leonard J. Arrington, “Joseph F. Smith: From Impulsive Young Man to Patriarchal Prophet,” John Whitmer Historical Journal 4 (1984): 33.

© 2001 Meridian Magazine. All Rights Reserved.