The Prophet Isaiah once wrote: “Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn,” and the ancient Psalmist of Zion warned us when he said: “Remove not the ancient land-mark, which thy fathers have set.” I believe that the life of America depends upon the religion of America, and if this our government is to be preserved, it will be because America is pervaded, inspired, and controlled by the spirit of a faith in Almighty God. Our country was settled by people imbued by deep religious convictions. When the Pilgrim fathers came and landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, they drew up the Mayflower Compact which in part reads: “In the Name of God, Amen. We whose names are written, the loyal subjects of our Lord, King James, by the Grace of God King ... having undertaken for the glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian faith . . .” “In the name of God” those Pilgrim fathers braved the terrors of the deep to plant homes in America and to establish religious freedom. The Quakers came to Pennsylvania, the Catholics to Marland, and the Methodists to the Carolinas. James Oglethorpe who brought colonists to Georgia required that his people draw up a form of government based on the fundamentals that were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai: the Ten Commandments. This nation must naturally be pervaded by a spiritual life, and we have today no more important duty than to inspire the youth with a true religious spirit. When the First Continental Congress met in Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia in September, 1774, Dr. Jacob Duche was called in to offer prayers, and as he prayed, John Adams of Massachusetts tells us that tears “gushed into the eyes of all present.”

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: America, History

I believe that in the heart of the average American there is a deep religious conviction. Our nation has a religious life which must be maintained in determining national questions and controlling national policy. The spirit of mutual respect and good will, of justice and peace, of human brotherhood, is the spirit of the Christian religion, and this spirit teaches us one and all that the object of political activity is not merely to vote or to take sides in elections, but to direct our thoughts and deeds to noble actions and Christian principles. For this reason, we must educate the youth in an understanding of freedom and democracy; we must teach them that the perpetuity of our government depends on a deep conviction of the reality of the kingdom of God and the spiritual quality of life. We Latter-day Saints believe implicitly in the kingdom of God and that in time it will be established upon the earth with Christ our Lord as King. No more beautiful ideal of government can be known than this.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Education

Only by statistics, can the federal government make even a fitful attempt to plan, regulate, control, or reform various industries—or impose central planning and socialization on the entire economic system. If the government received no railroad statistics, for example, how in the world could it even start to regulate railroad rates, finances, and other affairs? How could the government impose price controls if it didn’t even know what goods have been sold on the market, and what prices were prevailing? Statistics . . . are the eyes and ears of the interventionists: of the intellectual reformer, the politicians, and the governemnt bureaucrat. Cut off those eyes and ears, destroy those crucial guidelines to knowledge, and the whole threat of government intervention is almost completely eliminated.

Source: Murray N. Rothbard

Topics: Central Planning

The Will of the Majority

There is a principle lying at the very foundation of this Church, and it is at the foundation of this government as well, for in the laying of the foundation of this government it was conceded that it would be impossible for us to go forward unless it was agreed that the will of the majority, expressed in law, must be regarded as the rule governing the conduct of the minority as well. Hence our Constitution came into existence.

It is so in this Church. No man is muzzled. President Grant does not muzzle his brethren. He seeks for all the light and wisdom that they have. But there is also a rule that when we reach a conclusion the decision of the majority obtains, and it is the duty of the minority, either in the government or in this great American church that is also builded upon this same glorious principle, that we obey the will of the majority expressed in law.

Source: Elder Melvin J. Ballard
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Democracy

First Great Lesson In Americanism

I remember that the first great lesson in Americanism I received was in the first great campaign under statehood in Utah, when we were in a presidential election. I recall how my father, a leader of one of the parties here, had been urgently recommending and doing everything in his power to get his candidate elected, but he was defeated. I recall the practice of my father to always pray as earnestly for the President of the United States as for the President of the Church. Now, the morning of the inauguration of this successful president, who was not my father’s candidate, it was my father’s turn to pray and I was watching. But to my astonishment he prayed more earnestly for that man than he had ever prayed for a president before; and I said: “Father, you surely forgot yourself this morning. You did not intend to pray for that fellow. You did not vote for him. You did not want him. You thought your man would be a better president.” He said: “I certainly did not forget. It is true I thought my man would have been a better president, and I still think so, but the majority of the people did not agree with me; and the majority of the people having spoken he is now my President, and I am going to support him as though I had voted for him; and pray for him, yes. And he will need my prayers much more than the other fellow would have needed them.”

Source: Elder Melvin J. Ballard
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Citizenship

In The Hands Of God

Don’t worry about the future of the Church. It is in the hands of the Almighty. Don’t worry about the future of the Government. That, too, is in the hands of God, and he will guide it and direct it aright, and carry it forward until it, too, shall find its glorious mission. God speed his cause on. Wars, yes, and bloodshed will come, and thrones will totter, but out of every conflict will come the onward progress of truth and righteousness in the preparation of this world for its golden age, for the coming of the Son of God!

Source: Elder Melvin J. Ballard
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Heavenly Interest in Human Events

The day was, years ago, when to be classed as a good Mormon was to be classed as a man who paid his debts. Let us, wherein we may have failed in the past to live up to that record, make up our minds that we are going to live up to it again in the future.

Source: President Heber J. Grant
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Debt

Some eighty years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States in Savings and Loan Association vs. Topeka (22 Law. Ed. 461) declared “to lay, with one hand, the power of government on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals . . . is nonetheless a robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation.” Also in those days before it became legal, and even respectable, to forcibly redistribute the earnings of some citizens in order to secure the vote and favor of others, the forgotten clause of the Fifth Amendment was as carefully adhered to as is another clause today. I refer to the clause which says, “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”

Source: W. C. Mullendore
Published in The Freeman, January 1957

Topics: Government, Wealth Transfer

Individual Responsibility

In the quotation here made from the Apostle John’s record of the sayings of Christ, two elements may be selected for definite thought. One of these is that in and of our own volition, we assume the responsibility of doing something ourselves, rather than be always seeking to depend wholly upon the advice and direction of others. This advice is timely in degree, but it has its limit in often burdening others beyond necessity. In proper degree it is timely in that it complies with the design of Providence. Yet let us remember that the inspiration of the Holy Ghost for us to proceed upon our own individual initiative is worth something; and acting under that inspiration is an obligation aptly expressed by the Apostle James: “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” Wherein we seek over-guidance or over-government from human sources, we develop in ourselves a tendency to helplessness. That which is put into us by others is always far less ours than that which we acquire by our own diligent and persevering effort. It is not luck nor accident that helps a man in the world so much as purpose and persistent industry.

Source: Elder Reed Smoot
General Conference, April 1934

Topics: Responsibility

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