Truth Restored Copyright Information

by Roger Loomis

In 1947, Gordon B. Hinckley was 37 years old and was employed as the secretary of the LDS Church's Radio, Publicity, and Mission Literature Committee.  His church calling was second counselor in the East Millcreek Stake presidency.  That year the president of the Church, George Albert Smith, asked the young Gordon B. Hinckley to write a book introducing the church to non-members in connection of the centennial of the Mormons arriving in Utah.  The resulting book was published by the Church under the title: What of the Mormons.  The Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owned the copyright.

28 years later the copyright came up for renewal.  The church failed to renew the copyright, and at 12:01 A.M. on January 1, 1976, What of the Mormons permanently entered the public domain (I guess they had fewer lawyers then than they do now). 

The first several chapters of the book What of the Mormons became obsolete and were discarded as the church grew, while the remaining chapters were republished under the title Truth Restored. 

This web site contains the original version of Truth Restored from the book What of the Mormons.  Compared to the current version of Truth Restored, the What of the Mormons version is somewhat outdated in a few parts.  I would have preferred to put the current version on the Internet, but the legal threats I received from the Church's lawyers regarding my quotes of the missionary discussions and a couple of copyrighted images at LDS4U.COM  lead me to believe that they would not permit it. 

If the Church would like to assist me in helping them communicate their point of view as clearly as possible, the invitation is open for them to grant me permission to use the current version of Truth Restored.  In the mean time, we will make due with the 1947 version.