American Ideals Corrupted

One of the great wrongs going on in America today is the idea held by millions of people that they have the right to enjoy the things of life which they have never earned. It is a form of dishonesty that is corrupting the youth of today, it has already corrupted millions. It has produced an aversion to hard work. Idleness and the love of pleasure have taken away many of our American ideals given to us by the fathers of this nation. The hate of man for man has grown in this country as it has grown in the lands across the seas. These forces have torn down religious ideals, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord finds little lodgment in the hearts of men. Our civilization is suffering from a breakdown in character because our teachings have not had a sufficient effect on the actions and lives of individuals. We speak of reforms. Human nature can only be reformed by a strengthening of prophetic religion. A new day for social betterment can come only through the revelations of God to his people—the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ. Benjamin Franklin warned us in the Constitutional convention at the very birth of this nation that our government will end in despotism if the people become corrupt. This nation must turn back to God.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, October 1940

Topics: Culture; Government, Wealth Transfer; Welfare

Fundamentals In Discard

Humanity is passing through one of its most crucial experiences. We are in the midst of a revolution both of thought and mode of life. Beliefs of parents are questioned, old ideals are in the discard. Communism, Naziism, Fascism, Totalitarianism are giving birth to new conceptions that strike relentlessly at beliefs and teachings which were accepted a decade ago as fundamentals and unassailable. “Under the influence of a science as superficial as proud,” writes M. Paul Gaultier, a leading publicist of France, “old beliefs have been turned into ridicule, conscience is treated as a superstition, and honesty as a prejudice. Self-interest alone remains as a motive, and pleasure as the sole end of life. For too many people,” he continues, “evil consists not in infringing social laws, but in getting caught. Morality and duty figure in their eyes as so many prejudices out of fashion, and vestiges of centuries gone by.”

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, October 1940

Topics: Culture; Freedom, Threats to

Liberty A Principle Of Life

Of this we can be sure: Liberty is a thing of the spirit. A man must nourish it and cherish it in his heart as he does love for his wife and children. Except for its manifestation as a quality in human life it has no existence. Governments cannot confer it; they can only protect the individual in the enjoyment of it. Navies and armies cannot bestow it; they can only defend its exercise. No people can possess it unless they make themselves worthy of it.

Source: Elder Albert E. Bowen
General Conference, October 1940

Topics: Liberty

We are saying that we face a great crisis, that the very existence of our nation is at stake. And yet one class of people is being told and is telling itself that it will not give up one whit of certain alleged gains it has made. It is willing to prepare for the emergency provided that it is not called upon to sacrifice anything. Another Class is demanding assurance against loss, and still another as a matter of self interest and expediency is willing to let vital things wait. By sections and communities we are joining in the mad scramble. I read that the defense commission is being harassed and hampered by the clamors of localities, chambers of commerce, pressure groups, and politicians for the location of this or that industry in this or that place without regard for military requirement or efficiency of the whole program. We want to save our country if we can conveniently, but if it goes down we want to be able to say that our congressman got us a liberal part of the public funds and be sure that we hand ourselves over to the conqueror with plenty of public works on hand and our local vanity satisfied.

Source: Elder Albert E. Bowen
General Conference, October 1940

Topics: Government, Spending; Responsibility

We have used our freedom to renounce all discipline, and in the marvelous achievements of this industrial and scientific age we have grown arrogant and have discarded our ancient faith. The iconoclasts have been at work. Those egotists who cannot rest happy so long as an unsullied name, eclipsing their own, is allowed to stand untarnished, have been busy with their smear pots. They are called by the very ugly but very appropriate name de-bunkers. Nothing so much needs de-bunking as they themselves. Because they cannot dissect God and examine His parts they have denied that He is; they have scoffed at the divinity of Jesus and because His benignity and purity and unselfishness and all-embracing compassion so far transcend their cynical powers of comprehension, they have characterized Him a pretender and notoriety-seeking rabble rouser. The Ten Commandments are ridiculed as a defenseless and untrue imposition upon a primitive, uncultured and migrant people. Washington and Lincoln and the other great characters of history they have with profane hands dragged down from their high pedestals and have dissected bit by bit, searched out and with malicious glee thrown upon the screen the distorted and magnified image of their every foible and blemish. The founders of our government, the framers of our Constitution are converted into self-seeking aristocrats bent only on preserving their advantages of station, while that great instrument itself is made the embodiment of palpably absurd and now outmoded eighteenth century philosophy. They are determined that nothing shall remain sacred or be revered. They have succeeded only too well. To maintain itself strong in the present a people must be sustained by the consciousness of a noble past and the hope of a glorious future. Too much of the nobility of the past and the hope for the future has gone into eclipse.

Source: Elder Albert E. Bowen
General Conference, October 1940

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

. . . civil administration, which is primarily dependent upon taxes that can be accurately forecast, except for income and other like special taxes which are in the nature of extra or surplus revenues. Therefore there are in governmental activities few occasions when an unbalanced budget—that is, when more is spent than is taken in—is not created by some deliberate act.

Furthermore, governmental agencies, knowing their fixed income, can plan their expenditures with certainty, they can so fix their expenditures as to fall within their income.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1940

Topics: Government, Spending; Taxes

The situation is clear. The Federal Government has before it two issues: first, as to whether or not it is able to carry the relief burden, or is the Federal income adequate to cover the huge expenditures of the past, present, and future. The present condition of the National Treasury indicates that disbursements are far in excess of receipts, which brings back to mind the truth expressed by President Clark, wherein he declared that no individual, nor private enterprise, nor even government can long exist on a sound financial basis when disbursements are greater than receipts. This local problem of relief which has and is being expanded into tremendous proportions by government agencies will come back to local units of government where it rightly belongs, or the nation faces bankruptcy.

Secondly, the Federal Government in turning the problem of relief back to states, counties, cities, communities, and churches should set in motion through these local units preparation for the caring of those in distress. Where preparation is being made to meet this problem, there will be but little difficulty. But where no preparation has been made, suffering, difficulties, and bloodshed are not remote possibilities.

Source: Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
General Conference, April 1940

Topics: Government, Spending; Welfare

Obviously no great empire of conquest can sleep quietly and comfortably of nights if the have-nots swagger forth in search of more territory and are willing to fight for it.

Both in its declarations and in its joinders the present war in Europe has for its sole underlying purpose the secure establishment of the power or powers that, by sheer supremacy in arms, shall dominate Europe, and perhaps the world. This is not a righteous cause of war, and unrighteous war is unholy.

This is the very issue that, twenty years ago, we alleged we sent our young America to Europe to settle. It was our fighting there which gave to the Principal Allied and Associated Powers their victory. We got nothing out of the conflict but the ill-will of everyone—of our foes because they were our foes, and of each of our allies because of our unbounded generosity; and our naive, unsophisticated, unselfishness at Versailles. But we did not then settle the issue. It has risen again. We would not settle it now by joining in this conflict. This is one of those questions which can be settled only by the parties themselves by themselves.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, October 1939

Topics: Politics, International; War

Neutrality Violations

We may expect that every means, both fair and foul, which can be devised by hating, desperate men, fighting for their lives, will be used to drag us into this war. We must not accept anything at its face value; we must question every statement, carefully examine every incident. Such is war.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, October 1939

Topics: War

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