Let me take you back to 1919. It had been one year since the armistice ended World War I. The delegates at Versailles had spent several months deciding on the boundaries of the postwar world. The United States failed to ratify the Versailles peace treaty and would spend several months debating whether or not to participate as a member of the League of Nations. Supporters never mustered enough votes, and the U.S. failed to become a member of the League.

In Pittsburgh, under the sponsorship of the National Reform Association, the Third World's Christian Citizenship Conference was held, with meetings stretching over an entire week, from November 9 to November 16. Twenty-seven different sessions were addressed by prominent churchmen from the United States and Europe as well as Asia and Africa.

The titles of the sessions included the Family and Social Efficiency, The Sabbath and the State, The World to Be, Postwar Conditions in the Near East, Women's Place in Public Life, The Moral Element in Public Education, and Kingship of Christ. Prominent clergymen gave speeches on different specific topics.

It must have been a stimulating week for those in attendance. Just emerging from World War I, hopeful for the postwar world, the delegates and observers engaged in serious discussion of important subjects. We recognize some issues that are still with us.

Oh, yes, a special session in the largest hall was devoted to the subject of Mormonism.

Attending the conference as delegate from the LDS Church was Dr. James E. Talmage, scientist, former president of the University of Utah, and currently one of the Church's Twelve Apostles. He carried separate credentials from the state of Utah and the city of Salt Lake City. Also attending was non-Mormon Wesley E. King, who represented the Rotary Club and the Commercial Club of Salt Lake City in addition to carrying credentials from the city and the state.

On November 12, delegates Talmage and King attended the session on Mormonism. The topics were announced in advance. After the report of the World Commission of Mormonism, there would be presentations on the History and Tactics of Mormon Propaganda, Defeating Mormon Proselyting, and The Mormon Menace.

More than two thousand attended the morning session and close to four thousand the afternoon session. The chairman and all of the speakers adopted a stance, not of investigation but of condemnation. It was apparent that in the eyes of the session's organizers Mormonism had joined Bolshevism as an evil movement to be feared, denounced, and defeated.

Here are some of the specific charges made against Mormonism at Pittsburgh in 1919:

• The Church would choose the next President of the United States.
• The Church controlled both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.
• Using “vast wealth,” the Church controlled elections in the western states.
• The Church controlled the sugar business of the country — both cane sugar and beet sugar.
• The Church subsidized the press of the country.
• Compelled to obey the commands of their superiors, members of the Church were slaves in all things, material, spiritual, and political.
• In the temple, Church members took an oath of treasonable hostility against the government of the United States.
• The Church was bringing thousands of women and girls from other states and foreign countries for unlawful and immoral purposes.

After hearing a series of speakers address these topics, Talmage submitted a short written request that he be allowed to address the meeting. Let's listen to him describe the results of his request.

Finally, a motion was passed that Talmage be allowed to speak for five minutes, as a courtesy — not a right — for as a non-Christian he had no such right.

What could he do with such limited time? What would you do? After briefly but firmly refuting some of the charges, he read a letter from Utah Governor Simon Bamberger. Perhaps recognizing a mentality in the attackers akin to Antisemitism, the Jewish governor defended the character and patriotism of the Mormons.

At the beginning of the afternoon session, someone made a motion that Dr. Talmage be granted another five minutes. He quoted from the Articles of Faith to show that he was a Christian in the strict sense of the word. (He had published his monumental work Jesus the Christ just four years previously.) “Again came a torrent of hisses and scorn,” he said. “As I passed along the aisle, men and women shrank away lest they be contaminated by propinquity to a Mormon.”

At the end of the afternoon session, Talmage was invited to return to the stage to answer two questions. Did he believe in and teach polygamy? Making the necessary distinctions, he answered in the negative.

Then a woman asked about garments. She wanted to know “whether at that very time I was not wearing upon my undergarments devices typical and commemorative of treasonable oaths taken and obligations entered into in the Mormon Temple. I replied with the affirmation that I had never taken a treasonable or even an unpatriotic oath or obligation of any kind whatsoever, that all such imputations respecting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were grossly malicious, slanderous and false, that every ordinance of the Church was uplifting and sanctifying, and that as to my wearing apparel I held to my right of individual choice.”

That answer did not satisfy the questioner, who “brazenly suggested that I be taken and stripped by a committee of men who should report their findings to the Conference.”

After the meeting was officially closed, people crowded around Talmage on the stage. “Questions were literally fired at me, mostly by ministers, but my every attempt to reply was interrupted by insulting vituperation, and fists were thrust close to my face fully half a dozen times. One man, who had been referred to as a reverend doctor and who was attired in clerical garb, drew back in menacing attitude with his fist ready to strike, because he claimed I was impertinent in not answering his question, and another gentleman of the cloth brandished both fists at once and gnashed his teeth like a maniac.”

Talmage wanted to be fair. The discourteous “extravagances” were not characteristic of the entire conference, he explained. The other 26 sessions were apparently free of name calling and ranting. “It was only the ‘Conference on Mormonism' that thus disgraced itself.” And even at that stormy session there were many, Talmage observed, who disapproved of “the whole un-Christianlike orgy of rage, malice, and depravity.” (Incidentally, this episode is described in the Improvement Era of January 1920.)

The unseemly clash may have produced some good results. It became obvious from several comments that The Church of Jesus Christ was on the move, doing positive things, involving its youth in constructive activities, and growing.

Also, some rallied to the Mormons' defense. When non-Mormon Wesley King read the statements of the Rotary Club and Commercial Club of Salt Lake City defending the good citizenship of their Mormon associates, he himself became the target of jeers and taunts, but he stood his ground. Non-Mormon political leaders in Arizona and Colorado issued statements praising the honesty, diligence, and patriotism of their Mormon citizens.

Thus first-hand experience often trumped the exaggerated claims of prejudice.

Jumping from 1919 to 2007, with a Mormon candidate for the Republican presidential nomination thrusting the subject into the national consciousness, we again find strong animosity. The haters are still out there. For an entire generation and more they have peddled their books and pamphlets, showed trumped up documentaries, and disturbed the peace at Church meetings, temple dedications, and even weddings.

Will other voices also be heard? “Leave them alone.” “My sister is LDS, and I don't like anyone to put her down.” “Their religion is not for me, but they have their right to it.” “Those who show contempt for Mormonism are the same people who have no use for Christians in general. Why should I join forces with them?” “I didn't care where John F. Kennedy went to church, and I don't care where Romney goes to church. What matters is his position on the issues and how he would govern.” Will such statements be heard?

Will any who work alongside Mormons state that they are honorable and hard-working? Will any who have performed community service in company with Mormon participants in the same cause come to their defense? Will any recipients of Mormon kindness and humanitarian aid speak out? Will the better angels of our nature speak up or remain silent?

We can hope. Pittsburgh in 1919 was not America's proudest moment. It would be sad to see the dark spirit of bias and bigotry again pollute the atmosphere.