Outlook For Coming Winter

There is little prospect that the coming winter will not present enlarged demands on our sympathies and our resources. It has been indicated from Washington that the state and local communities may be obliged to bear a larger portion of the burden. I hope we will do our utmost and I pray that no worthy person who is honest and deserving may be permitted to suffer. I pray with equal fervor that no person may become so dishonest and disloyal as to be an impostor on the generosity of our great merciful government which is seeking so diligently to relieve our distresses.

Source: Elder Stephen L. Richards
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Government, Spending; Welfare

Basis Of Mutual Confidence

Common honesty is the basis of mutual confidence. If we lose confidence in each other we are lost. We can’t trust those who cheat the government. It is as dishonest as it is to cheat the Church or each other. No one can deceive and cheat and be a Christian. He may be called a Christian, but he is not one. Misrepresentation, hypocrisy and deceit are as repugnant to the Gospel as is error to truth, for the Gospel is truth.

Source: Elder Stephen L. Richards
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Honesty; Morality

Importance of Honesty

Reference has already been made to the last Article of our Faith, that refers largely to the cardinal virtues, which are just as much a part of the Gospel and a part of our lives, as any principle. “We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men,” and so forth. This tenet expresses the importance of practicing these fundamental virtues. Honesty lies at the very foundation of our individual and community life, our civilization, our organizations of government, and the membership of the Church. If we live the Gospel we can not be anything but honest; if we are good citizens of this nation we can not properly be anything but honest. If honesty is lacking in the government, then it will gradually disintegrate. If graft, if racketeering, if other dishonest practices prevail, then there is bound to be lack of confidence, and there will develop an increasing attitude of disrespect for law and for those who are called to administer the laws.

Source: Elder Sylvester Q. Cannon
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Honesty; Morality

Honesty In Government

We are entitled to expect from every officer of the government that he be honest in his dealings; and when he has the direction of employees of the government, that he shall require honesty and honest service from them; and that in the handling of funds there shall be strict honesty, and great care and accuracy maintained. Honesty is a disposition to conform to justice and honorable dealing, especially in regard to the rights of property. Likewise, it involves a determination to conform to justice and fair dealing in all our relations one with another. We can apply honesty to our actions as well as to our words. That is, of course, truthfulness and straightforwardness.

Source: Elder Sylvester Q. Cannon
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Honesty; Responsibility

Honesty And Truthfulness In Politics

We are now engaging in a campaign for political purposes. It is important that every one who engages therein shall be careful to be honest and truthful in the statements that he or she shall make, so that we may not indulge in acrimonious discussion and develop antagonism and ill feeling which is contrary to proper principles of political activity and of government. Our statements should be matters of fact and not of assumption. Our political views should be constructive and not destructive. Any candidate who makes wild promises or advocates specious plans impracticable of fulfilment, or who has not previously proven him-self worthy of trust, should be rejected. Honest, dependable and capable citizens should be sought for positions in government. It is our business as voters to analyze carefully the character of the candidates and their viewpoints on public questions.

Source: Elder Sylvester Q. Cannon
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Politics

Men may succeed, by devious means, in taking property that does not belong to them, but such practices will destroy the moral fiber of their being. Right of property is guaranteed to us under the constitution. It is true we are subject to the government and to its regulations; and it is true also that we must cooperate in sustaining the government, but at the same time the rights of property can not be made null and void without destroying the spirit and appreciation of fairness among mankind.

Source: Elder Sylvester Q. Cannon
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Rights

Despotism, Destructive To Religion And Government Ideals

My brethren and sisters, there are abroad in the world forces—and this I have been saying to you on every occasion that presented itself for the last fifteen years, here in this pulpit—there are forces abroad that do not come from God. There is no dictatorship in the world today, whether that dictatorship be of one man or of a group exercising such control as exists in Russia, that is not striking first and foremost at religion. They are trying to tear down the worship of God and to substitute something else in its stead, and I regret to say that in some parts of this country, in some states of this Union, the issue now seems to be between an ordered, law-governed society and a despotism destructive of religion and of all that our government stands for. I assume this because of the past record of those who are advocating the measures to which I refer.

May I say this: We believe that Christ will come and reign personally upon the earth. But that is no reason why I should advocate the establishment of a monarchy to overturn the government of the United States. We believe in the United Order, something that was taken away from us because we could not live it, and the lesser law was given, the law of tithing—which we are not living either; but our belief in the United Order is no reason why we should support a movement for Communism, to the overturning of our government. These two propositions are absolutely parallel, the one as rational and reasonable as the other. When the Lord wants his people to move into the United Order he will use his anointed servant to direct the way.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Freedom, Religious; United Order

Rely On The Lord’s Plan

I refer to the words of Elder Richards, and I tell you that any Latter-day Saint who does pay an income tax, and who at the same time pays his tithing, his fast offerings, his donations, his help for the poor, will never be able to get the full benefit under the fifteen per cent which the tax income provides for. In other words, those men among us who have the Spirit of the Lord, and who obey his laws, will always spend more than fifteen per cent of their income for the Church and its work and people. That is one reason why I say to you as I said a few moments ago, that if we had but hearkened to the Lord and obeyed his commandments there would have been no occasion for us to have drawn on the federal government. I also say to you that in my opinion, reached after mature reflection, this people would have been better off materially and spiritually, if we had relied on the Lord’s plan and had not used one dollar of government funds.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Welfare

On the 17th of September, 1887, a great celebration was held in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia in honor of the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. The President of the United States, Grover Cleveland, and other distinguished guests were present on that occasion. A chorus of one thousand people rendered the beautiful poem of the German poet Schiller, entitled “An Appeal to Truth,” which had been put to music by Mendelssohn. As they sang the lines of the poem: “Upon the divine truth of the freedom of man and the knowledge of God, does our civilization stand,” the guests stood with bowed heads in gratitude for the blessings of the Lord. Then President Cleveland arose and among other things said: “When we look down one hundred years and see the origin of our Constitution, when we contemplate all its trials and triumphs, when we realize how completely the principles upon which it is based have met every national need and every national peril, how devoutly should we say with Franklin, ‘God governs in the affairs of men,’ and how solemn should be the thought that to us is delivered this ark of the people’s covenant and to us is given the duty to shield it from impious hands. Another centennial day will come, and millions yet unborn will inquire concerning our stewardship and the safety of the Constitution. God grant that they may find it unimpaired.” Today, there are forces at work to undermine this sacred gift of our fathers. These forces are expressed in acts and words of disrespect for law, order, and authority. Lord Macaulay feared for our democratic institutions, and once expressed the thought that institutions purely democratic “must sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.” In reply to this thought of the great English essayist, we can only say that we hope that the citizens of our great republic will have from age to age a finer reverence and greater love for the principles of human rights which are set forth in the Constitution of our country. When our fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence and gave us the divine thought: “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,” we must ever remember that there are no rights that are not duties. The Declaration of Independence was not justified if it was not obligatory. So this is true with the still greater document of government, the Constitution of the United States. “There are no rights that are not duties.”

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Rights; US Constitution

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