No Diplomatic Immunity | Frank W. Fox, J. Reuben Clark: The Public Years

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To members of the Mormon Church, J. Reuben Clark holds an exalted place in the organization’s history. For nearly three decades (1933-1961) he was an influential, innovative, and charismatic member of the Church’s First Presidency in Salt Lake City. Clark was an articulate and powerful speaker, lucid and prolific writer, and embodied the essence of the Mormon leadership style: self-assuredness without arrogance, humility without piety, and affection without condescension. He was a church fixture, as much a Mormon exemplar in conduct and image as the prophets he served. 

Few rank-and-file church members, however, are familiar with “the making” of this Mormon General Authority. Prior to his calling as a religious leader, Clark had distinguished himself as an international lawyer in government service and private practice. He was a rare Mormon for the early twentieth century, who sought and earned professional success in the East; yet retained his loyalty to and fondness of the religious and cultural milieu of the Great Basin Kingdom. 

Most of the volume treats Clark’s government career prior to his church service. Upon his graduation from the law school at Columbia in 1906, Clark became assistant solicitor of the Department of State. In that capacity, he directed the department’s legal operations until he was officially appointed solicitor in 1910. Through bureaucratic guile and productive effort he gained the respect and support of Secretary of State Philander Chase Knox and other government leaders. He became expert in Latin American affairs and was one of the architects of the nation’s policy during the tumultuous Mexican Revolution. 

When the Democrats took office in 1913, Clark went into private practice and remained active in diplomacy by serving on the American-British Pecuniary Claims Commission. During World War I, he worked in the Army’s provost marshall general headquarters and in the office of attorney general. Following the termination of hostilities, he crusaded against the League of Nations, moved back to Utah, unsuccess fully dabbled in politics, and received several State Department assignments. In 1926 he assumed charge of the United States Mexico Mixed Claims Commission and wrestled with the thorny legal problems caused by the Mexican Revolution. Clark was subsequently appointed legal counsel to the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, and in 1930, reached the high point of his public career when he was named ambassador. 

The book is of great value to students of American diplomatic history. It illustrates, through the life of one government official, the professionalization of the con duct of American foreign affairs during the United States’ emergence as a world power. Fox also has some valuable insights into the development of America’s Latin American policy as well as the role of career government employees in the conduct of diplomacy. The reader observes the young states man developing and exercising his talents as well as coping with the trials imposed by government service. The author also presents a panorama of Clark’s friends, foes, and family as he ascended the rungs of responsibility and influence. 

Fox’s research and analysis is prodigious and exhaustive. However, at times the volume becomes tedious and exhausting. One doubts that a single notecard or photo copied document was left unused. The author clearly should have left more paint on his brush. Too often, the reader becomes bogged down in the tedium of the diplomatic craft and the events that touched upon Clark’s life. For example, the book provides long discussions of various imbroglios between the United States and Mexico that intrude upon rather than embellish the discussion of the statesman’s acumen in international affairs. The author also has an inclination toward convoluted sentence structure, but for the most part the book is skillfully crafted and reads easily. 

Until recently, few solid professional biographies have been written on Mormon ecclesiastical leaders. Book-length accounts of the lives of General Authorities have tended to be Mormon hagiographies filled with uplifting trials and triumphs but rarely plumbing the depths of human frailties and contradictions. Fox directly and often by implication portrays a brilliant, complex man. Throughout the book, Clark’s drive, ambition, competence, and capacity for work are laid bare. Equally apparent are the trials most Latter-day Saints face in trying to strike a balance between the often competing demands of family, work, and church. Debts, illness, fourteen-hour work days, and long separations strained Clark’s marriage and family life, yet he was clearly a devoted family man—protective of his children and supportive of his brothers who remained in the West. 

One of Fox’s greatest achievements is illustrating how “Reuben evolved from the Grantsville boy of unalloyed faith into a far more complex, rational, and questioning in dividual.” Other Mormons such as Reed Smoot and James H. Moyle built their eastern successes on Utah bases of support, while Clark “had beaten the East on the East’s own terms.” In addition, Clark was strong-willed, independent, and likely to subject official dicta from any source to close scrutiny. 

Thus, as he reached adulthood, Clark came to question some aspects of Mormon institutional orthodoxy. The nascent General Authority in fact frequently exercised his independence and found fault with church policies and practices. Fox notes that when “Reuben applied his new-found skepticism broadly . . . the world of his Mormon childhood often came up short.” Clark clearly retained his testimony of Mormon gospel essentials, but he had a distaste for theocracy and was often not in conformance with church directives. His observance of the Sabbath was less than rigorous and Clark opposed his brother Frank’s call to an Australian mission, suggesting that his employment with the U.S. Geological Survey would be of far greater benefit to the Church. Clark also fell behind in tithing payments, sent his children to a Protestant Sunday School, adopted a liberal attitude toward the Mormon Word of Wisdom, and objected to wearing temple garments in Washington’s stifling summers. He exerted his free agency on many matters and once suggested that “if we are to blindly follow someone else, we are not free agents.” 

The book, despite its vivid portrayal of the professional and personal side of Clark’s life, fails to come to grips Yesolutely with his spiritual and theological development. Discussions are included on Clark’s interest in and study of Mormon doctrine, but the volume does not present a clear understand ing of his views and feelings with respect to gospel principles. Did Clark’s intellectual skepticism and independence cause him to subject certain points of Mormon doc trine to rigorous inquiry? Perhaps the forthcoming sequel to this generally impressive biography will more fully explore this dimension of J. Reuben Clark.

J. Reuben Clark: The Public Years by Frank W. Fox (Provo, Ut.: Brigham Young University Press/Deseret Book Company, 1980), 702 pp., $10.95.