September 1st

Sept 1, 1827 - Lemuel Durfee, landlord to the Smith family, writes in his account book: "two barrels of Cider racked of[f] to Joseph & Hiram Smiths at 9/ per barrel $2=25"

Sept 1, 1838 - Entry in the "Scriptory Book of Joseph Smith:" "[I]n the name of Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God we will endure [persecution] no longer. . . . Our rights and our liberties shall not be taken from us, and we peacably submit to it as we have done heretofore, but we will avenge ourselves of our enemies, inasmuch as they will not let us alone."

Sept 1, 1840 - John C. Bennett arrives in Nauvoo. Within eight months he joins the Church, helps secure a city charter, is cited by revelation to "help [Joseph Smith] in your labor in sending my word to the kings and people of the earth, and stand by . . . Joseph Smith, in the hour of affliction, and its reward shall not fail, if he should receive counsel," is elected mayor of Nauvoo, becomes chancellor of the University of the City of Nauvoo, is appointed Major-General of the Nauvoo Legion, and becomes assistant president in the First Presidency.

Sept 1, 1842 - Joseph Smith editorializes in the TIMES AND SEASONS that "the public mind has been unjustly abused through the fallacy of Dr. Bennett's letters" and reminds readers that the church's rule for marriage was "that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband." At this time Joseph Smith has married sixteen plural wives in addition to his legal wife, Emma.

Sept 1, 1853 - Brigham Young writes to Apostle Orson Pratt that certain points of doctrine treated in the pages of the SEER "are not SOUND DOCTRINE, and will not be so received by the Saints." [Emphasis in original.]

Sept 1, 1857 - Brigham Young's Journal records a visit of Indian chief Kanosh and several of his band asserts that "a Spirit, seems to be taking posses(s)ion of the Indians to assist Israel. I can hardly restrain them from exterminating the Americans."

Sept 1, 1858 - Brigham Young writes Thomas L. Kane "that the time is not far distant when Utah shall be able to assume her rights and place among the family of nations."

Sept 1, 1859 - Brigham Young preaches: "I have flattered myself, if I am as faithful as I know how to be to my God, and my brethren, and to all my covenants, and faithful in the discharge of my duty, when I have lived to be as old as was Moses when the Lord appeared to him, that perhaps I then may hold communion with the Lord, as did Moses. I am not now in that position, though I know much more than I did twenty, ten, or five years ago. But have I yet lived to the state of perfection that I can commune in person with the Father and the Son at my will and pleasure? No—though I hold myself in readiness that he can wield me at his will and pleasure. If I am faithful until I am eighty years of age, perhaps the Lord will appear to me and personally dictate me in the management of his Church and people. A little over twenty years, and if I am faithful, perhaps I will obtain that favour with my Father and God."

Sep 1, 1870 - Salt Lake City's 9th Ward reports that only thirty one of its 181 families attends Sunday Services regularly and 50 percent of families are "perfectly indifferent."

Sept 1, 1890 - Federal officials indicate that they intend to confiscate LDS temples. Presidents Woodruff and Cannon soon leave for San Francisco to avoid subpoena to testify.

Sept 1, 1906 - J. Reuben Clark is first Mormon appointed to federal government service (U.S. State Department's assistant solicitor). He serves as department's solicitor from 1910 to 1911. No Mormon serves in equivalent legal position until Rex E. Lee's appointment as U.S. Solicitor General (1981-85).

Sept 1, 1936 - German mazazine DER STERN reports on a lecture by Dr. Max Haenle from Tubingen, a non-Mormon who visited Utah in the late twenties and became a friend of Anthony W. Ivins, First Counselor to Heber J. Grant. The article says that Haenle made "comparisons ... throughout the whole lecture between the Mormon state founded 86 years ago by Brigham Young in Utah and Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. . . . In its political productivity, its organization forms, and its unswerving successes in the various areas of governmental, social, and communal life," he proclaimed, "Utah bears a really striking similarity to our Germany of today. Here as well as there, the unshakable faith in and willingness to die for their Fuhrer [respective leaders] is the foundation and prerequisite for all further development."

Sept 1, 1976 - In response to the increasing "personal problems of church members . . . in number and seriousness," together with the absence of "revealed truth about human behavior" among professionals "to combat these problems," BYU President Dallin Oaks proposes to the Board of Trustees that "an Institute for Studies in Values and Human Behavior be established at BYU to sponsor and conduct research that would assist in preventing and changing [deviant] behaviors which lead people away from eternal life." The trustees approve Oaks's proposal and back the appointment of BYU psychologist Allen Bergin as its director. Noting that "too many LDS behavioral scientists do not harmonize their professional concepts with their religious stands," Bergin explained that his "first project [would] be to state as clearly as possible to the behavioral scientists . . . that Jesus Christ teaches in principles of behavior. He later adds, "What we can do is receive inspiration in our research and then seek reviews by the authorities [of the church] for their interpretations, disapproval, or whatever, if doctrinal questions are raised by it." Institute member Victor Brown, Jr. writes to BYU officials, "Our basic theme is that truth lies with the scriptures and prophets, not with secular data or debate."

Sept 1, 1978 - DENVER POST article "LDS Urges Anti-ERA Letters to Senators."

Sept 1, 1989 - Excommunication of Navajo general authority George P. Lee for "apostasy," first excommunication of a general authority in almost 40 years. He has written letters to First Presidency accusing them of promoting racist policies. Deseret Book had issued Lee's biography in its ninth printing the week of the excommunication. A representative of the First Presidency orders KSL-TV news personnel to read the announcement with no comment or contextual information, a ruling reversed only when, forty minutes before air time, both news anchors and other staff decided to walk off the set unless they were allowed to report the story according to their journalistic standards.

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