Elder Statesman: A Biography of J. Reuben Clark
U.S. State Department Solicitor, Undersecretary of State, and Ambassador to Mexico--J. Reuben Clark was all of these prior to his call to the LDS First Presidency. As a counselor to three church presidents--Heber J. Grant, George Albert Smith, and David O. McKay--he served longer than any other member of this highest church council.Already controversial before he assumed his church duties, his blunt, independent style created even more ripples at LDS headquarters. Still, his impact, intellectually and administratively, was immense. His most important legacy was the professionalization of church government. Where apostles and presidents previously met and decided issues based mostly on their collective years of experience, Clark drew from his secular training to introduce outside research, position papers, and extended discussion, all of which (for better or worse) added to the church’s bureaucracy."Reube," or "Ruby," as he was known, was born in Grantsville, Utah, in 1871. By eighteen, having exhausted what opportunities there were for him there, he moved to Salt Lake City and began his academic career. He graduated from the University of Utah as his class’s valedictorian, and his intellectual gifts carried him from there through Columbia Law School and on to the State Department.In this impressive study of the "elder statesman," as reporters often labeled him, D. Michael Quinn considers what it meant for a Latter-day Saint to attain such national and international stature, while never losing sight of Reuben’s very human qualities either. This fresh, intimate approach presents Reuben on his own terms, drawing readers into Reuben’s world in the context of the larger society of his time and place.