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Reed Smoot was schooled in Mormon beliefs (4). He attended private schools in Salt Lake City (4), and the Timpanogos Branch of University of Deseret at Provo (4). He enrolled as one of the first 29 students to enter the Brigham Young Academy in April, 1876 (18), and was graduated with the degree of Graduate of Academy Department (18) in 1879 (1, 4, 18). While in school, he was business manager of various school drives, chairman of student and faculty joint committee to raise funds for a new building when original academy burned down. A slight speech impediment kept him from being a star debater in school (18).
Reed Smoot was not a polygamist, as was his father. He was married first to Alpha M. Eldredge, on September 17, 1884 (1, 2, 4). They had 6 children; Harold Reed; Chloe; Harlow Eldredge; Annie K.; Zella Esther; and Ernest Winder (1). His first wife died in 1928 (1, 2, 4), and on July 2, 1930, he married Mrs. Alice Taylor Sheets (1, 2, 4).
During Reed Smoot's early years, he worked in his father's woolen mills. After college, however, he chose to begin in business with another company, and started at the bottom with the Provo Mercantile Co. He gradually worked his way up, becoming manager, and then becoming involved in other business interests (10). At various periods he was: President of the Provo Commercial and Savings Bank, Smoot Investment Co., Smoot Drug Co., the Electric Co., Provo. (2), Hotel Utah, Home Fire Insurance Co. (1); Vice-president of Western Pacific Railroad (4), Grand Central Mining Co. (2); director of San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, Zion's Coop. Mercantile Co., Clark, Eldredge and Co., Deseret National Bank, Deseret Savings Bank (2), Beneficial Life Insurance Co., (4) In January, 1903, Reed Smoot was elected by the Utah legislature (2) as U.S. Senator for the term 1903-1909, and he served in this capacity until his defeat in the Roosevelt landslide of 1933 (1, 2, 4, 5, 10). During his Senate career, he was at various times: chairman of the Finance Committee (1, 4); chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee 1919 (1); chairman Resolutions Committee Republican National Convention 1928 (1)l; chairman of the forestry section of the National Conservation commission (4); chairman of the public buildings commission of Washington, D.C. (4); and served on various other committees; World War Foreign Debt Commission (1); Public Health and National Quarantine; the Committee on Committees; committee investigating the high cost of living; Forest Reservations and Protection of Game; Pensions; Public Lands; Standard weights and measures; Appropriations; Civil service and retrenchment; and Finance (4). He was always a very powerful man on committees, especially in the field of national revenue and expenditures (4).
Smoot was always an advocate of conservatism Republicanism, economy, and a high tariff (10). He became an expert on tariffs, taxation, and public finance (5). He was co-author of the Smoot-Hawley Bill 1930, which set high tariffs on commodities entering the country (5, 4, 10). In 1918, he objected to the issuance of tax-exempt bonds (10); he shared in the framing of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff 1909 (4), the Underwood-Simmons Tariff 1913 (4), the Fordney-McCumber Tariff 1922 (4). In 1920, he proposed a sales tax to raise funds for a soldiers' bonus (4). Smoot waged continual war on waste in the U.S. Government and is said to have saved the country millions of dollars (14). He also created the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency, which was the official censor of extravagance and waste (14).
Three major controversies in Reed Smoot's career centered in his religion, his tariff policies, and his stand on censorship (4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15). Religious conflict came about over his high position in a church that had sanctioned polygamy and his early career in the Senate was marked by a drive to remove him from office (4, 10, 11). His position was that there was nothing in his oath to the Church that would prevent his rendering full service to the U.S. (10). A Senate hearing was held and a majority recommended that he be denied a seat, but a minority report was approved by a 2/3 vote of the Senate (10, 11).
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff passed in 1930 (3, 4, 5, 10) and was designed to give U.S. producers a non-competitive monopoly of the U.S. market, regardless of consequences elsewhere. Smoot said, "In this hour of national distress protection is imperative to save America from what otherwise might become the most serious upheaval it has ever experiences.... In the future, therefore, w can look for continuous development of international commerce, but it will flow chiefly in non-competitive channels or over tariff walls that tend to equalize costs of production." (7). The tariff bill was assailed as an isolationist act (6), and at its passage, Cordell Hull, always an advocate of free trade, wept (6). Thirty-three countries protested, and reciprocated with trade barriers. As reported in Time the depression was immeasurably worsened and the consequences were; economic nationalism Fascism and Hitler (6).
As an advocate of official censorship of books, Senator Smoot said, "It were better, to my mind, that a classic suffer the application of the expurgating shears than that this country be flooded with the books, pamphlets, pictures and other articles that are wholly indecent both in purpose and in tendency" (15). He fought for a bill to permit customs inspectors to hold up any book coming into the U.S. that that inspector does not deem worthy (8). The Senate adopted a Smoot amendment making district courts final arbiters of obscenity in literature, art, and treasonable publications, but it did take responsibility away from customs officers and put it into the courts (9).
Senator Smoot was a deeply religious man and was always an active worker in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1, 2, 4, 5). In April, 1895, he was appointed one of the presidents of the Utah Stake (1, 2, 4); in 1900, apostle (1, 2, 4). After his defeat for the Senate he again became active in Mormon affairs (5).
Sen. Smoot has been characterized as a person who could not take things easy, and of stoic enduring quality like his Mormon forbearers. He had great intellectual curiosity, but an undeveloped aesthetic instinct, an example being that on a trip to Europe he made no mention of any art objects (14).
Sen. Smoot died February 9, 1941, (1, 2, 10) at St. Petersburg, Florida, at the home of his step-son, Dr. W. T. Sheets, at the age of 79. He was buried in Provo, Utah.
Outgoing General Correspondence and Congratulatory Messages on Speech Against Cigarettes
(Particular addresses of Reed Smoot are do designated)
"Joy is a Priceless Jewel"
"Success"
"To the Graduates of 1901"
Anti-Mormon articles by Dr. Paden,
Articles from Deseret News
"Gems of Thought" (mostly collected by Reed Smoot)