Journal entries of Elder Talmage
The first entry is dated 28 June 1930:
By prearrangement I sat with the First Presidency during the afternoon, and together we examined in detail the copy I had prepared for the prospective bringing out of a book containing extracts from the Doctrine and Covenants. The purpose of this undertaking is to make the strictly doctrinal parts of the Doctrine and Covenants of easy access and reduce its bulk, furthermore making it suitable for distribution by missionaries and for general use by investigators. Many of the revelations received by the prophet Joseph related to personal directions in temporal activities incident to the early years of the Church, the immediate importance of which was localized as to time and place. Part of my work in the immediate future will be the carrying of this book of extracts through the press.
For 22 November 1930, he recorded the following:
I had the pleasure of presenting to the First Presidency advance copies of the little book “Latter-day Revelation” which is described on the title pages as “Selections from the book of Doctrine and Covenants.” The selections were decided upon by the First Presidency and the Twelve and the matter of arranging, editing, proof reading, etc., has been under my immediate direction, and I must be held personally responsible for the correctness of the type and the matter.
The source for the shredding story is Newell Bringhurst. Bringhurst cites James P. Harris's foreword to Signature Books' edition of The Articles of Faith. Harris's source is Dale LeCheminant, who heard the story in the 1970s from T. Edgar Lyon, who said he heard it from an assistant store manager at Deseret Book in the 1930s:
According to LDS Institute of Religion professor Dale C. LeCheminant, Latter-day Revelation became scarce almost immediately after it was released. When historian T. Edgar Lyon inquired about it at Deseret Book, an assistant store manager “took him down to the basement vault where he showed him fifty remaining copies. He then told Lyon that the book had been on display a short time. Some copies had been sold when the fundamentalists got one and immediately charged the Mormon Church with changing the scriptures … Heber J. Grant then gave orders for the remaining books to be withdrawn and shredded to avoid further conflict with the fundamentalists.”
http://signaturebooks.com/2010/12/excerpt-articles-of-faith-first-edition/
