Title: B. H. Roberts: A Life in the Public Arena
Author: John Sillito
Publisher: Signature Books, Salt Lake City
Genre: Biography
Year Published: 2021
Number of Pages: 585
Binding: Hardback
ISBN: 9781560852940
Price: $34.95
Reviewed by Kevin Folkman for the Association for Mormon Letters
In an undated note near the end of his life in 1937, B. H. Roberts wrote:
I feel that I am a little associated with the pioneers of Utah for as a boy I marched beside our ox teams every foot of the way from the Missouri river to these mountain valleys, to this city. I felt the restraining influence of the Church’s hand upon me in the wayward days of my boyhood; and as I passed into manhood, a deep conviction of the teachings lay hold of my heart. I spent the best days of my life as her representative abroad and in the United States, in the midst of persecution and mob violence. I passed through all these experiences. [p484]
In the new biography, B. H. Roberts: A Life in the Public Arena, John Sillito offers a comprehensive narrative of the life of Brigham H. Roberts. General authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, political mover and shaker in Utah politics, outstanding orator/writer/historian, Roberts’ life reflected the turbulent times he lived in, spanning the pioneer era to well into the 20th century. He wrote and edited much of the official history of the Church, served multiple missions both in the United States and in England, was elected (but never seated) as Utah’s Congressional representative, and ministered as a volunteer chaplain in the United States Army in World War I. Also pertinent to his times, he opposed women’s suffrage, served time in the territorial prison for cohabitation with his polygamous wives, and held views on race that are at odds with the Church’s current doctrine and policy.
Such a broad and expansive life, filled with adventures and contradictions, deserves a large canvas. Sillito, Professor Emeritus at Weber State University, delivers with the most complete biography of Roberts to date. Sillito previously edited a collection of Roberts’ diaries[i] and supplements that here with extensive archival research to produce a detailed narrative of one of the LDS church’s most influential and complicated leaders.
Sillito uses the massive documentary record well, balancing Roberts’ own stories and the letters and journals of his contemporaries against the voluminous newspaper accounts of his activities both religious and secular. Indeed, as the book’s subtitle points out, Roberts was rarely out of the public eye after his call as the presiding authority of the Southern States Mission at age 37. Already prominent in Utah for his oratorical skills, he became nationally known for retrieving the bodies of two LDS missionaries killed in the Cane Creek Massacre in Tennessee in 1884 under hostile circumstances. Violence in the South against missionaries had been mounting and culminated in an attack on a church meeting at a member’s home that resulted in the death of two missionaries, a church member, and one of the attackers. Roberts was well known to critics of the Church and was aware that his own life had been targeted. Disguising himself as a poor tramp, Roberts evaded his enemies, and with money borrowed from a friendly non-member, returned the bodies of the two missionaries’ home to Utah.
Roberts was rarely out of the public eye for the rest of his life. He was active in Utah politics, served as a member of the church’s Presidency of the Seventies, and encouraged the church to involve itself in the 1893 Columbian Exposition and World’s Fair in Chicago and its accompanying World Parliament of Religions. Appointed by the First Presidency to represent the church at the Parliament, the Parliament’s refusal to admit him or the church to that assembly made headlines for months. After his election to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1898, a national campaign to oppose seating him as a practicing polygamist drew the attention of the national press, and resulted in the rejection of his credentials, leaving his seat in the House unoccupied, and Roberts in a period of depression. Never again a candidate, Roberts continued to be an advocate for the Democratic Party in Utah and as a public ambassador for the LDS Church. Following his service as a chaplain in WWI, Roberts was called to preside over the Eastern States Mission, where he continued to be a vocal public figure.
Sillito spends less time on Roberts’ personal life, where he struggled to provide financially for his three families, suffered occasional bouts of depression, and labored to overcome problems with alcohol. He does address the tensions between Roberts and other church leaders over politics, theology, and his pugnacious style. Some of these differences spilled over into the public conversation. Sillito presents the thoughts and feelings of his general authority contemporaries, who alternated between concerns for Roberts’ eternal welfare and the undeniable power of his presence as a missionary and ambassador for the Church. Sillito doesn’t ignore these themes but focuses his biography, as the title suggests, on Roberts’ public life.
In the end, Sillito has used a much broader range of sources than in previous treatments of Roberts to capture a more detailed presentation of his subject’s life. In particular, the extensive use of newspaper accounts of Roberts’ life stood out as Sillito’s most significant contribution to Roberts’ story. More time could have been spent on Roberts’ research into problematic issues in the Book of Mormon translation and his work in the office of the Church Historian, but that would have made for a much longer book. It would have been nice to have them all between the covers of one book, but those stories are out there in other articles and essays. More exhaustive research, though, could have led to an exhausting reading experience, as the book is long already at almost 600 pages. Despite these omissions, B. H. Roberts: A Life in the Public Arena is the most definitive treatment of his life to date and worthy of the attention of scholars and readers wanting to better understand the pivotal times Roberts occupied, and the roles he played in it.
[i]History’s Apprentice: The Diaries of B. H. Roberts, 2004 Signature Books