Kirtland Safety Society

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Criticism

Critics attack Joseph Smith over the Kirtland Safety Society (KSS) on multiple grounds:

• they claim the KSS was a "wildcat bank"
• they claim that the bank was illegal, and that the Church broke the law by founding it
• they claim it was a money-making scheme for Joseph
• they claim its failure proves Joseph was not a prophet

Source(s) of the Criticism

• Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History (New York, A. A. Knopf, 1945).
• William Alexander Linn, The Story of the Mormons, (New York: Russell & Russell, 1902).

Response

After presenting a timeline of events associated with the KSS, this article will discuss:

• vocabulary often used in discussions of banks and banking
• the reason for the formation of the KSS
• the status of banks in the 1830s frontier
• the way in which the KSS functioned

The criticisms will then be addressed.

Timeline of Kirtland Safety Society

27 March 1836

Kirtland Temple dedication

August 1836

Oliver Cowdery investigates the production of bank notes, so consideration of a bank underway by this date.

2 November 1836

The Kirtland Safety Society Bank’s constitution is drafted. Sidney Rigdon made president; Joseph Smith made cashier.

1 January 1837

Oliver Cowdery arrives with printing plates for bank notes; Orson Hyde reports that the state legislature will not grant them a charter. Their inability to receive a charter leads them to form a joint-stock company, the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company (KSS).

2 January 1837

KSS opens for business.

6 January 1837

Notes from the KSS begin circulating

23 January 1837

The KSS announces it can redeem notes with land, but was unable to redeem its notes in specie (gold)

1 February 1837

KSS notes circulating at only 12.5 cents per dollar face value

10 February 1837

A second attempt is made to get a bank charter; some non-Mormons are part of this application, including Joseph Smith’s lawyer and Samuel Medary, a future governor of two states (Adams 477-478).

Early Summer 1837

Joseph Smith resigns from KSS, as he is convinced the bank is not viable

June 1837

Messenger and Advocate reports that Kirtland land prices have increased 800% during the past year alone (Messenger and Advocate 3 (June 1837): 521).

27 September 1837

Joseph and Sidney Rigdon go to visit Missouri; in their absence, the Kirtland Church is rent by strife and apostasy

October 1837

Joseph and Sidney found guilty at trial of illegal banking and issuing unauthorized bank paper currency. They are fined $1,000 each, and appeal.

November 1837

Final failure of the KSS. Joseph is left with debts of $100,000; he has goods and land, but these are unable to be converted into ready cash

22 December 1837

Brigham Young flees Kirtland for Missouri, convinced that his life is in danger from apostates because of his staunch defense of Joseph Smith

12 January 1838

Joseph Smith, having returned to Kirtland, leaves with Sidney Rigdon to escape the risk of prison and mob action

Terms and Defintions

face value

the money value marked on scrip. For a $20 note, the face value would be $20.

note

another term for scrip

redeem

to exchange scrip for specie at the bank

specie

hard currency, 'official' US money

scrip

paper money, issued by a bank. An example of KSS scrip can be seen here.

wildcat bank

a bank established as a money-making scam. Hard currency (specie) would be accepted by the bank, who would issue paper money (scrip). To redeem the scrip, however, one had to travel to the bank (the "home office," so to speak). A wildcat bank would be established in a remote, hard-to-access place (where "the wildcats are"). This sometimes made it difficult to even find the bank, much less bring the scrip to be redeemed for specie. Wildcat banks would sometimes place the name of a town on their notes, but have the bank located somewhere else, making it difficult to track them down. Thus, the bank kept the specie, and the note holder was left with worthless paper which no one would honor, since it could not be redeemed. Such banks usually collapsed quite quickly when it became clear that their notes were not easily redeemed. Their owners tried, presumably, to skip town before the law or the note holders caught up with them.

Why form a bank?

In the early days of the Church, the finances of Joseph Smith and the institutional Church were enmeshed. This was not unusual, as the idea of religious groups functioning as corporations and holding property was frowned on in Jacksonian America.

In 1836, the Church was centered at Kirtland, and was undergoing substantial growth. The Saints were constructing the Kirtland temple, at considerable cost, as well as financing property and business acquisitions, the immigration of poor members to Ohio, and missionary work.

To finance this explosive growth, loans were sought. Joseph Smith and the Church had extensive loans; the amount of the loans seems to have been less than the total value of the lands, businesses, and goods which Joseph and the Church owned. However, these assets were difficult to liquefy—the loans were generally short-term (around 180 days) and so cash flow problems beset Joseph continually.

What were banks like at the time?

This sort of situation is difficult for a modern reader to appreciate: we have easy world-wide banking, debit cards, credit cards, mortgages, and lines of credit. Kirtland was not alone in this struggle—hundreds of frontier communities tried to set up banks in the late 1830s.

As one author remarked:

The founders of the Kirtland Bank would have avoided their distress if national and state leaders had allowed financial markets to grow in an orderly manner. One medium-sized, twenty-year mortgage would have solved most of the financial problems faced by these founders (Adams, 481-482).

The Saints were land rich but cash poor. Credit was scarce on the frontier, and even specie was in short supply. The Saints could not easily convert their considerable land wealth into cash to pay for purchases. (You cannot, for example, give someone 1/10 of an acre of land for a barrel of nails!)

There were no national banks, and the Democrats were strongly anti-bank. Those on the frontier needed help desperately to keep their economies moving:

The attitude was, essentially, that "the East won't finance us and if they do, they will kill us with interest." The conclusion that frontier communities should finance themselves, whatever their hard equity, was not unique to Kirtland. Added to the economic condition of the western frontier was the Mormon impulse favoring self-sufficiency (Firmage and Magrum, 54).

How did the KSS work?

Given that banking was in its infancy, the Saints were not sophisticated in their understanding of how a bank worked. Brigham Young, an astute businessman, was even confused. Brigham deposited an American dollar with his mark on it. He was shocked to receive the same note in payment from someone else a few days later! It seems that Brigham thought that the bank kept his note for him, and did not allow it to circulate. He initially thought of a 'bank' as something more like a safe deposit box—you put your valuables in, and the bank keeps those same valuables safe, does not lend them out, and gives you the exact same items back when you ask for them. Brigham did not understand that a bank keeps a record of money deposited, but uses the funds deposited to make loans and investments, and to pay other creditors. (See Adams, 475-476).

In principle, the KSS was to use land and specie to back its notes. The notes would then circulate and function as “money,” which would allow the cash-strapped Kirtland economy to function.

Criticisms

"Wildcat bank"?

There is no evidence that the KSS was a “wildcat bank.” It was located in Kirtland, a large and thriving town in Ohio. The bank did not decline to exchange scrip for specie. In fact, it this willingness to honor its notes the bank into trouble early on. They had insufficient funds to honor their notes after about two weeks.

Illegal?

Starting operations without a charter was clearly an unwise decision. It is doubtful that Joseph and associates had time to receive legal advice between the time their first charter application was denied (Adams 475). A second charter was made with the support of Joseph Smith’s non-LDS lawyer, Benjamin Bissell, and other non-Mormons. The bank’s supporters probably hoped that they could eventually get a charter when the political circumstances were more favorable,

However, even with a charter, the bank would not have survived the financial crisis of 1837:

Even with a charter the Kirtland bank likely would have failed during the economic turmoil of 1837. At best a charter would have allowed the bank to survive a few months longer to close without raising a flurry of law suits and apostasy and to be known by posterity as a simple business failure rather than as a shady venture. It is also clear that with or without the bank the economic turmoil that began in 1837 would have wrecked the Mormon community in Kirtland because of its highly levered position and the extremely short term nature of its debts…painful as it was the bank affair probably did little to alter the course of Mormon history. (Adams, 480).

In short, the KSS was in all likelihood an illegal bank. The leaders of the Church made a sincere effort to solve the pressing financial problems which beset them, and were probably hasty and somewhat naïve about the undertaking. There does not seem to have been a willful effort to deceive or extort.

However, the financial crisis of 1837 could not have been averted even if all the legalities had been observed.

Enriching Joseph?

Joseph did not profit personally from the bank, and withdrew his support before the failure. Joseph probably suffered more legal repercussions than anyone from the event. There is no evidence that Joseph was “getting rich,” or attempting to do so, from the bank. In June 1837, Kirtland land values had increased by 800% in just one year, so the idea of backing the bank with land does not seem unreasonable.

Joseph was left with debts of $100,000. He had that value in goods and land, but it was difficult to convert these to cash. (Ironically, it was this very issue which had led to the bank's formation in the first place.)

Not a prophet?

Joseph did not record or claim a revelation on the formation of the Kirtland Safety Society. It seems, rather, to have been his attempt to solve a complex and serious problem that probably had no good solution given the financial tools available to him. His anxiety to solve the Church’s financial problems led to an ill-advised venture, but Joseph was not alone: hundreds of thousands of frontier settlers had to resort to similar tactics:

Erroneous banking policies caused financial services to expand much more slowly than the growth in real economic activities retarded the growth process and forced people to create illegal mediums of exchange to substitute for inefficient barter (Adams, 481).

Joseph insisted that a prophet was only a prophet when he was acting as such. The Kirtland Bank episode is a good example of fallible men doing their best to solve an intractable problem.

Brigham Young described an incident from his own life that speaks to the KSS period:

I can tell the people that once in my life I felt a want of confidence in brother Joseph Smith, soon after I became acquainted with him. It was not concerning religious matters-it was not about his revelations-but it was in relation to his financiering-to his managing the temporal affairs which he undertook. A feeling came over me that Joseph was not right in his financial management, though I presume the feeling did not last sixty seconds, and perhaps not thirty...

Though I admitted in my feelings and knew all the time that Joseph was a human being and subject to err, still it was none of my business to look after his faults. I repented of my unbelief, and that too, very suddenly; I repented about as quickly as I committed the error. It was not for me to question whether Joseph was dictated by the Lord at all times and under all circumstances or not...Had I not thoroughly understood this and believed it, I much doubt whether I should ever have embraced what is called "Mormonism." He was called of God; God dictated him, and if He had a mind to leave him to himself and let him commit an error, that was no business of mine. And it was not for me to question it, if the Lord was disposed to let Joseph lead the people astray, for He had called him and instructed him to gather Israel and restore the Priesthood and kingdom to them.

That was my faith, and it is my faith still… it is taught to the people now continually, to have implicit confidence in our leaders to be sure that we live so that Christ is within us a living fountain, that we may have the Holy Ghost within us to actuate, dictate, and direct us every hour and moment of our lives. How are we going to obtain implicit confidence in all the words and doings of Joseph? By one principle alone, that is, to live so that the voice of the the Spirit will testify to us all the time that he is the servant of the Most High...

— Brigham Young, “He That Loveth Not His Brother...,” Journal of Discourses, reported by G.D. Watt 29 March 1857, Vol. 4 (London: Latter-day Saint's Book Depot, 1857), 297.

Thus, Brigham did not deny the error, or insist that it could not happen. But, he did not allow himself to be distracted by it.

Conclusion

The Kirtland Safety Society was an unwise venture that was probably illegal. The intent of Church leaders does not seem to have been to break the law, but to solve a vexing problem which millions of others also faced. The failure of the bank was not due to mismanagement or a desire to enrich individuals, but due to the relatively fragile nature of the time’s financial infrastructure, and the economic conditions of 1837. Even had the bank been legal, the outcome would have been little different, save that the Church leaders would have suffered fewer legal problems and harassment.

The Kirtland Safety Society is an excellent example of why Latter-day Saints do not put their trust in men, but in God. It also demonstrates that the Saints will continue to support fallible men as prophets of God.

Further reading

FAIR wiki articles

• Links to related articles in the wiki

FAIR web site

• Links to articles on the FAIR web site; Topical Guide entries go first

External links

• Scott H. Partridge, "The Failure of the Kirtland Safety Society," BYU Studies 12:4 (Summer 1972):437–454. GospeLink
• Paul Sampson and Larry T. Wimmer, "The Kirtland Safety Society: The Stock Ledger Book and the Bank Failure," BYU Studies 12:4 (Summer 1972):427–436. GospeLink
• Dale W. Adams, "Chartering the Kirtland Bank," BYU Studies 23:4 (Fall 1983) 467–482. GospeLink
• Marvin S. Hill, Keith C. Rooker and Larry T. Wimmer, "The Kirtland Economy Revisited: A Market Critique of Sectarian Economics," BYU Studies 17:4 (Summer 1977): 389–471. GospeLink
• Images of KSS scrip and other "Mormon Money"

Printed material

• James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, 2nd edition, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992).
• Milton V. Backman, Jr., The Heavens Resound: A History of the Latter-day Saints in Ohio, 1830-1838 (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 1983), 313-317.
• Edwin Brown Firmage and Richard Collin Mangrum, Zion in the Courts : a Legal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 54-58.