Church Expenditures and Faith in the Gospel

I rejoice exceedingly in having the opportunity of again meeting with the Latter-day Saints in General Conference. ¶

It has been customary for many years in the opening of these conferences to give a statement regarding the expenditures in the various stakes of Zion, and for other purposes. ¶

The expenditures by the Church for the year 1931 are as follows : ¶

Stake and Ward Purposes: ¶

There has been returned from the tithes to the stakes and wards for the construction of ward and stake meeting houses ¶

For ward maintenance expenses ¶

For stake maintenance expenses ¶

Education : ¶

$ 545,630.69 ¶

647,194.36 ¶

254,025.41 ¶

$1,446,850.46 ¶

Expended for the maintenance of Church school system. . $ 751,200.28 ¶

Temples : ¶

Expended for the construction, maintenance, and operation ¶

of temples ¶

Charities : ¶

201,833.50 ¶

For the care of the worthy poor and other charitable purposes, including hospital treatment ¶

Missions : ¶

224,556.38 ¶

For the maintenance and operation of all the missions, and ¶

for the erection of places of worship and other buildings in the missions ¶

Total ¶

757,126.76 ¶

$3,381,567.38 ¶

which has been taken from the tithes and other Church funds and returned by the Trustee-in-Trust to the Saints for the maintenance and operation of the stakes and wards for the maintenance and operation of Church schools and Temples, for charities and mission activities. ¶

Other Charities: ¶

In addition to charities paid from the tithes as before named, there has also been disbursed the fast offerings, other charities, and assistance rendered by the Relief Society in the sum of $455,423.46, which amount, added to the $224,556.38 paid from the tithes, makes the total, charity assistance rendered by the Church. .$ 679,979.84 ¶

There has been collected by the various wards of the Church ¶

and paid to missionaries to assist in their maintenance 66,783.90 ¶

MEMBERS SPEND MILLION ¶

Undoubtedly there has been expended by the people themselves, in sending missionaries out into the world and taking care of them while there, considerably more than one million dollars. ¶

STATISTICS AND OTHER DATA COMPILED FROM THE ANNUAL REPORTS FOR THE YEAR 1931 ¶

We have at the present time: Stakes of Zion, 104; wards, 934; Independent branches, 70 ; Dependent branches, 35 ; total wards and branches in the stakes of Zion, 1,039; missions, 30; mission branches 860 ; districts, 266. ¶

CHURCH GROWTH ¶

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

stakes and missions ¶

Children baptized in the stakes and missions ¶

19,804 ¶

15,283 ¶

Converts baptized and entered on the records of the stakes and ¶

missions 7,596 ¶

Number of long-term missionaries from Zion, December 31, 1931 1,627 Number of short-term missionaries from Zion, December 31, 1931 30 Number of local missionaries ¶

Total number of missionaries on foreign missions ¶

Number engaged in missionary work in stakes ¶

Total missionaries ¶

1,703 ¶

1,151 ¶

2,854 ¶

Number of missionaries who received training at the Missionary ¶

Home ¶

Persons recommended to the temples from the stakes ¶

72,152 ¶

SOCIAL STATISTICS ¶

Birth rate, 29 per thousand. ¶

Marriage rate, 12.8 per thousand. ¶

Death rate, 6.6 per thousand. ¶

Families owning their own homes, 65.2 per cent. ¶

HOME OWNING URGED ¶

Our records show that in years gone by over 75 per cent of the people owned their own homes. There is a spiritual growth always when people own their own homes. The owning of a home creates a spirit of loyalty to the Church and also, really, to the government. It is illustrated somewhat in an incident that I heard regarding a nobleman in France who was very wealthy. His butler, who drew a large salary, attended socialistic meetings. The nobleman noticed that the butler had discontinued attending these meetings and asked the reason. ¶

Said he: "At the last meeting a report was made of how much per capita everybody would receive when all of the wealth was appropriated and distributed, and already I have more in the savings bank than would come to me." ¶

It cured him completely. ¶

CHANGES IN STAKE AND MISSION OFFICERS SINCE LAST OCTOBER CONFERENCE ¶

Stake President Appointed : ¶

John B. Reed appointed president of the San Luis stake to succeed James P. Jensen. ¶

New Mission Presidents : ¶

James H. Douglas appointed president of the British mission to succeed A. William Lund. ¶

Alonzo A. Hinckley appointed president of the California mission to succeed Joseph W. McMurrin. ¶

Clarence H. Tingey appointed president of the Australian mission to Succeed Leonidas D. Mecham, acting-president. ¶

Gustave W. Forsberg appointed president of the Swedish mission to succeed Gideon N. Hulterstrom. ¶

New Wards Organised : ¶

Torrence ward, Los Angeles stake. Farmington ward, Young stake. Caliente ward, Moapa stake. ¶

New Independent Branches: ¶

Alameda branch, San Francisco stake. Hayward branch, San Francisco stake. ¶

General Authorities Who Have Passed Away: ¶

Charles W. Nibley, 2nd counselor in the First Presidency. Hyrum G. Smith, Presiding Patriarch of the Church. ¶

Bishops Who Have Passed Away : ¶

Adrian Schipper, Elmhurst ward, San Francisco stake. S. J. Lindsay, Taylorsville ward, Cottonwood stake. John M. Grow, Middleton ward, Ogden stake. ¶

LAUDS THOSE DEAD ¶

I am sure that those of us who had the opportunity of attending the funeral of President Charles W. Nibley felt very grateful for the remarkable spirit that was present and for the very splendid tributes that were paid to him. I had that privilege and I rejoice in the spirit of the occasion, and in the excellent remarks. ¶

I regret that I was in the East at the time of the funeral of the Patriarch. But from what I have read of the services I am very pleased indeed with the tributes paid to him. ¶

In addition to these officials of the Church whose names I have read, who have passed away during the time since our last Conference, the editor of the Improvement Era,_ and former president of Liberty stake of Zion, Brother Hugh J. Cannon, has also passed away. Brother Cannon presided over the Swiss and German mission many years ago when I was president of the European mission. ¶

He subsequently returned to Germany and Switzerland and fulfilled a third mission, he having been there originally as a young missionary, not presiding. Brother Cannon, as you are all aware, filled a mission with Brother David O. McKay, taking a trip around the world, visiting all the missions of the Church, I believe, with the exception of South Africa. I rejoice in the splendid record that Brother Hugh J. Cannon made in every Church position that he occupied. He was a man of God, a man worthy of the respect and admiration of all people. ¶

RECEIVES LETTER ¶

I received this morning a letter from Brother Robert I Burton, president of Mount Ogden stake. Among other things he says : ¶

"The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the source of the greatest comfort and joy to me, and I never tire of its message. Attendance at the Conference thrills and stimulates me more than I am able to tell. I count it as one of the great blessings of my life, that I have been permitted to become personally acquainted with you and other General Authorities of the Church and to labor with you in a humble way in the great cause of our Heavenly Father. I know of the cleanness and purity of your life, and I am filled with righteous indignation when I read such scurrilous attacks as are made against you in a little four page sheet recently issued. It seems to me that something should be clone with men who send such slanderous vilifications through the mail." ¶

MALICIOUS COMMUNICATIONS ¶

I received the sheet to which he refers and it found its place in the waste basket. I did not read a word of it. When men have so lived that they are unworthy to be in the Church and are cast out, they are wasting their time sending me printed matter or written matter. The ¶

waste basket is large and capable of holding all such communications. It is a little disappointing in one sense not to take action against premeditated falsifiers. ¶

I am tempted to ask the government to prosecute the people who use the mails to circulate malicious falsehoods. But there is something about the fact that when you handle a smoky, sooty stove-pipe you get your hands soiled, and it is a question whether such lies are worthy of any consideration. ¶

DENIES CHARGES ¶

In all my travels I have never paid any attention to a certain Lulu Shepherd, perhaps the greatest female liar who ever drew the breath of life. I cannot help but wish that some of her falsehoods were true. In a synopsis of one of her lectures in Brooklyn, she is reported to have said I owned Union Pacific and other railroad preferred stocks and bonds amounting to one hundred million dollars, and I did not have a dollar of such securities. I could wish' I had the millions of dollars' worth of stocks and bonds for which she gave me credit. In this lecture she is reported to have named nine states of the Union that I controlled politically, and to have said that no man could be the president of the United States without my consent. The states as I remember were Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. Instead of controlling those states I did not know the names of the governors of any of them except Idaho and Arizona, and of course our own state. And I do not know that I would have known personally the governor of Idaho if the president of the United States at that time — Warren G. Harding — had not introduced me to him when he came into the President's car as I was riding up to Idaho Falls and Pocatello — not as a guest of the President, but as a guest of the vice president and general manager of the Oregon Short Line Railroad company in his private car. ¶

"mormons" lauded ¶

I do not know that I would have known the Governor of Arizona were it not for the fact that we had had a convention of governors here at the Capitol and Governor Campbell was one of those who did us the honor of calling at our office. When I met him I shook hands with him and said : ¶

"Governor, I heard a very interesting story regarding a statement made by your predecessor. It was that among the best of the citizens of Arizona in early days were the 'Mormon' pioneers, and that in one particular the 'Mormons' were being robbed out of a share of the public funds of Arizona. They were losing from twenty-five hundred to three thousand per cent of their share of the criminal taxes ; as they were entitled to have, in proportion to their number, twenty-five or thirty inmates in the state penitentiary, and had but one. When I went to Arizona I mentioned this fact in a meeting in St. Johns, and the District Judge arose and said : 'That one has since been pardoned.' " ¶

The Governor smiled and said : "Mr. Grant, that is correct. He was pardoned." ¶

INTEGRITY PLEASES ¶

I rejoice in the integrity of the Latter-day Saints, I rejoice in the absolute honesty of the men who have held positions as the General Authorities in this Church, the falsehoods of any human being to the contrary notwithstanding. ¶

I rejoice in the fact that when I was in England I carried a letter from non-"Mormon" bankers in Salt Lake City vouching for me as a gentleman of unquestioned integrity and honesty, and from bankers in San Francisco, Chicago and New York, containing the same kind of recommendation. I remember calling on a newspaper that had published seven to ten columns, I am sure, of vile misrepresentations about us, carrying with me a letter of introduction from the shipping firm with whom we had done business for over sixty years, not only vouching for my honesty and integrity, but for that of every president of the European mission during that period. And yet the assistant editor of the paper positively refused to publish one word of refutation. I pleaded with him to no avail. ¶

ANSWERS EDITOR ¶

I walked to the door, turned and said : ¶

"By-the-way, my letter was not to you. It was to the editor. The boy who came down stairs announced that the editor was absent but that the assistant editor, Mr. Robinson, would receive me. Is your name Robinson?" ¶

"Yes." ¶

"Do you know Phil Robinson?" ¶

"Why everybody knows Phil Robinson." ¶

I said : "Was he the correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph during the Boer War, one of the two greatest [and I emphasized "greatest" because his paper was not one of the two] newspapers in Great Britain?" ¶

"He was." ¶

"And would you believe anything that Phil Robinson said?" ¶

"I would." ¶

"Is he editing the Court and Societv Journal here in London?" ¶

"He is." ¶

CHALLENGES PROOF ¶

"Seeing that you believe anything this gentleman says, buy his book entitled 'Sinners and Saints,' it will cost you two shillings, and you wijl find that everything you have published in your paper about the 'Mormons' is a lie pure and simple. Phil Robinson traveled from Idaho in the north to Arizona in the south, through all of our settlements, with the late John Henry Smith, and he met our people, and yon will find if you will read his book that you have published a lot of falsehoods. I ¶

defy you to get a letter of introduction vouching for the honesty of any person who has furnished you the information that has been printed in your paper against us, and I have in my valise letters from bankers in Utah and from bankers in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, vouching for my honesty, and I brand your publication as false." ¶

"Well," he said, "you surprise me, that Phil Robinson would vouch for your people." ¶

ASKS FOR HALF COLUMN ¶

"Oh," I said, "you are not the first person that has been surprised when he ran up against the 'Mormon' question." ¶

He said, "Write us a half column." ¶

I said, "Small favors thankfully received; large ones in proportion. Seven to ten columns of misrepresentations and a half column of refutation. You shall have it within the next two hours." ¶

He received it all right and kept it thirty or sixty days and returned it with the usual printed slip that I have seen very often: "The editor regrets that he cannot find space for the enclosed manuscript, which is returned." ¶

ATTITUDE CHANGES ¶

What a change has come about ! Today reporters attend our meetings in all parts of the British Isles and make fair reports of everything that goes on. Three whole years in England without one single line of refutation in any newspaper when I presided there. The wonderful work accomplished by Brother Talmage, and that is being accomplished by Brother Widtsoe, in getting us before the public honestly and fairly, in our missions in Europe, has filled my heart with joy and gratitude. ¶

SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATED ¶

It may not be out of place today for me to make a few remarks that are personal in their nature. I never expected when I was a young man to live to announce that I had celebrated my seventy-fifth birthday. I often said in my youth that if I could live twenty-five per cent longer than my father who died when he was forty, I would be perfectly satisfied with life, which would be until I was fifty years of age. Today I have lived fifty per cent longer than that, and to be perfectly frank with you, I am not quite satisfied with life now, but would like to live a little longer. ¶

THANKFUL FOR HEALTH ¶

I rejoice in what I have seen in the seventy-five years of my life. It may sound a little egotistical, but few men reach the age of seventy-five years in perfect vigor of health of body and mind, and I desire in this Conference to express to my Heavenly Father and to the people composing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my gratitude for this vigor of body and of mind, and for the health that I possess. I am grateful, beyond all of my ability to express my gratitude, for the prayers and the faith and the good will of the Latter-day Saints. ¶

APPRECIATIVE OF LOVE AND CONFIDENCE OF SAINTS ¶

There is nothing in the world, I am sure, that a man should value so highly as the love of those with whom he is associated, and I appreciate very greatly the love and confidence of. the Latter-day Saints and of the officers of the Church. That this has been extended to me fills my heart with gratitude beyond all my ability to express it, and the blessings that have come to me from my Heavenly Father and the honors that have come to me in being permitted to stand here representing his Son Jesus Christ in the restored Gospel, fill my heart to overflowing. ¶

FAITH IN THE GOSPEL ¶

I am grateful beyond expression that from the time I was a boy of fifteen, and entered the office of a non-member of the Church — working for non-members of the Church from then until just before I was twenty, when I went into business for myself — I am grateful that I have never found anything at home or abroad, in all these sixty years, that has in the slightest degree lessened my faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. ¶

But, on the contrary, I have been constantly finding additional evidences of the divinity of the work in which you and I are engaged. This a' source of the keenest gratification to me. Evidences of the ¶

is ¶

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divinity of the work have come to me from time to time, some of them very strong. ¶

STRANGE EVIDENCE ¶

I have often mentioned it in public, that while I was being entertained at a dinner in London by one of the managers of the great New York Life Insurance Company I met a gentleman who had been connected with the British Legation in Constantinople and who had spent years in the Holy Land. He had been to America a number of times. I spent the evening, after dinner, chatting with him because of his remarkable experiences and the interesting things he had to say. Finally he said to me : ¶

"Mr. Grant, do you know that I ran across the most inexplicable thing of my life the last time I visited Canada. I went way up into the northern wilds of Canada, beyond all civilization, visiting with those heathen Indians. I found among them the exact pattern, woven in colored beads, of Holy Land rugs, and in no other part of the world that I have visited have I seen any rugs of the same pattern as those oriental rugs in the Holy Land, and in some sections certain patterns have come down for hundreds, almost thousands of years, in one family. They have no fabrics up among those Indians with which to do weaving, but they had the exact patterns, yet they had never heard of Jerusalem, and it is the most inexplicable thing of my life." ¶

I said : "That is very easy to a Mormon. Have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon?" ¶

"No." ¶

"I will send you a copy. It is the Bible, so to speak, of the American Indians, their sacred history, and you will find that the forefathers ¶

of the American Indians and other peoples who have been on this continent came from Jerusalem." ¶

He said: "What! That explains the inexplicable." Now that may not be. counted by some as much of a straw of evidence, but to my mind it is a very great evidence regarding the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon. ¶

INTIMATE WITH BRIGHAM YOUNG ¶

I am grateful to bear witness to this audience that from the time I was a little child not more than five, I am sure, until the day of his death, when I was nearly twenty-one, I was very intimate with Brigham Young ; that when the bell would ring for family prayers, quite frequently I would run through our back lot across through Brother George A. Smith's lot and across the street, and kneel down in President Rrigham Young's home at family prayers. ¶

I knew him intimately, as I say, from the time I was five or six years of age. I was born where the Z. C. M. I store now stands. Father's lot was 165 feet front by 330 feet deep, the lot just like it on the south was occupied by Edward Hunter, and a lot of the same size on the north was occupied by Daniel H. Wells, two of as God-fearing, kind, splendid men as ever drew the breath of life. T grew up under their tutorship to a certain extent. ¶

RECALLS LAST INTERVIEW ¶

The last interview I had with Brigham Young was on the very day he was taken sick. I met him coming out of his office with a cape on his arm and I said : ¶

"President Young, I was elected yesterday the assistant cashier of Zion's Savings Bank, and I have been told this morning that I must give a bond of twenty-five thousand dollars to vouch for my honesty. It occurs to me that it would be very appropriate and a nice thing for the president of the bank to sign the bond of the assistant cashier." ¶

He smiled and said : "Heber, I have had a very strenuous day. I am just going for a ride. I shall be glad to sign the bond. I do not see how I could get out of it because I said so many good things about you in the directors' meeting yesterday, (or the day before, I have forgotten which) about your integrity and honesty and favoring you for this job; and if I refuse to sign your bond now, the directors would say, 'What did you say all those good things about him for if you are afraid to sign his bond?'" ¶

He came home, was taken sick and passed away. I am sure, from my own experience and all of the symptoms that were published in the paper, he died of appendicitis. During all those years of my acquaintance with him, fully fifteen, I learned to love and respect him as a man of God, a man of great ability. ¶

GREATNESS RECOGNIZED ¶

I remember saying to the vice president of a great bank with hundreds of millions of dollars, that the day would come when Brigham ¶

Young would be acknowledged as one of the greatest pioneers and colonizers who ever lived. ¶

He said : "Why say the day will come ? No man who knows anything of the accomplishments of Brigham Young but what could say the day has come." ¶

WANTED LARGE STATE ¶

Do you know that all this trouble about the Hoover dam and the division of water never would have come about if we had got all that President Young tried to get. ¶

All that he asked for when he knocked for admission into the Union as the State of Deseret was all of Utah, fully one-half of Colorado, a little patch down in New Mexico so as to take in the San Juan River, all of Arizona, Nevada as far as the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Idaho way up into the north, and one-third of what is now California. ¶

Los Angeles . and that whole section would have been included. Every drop of water that goes into the Hoover dam would have been in the State of Deseret. Texas would not have been in it for size. This shows the great capacity of the man. He sent scouts into the various sections of the country, realizing as he did that irrigation was what was going to count, through the inspiration of the Lord, in this country, and he arranged to get all of the watershed of the Colorado River. ¶

LAUDS PREDECESSORS ¶

As you all know I was chosen as one of the Apostles during the administration of John Taylor, a God-fearing, inspirational man. I can vouch absolutely from my intimate association with him from the day I was made an Apostle, two years after he became the president, to the day of his death, for the inspiration of the living God that came to him and the nobility and uprightness of his life. ¶

I can say the same of Wilford Woodruff during his administration, and of Lorenzo Snow. I can say the same thing of President Joseph F. Smith, than whom I am sure no man has lived more in the hearts of the Latter-day Saints from the days of the Prophet Joseph to his day as the president of the Church. I rejoice in my knowledge of the integrity of their lives, their honesty, and their devotion to God, and that the first and foremost thing with them was to labor for the Gospel and the spread of truth upon the earth. ¶

LETTER PLEASES ¶

I rejoice in a letter that I received from the general manager of one of the greatest life insurance companies in the world when I was made an Apostle. He said : ¶

"I owe an apology, Heber, to your fourteen associates in the Presidency and Apostles. I have always thought they were a designing lot, that they were getting rich because of the religious enthusiasm and the ignorance of the people of your Church, gathering in their tithes, etc. But now that you are one of the fifteen, I apologize to the other fourteen. If they were not honest and upright men they would not dare invite you ¶

into their councils, because if there were anything crooked you would give the whole thing away. I know you are fundamentally honest from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet." ¶

No truer statement was ever made by mortal man than that by Josh Billings: "Never judge a man. by his relatives, he cannot help them, they are crowded upon him; but judge him by the company he keeps, because he picks his own." ¶

PRAISED BY MILLIONAIRE ¶

I met a millionaire on the street — the late David Wood — the next morning after Anthony W. Ivins was made an Apostle, and he said : ¶

"Hold on, Grant, don't walk so fast. I want to tell you something. I am glad you are running your Mormon Church just to suit me. If you had come down to my office yesterday and said, 'Dave Wood, you have lived among this people for twenty-five years ; you have been a friend of the 'Mormons' not only in the United States but in foreign lands ; you have spoken well of them ; you have a 'Mormon' bishop managing your business in Idaho — now I have been told to come down here, as you have met the leading men of the Church from Canada on the north to Mexico on the south, to say that the Apostles want to express their gratitude for your friendship, and we will let you name the very best man to fill the vacancy in the quorum of Apostles,' — do you know, Grant, I would not have batted an eye or taken a breath, but I would have just hollered, 'Ivins.' I am glad you are running your Church to suit me. Good day." ¶

REJOICES IN GOOD WILL ¶

I rejoice in the good will of those who know us. I have said many times that a man who so lived that those who knew him best, loved him most, and whom God loved, was entitled to be crowned with the wreath of success although he might die in poverty; and I do know that the Lord has seen fit to love, and did love and did inspire all of my predecessors. ¶

I am happy in the good will that exists, I believe, for this people. Not only in the United States, but wherever I go today I am treated with respect. When I think of going to Kansas City some years ago and there speaking before the Knife and Fork club which is claimed to be the second greatest dinner club in the United States, and speaking on the accomplishments of the Latter-day Saints for a full hour — the other speakers, one of them the president of a great university, being limited to thirty minutes — and I being advertised as the guest of the evening, and receiving applause, and then being invited to 'come back again and speak before the Chamber of Commerce in Kansas City, my heart is filled with gratitude. Where was this? It was within ten miles of Independence, from which place the Latter-day Saints had been expelled under an exterminating order of the acting-governor of the state. ¶

EARLY PERSECUTIONS ¶

I have been reading again lately the wonderful record of the Missouri persecutions and the fall of Nanvoo, by Elder Brigham H. Roberts, ¶

and as I think of those terrible things that happened — imprisonment, the sentence of death passed upon the Prophet, the Patriarch and others ; the murders at Haun's Mill ; the battle at Crooked River ; the driving out of the remnant of the Saints from Nauvoo in the dead of winter and their crossing the river on the ice — when I think of all these things that the early Saints had to endure, it seems to me that this depression is a good deal in the nature of a flea-bite in comparison. ¶

QUOTES POEM ¶

I see the time has expired. You will pardon me for being personal, but you know they say when a person gets beyond 75 years of age he cannot talk about anybody but himself, and likes to deal in reminiscences, that he has no thought for the future. I want to quote a few lines entitled "Age" and say that they are my sentiments, although not original with me: ¶

"Age is a quality of mind ; If your dreams you've left behind, ¶

If hope is cold; If you no longer look ahead, If your ambitions' fires are dead — Then you are old. ¶

"But if from life you take the best, And if in life you keep the zest. ¶

If love you hold ; No matter how the years go by, No matter how the birthdays fly — You are not old." ¶

I do hold love for the Latter-day Saints. I do love my God, and I do love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope to accomplish more in the next five years of my life than I have accomplished during any previous five years. May the Lord help us one and all to be loyal and true to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is my humble prayer, and I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶