Home Industries and the Word of Wisdom

I am very desirous my brethren and sisters, of enjoying that good spirit, while I speak, that the brethren have enjoyed who have already spoken in this conference. My heart has been full of gratitude, while I have listened to the words which have fallen from the lips of the Lord's servants. It is a splendid thing to have presiding over us, men of undoubted integrity and unswerving faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the utmost confidence, as well, in the Latter-day Saints, who have taken upon themselves the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and have covenanted with Him to serve Him and keep His commandments, and to labor to build up His kingdom and to spread a knowledge of the everlasting gospel among the children of men. It must certainly inspire us, as a people, with confidence in the leaders of the Church when we hear them bear such fervent testimonies of the truth, when we are unable to detect the least degree of doubt, or unbelief or uncertainly in their remarks concerning this great latter-day work. I rejoice to have part with them in the work of the Lord, and to be numbered with the people of God in this dispensation. I rejoice because of the general faithfulness of the members of the Church, and because of good works that the Latter-day Saints have done and are doing, and I live in hopes that the work shall progress in the future, and that our accomplishments shall be greater in the cause of Zion as time goes on. ¶

My mind has been occupied with a great many thoughts, since the conference convened, and it is a little difficult to gather such of those thoughts as would perhaps be the most beneficial to utter. However, I suppose, that a Latter-day Saints general conference, would not be entirely complete unless some few words were spoken about our home industries. I have visited the "Utah Products Exhibit" that is now on display in the Vermont Building, and I presume very many of you have likewise been through that building, looking at those products of our state. I was gratified in seeing what has been accomplished by way of producing here at home the necessaries and comforts of life. I was filled with a little greater pride in our State and in the people whose industry has brought about these results. We are certainly a favored people, in this part of the earth. The Lord has given us an incomparable climate ; He has planted our feet upon the richest of soil. We have, the climate and the soil, and the water,and through the favor of God the proper blending of the elements that make for the production of those things that are beneficial and necessary to sustain life. Of course we have to make preparation. If we are tillers of the soil, we have to fertilize it, plow it, cultivate it ; we have to select the seed and plant it with care, and watch it during its term of growth ; and when this is done, almost invariably, our harvest is bounteous and our labors prove profitable. The fruits of our orchards are unsurpassed in excellence. Nowhere in our country, or in any other country, can there be produced better fruit than here in the valleys of the mountains ; and the products of the farm, and field, and of the flock and herd, likewise, cannot be surpassed. ¶

We are yet in our infancy with respect to the mill and the factory, and yet our mills and factories are now making many of the essentials and luxuries of life, which should fill us with gratitude to know that they are being manufactured here — things which have been imported very extensively heretofore. Now, I am a believer in producing at home everything necessary for our comfort and welfare as far as it is possible, and I am not a believer in importing those things which we ourselves can either produce from the garden, or the farm, or the orchard, or can manufacture in our various industries. I feel that those who have made this exhibition are worthy of commendation, and that no higher commendation could be paid them for their energy than to mention the good work they are doing, in a conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ¶

I noticed the sign in the cabinet containing the products of the Knight Woolen Mills of Provo. It states that if every citizen, or individual who lives in the State of Utah would purchase one yard of the fabrics manufactured in those mills the company would not have to go out of the State for their business. I am satisfied that you cannot go out of the State and purchase better fabrics than are being manufactured now in the Knight Woolen Mills. I am satisfied, too, that everything that bears a Utah label is, or ought to be, the equal of, or an improvement upon a similar product no matter where it may be raised, manufactured, or put up ; and the time should come — it ought to be here now, and should have come long ago — when the things produced at home will be sought after and accepted, and demanded before anything else. Then it will be the same with respect to every industry, every home product, as with the woolen mills at Provo, that if we were to patronize them and support them, and use the products of our State, all of our present manufacturers, and many others, who will go into the manufacturing business, will find a splendid field for their operations. I commend again to the people of Utah, "Utah products" and I repeat the old old story that has been so often told from this stand, Let us patronize, support, and sustain our home industries, our home made goods, and give encouragement to those who have the determination or even the inclination to go into the business of producing at home the necessaries of life for the support and sustenance of our bodies and the making of our homes comfortable and pleasant. ¶

Now, much more could be said upon this subject but time will not permit, inasmuch as I would like to say a few words upon another subject which, also, except it was touched upon by some one of the brethren during our conference, the conference in my opinion would not be exactly complete. I want to speak just a word or two upon the question of the Word of Wisdom, another old story among the Latter-day Saints, but one, notwithstanding that it is "an oft told tale," has not altogether been learned to the extent of being remembered and practiced by all of the Latter-day Saints. ¶

I was greatly interested last evening at the Priesthood meeting in hearing the report of Brother Wm. W. Riter, chairman of the Auditing Committee of the Church, and of Presiding Bishop Nibley, concerning some of the statistics pertaining to the Latter-day Saints. I wish to refer especially to those statistics which had to do with the birth rate and the death rate among the Latter-day Saints. These statistics showed that the birth rate was high when compared with the birth rate of the country at large, and that the death rate was correspondingly low among the Latter-day Saints when compared with other peoples. It was stated that there are thirty-eight births per one thousand members of the church. I presume these figures refer to the stakes of Zion. It was also said however, that the rate is not as high as it ought to be among the Latter-day Saints ; still it is high; but as long as it is not as great as it ought to be, I desire to encourage the Latter-day Saints more faithfully in fulfilling this great law that God has given, viz. multiply and replenish after our kind. To beget children, and rear them in the fear and admonition of the Lord, is one of the chief purposes of our being. The statistics show that, if we have thirty-eight to the thousand born in the Church, last year it means there were more than 12,500 children born among the Latter-day Saints. Then it was shown that six percent of these children died before they were one year old. We were likewise told that the death rate among children under one year of age, in civilized countries, was twenty per cent, and that 25 percent died before they reached their fifth year. ¶

Now six percent is very low when we merely consider the percentage ; but if there were more than 12,500 children born in the stakes of Zion last year and six percent of them died within the year what does it mean ? It means that nearly 800, or well on towards a thousand of our little children, died before they were one year old ; and that, after all, is a great calamity, a serious condition nearly a thousand children among us dying before they reach the age of one year. Untold sorrow and suffering have been endured by the fond fathers and mothers and families of these little ones who are taken from them in their infancy. Now, in my opinion, this is a far greater death rate among little children than should occur in the midst of the Latter-day Saints, and I believe that if the Saints would more fully serve God and keep His commandments— in other words, observe the laws of life and health — that far fewer of their children would die before they are a year old. A great many of them who now die would live, not only till they are a year old but live to grow and mature to manhood and womanhood, and become a strength and a power in the midst of the Latter-day Saints. ¶

Our death rate was 8.6 per one thousand of our members. And that is a very low estimate, when compared with the deaths occurring about us in our country. When we look at the figures it means that two thousand eight hundred forty one Latter-day Saints died last year — of numerous complaints, various kinds of diseases, and by accidents and other causes, many of which troubles might have been avoided or overcome if the laws of God had been more faithfully obeyed. Thus an army of Latter-day Saints were destroyed last year largely as a result of disobedience to the laws of health. ¶

Out of this number it was stated, however, that three hundred ninety-eight (398) died of old age. It was held up that this is a very remarkable showing, nevertheless it is not the showing that we ought to make and must eventually make as a people. ¶

Our death rate must become much lower than that ; and the percentage of those who die of old age must be greater than that. The time must come, and will come in proportion as we begin to serve God and keep His commandments, observing the laws of life and health which He has given, when most of those who die among the Latter-day Saints will lay down their bodies of old age, after they have fulfilled the full mission for which they have been created. We had a very renowned lecturer in our midst a short time ago, who declared that the three great plagues that decimated the race and destroyed life were : war ; lust ; and narcotism ; and that the latter was destroying more lives than war. Now we are exempt from death to a very great degree, as a result of war. We are at peace, thank God. We are a peaceful people. We abhor bloodshed. We desire peace, that it shall prevail among men. And the second plague, I also thank God from the bottom of my heart, is not the cause of very many of the deaths among the Latter-day Saints, namely lust, which causes unspeakable misery and the death of untold thousands of people in our country and other civilized countries of the world; for as a result of evil and immoral practices children are born subject to disease and are unable to cope with sickness when attacked. They come into the world handicapped. They are, some of them, deformed, some of them blind, many of them deaf, some are lame, and a great many are imbecile as a result directly of the immorality and lust of their progenitors. I say thank the Lord that this cannot be charged among the Latter-day Saints as the cause of many of the deaths in our midst. But I am not so sure about the third plague, namely narcotism, the rise of so-called alcoholic beverages, intoxicants, the use of tobacco, and various drugs, and the use of tea and coffee. ¶

I believe it can be shown that a great part of the little children, who die among the Latter-day Saints are born of parents who have transmitted to them, before their birth, the elements of weakness and disintegration as a result of their disobedience to the commandments of God, in partaking of the things forbidden in the Word of Wisdom. It is folly for men to suppose that they can break the commandments of God and that they will not suffer for so doing. Immoral practices of every kind stain and corrupt and defile those addicted to them, and likewise leave their mark upon the children; and their children, thus handicapped, have not the vitality, they have not the power to resist the inroads of disease and infection, and various kinds of trouble when they break out in our communities. On the other hand children of parents who have been true and faithful to God, in the keeping of His commandments, are endowed from their parents with stronger bodies and greater vitality and ability to withstand more successfully by far these things when they are attacked. "The iniquities of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me," saith the Lord. The men and women who can be called them that hate God are the men and women who repudiate His laws and break His commandments, and defy Him by their disobedience. "But I the Lord will show mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments." Therefore those who serve the Lord and keep His commandments, walking in His paths, observing the laws of life, transmit to their children the vigor, power, and strength to live and to grow, and to complete and fulfill the object for which they are sent into the world; and that object is to live. ¶

God is the author of life, and not of death. He wants His children to live. Why, we are told that His very glory is to bring about the life, even the eternal life of man ; and the Lord is anxious that we live in mortality successfully and long, and thus be better prepared to enter into eternal life in the hereafter. I would like to see the children of the Latter-day Saints so born — and they are entitled to be so born — that they may be exempt from these contaminating things and these destroying diseases that take away so many lives from among men. I am satisfied that only in the keeping of the commandments of the Lord can this be brought about ; I am satisfied that by the keeping of the commandments of the Lord the prophecy of God shall be fulfilled, that in due time as the result of obedience, children born shall live to be as old as a tree. None shall die until they die of old age, having fulfilled the measure of their mortal creation. Therefore, I exhort again the Latter-day Saints to live the law of God known as the Word of Wisdom, that they may enjoy and receive the promise of health and long life, and marrow in their bones, the power to endure, to run and not weary, to walk and not faint, and to put themselves in the condition where even the angel of death shall pass them by ; for so the Lord has spoken. ¶

I would like to suggest to the Relief Society sisters that they keep the Word of Wisdom ; and I would like to commence at the very head of the Relief Societies in the Church, and go down through all the Relief Society sisters in the Church and plead with them who are the mothers, and the sisters who will be the mothers, of the children of God, to keep the Word of Wisdom that their children may be endowed with strength and power and vitality and energy, that they may live and not die. Besides, if you observe these laws, your faith in God shall be increased, and by virtue of your faith, you will have great power in the Lord to prevail in all the righteous desires of your hearts, even to the healing of the sick when perchance members of your household may be afflicted with disease, or accident, or trouble that threatens their lives. And what is more important than all, in addition to strong, vigorous bodies and active, bright minds, your children will grow up mighty in faith and the knowledge of the Gospel. ¶

I would say to the elders in Israel who hold the Priesthood, keep the Word of Wisdom; cease taking into your bodies forbidden and destroying things, such as narcotics of all kinds, that you may transmit to your children bodies strong and undeformed, and not weakened by disease or afflicted by deformity, or blindness, or deafness, or other disability. That you may be examples of righteousness before your children and before all men. I want to say to all you elders of Israel, and I can say it with the utmost thankfulness, that, so far as my knowledge goes — and I believe I know — the general authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from the President down, are men who are setting an example before the people of faithfulness and obedience, with respect to the law of God known as the Word of Wisdom. They are not smokers of tobacco, nor drinkers of alcohol, nor of tea or coffee. They are exempt and free from those things, and they set us a good example. Let us follow that example and serve the Lord, and keep His commandments, that our children may be blessed unto the latest generation. ¶

Now, may the Lord bless us and pour out His Spirit upon the Saints may we accept — oh, that the Lord could put into our hearts a willingness to accept — the advice and counsel that may be given to us from time to time, and fill our souls with a desire, above all, to serve the Lord, that we may live to fulfill our mission, work out our own salvation, train up our children in the way they should go that they may be prepared to spread the Gospel to the nations of the earth, and thereby become saviors of men, to call all men to repentance and to plead with them to turn from their sins and serve God and keep His commandments, that they likewise shall be entitled to eternal life. May the Lord bless our brethren who shall follow in addressing this conference, pour out upon them that good Spirit, and use them as His servants, to speak to the assembled Saints, to their edification and advancement, to the strengthening of their faith and to the building up and promoting of all the glorious interests of Zion, is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶