The Burden Of Debt

We are living in a day of extravagance, and I might say not only we as individuals of the nation, but I am fearful that extreme extravagance reaches into every organization, city, county, state, and nation. I know how hard it is to reduce an obligation, even that of the government of the United States. At the close of the World War our government was owing $26,187,000,000. For ten years succeeding that time every effort was made, and I assure you that everything that I could do as chairman of the Finance Committee and the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, was done to raise the money and meet the obligations of our government. It took ten long years to reduce the government indebtedness to $16,000,000,000. Now we are about to enter into the thirty billions. I want to call attention to that fact, not by way of criticism, but to emphasize what I have already said, that in the family, I care not where that family may be, every member of it, should be acquainted with what the head of the family receies, and make a plan to live within that income; and I am going to add, if there is any possible way of saving a little each year do that.

We do not know what is coming; we do not know, my brethren and sisters, altogether what obligations we will be called to meet, but I pray you to keep out of debt if it is possible for you to do so. I may say that the members of the home must be united in order to carry out this desirable condition.

Source: Elder Reed Smoot
General Conference, October 1936

Topics: Debt

Individual Responsibility

A sense of individual responsibility grows out of an understanding of man’s relationship to other men and to God. The world is in serious need of a compelling sense of personal, individual, responsibility. As men are, so is the social group. A righteous nation is but the assemblage of righteous men. National prosperity is but the sum of personal prosperity. When each man sets his own house in order, the whole world will be in order. There is much talk of governmental or other organized provision for our wants, material and spiritual, when in reality our greatest needs must be satisfied from within ourselves. To lean upon others for support enfeebles the soul. By self-effort man will attain his high destiny. It cannot be placed as a cape upon his shoulders by others. Upon his own feet he must enter the kingdom of God, whether on earth or in heaven. By conquest of self he shall win his place in the everlasting glory of God’s presence.

Source: Elder John A. Widtsoe
General Conference, October 1936

Topics: Responsibility; Welfare

What is a covenant? If you will look at your dictionary you will find that it is defined as an agreement between two persons or parties. Sometimes those agreements are made between nations, and then they are called treaties, and they are usually entered into by being signed by the executive heads of those nations or governments and then ratified by their legislative bodies. Such are the treaties that are made with the nations. They are intended to be solemn pledges whereby they bind themselves with one another to make good the agreements they enter into with each other. What a terrible shock it was during the World War to hear the ruler of one great nation refer to his solemn treaty as “a mere scrap of paper,” but in these later days we are getting used to that, and these dictatorial rulers of many great and wonderful nations are treating their solemn treaties like mere scraps of paper; but they should not be so treated, they should be solemnly and truthfully and faithfully kept. Between individuals we draw up an instrument and we sign it, and have it signed, sealed and delivered in the presence of witnesses, and then go before a notary public or a justice of the peace and make oath in order to make it binding, and in order that it may be still more so, laws are passed imposing penalties for breach of contract. These are in the nature of covenants which men make with their fellow men.

What must we then think of a covenant where God himself is the party of the first part? Such a covenant God has made with every one of us. He has entered into an agreement with us. If you will do all things which the Lord your God shall command you; if you will do his will, you shall have glory added upon your heads forever and ever. That is the pledge, and God keeps his covenant and we should do the same.

Source: Elder Rulon S. Wells
General Conference, April 1936

Topics: Politics, International

The government of the United States has passed through many crises since the adoption of the Constitution in 1787. The one hundred and forty-seven years of our national existence have witnessed times of serious political struggles; periods of social and economic strife and unrest. The World War left the nations of the world with intricate problems. The largest armies of all history had marched to battle, and nations were put to the test of preserving their integrity. Kings and emperors were dethroned; governments were overthrown, and political life came to be anything but the thoughtful study of the science of government. In our own country particularly, laws have been enacted by state legislatures and Congress that have little bearing on the economic and social questions of the day, and as a result, we are lost in a veritable chaos of laws that are never enforced, and which have helped to bring about a disregard for law and order.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1936

Topics: Law; War

The present hour witnesses a crisis, the like of which we have never known before in our history. The fine morale of the nation has been broken, and this has brought about a condition of bitterness and hate, for people have lost their regard for the power of government and for the sanctity of the law. Envy and jealousy, and hate of neighbor for neighbor have crowded out our nobler altruistic feelings. Groups of men, unmindful of human rights, are clamoring for changes in our government. Our resources are being wasted. The looting of the public wealth has become a recognized industry, and the men who practice it are as highly trained as men in the skilled employments and professions. The sorrowful thing is that these men are entrenched behind the walls of political trickery. One of the greatest plagues today is the disregard for authority and law in government, and there is growing up in our social world an aversion toward hard work. Can it be that modern thought is discarding the influence of Providence in the affairs of men? The truth that government is instituted by the hand of God was uppermost in the minds of our forebears when the Constitution was formulated; this thought inspired the very lives of Washington and Lincoln; and Jesus Christ our Lord taught us that governments without the spirit of humble faith in the Master, cannot live.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1936

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Government, Wealth Transfer; Politics

The Declaration of Independence expresses the power of the Creator in three different places, and in words that speak of the divine in man. It says:

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This document and the Constitution of our country in their very spirit recognize the divine truth that government should be the expression of all that is noblest and true in the life of man. In the settlements of the frontiers of America, groups of religious men carried the spirit of religion into the unconquered lands, and the very fabric of our government was made up of many beliefs in the ways of providence. America for this reason has a rich background of the ideals of human liberty. All through our history the people have held to the belief in the divine guidance of the Master. Yet when we weigh the influence of social conditions today, we may well fear that we are slowly discarding our faith in the directive hand of an all-wise providence. Can there be any nobler truth than that the Lord does rule in the affairs of men? Is his power not seen in the onward march of civilization? Yet are we coming to the destructive belief that man and not God must ultimately rule in the affairs of man. Is the wisdom of mn the only power that will solve our problems? At times, such a thought was prevalent in the days of ancient Israel, but the Lord through his prophets guided Israel...

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1936

Topics: America, History

The youth of today have a magnificent vitality, but Dr. Glen Frank has pointed out that “if there is a central weakness at the heart of this vitality, it is that youth is blind to the necessity of conserving its vital energies.” What the youth of America needs is the husbanding of vital energies by the cultivation of clean habits, which alone “make intelligence and intensity of application possible and productive,” All this is another way of saying that “education rightly conceived contributes to a religion of maturity. While it is vital that we keep Church and State apart, a divorce between education and religion will be fatal to our national life.”

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1936

Topics: Education

We all must discover the beauties of the inner light, which is the divine gift of God to man. It is the divine spirit that really makes life fine and noble. Our government can only live as it produces good citizens who know that the Golden Rule is still golden, and that the Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments are still the guiding forces of morality both for the individual and for society.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1936

Topics: Morality

Every reform must be vested with sacredness, and a nation that is great is not incompatible with righteousness. The spirit of progress and nationality must be related to the divine purposes. There is a call of God to the nations as well as there is to men. The nation which has the bravest, the most trustworthy, the most thoroughly developed conscience will have the right of way in the onward march of civilization.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1936

Topics: Morality

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