James H. Moyle

James Henry Moyle was a prominent politician in both Utah and Washington D.C. He served as a member of the high council in the Ensign Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for three decades.

Moyle earned a law degree from the University of Michigan. His stake president worried that going out of Utah to study law would lead an individual to leave the Church. Moyle returned to Utah with a stronger commitment to serving in the Church than he had previously. This lead to a change in perceptions of the law as a profession and acceptance of law school even outside of Utah as a workable way to enter the profession.[1]

Moyle was elected county attorney in 1886 and re-elected in 1887. In 1888 he won election to the house in the territorial legislature. He was appointed chairman of the Committee on Education, and his education helped him excel in his duties.

He was a founder of the Utah Democratic Party and was a candidate for Utah governor in the 1900 and 1904 elections. He also ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1914. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury from 1917 to 1921 in the administration of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson; the first member of the Church to be appointed to a subcabinet position. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him as Commissioner of the United States Customs Service, and in 1939 as special assistant to Treasury Secretary Henry Margenthau.

Moyle was born on September 17, 1858, in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. Moyle served in the Southern States Mission from June 1879 to October 1881. He presided over the Eastern States Mission from 1928 to 1933. The mission covered New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, and Moyle created an innovative radio proselytizing program throughout the mission.

His grandfather John Rowe Moyle, was a master stonemason for the Salt Lake Temple.

Moyle and his wife, Alice Evelyn Dinwoodey, were the parents of eight children, including Henry D. Moyle, who was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Moyle died on February 20, 1946.