David A. Smith · 1927 April General Conference · 1927-04-06
Transcribed from the OCR of the official printed Conference Report published by the Deseret News and hosted at the Internet Archive (conferencereport1927a, underlying file conferencereport981chur_djvu.txt). Running heads, page numbers, and line-break hyphenation removed.
No witness list recorded beyond the primary source.
Proofread against the source text.
Proofread against the OCR/scan witness (Internet Archive conferencereport1927a); fixed scattered OCR errors (a stray trailing period after 'the spirit of', 'certaini}'' for 'certainly', a doubled comma, a running-head bleed splitting 'promised' mid-word, 'miany' for 'many', 'aiso' for 'also', 'o-etting' for 'getting', 'comjmunity' for 'community', a stray closing quote after 'depending', and similar), removed running heads and page numbers, and reflowed paragraphs. Replaced a reused-session-header placeholder title with a supplied title drawn from the talk's own self-description. Corrected date, session, and calling_at_time.
Collated word-by-word against the original scan.
Heavyweight pass: page-by-page collation against the conferencereport1927a djvu OCR (conferencereport981chur_djvu.txt); confirmed speaker via the printed running head 'ELDER DAVID A. SMITH' recurring at each page break in this talk and via the printed index ('Smith, Elder David A ... 161'). Confirmed this talk falls inside the Concluding Meeting (Fourth Day Afternoon Meeting, Wednesday, April 6, 1927), not the Second Day Morning Session as previously filed -- the printed text shows the CONCLUDING MEETING header opening at printed page 152, followed without a session break by Elder Stephen L. Richards's address (now 1927-04-51), Elder Melvin J. Ballard's address (1927-04-52), then this address, Elder John Wells's address (1927-04-54), Elder Rey L. Pratt's address (1927-04-55), and President Grant's sustaining of officers and closing remarks (1927-04-56, 1927-04-57), with no intervening session material. Corrected date from 1927-04-01/approximate to 1927-04-06/exact and session from 'Second Day Morning Session' to 'Fourth Day Afternoon Meeting (Concluding Meeting)', consistent with 1927-04-50 through 1927-04-52. Corrected calling_at_time from the generic 'General Authority' placeholder to 'First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric', matching Smith's actual office at this conference (per the convention used elsewhere in the vault, e.g. 1926-04-34). Corrected source_url page anchor from a proportional estimate (n162) to the exact leaf n164 using the item's page_numbers.json leaf map (printed page 162 = leaf 164, leaf = printed page + 2, matching the pattern confirmed across this conference's Fourth Day talks). Body text collated word-for-word against the OCR paragraph by paragraph, including the two closing scripture quotations. Replaced the placeholder title (a reused calling label, 'Of the Presiding Bishopric') with a supplied title drawn from the talk's own self-description, 'I am a son of the soil,' which also names its central theme (the relationship between the Saints, the soil, and cooperative industry).
This is a living critical edition. If you find a transcription, metadata, or sourcing error in this talk, report it to the editors →Reports are collated against the page scan and land as corrections in the vault.