Forty-five Years Ago And Now

I believe that there is a growing disposition among the people to try to get something from the government of the United States with little hope of ever paying it back. I think this is all wrong. I believe that there is not that same moral sense among the people today that there was forty-five years ago.

Source: President Heber J. Grant
General Conference, October 1933

Topics: Government, Wealth Transfer; Honesty; Responsibility; Welfare

In all ages of the world men have been prone to ignore the personality of others, to disregard men’s rights by closing against them the opportunity to develop. The worth of man is a good measuring rod by which we may judge of the rightfulness or wrongfulness of a policy or principle whether in government, in business or social affairs.

Source: Elder David O. McKay
General Conference, October 1933

Topics: Law

The Present Political And Economic Situation

I said that we are living in an age of shifting uncertainties. Recently I saw an expressive cartoon which depicted an engine on an old railroad track, from which a train loaded with people was being pulled in another direction by a tractor which had left the rails and started out over an unbeaten track. The President of the United States was the engineer. It is expressive of our political and economic situation today. Some of us may not know just where we are going, but we are trusting our leader.

Source: Elder David O. McKay
General Conference, October 1933

Topics: Politics

Duty Of Individual To Society

While emphasizing the worth of the individual, I wish to say that the individual in turn owes a duty to society. The world today perhaps as never before is demanding that the employer consider his employee not merely as a part of a machine to make money, but as a living, sensitive being entitled to justice and right. It is equally obligatory upon the employee to recognize the employer as one who has equal privileges. It is the duty of the citizen to take this same attitude toward the leaders of his government, and the duty of the churchman to recognize the rights of those appointed to preside.

This is a time in which we should renew and rekindle the faith of our fathers. On every hand “we see social unrest; unloving and unlovely men, greed, selfishness, political corruption. We see people indifferent, pleasure seeking, ignorant, far from following a life of service. Plans fail and success seems an Utopian dream. The materialistic philosophy of life which so largely controls our thinking today has nearly succeeded in convincing the world that a man’s life does consist in the abundance of things which he possesses.”

Source: Elder David O. McKay
General Conference, October 1933

Topics: Individual, Improvement

Self-seekers Not In Need

I was impressed with what President Grant said with regard to those seeking help who do not need it. It seems to be a peculiar feeling or attitude, on the part of many citizens of this nation, that whenever the government has anything to give away, they are desirous of obtaining it, even though they may not actually need it, and are able to support themselves without. That seems to me a rather selfish attitude. I think that we ought to strive to be self-supporting, and, as far as possible, independent of help from other sources.

Source: Elder Sylvester Q. Cannon
General Conference, October 1933

Topics: Government, Wealth Transfer; Responsibility

Experimental Policies

We are now called upon to support what purports to be a very comprehensive program for recovery. It is a complex program. In many respects it is an experiment, acknowledged so to be. Those who are students of our governmental history recognize the fact that in it there have been and are wide departures from established policies, some of which seem to contravene the very fundamental tenets of our governmental faith. I freely acknowledge that as I hear criticisms of this character directed toward some of the policies that are sought to be carried out, I find it difficult, if not impossible, to answer, in terms of our old principles and procedure, the objections that are urged. Nevertheless, for a while, I feel constrained, by very force of all the circumstances, to be patient for the outcome of these experimental policies.

Source: Elder Stephen L. Richards
General Conference, October 1933

Topics: Politics

We of the Church believe in sustaining government. Wherever our people are located, they are admonished to support, not only the form of government under which they live, but those who preside over them, kings, rulers and potentates. It is a part of our creed.

Source: Elder Stephen L. Richards
General Conference, October 1933

Topics: Politics; Responsibility

A Land Of Promise

We, my brethren and sisters, are assembled here today in this historic building, in a city which we call Salt Lake, in a territory which we call Utah, a territory which forms one of the forty-eight federated states of our union, each state independent in its own sphere, but all bound together by constitutional law, which welds them into a single entity.

Only yesterday the ground upon which this building stands, in fact the entire area covered by the United States of America, was an uncultivated wilderness. The prophets of the Lord, centuries before, had predicted the existence of this land, before it was known to the people of the old world. They had outlined to us the establishment of this government of ours; they had declared that upon this land, which to them was a land choice above all others, there would be established a system of civil government, which would be a light to the world; a government to which would be gathered the remnant of the scattered house of Israel; a government in which men would enjoy equal rights under the law; a government in which men would act as their own conscience might prompt them to do—with this restriction, however, that in that which they did they must not infringe upon the rights of others or prevent them from exercising the agency which they themselves exercised.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1933

Topics: America, History; Heavenly Interest in Human Events; Rights

The prophet Isaiah, referring to this land of America, these everlasting hills, declared that at a future time—the time to which he referred was the latter days—the house of the Lord the Lord would be established here, and that all nations would flow unto it; that they would be taught here the way of the Lord and learn to walk in his paths. By foreknowledge of God the prophets declared that by the direction of his Spirit the Lord would bring people to this continent who would establish this form of government, and said that they would never be overthrown or conquered by other nations, if they would but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ.

The destiny of America from the day that Columbus sailed from the ports of Spain to the present, was declared by the prophets of the Lord, as I have said, before the people of Europe knew that America existed. The sailing of Columbus, from the port of Palos, in Spain, was not a thing of chance. It had been declared by the prophets nearly two thousand years before that the Spirit of the Lord would rest upon a man among the Gentiles, and that he would sail forth and land upon this continent. As he sailed on and on over uncharted seas, his crew was in open revolt, they declared that they would go no farther, and that upon the morrow they would turn the prows of their ships back to the east and endeavor to find their way back to Spain, but upon that eventful night a gun from the Pinta announced that land had been sighted. A new world had been discovered.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1933

Topics: America, History; Heavenly Interest in Human Events

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