There is no western capitalistic country in which the conditions of the masses have not improved in an unprecedented way.

Source: Ludwig von Mises
Epistemological Problems

Topics: Capitalism

Capitalism is essentially a system of mass production for the satisfaction of the needs of the masses. It pours a horn of plenty upon the common man. It has raised the average standard of living to a height never dreamed of in earlier ages. It has made accessible to millions of people enjoyments which a few generations ago were only within the reach of a small elite.

Source: Ludwig von Mises
Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, p.49

Topics: Capitalism

What a wonderful thing is this government of ours! How blessed are we that we live under a form of government such as ours. I am one who believes that there is no other form of government in all the world in which “Mormonism,” so-called, could have been established. The religious liberties granted are necessary for the people to live the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fulness. It required just such a form of government as ours. And when I see, as I think I see, the least move upon the part of men claiming to be citizens of this government to destroy the very foundations upon which it stands, to cut from the Constitution of the United States, that which gives and is the bulwark of our liberty, I feel that every man and every woman should lift their voices, if necessary cry aloud, against any such action upon the part of any clique or group of people. I thank God for America. I thank him that I was born under the Stars and Stripes. I thank him for the Constitution of the United States. I thank him for the laws and for the institutions created under the Constitution of the United States; and I shall continue to pray with all the fervor at my command to the overruling God of nations in the world to preserve the Constitution of our country, to preserve our country from those without and from those within: America, the most blessed of all lands in the world.

Source: Elder Reed Smoot
General Conference, October 1924

Topics: America, Heritage; US Constitution, Defend

Perpetuity of Peoples and Government Dependent On Religious Faith

I know of no great nation of antiquity which did not have, in connection with its system of civil government, a code of ethics which embraced in its doctrines, and had for its purpose, the ends which we moderns seek in the various forms of religion which we believe in and practice. The perpetuity of the various forms of government which prevailed was dependent, as all governments are, entirely upon the ethical, or religious faith and practice of the people, for, if we are to judge by the history of the past, without the higher ideals of ethical life, applied in the administration of civil affairs, no nation can long survive.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1924

Topics: Morality

We loudly acclaim our devotion to, and love for American ideals, and pose as patriotic, law-abiding citizens, while the very men who enact our laws, and are appointed to enforce them, too often violate the law, and the trust reposed in them, as if they were exempt from that which they require others to obey. Our trusted agents who have the management of our public affairs, too often prove themselves to be rogues and swindlers by uniting with the men whom they profess to detect and prosecute, to rob us of that which they are employed to protect.

Men, profound in their knowledge of the law, too often use their great learning, not to uphold and magnify the law, but to pervert it, and find means by which we may avoid its just requirements. Self confessed criminals, guilty of the most heinous crimes, premeditated in their execution, are turned loose upon defenseless, law-abiding communities, to continue their criminal practices upon those whom the law is designed to protect.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1924

Topics: Government, Loss of Freedom; Government, Power

Throughout the world today, as we have already been informed by a number of the speakers, there is commotion and a spirit of unrest; and the people, many of them, feel that it is something to their credit to hold radical views, to consider themselves to be progressive, and to make attack upon things that have stood and have endured throughout the ages. This tendency is not alone found in the political world. It is found in the world of education, of religion, of government, of business and everywhere. Men are departing from the well-worn paths, no matter how good they are, and feel that conservatism is a reproach; that it is the duty of man to do away with that which is old, or which has been established, and find something that is new. We stand practically alone in the world, yes, absolutely alone in the world, representing the truth of the living God, declaring to all men the principles of eternal truth which do not change.

Source: Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
General Conference, October 1924

Topics: Change; Freedom, Loss of

We should be able to invite people to settle among us in consequence of low taxes and good orderly [state/local] government, in comparison with others.

Source: Elder Charles W. Nibley
General Conference, April 1924

Topics: Government, Ideal

The gospel of Jesus Christ was given to the world at a new period of history. It was when the Government of the United States was in its infancy, yet it had been launched with the greatest political and civic ideals that were ever known to modern times. It was a new period of social and economic life, and during the period or two decades from 1830 to 1850, there was more advancement in industrial history than there had been in all the history of the world up to that time.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1924

Topics: America, Heritage

A Remarkable Conception of Civil Government

Among the large contributions which Joseph Smith made was that remarkable conception of civil government which he gave to the world, for it was he who emphasized, if he did not first teach, the doctrine that all governments are instituted of God for the benefit of men; and it was he who first plainly declared—assuming that some attention had been given to the same thought before—that the Constitution of the great land in which we live came from the inspiration of God through men who were raised up for the purpose of establishing it as an instrument of government. I have always been grateful for these conceptions of government and I have felt in recent years that until the great ideas of government which he promulgated among this nation find their place more securely and firmly in the minds and hearts of the citizenship of this country, America will never achieve her great destiny and will never be what she was intended to be, the beacon light of liberty and freedom and civil righteousness to all the world.

My attention has recently been directed, by my colleague, Brother Richard R. Lyman, to a book which is off the press but a few months, in which the author, Mr. Clarence True Wilson, sets forth rather more clearly than I have ever seen it stated before, the conception of government which has been taught in this Church for nearly a hundred years. The author points out that for more than thirty years he has studied all the works which have been written upon the Constitution of this country, the influences which brought it about, and the influences exercised upon its framers, which culminated in the form and plan of government which find expression in that great document. He says that never in all his research has he discovered a single author who attributes the Constitution to the influence of the Bible and God. He points out that some contend that influences derived from the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Greek, and the Roman attempts at Republican government found their expression in this great document.

Influence of the Bible on the Constitution

He says that most commentaries on the Constitution pay homage to the influence of the common law of England and the English experiment in free government, but in no works on this great document does he find a single expression which indicates that it was the Holy Bible, the scriptures of the Lord, which furnished the foundation for this great instrument of government, and yet, says he, the Bible is the only book with which all the framers of the Constitution were intimately familiar. It was the book which they had read from their childhood to their maturity. It was the book from which they learned their spelling; it was the book from which they learned their English, it was their chief literature; and he asks this question: “Is it not reasonable, natural and logical, to draw the inference that it was the influence of the Scriptures of the Lord which permeated the hearts and the minds of those patriotic men in the formulation of the greatest instrument, which Gladstone says, ever fell from the pen of man?” Time will not permit to make anything like an analytical comparison between the fundamental institutions of our government, as they were established in the Constitution, and the Hebrew government which was established under the hand of God, and which prevailed for so many centuries under his divine guidance. It might be said, however, in a moment, that there is not a single fundamental institution of this country, ordained and established under the Constitution, that does not have something like a counterpart in the Israelitish form of government which prevailed prior to the time of the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Source: Elder Stephen L. Richards
General Conference, October 1923

Topics: Heavenly Interest in Human Events; US Constitution, Inspired

•  ⟨⟨ 
•  ⟨ 
•   |  
•  ⟩ 
•  ⟩⟩