In 1913, for instance, the church formally affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America, a quintessentially progressive organization founded on the notion that participation in a quasi-military hierarchy and group activities would teach young men self-discipline. Mormon leaders threw themselves into the progressive project, embracing the notion that organizations could instill virtue in human beings. They saw, in progressivism’s aspirations to moral uplift, the mirror image of Joseph Smith’s rejection of original sin and both progressives and Mormons believed in the unlimited possibilities of human potential. In progressive proclamations of a stable and harmonious society, they heard an echo of their dreams of Zion. In the progressive impulse of the early twentieth century, they found some of their own ideals. In these years, after decades of persecution and retreat, Mormons were hungry for entry into mainstream American life.
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