This is an age of change. Innovation is the idol of the times. “In this age of novelty, many things are made better, and many things are made worse. Old errors are discarded, and new errors are embraced.” Governments feel the same effects in this craze for change. “But the experience of all ages,” said Daniel Webster on one occasion, “will bear us out in saying that alterations of political systems are always attended with great danger, for if the Constitution is to be changed, an alteration in one part will work an alteration in another.”

Nor are great and striking alterations alone to be shunned. A succession of small changes, a perpetual tampering with minute parts, steal away the breath, though they leave the body; for it is true that a Government may lose all its real character: its genius and its temper: without losing its appearance. So if we are not careful—very careful—we may find our government changed to a despotism, and yet called a Republic. It may have all the essential modes of freedom, and yet nothing of the essence, the vitality of freedom in it. The form may be left, but the spirit and the life will be gone.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1937

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

To perpetuate our government, we must cherish and love it. We must preserve a correct and energetic tone of morals. After all, liberty consists more in the habits of the people, than in anything else. There are always men wicked enough to go any length in the pursuit of power, if they can find people enough to support them. Ambition of men to become dictators must be restrained by the public morality. When such men arise, they must find themselves standing alone.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1937

Topics: Dictatorships; Morality

We are the trustees of a sacred trust. We have been given by Providence this Government with all its potentiality, with all its accomplishment, with all, its promise. The question should be to every American: How am I discharging this trusteeship? What am I doing to preserve, protect, and perpetuate the ideals of the government in which we have such implicit faith? We have a solemn obligation before us.

Every American should read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, Lincoln’s Address at Gettysburg, and see for himself whether the American policy has been a selfish program. It has been a program to serve humanity.

Only the application of the standards of moral excellence can save our fundamental ideals. As we look into the future, will it be progress or decline? Let us pray God that it may be progress. But progress will never be unless we sacredly preserve our Constitution and hold it as the surest vision for liberty and freedom.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1937

Topics: Morality

America’s Destiny

My brethren and sisters, as we see them, therefore abandoning these democracies the whole attention of the world is focused upon the great democracy of the world, America. Shall it stand; shall it survive? Yes, because the Lord God of Heaven has established it. I am not afraid of outside enemies. All the perils that threaten this country shall be from within. There shall never come any disaster nor distress that shall destroy America from the outside, if the peoples of this land shall rally to the standards established by our fathers, and maintain the stability of the Constitution and the law, and the order established in this land wherein our fathers long ago agreed that the will of the majority expressed in laws shall be obeyed by the minority.

God help us as Latter-day Saints to be found still standing by these standards and loyally supporting the law and order and the great democracy established here, that it may live for the blessing of all flesh, as the Lord has decreed it; for after days of sorrow and trial and dictatorships, the world will be prepared, by and by, for the fruits and the blessings of the democracy that shall survive in America.

Source: Elder Melvin J. Ballard
General Conference, April 1937

Topics: America, Destiny

Let every Latter-day Saint who has a farm, farm it, and not try to borrow money to be paid back by the government. Let every man feel that he is the architect and builder of his own life, and that he proposes to make a success of it by working. “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work,” and rest on the seventh, and do not be willing to labor four or five days and then only half labor. Let every Latter-day Saint give value received for everything he gets, whether it be in work, or whatever he does.

Source: President Heber J. Grant
General Conference, October 1936

Topics: Responsibility

As a result of this progress in the line of science, and the coming of foreigners to our shores, our civilization has become complex. Lawmaking bodies have created laws by the thousands, until we have come to believe that government is the source of righteousness; that government by external means is the spring of morality and spiritual life. The morale of America has drifted to a very low state; this is also true of all the civilized world. Our moral autonomy has gone, and men and nations have forgotten God. Satan is offering the kingdoms of the world to those who will fall down and worship him. The temptation of Jesus after his baptism has become today the temptation of men. Yet nations are crying for Peace. They have organized leagues of peace; they have made some determined efforts to do away with war; they have all failed for the reason that peace movements have not been founded on a proper comprehension of righteousness and truth.

When our forefathers met in Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia in 1774 to draft some system of government by which the colonies could carry on, an old minister, Dr. Jacob Duche, was called in to offer a prayer, and as he prayed, John Adams tells us that tears “gushed into the eyes of all present.” It was a fervent prayer to the Lord and I quote it in full for it carries a message of faith to us:

O Lord, our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of Kings, Lord of Lords, who dost from Thy throne behold all the dwellers upon the earth, and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all kingdoms, empires and governments, look down in mercy, we beseech Thee, upon these American States who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor, and thrown themselves upon Thy gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only upon Thee.

To Thee have they appealed for the righteousness of their cause. To Thee do they now look up for that countenance and support which Thou alone canst give. Take them, therefore, Heavenly Father, under Thy nurturing care. Give them wisdom in council, and valor in the field. Defeat the malicious designs of our cruel adversaries. Convince them of the unrighteousness of their cause, and if they still persist in their sanguinary purposes, O let the voice of Thine own unerring justice, sounding in their hearts, constrain them to drop their weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle.

Be Thou present, O Lord of Wisdom, and direct the Council of the honorable Assembly. Enable them to settle things upon the best and surest foundation, that the scene of blood may speedily be closed; that order, harmony and peace may effectually be restored, and truth and justice, religion and piety, prevail and flourish amongst Thy people.

Preserve the health of their bodies, the vigor of their minds. Shower down upon them and the millions they here represent, such temporal blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Savior. Amen.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, October 1936

Topics: Christianity; Morality

When the government of the United States was finally organized under the God-inspired Constitution, it was the result of toil and blood; and faith in the providences of God. The age- long barriers of class were done away with, and those founders declared that here in this nation, there should be no slave; there should be no king; nor master; nor subject. The fathers of the republic said to us: “We are all children of God, free and equal.”

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, October 1936

Topics: Freedom

The real test of the strength of civilization is in the moral capacity of the rank and file of the citizens to give up the pleasures of the present for greater rewards in the future. This quality is the foundation of both moral and spiritual character. The social security of a nation is based on the character of the citizens, not on the amount of material comforts the government may bestow upon them. Hard work and sacrifice make men strong. Ease and gifts from any source are destructive to efficiency, character, and citizenship. Social security is in the character of the citizens and hence must come from within. Social security can not be bestowed from without.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, October 1936

Topics: Morality; Security

The Townsend Plan

We have on at the present time a great political campaign, and I want to say to the Saints that I hope they will not allow their political affiliations, their regard for political affairs, to cause feelings of ill-will towards one another. I have had some of the most insulting letters that ever came to me, condemning me for not being in favor of the Townsend Plan, and that I must be ignorant of the Plan. I am not ignorant of the Plan. I have not read every word of it, but I have asked one of my secretaries to read every word of the Plan and to give me the important points, and to my mind it is in direct opposition to everything I have quoted here today from Brigham Young and from the revelations of the Lord. The idea of allowing every man and woman who has reached the age of sixty years and wishes to retire from working to get $200 a month from the government! There is nothing truer than Brigham Young’s statement, that we should give nothing to people, unless they are not able to work, without requiring them to do something for it.

I want to say to the people that one of my nearest and dearest relatives criticised me for not favoring the Townsend Plan. I love him just as much as though he did not criticise me. I am perfectly willing for him to think and believe and act just as he wants to do, I want everybody to do this; I do not want the people of the Church, when they are working for the government, to work by the day; but I do want them to work by the job.

Source: President Heber J. Grant
General Conference, October 1936

Topics: Social Programs; Welfare

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