Description

"U.S. State Department Solicitor, Undersecretary of State, Ambassador to Mexico—J. Reuben Clark was all of these prior to his call to the LDS First Presidency. As a counselor to three church presidents—Heber J. Grant, George Albert Smith, and David O. McKay—he served longer than any other member of this high church council.

"Already controversial before he assumed his church duties, his blunt, independent style created even more ripples at LDS headquarters. Still, his impact, intellectually and administratively, was immense. His most important legacy may well be the professionalization of church government; where apostles previously met and decided issues based mostly on their collective years of experience, Clark drew from his secular training to introduce outside research, position papers, and extended discussion, all of which, for better or for worse, added to the administrative bureaucracy.

" 'Reube' (also 'Ruby') was born in 1871 in Grantsville, Utah. By eighteen, having exhausted his opportunities there, he moved to Salt Lake City and began an academic path that included becoming his class's valedictorian at the University of Utah. His intellectual gifts carried him through Columbia University Law School and the U.S. State Department.

"In this impressive study of the 'elder statesman,' as reporters labeled Clark, D. Michael Quinn considers what it meant for a Latter-day Saint to attain such national and international stature, although Quinn never loses sight of Reuben's very human qualities either. This fresh, intimate approach presents Clark on his own terms and draws readers into Clark's world in the context of the larger society of his time and place." (From back cover.)

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction

1. The Waste Places of Zion…
   The Rivers of Babylon
2. Differences of Administration
3. Three Presiding High Priests:
   I. Heber J. Grant, 1933-45
4. Three Presiding High Priests:
   II. George Albert Smith, 1945-51
5. Three Presiding High Priests:
   III. David O. McKay, 1951-61
6. Ministering to the Saints
7. By Study and Also by Faith
8. Mark Them Which Cause Divisions and Offenses
9. They That Take the Sword
10. All Nations, and Kindreds, and People, and Tongues
11. Precious Things of Every Kind and Art
12. The Welfare of This People

Afterword: In Honorable Remembrance

Notes
Index
About the Author