You’ll see a lot about yesterday’s Executive Order regarding the so-called “Johnson Amendment,” a 60-something-year-old law limiting in narrow and specific ways how tax-exempt organizations, like churches – like the LDS Church – can engage in political speech. I won’t go further into the law, or why it’s in the news again – you can easily find other posts in the Bloggernacle dealing with it, and no doubt your Facebook feed will point you to more news articles than you care to read.

What I will do, however, is what Keepa is good for: I will give you an illustration from our history of how the Church has governed itself to avoid the kind of partisan political speech the Johnson Amendment addresses. Note that the Johnson Amendment itself has nothing to do with this historical instance: it far predates the Amendment, and happened overseas where the rules probably wouldn’t have applied even if the law had then been in place. This is an illustration of the principle, not an application of the law.

Early in 1930, Philema Lemaire, a long-serving official in France’s overseas territories, invited Golden L. Woolf, president of the LDS French Mission, to call on him at his home in Paris. The two men had a pleasant discussion about M. Lemaire’s service: President Woolf noted that “He is a man 70 years old who has spent his life in the French colonial service, having been assistant governor in Tahiti about 1888-1890 and later governor of Martinique Island, Congo, Madagascar, French East India possessions etc. His long interesting career together with a pleasant personality made him an entertaining host.”

M. Lemaire had served as governor of Tahiti 40 years earlier, and hoped to return to that service by representing the Tuamotus, one of the island groups belonging to Tahiti, in France’s colonial governing council. Knowing of the significant Latter-day Saint presence in those islands, he appealed to President Woolf to encourage Mormon voters there to support his candidacy. “He wanted to know if the President of the L.D.S. Mission could not be asked to urge the natives belonging to our church to vote for him.” President Woolf took careful notes of M. Lemaire’s goals for the islands, and reported them to the First Presidency. “”I told him that although as a principle we did not concern ourselves with politics [but] I have thought that if really M. Lemaire represents the best interests in Tahiti, a little help from us may be the means of making a good friend in France.”

President Heber J. Grant read President Woolf’s report with interest. “We are of course very anxious indeed that the best interests of the natives in Tahiti should be subserved,” he responded, but such involvement on the part of the Church was unwise. “We do not, however, consider it advisable to interfere in any way in the political affairs of that country or of any other. We feel sure that Monsieur Lemaire will recognize the wisdom of our position in this regard.”

That was it, as far as President Woolf or the Church was concerned; they did not endorse M. Lemaire, either publicly or privately, among the Saints in the Tuamotus. But that didn’t stop someone from whispering that the Mormons were involved in politicking there.

George W. Burbidge, president of the Tahitian Mission, was called to the office of the Governor in Tahiti in late 1932 and informed that the Church should not send any more missionaries to serve in Tahitian territory. “I was informed that the Government have proof that I have been holding secret meetings to further the election of a representative for these colonies in France.”

Pres. Burbidge, of course, did not have any idea what the Governor was talking about – there is no reason in the world to suspect that he was aware of the contact by M. Lemaire with the French Mission president in Paris two years earlier, and he had not been involved in politics himself.

I do not know what to think of it because I thought we were obeying all the laws and doing everything we could to promote the welfare of the natives down here and these are certainly vile lies, the origin of which I have been unable to find out.

There was an election here the first of October and the man the Government Men wanted for their representative in France was defeated. And of course, the Mormons are blamed for his downfall. I am accused of advising the members of our Church in all the Islands to vote against the Government’s man, and as I am well aware of the Church’s stand on politics and as we are in a foreign country, I have been very careful not to say or advise our people on anything.

Although there was some difficulty in landing elders in Tahiti for a short time, ultimately this trouble blew over. I wonder if President Grant even recalled the conversation with President Woolf two years earlier – if he didn’t then, weirdly, I’m probably the first historian to connect the two events.

I know that one documentable case of good behavior with regard to following our own rules in politics doesn’t prove that the Church has never overstepped its bounds. On some blogs this post would be an invitation for disgruntled people to recite their political grievances against the Church – I hope Keepa readers can find something beyond the obvious to say. At the very least, you’ve just read a story from Mormon history that you won’t find anywhere else.