This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Because of the coarseness of Donald Trump's character, Utah may be in play in this year's presidential election. One hundred years ago Utah elections were even more surprising. Like today, in 1916 Utah had been reliably Republican. (Just four years earlier Utah had been one of only two states won by Republican William H. Taft when the other 46 states went for either Woodrow Wilson or Teddy Roosevelt.) But in 1916, Wilson, who barely won the Electoral College, easily won Utah, carrying all of Utah's 29 counties. Not only did Wilson sweep Utah, Utah Democrats won every federal and statewide office and essentially wiped out the Republican legislators. The new state House of Representatives had 44 Democrats and only five Republicans. The Tribune noted that Utah's Socialists won as many seats as the Republicans!
Perhaps more shocking, in 1916 Utah elected its first "gentile" (non-Mormon) governor. Simon Bamberger, a German Jewish emigrant, defeated Nephi Morris, a prominent Mormon, by margins (55 percent to 41 percent) slightly less than those of Wilson over Charles E. Hughes (59 percent to 38 percent).
How did this happen? It is hard to know for sure because 100 years ago there were no exit polls and no journalists providing instant analysis. Some scholars theorize that it was the women's vote. Wilson lost the northeast (including his home state of New Jersey) where women did not have the vote, but carried every western state (except Oregon) where women could vote. The theory is that Wilson's campaign slogan — "He kept us out of war" — was particularly appealing to women.
Perhaps the women's vote played a role, but it cannot be the full explanation, as Wilson's margins in many states with women's suffrage were slender and he lost Oregon where women had the vote. Moreover, Utah's women had the vote in the presidential elections both before and after 1916, and both times the state went strongly Republican. Something else was going on. Like many things in Utah, it involved liquor and religion.
Not only did LDS teachings forbid the consumption of liquor, but 1916 Utah, like the rest of the country, was in the throes of the battle between the "Wets" and "Drys." Surprisingly, Utah had yet to enact total prohibition, but did provide for local option whereby a city or county could be "dry." The incumbent governor, William Spry, had vetoed a state-wide prohibition bill. In 1916, the Republicans dumped Spry and nominated Morris instead, in part over the issue of prohibition. Significantly, Bamberger and the Democratic state platform in 1916 supported prohibition.
Bamberger himself was a teetotaler and banned alcohol from his businesses, including Lagoon. Although Morris said he supported prohibition, it appears from news accounts that the wet business interests supported Morris over Bamberger because they thought Morris would be softer on liquor.
But religion was also clearly a factor in 1916. Brigham H. Roberts, a LDS General Authority and a noted author of the history of the church, nominated Bamberger at the Democratic convention. In his speech, Roberts denounced the "unwritten law" that Utah's governor had to be Mormon, calling it "utterly un-American." According to at least one scholar, the Deseret News actually endorsed Bamberger, although not confirmed by a digital search of newspaper archives. However, those archives reveal hints that, unlike 1912 when the LDS leadership was seen as supporting Republicans, the LDS leadership was suspected of favoring the Democrat Bamberger.
For example, David O. McKay, then an apostle, is quoted as saying that "President Joseph F. Smith authorizes me to state that…[President Smith has not] made the statement that he is supporting Simon Bamberger …," obviously addressing rumors to that effect. Note that McKay carefully does not say that Smith was not supporting Bamberger, only that Smith had not publicly said so. After being elected, Bamberger told the Ogden Standard that the "leaders of the Mormon church have at last decided to separate the invisible bonds with which the political has been bound to the ecclesiastical in Utah ….[B]y merely passing around the word my defeat could have been assured."
So while the 2016 election may have surprises in Utah, it will be nothing like what happened 100 years ago.
Peter W. Billings is a Salt Lake attorney and was chair of Utah Democratic Party from 1989 to 1993.