The Network: Mormons on the Potomac
THERE WAS A TIME when it was no fun to be a Mormon in Washington. In 1903, Utah sent a Mormon named Reed Smoot to the U.S. Senate, prompting a series of hearings the following year to decide whether a Mormon should be even permitted to serve in the chamber. The trial had nothing to do with Smoot’s qualifications and everything to do with his strange-seeming faith, in particular its association with polygamy. “It is the Mormon Church that we intend to investigate,” thundered Senator Julius C. Burrows, “and we are going to see that these men obey the law.”
After three years, 100 witnesses, and 3,500 pages of testimony, Smoot finally prevailed. “I think the Senate should prefer a polygamist who doesn’t ‘polyg’”—Smoot had only one wife—“to a monogamist who doesn’t ‘monog,’” Pennsylvania Senator Boies Penrose reportedly pronounced. For his time, it was a statement of remarkable tolerance.
Over the years, and under the radar, however, the capital has transformed from a place that was openly hostile to Mormons to something of a destination. Recently, I visited the office of Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz, one of 15 Mormons in Congress. I mentioned to his press officer—also a Mormon—that I was writing about the culture of Mormons in Washington. “You can’t swing a dead cat in this town without hitting one,” she told me cheerfully. To be a bit more precise, there are 23,000 active members of the Church of the Latter Day Saints in and around the city, and the D.C. area is a magnet for young, single Mormons. The reason for this turns out to be simple: Washington is a town that rewards networking, and Mormons are some of the best networkers around.