Opening Address and Causes for Rejoicing

I am delighted once more to have the opportunity of meeting with the Latter-day Saints in General Conference assembled. I am pleased indeed to see so large a congregation here today, considering the inclement weather of some months past, and the great need of our farming community to stay at home to prepare their farms for the coming harvest. It shows the faith of the Latter-day Saints when they neglect their ordinary temporal affairs, and, upon a week day, assemble in such large numbers as we see here before us. I believe this is one of the largest congregations I have seen for a number of years, except on the Sabbath day, of Conference when, as you know, the building is overcrowded and we have to hold overflow meetings. ¶

THE INSPIRATIONS FROM A NOTED HYMN ¶

I never hear the opening hymn, "Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear, but with joy wend your way," but that my heart goes out in gratitude and thanksgiving to God for these wonderful men and women who sang this hymn, day after day, and week after week, and month after month, as they were crossing the plains, coming fifteen hundred miles from the city of Nauvoo, where, as you know, they had been expelled by a mob. A gentleman said to me in substance, when I sang him this hymn one day as I was taking him up one of our beautiful canyons, "Mr. Grant, I have never heard a single verse of any hymn that has impressed me more with an absolute and perfect faith in the immortality of the soul of man than that last verse in your hymn, 'Come, come, ye Saints.' " Previously he had asked me for a copy of the hymn which I gave him, and in addition, I had given him a copy of The Songs of Zion. ¶

"And should we die before our journey's through, happy day, all is well. We then are free from toil and sorrow too, with the just ¶

we shall dwell." I am convinced that every one of the people who traveled a thousand miles over an almost trackless trail to these valleys of the mountains, and who sang this hymn, had an absolutely abiding testimony in their hearts and souls of the immortality of man. There is no doubt in the mind of any Latter-day Saint that the body shall be literally resurrected, that we shall meet God, our Father, in whose image we were made, that we shall meet our Redeemer, our elder brother, the Son of the living God. We have in very deed found the place which God for us prepared. We have in very deed been blessed of God. We have become, as the Prophet Joseph Smith predicted, a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains. He said that the Saints should continue to suffer much persecution and affliction, that many should be put to death by our persecutors, and others should live to go and assist in building cities and making settlements and should become a great and a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains. This part of the country was then considered a worthless tract ; it was put down upon the maps as the "Great American Desert," but the inspiration of the living God to Joseph Smith as shown by the prophecy that he uttered and had recorded, was that we were to come here; and we have come here, and we have become a mighty people in the midst of these mountains. Brigham Young announced that in vision the Lord had shown him this valley, and when he stood upon the hill to the east and saw the valley, he said "This is the place." When I think of this great building erected by him and remember that the few nails used in it cost at the rate of $1.00 a pound, and that it is held together with wooden pins and tied with raw-hide — when I think of the erection of this building and the organ here and all the great things that were accomplished under the direction of that wonderful pioneer, especially when I hear this hymn, my heart goes out in gratitude, that I, too, had a father who was one of those who came here in early days as a pioneer and that he had in his heart the love of God and the faith that God had prepared a place for us, far away in the West. ¶

CONCERNING THE GREAT SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE INTERMOUNTAIN COUNTRY ¶

I have received a communication asking me if I did not think I had charged a little bit too much when I received $900,000 commission for raising $2,100,0001 to help out the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company. I did not get one dollar of commission, neither did the "Mormon" Church get a dollar of commission ; but the "Mormon" Church used its credit for $2,100,000 to buy $3,000,000 of preferred stock, (less the limited amount which the share holders took, which was a little less, as I remember it, than 10 per cent of the capital stock). We did this to save the sugar industry, and I spent weeks of my time borrowing money for the Church — something we do not like to do, and ¶

would not have done except to save a great industry, for the benefit of the farmers and the stockholders of the company. ¶

I want to say to the Latter-day Saints that the first beet sugar factory ever built in the United States of America, with American machinery, was built by the people of Utah, at Lehi ; but for the fact that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints used its credit and borrowed the money to build that factory, during the panic of 1891, that factory would never have been built. I was utilized by President Woodruff and his counselors as the financial agent of the Church, and I went to New York, to Boston, to Hartford, to Philadelphia, to San Francisco and other places, and borrowed money upon the credit of the Church to finish that factory, for the people who had subscribed for stock in it, because of the panic, failed to fulfil their pledges. It is only fair to say that many of the bankers were not willing to loan money to build that factory, even to the Church, because banks were failing all over the country. I made a proposition to the bank that loaned the last $100,000 for the building of the factory that if the banker, the cashier and manager of Wells Fargo Bank of San Francisco, would write the names of twenty-five of the strongest financial men in Salt Lake City who were "Mormons" I would promise that twenty out of that twenty-five would individually and collectively guarantee the payment of the $100,000. i used to be his office boy in Salt Lake City when he was the manager of Wells Fargo Bank here, and I pleaded with him that as he believed in me as a boy, to believe in me now as a man and as one of the leaders of the "Mormon" Church. He laughed and said, "Why, Heber, that is an impossibility, no set of men on the face of the earth would guarantee four Church notes for $25,000 each. I said, "All I ask is for you to give me the privilege, and if I fail to get the twenty signatures, then I do not ask you to loan me the money." He said, "My boy, I will go you 100 per cent better; you offer me a margin of five; I will give you a margin of ten. I will write thirty names, and if you can get twenty out of the thirty, your Church can have the money." He wrote four or five, tore up the slip of paper, threw it in the waste-basket and said, "By the way, Heber, twelve or fourteen years have passed since I left Salt Lake, many a man who was wealthy then may be busted now ; I will just have my successor in Salt Lake write those thirty names and when you take him the notes he will pay you the money. I came home and the man wrote thirty names. I secured twenty-four signatures out of the thirty and three of the men on the list were out of the city, and I secured one endorser who was not on the list, the late David Eccles, who was worth more than any half dozen of the men who signed. David Eccles who heard me telling the story, asked me the question, "Is my name one of the thirty?" When I said, "No," he said, "I would like to look at those notes." I had said they were payable, one in six months, one in twelve months, one in eighteen months and one in twenty-four months. ¶

He did not look at the face of them ; he turned them wrong side up and wrote his name on the back of them and said, "My name won't hurt them." Then he said, "You tell President Wilford Woodruff that David Eccles always keeps two or three hundred thousand dollars where he can put his hand on it by giving thirty days' notice, and that, as these notes fall due, if he will give me thirty days' notice, I will take them up, and he can pay me in one year or five years or ten years or whenever convenient. ¶

There is, perhaps, nothing more tiresome to an audience, accustomed to hearing a man speak always without reading, than for him to read to them, but I am going to tire you by reading an editorial from the Improvement Era, entitled, "Integrity and Industry :" ¶

"In the practical religion of the Latter-day Saints, we find not only spirituality, but integrity; not only faith, but works" * * * * ¶

I may not have been a very good preacher of the gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ, from the standpoint of doctrinal preaching, but I have endeavored, to the best of my ability, since I was called as a boy forty odd years ago, to preside over the Tooele stake of Zion, and forty years this coming October, to be one of the apostles of the Lord, Jesus Christ, to preach the doctrine of St. James, "I will show thee my faith by my works." He wanted men to show their faith by their works ; and I have announced to the Latter-day Saints time and time again from my first public speech lasting seven and a half minutes, after my call to the ministry, +hat I did not ask any man to be a more honest tithe payer, or a more perfect observer of the Word of Wisdom, or to be a better observer of his family and secret prayers, or to be more liberal in proportion to his means, for the advancement of God's kingdom, than I would be ; and, thank the Lord, I have kept that promise, made to the people of Tooele. I believe in the Latter-day Saint who is honest with the Lord, God Almighty, who believes it a privilege to contribute to the Lord one-tenth of all that the Lord puts into his hands, I believe in the man who goes down on his knees and supplicates God every day of his life for the guidance that comes from above ; I believe in the man who observes the Word of Wisdom and who has faith enough not to take into his system those things that the Lord, God Almighty has revealed to us are not good for man. ¶

.<* * * * no(- only thrift, but industry, not only co-operation, but unselfish service. In a community where these characteristics predominate, the consequence must necessarily result in a God-fearing, clean, loyal, prosperous and dependable people. ¶

"As an illustration of these remarks, we cite the wisdom displayed in the saving of the sugar industry of Utah and Idaho from the recent threatened disaster. The founding of the sugar industry was one of the grandest happenings that could come to the West, and is an illustration of the wisdom, faith, and integrity of those who stood and who stand at its head. Had this great industry, which was seriously threatened, not been sustained and protected, the disastrous effects would indeed have been far-reaching.. ¶

and the loss most dreadful,, not only to business, but to individual producers as well. ¶

"In view of these facts, and considering the benefits to be derived from this accomplishment, the following statement, from one who is well-informed on the subject, must prove of great interest, both to manufacturers and farmers, as well as to the people in general: ¶

" 'For the various sugar companies of Utah and Idaho during the season of 1921, there were approximately 1601.000 acres of sugar beets grown by approximately 16,000 farmers. About half of this amount was raised for the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company. The 16,000 farmers delivered from the 160. - 000 acres to the various companies in the two states approximately 1,600',- ¶

000 tons of beets, from which upwards of 4,000,000 bags of sugar have been manufactured, whichif sold at the present price of about $4.50 per bag, would amount to approximately $18,000,000, this being distributed, about one-half to the farmer, and the other half to the workmen and manufacturers for material, etc. While the manufacturers of this sugar will undoubtedly sustain a loss, unless the price of sugar increases, yet the benefits to be derived from the circulation of this vast sum of money, during this period of financial .distress), is of inestimable value. It furnishes the very life's blood of our industrial pursuits, and will assist in tiding this section of the country over, in some of its financial difficulties. ¶

Speaking of circulation of the blood reminds me of the fact that a dollar as the circulating medium of finance, is to the body of the financial world, exactly what a drop of blood is to the human body. ¶

1 understand there are about twenty pounds of blood in the human body, and that the heart handles about four ounces every time it beats; therefore it handles, since the heart beats about eighty times a minute, the whole twenty pounds every minute. Multiply this quantity by sixty, and then multiply it by twenty-four, and you get more than ten tons — yet there are only twenty pounds of blood which circulate continuously every twenty-four hours. Twenty pounds of circulating medium ; ten tons of work every twenty-four hours — the heart, just about the size of my hand, is a wonderful little pump. It goes, with some people, over ninety years, without even being told to go. Of course, it just accidentally dropped inside of us, and just accidentally goes on, according to the ideas of some people! ¶

Now, it is estimated that a dollar does from $25 to $100 worth of work every year. Just figure it out — if you can get a string of figures long enough — what this $18,000,000 would do, if it did a hundred times that much work every year. Brother Ivins had an interesting check. A man in Arizona, where they have had great money depression and are hard up on account of the discontinuance of the high prices for cotton, drew up a check for $25. When the check was returned it had paid $500 in debts, having twenty endorsers. I heard the manager of the Federal Reserve bank in our city say that some six or seven months ago there were forty odd million dollars of rediscounts in that bank, and that they had been reduced to twenty-two and a fraction. I want to give it, as my judgment, that as 85 per cent of all the sugar that is raised in the intermountain country has to go to or beyond the Missouri river, if the vast sum of money, resulting from sugar sales had ¶

not been brought here, instead of the Federal Reserve Bank having only twenty odd millions of rediscounts today, it would have nearer thirty odd millions. ¶

I have often told the story about Bishop Geo. E. Farrell, who bought some home-made shoes and paid for them at the depot, and then found his $5 went around and around and at last landed in his own pocket after paying $25 worth of debts. He said he bought homemade goods because it kept the money at home and helped build up the community. I recommend this, because, since I was a youth of 17 or 18, I bought but one suit of clothes in Salt Lake.until the mills closed, not made from cloth manufactured in the old Provo Woolen Mills. I heard Brigham Young deliver a sermon here, telling the people who were then a thousand miles from supplies, that we should be selfsustaining and should patronize home manufacturing institutions. I patronized the Provo Woolen Mills from that day until the day the mills closed. The one suit purchased in Salt Lake that was not made from Provo goods, was when I had the honor of being in the Legislature. We gave a ball to the members of the Wyoming legislature. I was wearing at that time a gray Provo suit; but did not want to be the only white sheep at the ball in the theatre ; so I bought a handme-down black suit from the Z. C. M. I — "Prince Albert." The next day I gave that thirty odd dollar suit to a poor relative. I said I did not want to have it on, if I should happen to want to preach on supporting home manufacture. • ¶

" 'Had this financing not been accomplished, business concerns throughout this section would have been shaken to their very foundations and would have suffered great losses. ¶

" 'To produce the $18,000,000 resulting from the 160,000 acres of beets and the sugar manufactured therefrom, it would take 1,000,000 acres of grain or 1,500,000 acres of alfalfa at the present prices. Therefore the sugar beet crop manufactured into sugar has produced, in the gross, five or six times, at least, as much per acre as that of the other standard crops of this section. \t also furnishes thousands of people with employment both in and out of the factories, which the other crops do not furnish. ¶

" 'Besides, the by-products of the beet crop, such as tops, pulp and syrup, have fed thousands of head of cattle, sheep and dairy cows, thus producing abundance of beef, mutton and dairy products, for home consumption and shipment abroad, the returns for which have been brought back to the two states above mentioned. Futher, the feeding of the livestock on the farms helps to keep up the fertility. It has been thoroughly demonstrated that the growing of sugar beets raises the standard of farming and increases the yields of other crops to follow. The countries of the old world, as well as the new, where sugar beets have been grown for a long period of years, have proved that where 25 per cent of the land has been used for beet culture the remaining 75 per cent has raised as much in cereals as the 100 per cent produced before sugar beets were grown. The deep plowing required for this crop, the intense cultivation of the soil, and the sma'l, fine rootlets of the beets, that penetrate deeply into the soil, and are left there to pass off into the soil, are all beneficial to other crops in the rotation system which so many of the farmers have learned to follow.' " ¶

This is the end of the quotation from whoever furnished this information. The associate editor of the Era, Edward H. Anderson, than whom no more faithful, no more upright, no more diligent man is in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, makes the following comment: ¶

"Both business and agriculture have indeed cause to be thankful that the policy pursued in the beginning of the sugar industry in Utah, about thirty years ago, is still to be continued." ¶

After hearing an adverse report to establishing the industry, made by a committee of leading financial minds of Utah, President Wilford Woodruff said, "The beet sugar industry will be beneficial to this community, and although it may break the Church, it shall be established." To the inspiration of the Lord to that man, we are indebted for the establishment of this great industry. ¶

HOME MANUFACTURE ¶

I am delighted to say that within the last week, I have placed an order for a suit of clothes from goods made at the Knight Woolen factory. Go thou and do likewise. I am delighted to say that I am standing in shoes that are made here at home. Go thou and do likewise. We sing, "We thank thee, O God, for a prophet to guide us in these latter days," but many of us ought to put a postscript on it, "Provided he doesn't guide us to do something that we do not want to do." ¶

GOVERNMENT AID TO INDUSTRY ¶

During the past year, on account of the financial distress and other troubles, I have had to go to New York and Washington three times. I want to say that I am delighted to be a citizen of this great Republic. I am delighted that we are a great and powerful nation; I am delighted that the men who stand at the head of this nation are anxious for the welfare of the farmer, the stock-growers, the beet industry and every other industry in our country. I believe that, except for the aid extended by the Government of the United States, through the War Finance Committee, amounting to about nine million, five hundred thousand dollars, our beet sugar industry could not have survived. Bankers from San Francisco, Chicago and New York declined to assist when we appealed for aid to harvest our beet crops, for some of our factories here. We asked for an adjournment of fortyeight hours. The next day a committee of influential men from this City and from Denver presented our claims to Mr. Eugene Meyer, Jr., the manager of the War Finance Committee, and to his associates. Mr. Meyer introduced us to the President of the United States, who very kindly said, "These men are entitled to your help." Before the day was over we were pledged ten million dollars upon our stock of sugars, with which to harvest the beet crop and to furnish the money to pay the farmer. That money came to us rapidly. The next day, when we went back to New York, where we had been met with a cold reception and no promise of help, arrangements were made for a year's extension upon several millions of obligations of some of the sugar companies. I am grateful for our wonderful country. ¶

SERVICES AND LIBERTIES OF OUR GREAT AND GLORIOUS COUNTRY ¶

Speaking of our wonderful country reminds me that recently I heard, three speeches by Herbert Hoover, which are among the most remarkable that I have heard in my life. One was given at the Commercial Club, one before the Engineer's Association of Utah and the third one before the Rotarians. I have just sent a copy of the speech before the Rotarians to the Deseret News, to be printed next Saturday. I would to the Lord that every American citizen would read that speech. I will read the closing paragraph. He had told of the feeding of millions upon millions by our great and glorious country, and he closed by saying: ¶

"I feel certain that it is more important to our country both spiritually and materially that we should have planted the American flag in the hearts of 250,000,000 people, than that we should maintain it at the masthead of any battle-ship we have yet built." ¶

While I think of it, I am grateful for the success of that wonderful Disarmament Conference recently held in Washington, as a result of which millions upon millions of dollars of battleships will be peaceably sunk, instead of being used as engines of war to kill hosts of people and to be sunk in battle ; and that the armaments of the great countries have been reduced. ¶

A FIVE WEEKS' REST AND ACTIVITY IN CALIFORNIA ¶

I recently had the pleasure of spending a little more than five weeks in Southern California. After the strenuous time that I had in the East, and the multiplicity of duties that devolve upon me, I took my first long rest since I was a boy of fifteen. Nevertheless, mail followed me and I kept a stenographer busy most of the time while I was resting. In addition I had the pleasure of attending meetings in the wonderful city of Los Angeles, which is growing by leaps and bounds, in Ocean Park, in San Bernardino, in Fresno, in Bakersfield, in Long Beach and in San Diego. I attended nine meetings in five weeks. Notwithstanding the "loaf," so to speak, that I had down there, I did quite a bit of work. We dedicated a meeting-house in San Bernardino, and I feel to rejoice that upon the spot of ground that was originally settled by "Mormon" pioneers, we now have our own meeting-house. The United States sent an army against us because some run-away judges lied and said that we had burned the court records and that we were in rebellion, etc., etc. ; when these charges were afterwards proved to be false we were pardoned for sins that we had not committed. At, that time the "Mormon" pioneers in San Bernardino were called home from the great California ranch which they had bought and which today, no doubt, is worth more than all the possessions of the Church of Jesus Christ ¶

of Latter-day Saints, several times over. The fact is that those who remained there and who did not come back when Brigham Young called them, lost their faith; and every Latter-day Saint who believes and knows that we have the truth, realize that the saving of one soul is of greater value than all the wealth of the world. Therefore we feel to thank the Lord that about 95 per cent of the San Bernardino settlers came back to Utah. I thank the Lord that upon the spot in California where once the Latter-day Saints were established, we now have our own meeting-house. ¶

I rejoice thoroughly in the wonderful spirit of the gospel which I found in my recent labors in California. There are no people in all the wide world that can compare with the Latter-day Saints in fulfiling the admonition of our Redeemer to keep the first and second great commandents, "Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind" ; and the second is like unto it, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." ¶

WONDERFUL MISSIONARY WORK OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS ¶

When I think of the wonderful missionary work of the Latterday Saints, the five hundred, the thousand, and some years two thousand men at a time who go out at their own expense, with no hope of earthly reward, to proclaim an unpopular doctrine, solely because of the love of their fellow men, I rejoice in this gospel of Jesus Christ that inspires men with a willingness to perform such service. When I think of the twenty long years that have been given in proclaiming the gospel without money and without price, by my counselor, President Charles W. Penrose, now 90 years old — twenty long years in his native land, ten years as a young man from nineteen to twentynine, without purse and without scrip — .without hope of earthly reward, I rejoice in the testimony and the knowledge of the gospel that must be in a man's heart who will give such wonderful evidence of the love of God and the love of his fellow man. No peoples in all the world can compare with the Latter-day Saints in giving of their time and their money for the benefit of their fellows, to carry to them the glad tidings of great joy. The California mission is growing by leaps and bounds as are all of our missions. ¶

EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES — CHURCH AND SECULAR ¶

That reminds me that I have a few missionary statistics here in connection with some others, that I will now read : ¶

"There have been expended for the year 1921 for stake and ward purposes in the maintenance of operation of the stakes and the wards of the Church, $925,270. ¶

"Education — Expended for the maintenance and operation of Church schools and seminaries, $893,000. i ¶

I will read something about education from a great educator, Nicholas Murray Butler, President of the Columbia University. This was. sent to me by the President of the Brigham Young College : ¶

"The little red schoolhouse of the generation that followed the Civil War, with its wretchedly poor equipment but with an earnest and devoted teacher who laid stress upon character-building and upon the fundamentals of intellectual training, did more for the American people than does many a costly and well-equipped educational palace such as may be seen in any part of the United States today. ¶

"It is significant, too, that in this period of vigorous and able-bodied reaction the world should be without a poet, without a philosopher, and without a notable religious leader. The great voices of the spirit arte all stilled just now. while the mad passion for gain and for power endeavors to gratify itself through the odd device of destroying what has already been gained or accomplished. ¶

"The simple business of training young children in good habits of diet and exercise and conduct; of teaching them the elementary facts of the nature which surrounds them and of the society of which they form a part; and of giving them ability to read undcrstandingly, to write legibly and to perform quickly and with accuracy the fundamental operations with numbers, has been pushed into the background by all sorts of enterprises that have their origin in eimotionalism in ignorance, or in mlere vanity. ¶

"There is no man, there is no people, without a God. That God may be a visible idol, carved of wood, or stone, to which sacrifice is offered in the forest,, in the temple, or in the market-place; or it may be an invisible idol, fashioned in a man's own image and worshiped ardently at his own personal shrine. Somewhere in the universe there is that in which each individual has firm faith, and on which he places steady reliance. The fool who says in his heart, "There is no God" really means there is no God but himself. His supreme egotism, his colossal vanity, have placed him at the center of the universe which is thereafter to be measured and dealt with in terms of his personal satisfactions. So it has come to pass that after nearly two thousand years much of the world resembles the Athens of St. Paul's time, in that it is wholly given to idolatry; but in the modern case there are as many idols as idol worshipers, and every such idol worshiper finds his idol in the looking-glass. The time has come once again to repeat and to expound in thundrous tones the noble sermon of St. Paul on Mars Hill, and to declare to these modern idolaters "Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you." ¶

A gentleman sent out several hundred letters to representative ministers, and asked them the question: "Do you believe in God, a personal God, a definite and tangible intelligence, not a congeries of laws floating like a fog in the universe, but God a person, in whose image you were made?" Not a minister answered, "yes." They said they could not be certain about a thing of that kind. There is no Latter-day Saint who does not believe absolutely in God as a personal being, and that the scripture tells the truth when it says "In the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." The foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ, organized ninety-two years ago today, is based upon the appearance of the Liord, God Almighty, a glorified Being beyond the power of man to describe, to a boy not yet fifteen years of age. It is based upon the appearance of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the express image of the Father, to that boy. In answer to the boy's simple question, "Which of all the churches on earth today is the true one," the Lord God Almighty pointed to His Son and said to that boy, "This is my ¶

beloved Son ; hear Him." When the question was repeated, which church to join, that boy was told to> join none of them; that they had all gone astray. lie was given to understand that he would be the instrument in the hands of God of again establishing upon the earth the gospel of Jesus Christ. We declare to all the world that God lives, that He is the Father of our spirits, that He is absolutely the Father of Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the world. Men say we lack liberality and breadth, because we say we are the only true Church. We are not lacking in liberality or breadth ; the Redeemer of the world, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, said it, and we are repeating what He said. We believe in allowing all men absolute freedom to worship where and what they may, but we declare to all the world the truth as it has been revealed to us through the Prophet Joseph Smith. All men, all women, from the midnight sun country of Scandinavia to South Africa, from Canada to South America, or upon the Islands of the sea, who have entered the waters of baptism and joined the Church of Christ, believe that Joseph Smith was in very deed a prophet of the true and living God, and that God is a person and talked to the boy Joseph. The whole world may declare they do noi believe that Joseph Smith saw God, the whole world may declare that they do not believe that Jesus Christ appeared to him or delivered a message, but all the disbelief of the world cannot change that message and the truth of it, as it was delivered. Joseph Smith declared that three years after the First Vision, in answer to. fervent prayer, an angel of God appeared and delivered a message to him ; that the angel disappeared and leturned and repeated his message again; that he again dissappeared and returned the third time. The entire night was consumed with the three repetitions of that message which was that there were buried, in the Hill Cumorah, some golden plates upon which was inscribed the sacred history of the forefathers of the American Indians, and that he should be the instrument in the hands of God of translating those plates. The plates have been translated and the translation is now known as the Book of Mormon. ¶

"Oh," says one, "I do not believe he ever had the plates." If he had the plates, the disbelief of the world cannot change it. Joseph Smith announced that John, the Baptist, came to the earth laid his hands upon the heads of Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith, and ordained them to the Aaronic Priesthood, with authority to baptize; and he also announced that Peter, James and John came to the earth and delivered the authority to build up the Church of Christ, by laying their hands upon them and by ordaining them to the Melchizedek or the higher Priesthood and by bestowing upon them the Apostleship. So, to all the world we declare these truths, and the disbelief of all the world cannot change the fact, for it is a fact. God has given to the Latter-day Saints by the revelations of His Spirit a knowledge that this is true. Again reading from Prest. Butler's remarks: "We are trustees of a great inheritance. If we abuse or neglect that trust, ¶

we are responsible before Almighty God for the infinite damage that will be done in the lives of individuals and of nations." ¶

I will have this extract from the speech of Nicholas Murray Butler, part of which I have read, published in full in the Era. 1 I think you will all enjoy reading it. ¶

I rejoice in the very splendid exercises that we had yesterday up at the University. You will undoubtedly be able to read the speeches that were made. I thoroughly enjoyed them, and I am sure you will. ¶

There has been expended for educational purposes $893,000. ¶

This is over 100 per cent, nearly 150 per cent more than it was a few years ago. I regret, because of the falling off in tithing, the discontinuance of dividends from sugar companies and other institutions, that we will have to curtail very materially during the coming year, our school activities. ¶

CHURCH CHARITIES AND MISSION EXPENDITURES ¶

Expenditures for Temples : — Expended for the construction, maintenance and operations of temples, $170,000. ¶

Charities : — Amount expended from the tithes, $266,649. ¶

There was expended for charities through the Relief Socities and other sources, $459,769, therefore the total expenditures for Church charities last year was $726,733. ¶

You wi'l notice that the total expenditures not including the Relief Society disbursements, amount to $2,255,234, which is for stake and ward purposes, education, temples and charities. ¶

Mission Expenditures ¶

For the erection of chapels and the maintenance and operation of all the missions $518,647. In additions to the payments made from Church funds for mission purposes, we estimate there has been sent to missionaries by their families and friends, $860,640. ¶

By the way, we have heard it remarked by some people, that they had quit paying tithing because all the tithing comes to Salt Lake City, and that they would like to build up their own local section. For the benefit of the Saints, I will announce that 84 2-3 per cent of all the tithes collected, in the missions and in the Church, is sent back to the stakes, wards and missions. So the immense amount that is used up here won't hurt anybody very much. ¶

CHURCH GROWTH AND VITAL STATISTICS ¶

Children blessed and entered on the records of the Church in the stakes and ¶

missions 20,441. ¶

Children baptized in the stakes and missions 15,404. ¶

Converts entered on the records of the Church by baptism 7,113 ¶

Net increase in Church membership for the year 1921 22,779 ¶

There are now 86 stakes of Zion, 879 wards, 24 missions and 789 branches in the missions. ¶

Birth rate, 37.3 per thousand. Death rate, 8.2 per thousand. ¶

Families owning their own hemes, 75 per cent. ¶

VITAL STATISTICS ¶

We are a very wicked and bad people, according to liars over in England and some other places, even in this country. As a rule no bad people have a high birth rate. No civilized people, who are bad, have a low death rate. No bad people have a low proportion of the inmates of the penitentiary. The Ex-Governor of Arizona was reputed to have said — I did not hear him say it, but George Albert Smith and Joseph F. Smith say they did; that no better citizens could be found in Arizona than the "Mormons." In one particular, considering the expenditure of the state taxes, he said they were being robbed of between 2500 and 3000 per cent, because in proportion to their population they ought to have in the Arizona State Penitentiary from twenty-five to thirty inmates and they only had one. He said that in another respect they were being robbed, also, for they ought to have seven or eight in the Insane Asylum, and did not have any. The first time I went to Arizona, after I heard this story, I was speaking in the St. Johns meeting house, and when I expressed my gratitude that we were lacking twenty-four to twenty-nine inmates in the state penitentiary, a gentleman got up and said that he was the District Judge in Apache county and that the one "Mormon" inmate of the penitentiary had been pardoned. When Governor Campbell was here with the Governors of the states of the Union, he and some others did us the honor to call upon my counselors and myself, and I repeated this story to the Governor. ' He laughed and said, "Yes, I remember, he was from Apache county." ¶

I have been connected, since the time I was a boy of fifteen— fifty long years — with the insurance business. The death rate in the great life insurance companies, like the Mutual Life and the New York Life, that I also represented, (neither of whom would insure me, because I was too long and lean, and they had a rule you know, that a man has to be somewhere within the bounds of proportion before he is fit to be insured) is ten and a fraction to the thousand, yet this bad, immoral people that are sending out missionaries to secure girls practically for brothels and houses of ill-fame, according to the liars in England, whose lies have caused mobs to break all of the windows in our London meeting house and to have the Government itself consider the question whether they will let a "Mormon" preach in that fair land ; this people has a death rate nearly 20 per cent lower than the great life insurance companies. "By their fruits ye shall know them." I am at the defiance of the world to prove that there can be found in any land or in any clime a community that by their fruits of honesty, of integrity, of virtue, of sobriety, of all these things that go to make a good community — can show anything better by their vital statistics than can the Latter-day Saints. I rejoice indeed, my brethren and sisters, in the knowledge that we have that we are serving God and that we are keeping His commandments and that ¶

sooner or later those who know not the Truth, if they will investigate our message and will investigate the record we have made, will have to put the stamp of honesty, of sobriety, of integrity, of love of fellow-men and of love of God and the love of country upon the Latter-day Saints. ¶

MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES ¶

Number on foreign missions 1,688 ¶

Missionaries laboring in the stakes of Zion 2,046 ¶

Books of Mormon and standard Church works distributed in stakes and ¶

missions 252,879 ¶

Gospel tracts distributed in stakes and missions 8,746,793 ¶

Gospel meetings held in stakes and missions 171,049 ¶

Temple Work ¶

Baptisms, endowments, and sealing for living and dead performed in the temp'es in the year 1921 646,410 ¶

Changes Since October Conference New Stakes Organized: — Lethbridge stake. ¶

New Stake Presidents :— President Hugh B. Brown, Lethbridge fgtake ; President Lewis R. Anderson, So. Sanpete stake; President James W. Funk, Benson stake; President John A. Beckstrand, Millard stake. ¶

New Wards Organized: — Moffatt ward, Roosevelt stake; Grand View ward, Utah stake; Solomonville ward), St. Joseph stake; McCornick ward, Millard stake; Brigham City Sixth ward, Box Elder stake; Cedron ward, Teton stake. ¶

Bishops Who Have Died: — Bishop Gilbert Taysome, Afton So. ward, Star Valley stake ; Bishop Frank Stanley, Poplar Grove ward, Pioneer stake ; Bishop John W. Ginger, Labelle ward, Rigby stake; Bishop Thomas H. Blackburn, Brigham City Second ward, Box Elder stake; a former Bishop, Thomas R, Cutler, of Lehi. ¶

DEATH OF WM. W. RITER ¶

We have lost by death the chairman of our auditing committee, William W. Riter, the Chairman of the Board of Regents of the University, a pioneer, one of the stalwart, faithful, diligent men of our Church. The last time I heard him preach, he delivered a sermon, which I sincerely regret was not reported. He announced that for some fifteen or twenty years, as I remember it, he had religiously, once a year, read the Book of Mormon through ; and he said, to his mind, it contained more inspiring and uplifting doctrine than any book that had ever been published. He said he was at the defiance of any man to find anything in the Book of Mormon, from cover to cover, to offend ; that everything taught was uplifting to mankind. He stated that he loved the contents of that book with all his heart. He bore a wonderful testimony of the divinity of this work; and of his intimate acquaintance and knowedge of the integrity of the men, from Brigham Young down to the present time who had stood at the head of the Church. He was only a boy when the Prophet Joseph Smith was martyred, but he knew him; he came here as a ¶

boy; he was one of the stalwarts of the business world in Utah. We mourn his loss. ¶

RETURN OF ELDER DAVID O. MCKAY FROM CIRCLING THE GLOBE ¶

I rejoice in this wonderful gathering. I rejoice in the knowledge which I possess that we are engaged in the work of the living God. I rejoice in the fact that Brother McKay is with us today. Brother McKay has circled the globe since he was last at a conference — has visited our missions in nearly every part of the world, and has returned, as every missionary does return who goes out to proclaim this gospel and comes in contact with the people of the world and with all the varieties of faiths of the world, with increased light, knowledge and testimony regarding the divinity of the work in which we are engaged. ¶

THANKFULLNESS AND CAUSES FOR REJOICING ¶

I thank God for the knowledge that I have that He lives. I thank God for the knowledge I have that Jesus Christ is thd Reedenier of the world. I thank God for the knowledge that I possess that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the true and the living God, and that this gospel, commonly called "Mormonism" is in very deed the plan of life and salvation. I thank the Lord that I know that the souls of men are precious in the sight of God, and that no other people upon all the earth are so ready, so willing, so anxious, as the Latter-day Saints are, to proclaim and spread the gospel so that those who embrace it may go back and dwell eternally in the presence of God, our heavenly Father. We, as a people, have cause to rejoice because of the rich outpouring of the Spirit of the living God upon the people all over the wide world, who have embraced the restored gospel. I do pray with all the power, with all the fervor ol my soul, that every Latter-day Saint who knows that God lives, who knows that Jesus Christ is our Redeemer, who knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet, may live the gospel, may proclaim it by their works of honesty, of integrity, of devotion, of a prayerful, upright life, that those who, know not the truth, by our example and our works may be led to investigate the message that we have to bear. This is my prayer and I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶