Theodore Albert Schroeder was born on a farm near Horicon, Wisconsin. After spending his
boyhood years in the area and working briefly at odd jobs in Chicago, he attended the
University of Wisconsin, receiving both a B.S. in Civil Engineering in 1886, and an LL.B. in
1889. While attending college, he spent his summers doing survey work in South Dakota and
other western states.
In August of 1889, Schroeder opened a law office in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he
practiced until 1900. Schroeder's law practice consisted primarily of debt collection and
land claim cases. Not a Mormon himself, through his work he met some of the most prominent
Mormon leaders of the time, including Lorenzo Snow, president of the Mormon Church from 1898
to 1901, Joseph Fielding Smith, Snow's successor in the presidency from 1901 to 1918, and
many of the Church's Apostles. His contact with Snow occurred when Snow was president of the
Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Association, a firm against which Schroeder
brought suit on behalf of the Grant Soap Company in 1896. Schroeder's dealings with Smith
concerned some Mormon literature that passed from the latter to the former.
Schroeder learned still more of Mormons and Mormonism through his activity in Utah
politics. He supported the Mormon Apostle, Moses Thatcher, for the U.S. Senate in 1896, and
the noted Mormon author, Brigham H. Roberts, for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1895
and 1899. Later, when Roberts brought his thinking more in line with Church-favored
political views, Schroeder worked to get him excluded from Congress. Still later, after
Schroeder had moved to New York, he opposed the movement to oust from the Senate the famous
Mormon Apostle Reed Smoot, on the grounds that barring a man from public office solely
because of his religious views constituted an infringement of his rights to free speech,
thought, and religion under the Constitution. Similarly, when he earlier had dropped his
support of B. H. Roberts, he did it because Roberts yielded, he thought, to pressures from
the church hierarchy, who, in Schroeder's view, had no business trying to influence
politics.
As Schroeder's knowledge of Mormonism increased, so too did his opposition to all things
Mormon. But, like the nineteenth century author, lawyer, and staunch opponent of Christian
religion, Robert G. Ingersoll, whose views had influenced him, Schroeder never fought
against the Mormon people. Rather, he was opposed to a system which he believed
intellectually enslaved the masses. He became an avid collector of Mormon and anti-Mormon
literature and he began what became a polemical career with a few open letters in Mormon
papers in 1891 under the name of A. T. Heist. His was a lone, but powerful voice speaking
out against Mormonism at a time when members of that faith had known relative freedom from
persecution and criticism for over thirty years. At first, he so tempered his writing that
he seemed almost pro-Mormon, but his staunch opposition to religious intolerance in
Church-State issues became more and more evident, until, by 1898, some papers would no
longer publish his writings. He turned to pamphlets for an outlet, publishing under the
title “Lucifer's Lantern.”
In 1900 Schroeder persuaded Josiah Strong, Director of the League for Social Service, to
commit funds to the Roberts case. Strong gave him an office and funds, and Schroeder moved
to New York. Later, when he and Strong disagreed over further action in the Roberts Case,
Schroeder broke with him but remained in New York. He continued to practice law, helping to
found the Free Speech League at Albany, N.Y., on April 7, 1911, and acting as its secretary
throughout its existence. After Schroeder left Utah, his essays were regularly printed in
the Salt Lake Tribune, a paper whose editorial line was and
is in opposition to the Church-owned daily, The Deseret News.
At the same time, however, his views were mellowing. While in the east, he became more
philosophical and tactful in combating what he considered to be injustices. He began
studying evolutionary sexual psychology, which led him to interpret the Bill of Rights even
more broadly than he had before. Ultimately, he adopted a psychological approach to all
social problems.
(Source: A New Concept of Liberty from an Evolutionary Psychologist:
Theodore Schroeder; Selections from His Writings with a Biographical Outline. By
Joseph Ishill.)
Schroeder's writings include:
- The Origin of the Book of Mormon, 1901
- The Free Press Anthology, 1909
- Obscene Literature and Constitutional Law, 1911
- Free Speech for Radicals, 1916
- Authorship of the Book of Mormon, 1919
- Constitutional Free Speech Defined and Defended,
1919
- Free Speech Bibliography, 1922
- Al Smith, the Pope, and the Presidency; a Sober Discussion of
the Church-State Issue, 1928
- A Challenge to Sex Censors, 1938
