115 years ago today - Jan 5, 1906

[Heber J. Grant to Joseph F. Smith]

... A Tribune came to the office the other day and never have I read anything like the vile attack on you and the charge that you are the one responsible for all the crime in Salt Lake. Your remark 'I am sorry for two of the brethren' [Apostles Cowley and Taylor] etc. has caused me a great amount of thought and much anxiety. When I wake up in the night I have thought of these brethren and your statement 'I scarcely see how they can escape,' has worried me. ... With all my heart I plead for these two brethren that they may be protected no matter what the enemy may ask. What they have done I also have done or intended to do, and in so doing I would have done what I thought had the approval of my brethren. ... But for my mission I had intended to get another wife and was going to ask no questions. Your Sec[re]t[ar]y. Gave me to understand that I was a fool, having no sons and with the great city of Liverpool [England] in which to hide a wife, if I did not get one. I had just come home from a mission and took it for granted he knew what he was talking about. One of the Apostles, old enough to be my father told [Abraham] Owen [Woodruff] and me in the Temple that we should not fail in laying the foundation of our Kingdom in this life. Before I went to Japan my President intimated that I had better take the action needed to increase my family. ... John W. [Taylor] stopped me and as an Apostle in the name of our Master promised that the Lord would deliver me from my financial troubles and that I would make money so rapidly I should be amazed. My tithing in four months was 4,650 dollars nearly 1,200 dollars a month.'the tithing alone being more than I had been making for years. It is no wonder I love John when I think of the blessings he has been the instrument in God's hands of bestowing upon me. It is very tiresome to write as I doing and I do not want to weary you, but from the bottom of my heart I plead for my brethren even if Reed [Smoot] has to resign, if that would do any good in their case. You are on the ground and I trust and sustain you fully in all you have done or may do, but with my love for my brethren I feel I would be untrue to my own heart if I failed to admit my debt to them, and also acknowledge that they have done no more than I intended to do.

[Heber J. Grant, Letter to Joseph F. Smith, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]

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