Victor R. Claveau, MJ
Mormon missionaries have been instructed to see that books critical to the church are removed from public and other libraries. The following illustrates this assertion:
“Recently, two young Mormon ‘elders’ visited the Beaumont Memorial Library at Harding College.…After something like a half hour, they approached the check-out desk with a number of books in their hands. They told the librarian they would like to take these volumes, which were ‘quite old and not in the best condition,’ and replace them with newer editions.
Fortunately, the college librarians are professionals, and consequently, were more than a little suspicious. A call was placed to the Bible Department to confirm that it would be in the best to keep the books already in the library collection. The Bible Department spokesman was emphatic that these books were not to be allowed to be ‘replaced.’ In fact, it was decided that they were to be added to the collection of rare and valuable books which are kept in a secure area of the library.
“You have probably already guessed that what the young men were doing is part of a nationwide pattern. Mormon missionaries are visiting libraries all over the country, taking old books and offering to replace them with new volumes. Of course, what they are actually doing is removing from public access many counter-Mormon books, and earlier Mormon writings which now prove embarrassing to the Latter-day Saint movement.
“Some librarians will undoubtedly be gullible enough to trade old volumes for newer editions, or even different publications, unless they are made aware of what is occurring. Tell your local librarian so that she may be properly alert to the public interest.”[1]
The cutting off of history breeds Heresy. Gradually new generations take it for granted that the religion they were born in is the true one, and they simply continue in it.
[1] Ed Sanders, Alternative, Vol. IV. No. 3, 1978, page 15, as related in Mormonism, Shadow or Reality, p. 13-A