Mormon Menace

<p>"It incarnates every unclean beast of lust guile falsehood murder despotism and spiritual wickedness." So wrote a prominent Southern Baptist official in 1899 of Mormonism. Rather than the "quintessential American religion" as it has been dubbed by contemporary scholars in the late nineteenth century Mormonism was America's most vilified homegrown faith. A vast national campaign featuring politicians church leaders social reformers the press women's organizations businessmen and ordinary citizens sought to end the distinctive Latter-day Saint practice of plural marriage and to extinguish the entire religion if need be.</p>