he ran towards the open window with uplifted hands, and proclaimed, "O Lord my God." Most people see this as only a plea to God for aid, although others suspect otherwise. LDS Church Previous Stances and Official policy After the Saints' failed attempts to obtain charters from England and Mexico, Brigham Young decided not to pursue the goal any further. Eventually, trade unions that were ritualistic and oath-bound started to come into the Utah Territory that were perceived by the leadership of the Church to be destabilizing the territorial economy. We see an example of this in a letter written by President Wilford Woodruff and his two Counselors, George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith concerning whether members of the Ancient Order of United Workmen could hold temple recommends in the Church: In 1901, the following circular letter from President Lorenzo Snow and his First Counselor Joseph F. Smith to all Stake Presidencies concerning Church members' desires to join "secret orders": Snow's outlook on secret societies in general may have been formed from: the tense relationships between Nauvoo Lodge, U. D. (in which he was initiated after the Lodge had been suspended) and the Grand Lodge of Illinois. the tense relationships between the members of the Church in Utah and the Grand Lodge of Utah. the Rock Springs massacre (which had happened only about 15 years prior, in which members of a secret society called the Knights of Labor had killed scores of Chinese immigrants and drove the rest out of Wyoming). the 1896 circular from the First Presidency concerning the A. O. U. W. quoted above. Later policies in the Church against joining secret societies in general had been formed more due to such trade unions and organizations as noted above; however, when the Grand Lodge of Utah lifted its formal ban against members of the Church, the Church removed mention of secret societies from its policies. Since this time, the LDS Church's First Presidency has not made an official statement as to whether Freemasonry in particular is compatible with its membership. Don LeFevre, a past church spokesman said that the LDS Church and in outdated reference to such policies, "strongly advises its members not to affiliate with organizations that are secret, oath-bound, or would cause them to lose interest in church activities." A more tolerant statement is found in the book Encyclopedia of Mormonism, written by church members,