Actions As Church President
The first notable action of Lorenzo Snow as president of the church was that he organized the First Presidency almost immediately after Wilford Woodruff's death, instead of waiting years as his predecessors had.
As he began his tenure as president, Snow had to deal with the aftermath of legal battles with the United States over the practice of plural marriage. Men engaging in plural marriage were still being arrested and confined in Utah Territory. Some members of the LDS Church did not accept the 1890 Manifesto put forth by Wilford Woodruff, and there was a strong division of opinion on plural marriage even in the priesthood hierarchy of the church.
The LDS Church was also in severe financial difficulties, some of which were related to the legal problems over plural marriage. Snow approached this problem first by issuing short term bonds with a total value of one million dollars. This was followed by emphatic teaching on tithing. It was during this time that the LDS Church officially adopted the principle of tithing, the payment of 10% of one's income, as a hallmark of membership. Snow gave an address at the St. George Tabernacle in St. George, Utah, imploring the Latter-day Saints to pay tithes of corn, money or whatever they had in order to have sufficient rain. After much patience and faith, it rained in southern Utah. In a short period of time, the members' practice of paying a tithe reduced the church's debt and financial difficulties to a manageable level.
Snow died of pneumonia in Salt Lake City, Utah and was succeeded in the church presidency by Joseph F. Smith.
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