Titanic Centennial Countdown: April 28, 1911: Editor William Stead Used His Voice to Fight Religious Intolerance Aimed at Mormon Faith

On this day 100 years ago, Pall Mall Gazette Editor William T. Stead rose to the defense of Mormons who found themselves increasingly persecuted by British newspapers and the British population at large. Writing in his newspaper's April 28, 1911 edition, Stead declared that "The attack upon the Mormons is almost entirely based upon the lie that their propaganda in this country is a propaganda in favor of polygamy, and that the chief object of the Mormon missionaries is to allure innocent and unsuspecting English girls into polygamous marriages."

"I have called this a lie because it is a demonstrably false statement, which is repeated again and again after it has been proved to be false. Not one of the anti-Mormon crusaders has ever been able to produce any evidence that at any time, in any place within the King’s dominions, has any Mormon apostle, elder, or missionary ever appealed, publicly or privately, to any one of the King’s subjects, male or female, to enter into polygamous relations with anyone here or in Utah. . . ."

"The falsehood that thousands of English girls are being shipped to Utah every year is sheer, unmitigated rot."

When, less than a year later, Stead died on the Titanic, Mormons on both sides of the Atlantic mourned his loss. Rudger Clawson wrote that “surely every Latter-day Saint whose eyes rest upon the writings of Mr. Stead . . . , will ever hold [him] in honorable remembrance.”