REVIEWS THE COST OF LIVING IN KIRTLAND by Marcellus S. Snow The Kirtland Economy Revisited: A Mar- Southern economy when emancipation ket Critique of Sectarian Economics by came? Marvin S. Hill, C. Keith Rooker and Larry Marvin Hill, Keith Rooker and Larry T. Wimmer. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young Wimmer, who are professors of history, law University Press, 1977, viii, 88 pp. $4.95. and economics at Brigham Young Univer- sity, can rightly lay claim to having estab- Most readers of Mormon fiction would lished a solid exemplar of this kind of clio- quickly agree that the genre still awaits a metric methodology in Mormon historical writer of the stature of Chaim Potok or research. They have crossed disciplinary James Michener, to say nothing of a Joyce lines in admirable fashion by examining a or a Faulkner. Perhaps one of the small number of important aspects of the publishing houses or samizdat concerns in Church's experience in the Kirtland area Utah's Yoknapatawpha will someday issue during the 1830s. The result, a monograph- the Mormon novel. In the meantime, length study first issued as a separate num- though, don't hold your breath. ber of BYU Studies and then as a BYU Press But if our fiction has not yet found its paperback, has won them an award from Faulkner, it may nonetheless be safe to say the Mormon History Association, praise that Mormon historiography has found its from Robert Fogel, and the right to a careful Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman. It will reading by all students of Mormon history. be recalled that these two economic histo- Church members often grow up relying rians wrote the celebrated and controversial on pat answers to difficult doctrinal and Time on the Cross in 1974, the most publicly moral issues. Until the recent generation of visible emanation of the happy marriage of Mormon historians (notably, Leonard Ar- economics, statistics and history variously rington, Juanita Brooks and others of their referred to as cliometrics or the New Eco- stature), pat answers abounded in historical nomic History. Fogel and Engerman used questipns as, well: Mountain Meadows Mas- these disciplines to analyze American Negro sacre? War hysteria, pure and simple. Ex- slavery in a way that had never before been pulsion of the Saints from Missouri and done. An unprecedented amount of large Nauvoo? Persecution by the greedy and in- and small bits of data—slave ship manifests, tolerant "old settlers," nothing more. bills of sale, newspaper advertisements, The Saints' experience in Kirtland affords plantation account ledgers—was gathered a period particularly well suited to dispas- and analyzed statistically to answer, either sionate treatment. The objective or eco- anew or for the first time, vexing questions nomic factors dominate the Kirtland sojourn about our nation's "peculiar institution." and exodus, unlike other periods of Mor- How well treated were slaves? What was the mon history. Nevertheless, the period has economic value of slaves by sex, age and not fared well under earlier historians. Stu- state of health? What was the loss to the dents of the epoch have had to be content MARCELLUS S. SNOW is assistant professor of economics at the University of Hawaii and a member of the Dialogue Board of Editors. 110 Reviews / 111 with impressionistic one-liners like Fawn ranking Saints acted correctly and "pru- Brodie's reference to "frenetic land specu- dently" at Kirtland. Those to whom the lation." Only slightly more helpful is marketplace has a general repugnance, as Brigham H. Roberts' statement that the well as those who deem as unacceptable any Saints in Kirtland "... lived extravagantly market ventures for private gain by religious on borrowed money" and "... entered into leaders or institutions, will find little solace [a] spirit of reckless speculation . which in the authors' conclusions. Mormon the- expressed itself chiefly in land speculation ology, nevertheless, is comfortably at home and in excessive banking ..." Even Joseph with capitalism, private property and the Smith's reference to "... evil surmisings, open market, whether in or outside the var- faultfinding, disunion, dissension, and ious communitarian arrangements known apostasy" in addition to a "spirit of specu- generically as the United Order. To those lation in lands" comes far from telling the who accept this framework, the conclusions whole story. in The Kirtland Economy Revisited are wel- Hill, Rooker and Wimmer avoid sweep- come improvements on the facile references ing questions and glib moral generaliza- to speculation and greed that formerly tions. Their well-sharpened methodological passed as analysis of the Kirtland period. and expository skills are instead brought to The study can best be appreciated by bear on more bite-sized issues: Was the recounting the methods of analysis used to Kirtland economy viable? Did rising land discuss each issue. First of all, the claim that prices reflect population trends in the area the Kirtland economy was not "viable," instead of mere "speculation"? What was raised by Brodie and others, is countered by the extent of Joseph Smith's indebtedness the use of population, trade and land value and that of his associates? What was the data from Ohio and from Geauga County constitutionality of Ohio laws requiring during the 1830s. Figures from Painesville, chartering of state banks, and what was the a predominantly non-Mormon community quality of the legal advice on the basis of near Kirtland, are used to refute the conten- which Joseph Smith apparently decided to tion that Kirtland differed from surrounding open the Kirtland Safety Society Bank with- towns. Discussing the crucial issue of the out a charter? What was the role of the rise in land prices in and around Kirtland, Panic of 1837 in the downfall of the Kirtland the authors hypothesize that "changes in bank? In the authors' words: the real price of land from 1830 to 1840 were primarily determined by changes in Moral judgments upon Mormonism population." Tax rolls are used to obtain have obscured the real story of what population estimates. Then, the real price of happened to the Kirtland economy. land is related to Kirtland's population by Our argument is based upon the prem- ise that the voluntary nature of market a logarithmic regression. As the authors transactions imposes constraints upon point out, income could not be used to help behavior—that creditors demand assets explain real land prices, due to lack of data. or they refuse to make loans, and buy- Nevertheless, regression results are pre- ers and sellers expect fair market prices sented, showing a highly significant positive or they do not trade. We think the relationship. On the basis of their simple evidence demonstrates that these prin- model, which links exponential growth in ciples operated at Kirtland . Previous population to exponential growth in land historical accounts . have overlooked prices, the authors conclude that Joseph the fact that Smith provided his credi- tors with assets, that he was buying and Smith "had sufficient reason for believing selling land at market prices, and that that land prices would continue to rise [p. the economic reversals in the Kirtland 24]" when in fact they eventually fell. economy involved a change in eco- Whether a richer model could have pre- nomic conditions that "reasonably pru- dicted the coming deflation in land prices is dent" economic men probably would a question the authors do not explore, and not have anticipated [p. 4]. a moot one given the quality of econometric advice available in 1837. Thus, the presumably neutral morality of The question of the extent of Joseph the marketplace is invoked to marshall evi- Smith's indebtedness is profusely docu- dence that Joseph Smith and other high- mented. The authors note that many debts 112 / DIALOGUE: A Journal of Mormon Thought listed in Joseph Smith's name "more accu- ing panic of May 1837 was not a cause of rately reflected debts of the community of the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society [p. Kirtland and of the Mormon Church 42]." It was decidedly not the case, in other [p. 40]." Nevertheless, they conclude that words, that banks were failing left and right, "Joseph Smith was eventually unable to and that the Safety Society was simply meet all his financial obligations, and, in swept along in the maelstrom. Previous his- that sense, he was obviously responsible for torians of the period have failed "to distin- an excessive amount of debt [p. 40]." The guish between suspension [by government reader is asked to temper this conclusion authorities of banking activities] and failure with the consideration that "it does not seem [of banks] [p. 52]." Hill, Rooker and Wim- that Smith accumulated more debt than he mer find evidence of only one other bank or his creditors have reason to believe he failure in the entire state of Ohio during and could manage [p. 40]," given the ebullient immediately after the Panic of 1837! In fact, state of the Kirtland and national economies they argue, suspension of banking activities before the land deflation and banking panic generally had the ironic and unintended of 1837. Again, however, this will offer scant effect of keeping the church bank from comfort to church members and others collapse longer than would otherwise have looking for religious leaders who are either been the case. Finally, the authors do not infallible in financial matters or completely hesitate to conclude that Joseph Smith's de- uninvolved in them. cision to operate the bank without a charter The final one-third of the monograph was "a very serious error in judgment [p. deals with the Kirtland Safety Society Bank 68]." Indeed: that Joseph Smith founded and with the I "Anti-Banking Company" used to circum- The initiation of the anti-banking ex- vent the failure to obtain a corporate charter periment was unquestionably a mis- for the bank.