For anybody who is interested in the history of Mormonism during the second half of the nineteenth century, the beginnings of the Church in Hawaii, the issuing of the Manifesto ending plural marriage, and so forth, this is a really big deal:
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/george-q-cannon-journal-release
Over the course of several years back in the early nineties, I was privileged to have a complete typescript of George Q. Cannon’s journals in my possession. Alas, nothing ever emerged into print from that, but I found those journals absolutely fascinating.
An amusing incident from that period:
One night, a reading group to which we belonged (and still belong) was meeting in our home. It included three prominent Mormon historians (two of them former Assistant Church Historians, all three of them former presidents of the Mormon History Association), and, as it happened, a respected non-Mormon historian (also a former president of the Mormon History Association) had also joined us for the evening. The journals of Wilford Woodruff had just appeared in print, and, before we actually began, the conversation turned to the question of whose journals they would next like to see released. Unanimously, they said that they would really like to see the journals of George Q. Cannon published.
Originally from Liverpool, George Q. Cannon had served as a counselor to Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow. Beyond that, he had helped to edit the Times and Seasons in Nauvoo, worked as a gold miner in California, participated in opening the Hawaiian mission, presided over the European mission, founded Deseret Book, edited the Deseret News, served as a territorial delegate to the Congress of the United States, and so on and so forth.
I listened silently to my historian friends. I couldn’t tell them that a copy of the journals of George Q. Cannon was, at that very moment, about ten feet below them. My possession of it was confidential. (I eventually passed them on to Davis Bitton, who used them for his George Q. Cannon: A Biography.)
Some are confident — I spoke with a few back then who had somehow learned that I had the journals — that such documents contain things that will discredit the Church and its leadership.
They’re wrong. Honestly, I found absolutely nothing in them that would, in my judgment, pose any threat to anybody’s faith. Quite the contrary. And some passages were rather moving.
I’m delighted that the journals will now be published.
Posted from Mesa, Arizona
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