Discourse

I pray for the guiding influence of the Holy Spirit to enable me, while I stand before you this morning, to speak the truth, and to do it in a manner that will be plain and simple, so that we can all understand. I am grateful to see the good attendance that we have had at our Conference thus far, and I am also thankful to our Heavenly Father for the rich outpouring of His Spirit which we have enjoyed while we have been together. I hope that the good counsels and the excellent instructions which have been imparted to us may find ample lodgment in our hearts and in our memories, that we may profit by them. We have had a little said upon a variety of subjects, all of which are necessary for our guidance and for our observance in order that we may prosper and be what we should be—the people of God. ¶

Brother John Henry Smith, in his closing remarks, touched upon a subject which is of vital importance to the Latter-day Saints, and this is, the subject of home employment and home industry. It should not be that any of our people are without employment in this country; and some efforts ought to be made by the leading men in the various settlements, where men are unemployed, to devise means by which employment may be given to them, that they may not be necessarily idle. In connection with this subject it may not be amiss to state at this time and to this congregation the fact that during the lifetime of President Young he was very earnest in his desires and efforts that home industries should be established among the people. I remember distinctly when he called upon President Smoot, Bishop R. T. Burton and others to unite their means together and build a woolen factory up here on Parley’s canyon creek; and they did so. President Young himself also had a factory there about that time. I also remember that President Young called upon Brothers Lorin Farr, Pugaley and others at one time to establish a woolen factory near Ogden, and they did so. I remember President Young was very eager that a factory should be established down in our “Dixie” country, and certain brethren were called and commissioned to go down there to establish a factory in that vicinity. Then he was very anxious that employment should be given to some of our people in the direction of planting, cultivating and raising cotton, and people were called and sent into our “Dixie” country to raise cotton, in order that the factory established at Washington might not be idle, and that cotton might be produced by the labor of our Utah people. ¶

Yesterday I was in the Fair, where I saw some excellent specimens of cotton that had been raised in the south, and prepared as batting, by the industry of our people. I saw a very fine display of woolen goods—flannels, blankets, and other cloths—marked “John C. Cutler, agent for the Provo Woolen Mills,” and my eyes were gladdened by the sight, my heart rejoiced to see such a fine display of home products exhibited at the Fair. I believe in this kind of industry. I believe it to be a good thing for any community, to branch out in every kind of industry that will give employment to the people, and that will produce at home every article needed for some consumption, as far as possible. It is the principle upon which communities become self-sustaining, independent and wealthy. If the Latter-day Saints ever expect to become wealthy, it will be after they have established all the industries that are necessary to make them independent, and to provide for themselves every commodity of life that they need. I also saw in the Fair some specimens of blankets and other goods produced by the Deseret Woolen Mills, owned and managed by some of the late Brother William Jennings’ family, and situated in the lower part of this city. I saw some goods as fine, I believe, as I have seen in any country—the result of the labor of our own people and the products of our own country. How much better this is than to have to buy all our blankets from abroad and to import everything that we wear that is needful for our comfort. Let me exhort my brethren and sisters who are assembled here today to remember these institutions that have been established among us. If you want blankets, where will you go to get them? I would advise you to get them from those manufactured at home can be obtained. I would exhort you never to spend a dollar from this time forth, if you can avoid it, for anything that is produced abroad which is produced at home, even though you may be under the necessity of paying a little more for that produced here. I advise you to patronize home industry, because it helps to give employment to our home people, it helps to build up our own country, it helps to keep the wealth within our own community, and it builds us up better, faster, and more permanently than any other course can possibly do. Here is our sugar factory in Lehi. Some of our brethren are groaning under the weight of responsibility that rests upon them in connection with the establishment of that sugar factory. If I recollect right, President Wilford Woodruff, President George Q. Cannon and your humble servant, and others of the Apostles, are today carry tens of thousands of dollars in order that the industry might be established among the people, and in order that some of the sugar that is consumed by them might be produced at home by their own industry and skill, and that some of the money that we pay out annually for the sugar we consume might be kept at home and distributed to those who produce the article here. I want to remind my brethren and sisters throughout Zion that it is a portion of their duty to patronize these home industries and to sustain them by their patronage. For it is a good and wise policy that was inaugurated by President Young in the beginning of the settlement of this Territory. It is the policy that is today the wisest and the best for this community. We are still far separated from the centers of manufacture and in a comparatively new country; this should not be forgotten. It is not perhaps consistent with modern ideas to suppose for a moment that there could come a time of pinching, of poverty and of necessity in the tops of these mountains, connected as we are with the east and the west, with the north and the south, by these lines of railroads which run into and through our country. I know it is not orthodox now-a-days to consider or admit the possibility of a famine coming upon the inhabitants of North America. Do we not possess the richest country in the world? Are we not blessed with all the products of the temperate and the torrid zone? Are we not blessed with the greatest mineral, agricultural and stock-raising country in the world? Yes; and yet I read in the revelations which the Lord has given to us that a day of famine will come upon the land, a day of drouth, a day of necessity, a day of pestilence, and a day of deep sorrow. When that day shall come we will learn, if we do not learn it before, that the community which is the nearest self-supporting will be the most independent and the most prosperous that can be found anywhere in the land. There is another little factory in Franklin, Idaho. It is really a Utah Industry, owned and carried on largely by Utah people, and they are producing some of the finest home-made blankets, linsey, flannel and yarn that can be produced anywhere in the country. I want to make honorable mention of it, as I have of the other mills. I am told also that Brother Whitehead, at Springville is manufacturing some goods. I desire to make mention of these things. What for? That I may induce you, my brethren and sisters, if I possibly can, to patronize these institutions, and to sustain by your works as well as by your prayers home industries, which give to the people employment, and put bread in their mouths and clothing upon their backs, and give them homes to shelter them, developing the resources of our country, and making it what it is today—the superior of any of its sister territories or states in this inter-mountain region. There is no state or territory in this inter-mountain region that can compare in material prosperity with the Territory of Utah, and it is largely due to the policy inaugurated by President Young, that is still in vogue, or ought to be, among this people to foster home industry. A little while ago I gave an order for some home-made blankets. I can go to Z. C. M. I., or any of these stores which import foreign made goods and I can buy blankets for considerably less than I expect to have to pay for those that are made at home; but I would rather give a little more to our own workmen for the product of their labor than to purchase the imported article. But the fact of the matter is, I expect to get the worth of my money. Even if I do have to pay a little more for it. I believe the article will be that much better and more durable. ¶

In times gone by we used to exhort the people to patronize our co-operative institutions. Here is Z. C. M. I. President Woodruff is the president of that institution. It is owned and managed by our people, principally. It is true that some of the stock has been placed on the market, and our outside friends, realizing that it was a good and safe institution, have invested in Z. C. M. I. stock. It is controlled in the interests of the people, not wholly for money making, but to modify prices, and to regulate the markets of this region in relation to the articles which it deals in; to prevent combinations against the welfare of the people. Zion’s Co-operative Mercantile Institution has been one of the best institutions for this community that has ever been established among them. President Young was the founder of it, and his idea was that the people should own it; that if there was any profit in merchandising, manufacturing woolen goods, cotton goods, or any other kind of goods in the Territory of Utah, the people should receive the benefit of it; and therefore he established co-operative associations and invited the people to take stock in these institutions, that they might help to bear the responsibility and share in the benefits therefrom, and thereby all the people be blessed. President Young did not desire that one man alone or a few men should gather in all the “plums” in merchandising, but that all the people should share whatever profit there was in it. Will anyone deny that those who are interested in Z. C. M. I. have shared proportionately in the profits of that institution? I think they have. I have been in a small way interested in it from the beginning, and it has been one of the most profitable investments I ever made. It today pays the stockholders 12 per cent per annum on their stock, besides which it is laying away a residue as a reserve fund, to strengthen the institution, making it one of the most solid and reliable in the land. Shall we not patronize it? Shall we not sustain this industry? For it is an industry. We have a manufacturing department connected with it. We manufacture thousands of dollars’ worth of boot and shoes; yet we are not able to manufacture anything like the amount that the community demands. Then we have an overall department, and we export overalls to Denver and to other places. We ought to be exporters rather than importers; and when we become exporters of the products of our labor, then indeed we will be in a condition approaching independence, and we shall not be independent till then. We do not all want to be farmers; and it would not be wise for us all to be sugar makers. It will not do for everybody to be merchants and bankers, because if we were, who would produce the sugar, the bread, the clothing, and the other necessaries of life? We have a number of good cheese manufactories among us; but I do not know whether we have got far enough along to export cheese. Yet we ought to do it with the facilities we have here for raising lucern with and without irrigation. The Lord is opening the way for the people to raise lucern and grain, and even trees, on dry land without irrigation. I heard that Brother M. W. Merrill, one of the Twelve Apostles, who is here today, had said that if he were to be furnished with water free of cost to irrigate his land, that he would not accept of it to raise his grain with. (Brother Merrill here remarked that he had not watered his land for many years.) This is the finest lucern country that I know of; and we ought to raise good cows, and produce good milk, good butter and good cheese, sufficient to supply home consumption, and then we ought to have a little surplus to export. We ought to have more creameries, and we ought to buy home-made cheese, home-made butter, home-made sugar, home-made clothes, and all home-made articles, instead of patronizing those from abroad. If the people would do this, God would bless them, and they would become all the richer and the more prosperous; and those friends that are engaged in these manufactures would be encouraged, for their investments would not prove failures; and it would give more employment to the people, and create permanent wealth for the country. ¶

I felt like saying something about home industries. But I want you to understand there is no politics in it. It is simply plainly-told Gospel truth. It is the Gospel of temporal salvation that I am preaching to this congregation, the Gospel of common sense. It is the Gospel of reason—a Gospel that the Latter-day Saints should all honor and observe, and not have to be urged to do it, either. We ought to have been converted to this years ago and have enjoyed the benefits that would have resulted to us from it, instead of today sending our money out of the country in a continuous stream for that which can be produced at home just as well as it can be produced abroad. This wealth ought to be kept at home, and employment given to our people, so that they will not be found wandering up and down the streets and through the country without anything to do. I am satisfied of this. It is good Gospel, too, in its place, just as much as faith in God, repentance of sin, and baptism for the remission of sin, are good Gospel precepts in their place. This temporal Gospel pertains to our present welfare, to the building of temples, to the sending of the Gospel to the nations of the earth, to the gathering of the poor from distant lands, to publishing the word of God and distributing it abroad among the people, and to every material work involved in the progress and development of the community. You cannot do without it. The idler, saith the Lord, shall not eat the bread of the laborer in Zion. The Lord requires that we shall not be idlers. Our people should not be without employment, when there is plenty of means and plenty of intelligence among them to devise industries and to give employment to those who are unemployed. We have got to do it, or we are not wise stewards or faithful servants. ¶

I heard a prominent man, only this morning, make the remark that, notwithstanding the Latter-day Saints have received revelation from God with regard to the Word of Wisdom, and notwithstanding all the other conditions respecting this law, he believed that according to the number of the community there was more than tea, coffee and tobacco imported into Utah than into any other of the territories surrounding us. The question was asked, “What proportion, do you think, of the Latter-day Saints actually keep the Word of Wisdom—that is, do not drink tea, or coffee, or strong drink, nor use tobacco in any form?” And it was expressed as his belief that there was not more than one-tenth of the people who absolutely kept the Word of Wisdom. If this is so, it is lamentable. I do not say that it is so. I hope it is not. I would rather believe that it was only one-tenth of the people that did not keep the commandments of God in this regard. Many of us are in the condition that Brother Liljenquist expressed himself as being in, at one time, myself included, though you would hardly think it perhaps. He said that somehow or other he seemed to crave everything that the Lord had said was not good for man. ¶

I do not wish to parade my own weaknesses before you in order to tempt anyone. I only tell you that I have weaknesses as well as you. And if I can overcome my weaknesses, why cannot you overcome yours? If I, being fond of tobacco, can refuse to use it, why cannot you? If I, having a taste for liquor, do not use it, why cannot you do the same thing? And if I, being fond of tea and coffee, do not use them, why cannot you refrain from using them, too? That is the moral that I wish to impress upon your minds. That is the doctrine that I wish to teach you. I want to say to you that I, weak as I am, can refrain from these things, and therefore I believe that you can do the same if you will. I believe in the depths of my heart that if you will never take any more whiskey, or tea, or coffee, or tobacco, you will by and by have a good passport into the celestial city, if your other conduct is what it ought to be. I do not believe that I have ever indulged in these things to an extent that has grieved the Holy Spirit, or that has given offense to my Heavenly Father that He cannot forgive; and in the future I intend to do better than I have done in the past—to be more faithful, if possible, and live a better life, and be more cautious in my conduct and example. And furthermore, I intend in the future to patronize home industries more faithfully than I have done in the past. I propose to buy home-made blankets, and not these shoddy things that are brought from abroad, paying the manufacturers of them in Lowell, or Boston, or some other manufacturing town in the East. I propose to sustain the woolen factories in Provo, in Salt Lake, in Beaver and other parts of this Territory. I propose to patronize them to the extent of my necessities and means. I hope that everyone present will do the same and that you will carry this spirit abroad with you, and that you will instill this doctrine into the hearts and minds of the people where you live, that the inhabitants of these mountain valleys may become patrons of home industry, and thereby build up themselves, their own towns, cities and villages, establish real wealth among themselves, and give employment to their own people. May God help us to do this, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶