The capitalistic system in its inner essence, is little, if anything, more than a man’s free right to work, to choose his work, and enjoy the rewards of his efforts. In my estimation, it is a most precious thing, and it is indispensable to the liberty and freedom of which America boasts. It is the only tried and tested system of free enterprise in this world and every other opposing system is built on an abridgment of personal liberty. . . .

But we will lose it if we do not understand it and recognize its virtues. It is not the capitalistic system itself that makes some men rich and some men poor. The men themselves do that, again with some exceptions. The system merely offers the opportunities.

Source: Stephen L Richards
Conference Report, Oct. 1939, p. 67]

Topics: Capitalism

This is a troublous time and the world is sick. If we can read the newspapers and rely upon what they tell us, the world is sick and needs a physician. Men are wondering what is wrong, and how we can correct it. I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has within it the power which, if it were applied to the world at large, would solve all those problems.

I thank God that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not a political organization; that its members, in affairs ecclesiastical, are not torn by party politics; that they have a common motive of union and unity of purpose which enables them to overcome the bickerings, the jealousies of politics. It will never be, perhaps, that the nations of the world will not be governed by politics, but I would that God might grant that those who determine the politics of those nations might be touched just a little in their hearts by his Spirit, that love and the interests of one’s fellows might, in a tiny degree at least, supplant the avarice and the greed and the jealousies that dominate those organizations, so that the Spirit of God might enter in and might lead in the councils of government and committees which represent governments. If it could, it would be a simple matter to recognize the principles of truth and justice that underlie, or should underlie all government. I thank God that we have in this Church those basic principles.

Source: Elder Antoine R. Ivins
General Conference, April 1938

Topics: Government, Ideal

Our ideals here in America are those that are far aloof from the ideals of conquest and loot. The ideal of American civic liberty has always kept the Government from war for conquest. The Government of the United States has never gone to war except for the protection of her ideals and for the protection of her people.

I do not speak as a Pacifist. The Latter-day Saints are not pacifists as that term is understood today. In the past, our people have protected the flag of their country, and our ancestors took their part in the American Revolution, which resulted in the writing of the Constitution of the United States. The Latter-day Saints will always be found protecting the Constitution of this Government.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1938

Topics: US Constitution, Defend; War

Tax-payers Must Meet Public Debts

If I might be pardoned, I should like to add another word about two closely related subjects which I have mentioned or referred to at almost every, if not every, Conference since April, 1933; I refer to the enormous expenditures of the people’s money and to the ever-growing feeling and belief that a great group of the people can live off the public without working.

I should like to say again that neither the State nor the Federal Government has any funds except only such funds as it obtains from the people. Neither of them has anywhere a great pile of gold to which it can go for its money. You taxpayers must furnish it all; and every citizen is a taxpayer, either by direct or indirect taxation. Whenever governments borrow, they borrow from the taxpayers who must pay back or repudiate. To pay back large borrowings causes great hardship and burdening sacrifices; to repudiate brings economic and sometimes political chaos.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1938

Topics: Taxes; Welfare

I heard a statement that I quoted here yesterday I hope it is not true that a man who had often borrowed money from one of our country banks on a crop mortgage came to the bank and wanted some money. The banker said: “Certainly, we’ll be glad to let you have some money. Just bring us a crop mortgage.”

“Ah,” said he, “I am not raising any crops now. The government is giving me more money for not raising crops than I could get otherwise. I will give you an order on the government.”

Let us hope that that spirit of independence that was with our pioneer fathers may be reawakened in us, and that none who are Latter-day Saints holding the Priesthood of God will be guilty of being idle. Let us work early and let us work late.

Source: President Heber J. Grant
General Conference, October 1937

Topics: Responsibility

Grateful For Our Country

I am grateful, also, as I return to this country, for our country itself. I am grateful for its territorial aloofness from the rest of the world. Even with the most modern, destructive weapons of war, we are almost immune. I am grateful for our political international aloofness and I pray our Heavenly Father that we shall never lose the security which comes from minding our own business and remaining aloof from the quarrels and the pettiness of the politics of the world.

I am grateful for our economic sufficiency that we can, within our own borders, produce all that we need for our daily lives, and the most of what we need for our luxury. The need of other great powers for this sufficiency threatens to bring sometime in the future another devastating struggle.

I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for our free institutions, for the liberty which we have, the freedom of the press, the freedom of religion, freedom to do as we wish within the law. I am grateful that the great principle behind our system of government is that we may do anything which the law does not forbid. There are other systems in the world in which the individual may do that only which the law permits, and between those two great principles lies the difference between freedom and slavery. I am grateful for this, my brethren and sisters, far beyond my power to tell.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, October 1937

Topics: Freedom; Politics, International

May I add again an admonition: Live within your means. Get out of debt. Keep out of debt. Lay by for a rainy day which has always come and will come again. Practice and increase your habits of thrift, industry, economy, frugality. Remember that the parable of the ten virgins, the five that were wise and the five that were foolish, can be just as applicable to matters of the temporal world as those of the spiritual.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, October 1937

Topics: Debt; Economics

In conclusion I want to call attention to the fact that many winds of doctrine—social, economic, political—are blowing among the people. Individuals, ambitious for position and power, employing all kinds of propaganda, are and will continue to be busy among the people to win their support. Such things are not new. They have long existed and have been particularly prominent in periods of great distress and chaos. And they are especially dangerous in countries ruled by democratic forms of government. The dictatorships of Europe were born of the distresses of the people. Orderly government in these countries was secured at the price of individual liberty. There the state is everything, the individual only the tiniest cog in a gigantic machine.

Source: Elder Joseph F. Merrill
General Conference, April 1937

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

A few days ago, the Christian world celebrated the Easter Day. Churches were filled with worshipers, and for the moment, as on the Christmas day, men’s thoughts were turned to God. The unfortunate thing is that the spirit of the day is soon forgotten, and other hopes and feelings take grip on the soul. People are not happy, for they miss the very things that make for the joy of living. The youth have an aversion for hard work; the mad thirst for pleasure has replaced our sacred home life, and the hate of man for man has brought the nations of the earth to the verge of war.

Yet there are forces and truths in the world that may yet be taken to awaken a finer conscientiousness in the hearts of mankind, and a more sacred belief in the righteousness and justice of the dreams and ideals which the Christian world knelt in honor of last Easter Day. We are told by St. Mark, the Evangelist, in words of exquisite beauty that:

When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had brought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him.

And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.

And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?

And when they looked they saw that the stone was rolled away; for it was very great.

And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.

And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted; Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here.

For all the ills of government; for all the ills of humanity, in these words of St. Mark, there is fundamentally the panacea and the hope for humanity. How many millions of the Christian world have rolled away the stone from the sepulchre of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and know that he has risen as the true and living Christ, whose teachings can rejuvenate mankind? The power that rolls away the stone from the sepulchre and allows the risen Christ to come forth is contained in the words of the Master:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy might, mind and strength: and thy neighbor as thyself.

This is the way of mutuality and co-operation in human society. It is the Master’s way of doing away with hate and fear. It is only by the Christian world allowing the Christ to come forth to eternal life, that the civilization of the world can be saved.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1937

Topics: Christianity; Society

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