Counsel in a Time of War

My brethren: I believe perhaps I have never had a more trying time than that which confronts me now. We have been hearing about the war, its purposes, and our part therein. I have the misfortune of remembering a little history; the most of my mature life has been spent dealing with the relationships of nations. I wish the picture were as clear and certain to me as it has been drawn, either as to its issues or its outcome. ¶

I am not going to preach a sermon tonight, brethren. There are some things that I thought it might be well to run over with you. They deal largely with our temporal affairs, though not wholly so. I come to you in deep humility. I do not think I ever felt weaker. ¶

Helps for Men in the Service ¶

We have over on State Street, as all you presidents of stakes and you bishops know, a missionary home, or a home for the L.D.S. service men. We have housed therein a committee which is trying to act as a liaison group between the soldiers and you brethren. I want to speak briefly about the work of that committee and ask your further help. ¶

Before doing that, I should like to get a few facts. Will all those who saw service in the uniform of their country during World War No. I stand on their feet. (Several hundred arose.) ¶

Thank you, brethren. If I might say so, I also was then in the service. ¶

I would like all those who have sons now in the army to stand on their feet. (As many as a third of the audience arose.) Please remain standing. I should like to add to that number all those who have grandsons in the service, and add to that all those who have sons or grandsons who are subject to be called into service. Will you all stand, please. (About two-thirds or three-fourths of the audience came to their feet.) ¶

Thank you, brethren. ¶

President Grant has now in the service, or due for induction into the service, including his grandsons-in-law, eighteen men. ¶

This war business is going to be felt very keenly by us. ¶

Away back in October we sent out word to the presidents of stakes telling them that we were going to print some literature to be distributed to the boys. We have had printed the Book of Mormon, this is one of them (holding it up to view), which they can carry here in their breast pockets. We have also had printed a little book we call Principles of the Gospel, that is founded on the Compendium. It will not be quite so large as this Book of Mormon. We have printed enough so that they can be distributed to every one of our boys who is in the service. ¶

We asked each of you presidents of stakes to send in the names and addresses of the men in the service from your stakes, securing the same from the parents, through the bishops. That was in October. Ten stakes have not even acknowledged the receipt of the instructions. We have no word from them. All told, 239 wards and 42 branches have made no return whatever. The returns that have been made have been, frequently, so imperfectly made out that it is almost impossible to work out just what the names are, but more particularly just what the addresses are. Now, we are going to send to you brethren, you presidents of stakes, as many copies of this Book of Mormon and of the Principles of the Gospel as you have indicated you have boys in the service from your stakes. ¶

We are going to ask you to see that they are mailed out to those boys to those addresses. We shall probably send along a form and ask you to write out a new statement regarding the boys, showing their addresses, their names, and so on. It is very difficult for those who are compiling these names to be sure that you have correctly stated the facts about them; the difference between "sen," and "son," is not always observed, and other like inaccuracies are there. ¶

Now we have also prepared a directory, giving the locations of all of our chapels and churches throughout the United States, in England, and in Australia. We would like you presidents of stakes to call at the L.D.S. Home for Service Men, 41 North State Street, just above Eagle Gate, before you go home, and get enough copies of those directories so that you can give one to each of your boys in the service, and we ask you to distribute them through the bishops, so that the bishops can give one to each parent who has a son in the service. ¶

When you send us these names, we send them out to the mission fields, and out in the mission fields where the camps are located, the mission presidents have districted the areas, to aid them in getting in touch with your boys. The directory will help the boys to get in touch with their Church. ¶

Brethren, I do not believe it is necessary, after what has been said tonight, to urge upon you the importance of sending us these names, to urge upon you the importance of seeing that every boy — your boy and everybody's else — has a copy of these books. They will need all they can get from these books, to help them live righteously. ¶

We have all sorts of letters from the boys in the fields telling us of the work which they are doing. We have asked them to organize themselves into Mutual Improvement groups, and carry on their religious activities. We have had two or three letters from a boy in North Africa — that is all we know about him as to his location — but he tells us that they hold sacrament meetings, administer the sacrament, that they preach, that they try to sustain one another, build up the faith the one of the other. ¶

Now, brethren, please pay attention to this. Get your directories before you go home. We will send you copies of the books with instructions. Then will you please send back to us the new lists corrected, so that we can forward them to the missions. ¶

Send out your books to your boys; give them all the help that you can, and that act plus your letters and your prayers, will be about all you can do. ¶

Tithing ¶

Now I want to thank the brethren of the Church, for their response in the matter of tithing. Brother Grant thanked you in his opening message. I would like to tell you two or three facts about tithing. One is that 95 percent of all the tithepayers in the Church pay less than $200 per person, which is 67 percent of the total tithing. Thus the tithing is paid by the moderately circumstanced and poor of the Church. And while unnecessary, I can add to the assurance given you by President Grant, that he regards these funds as trust funds of the highest character, that he is authorizing their expenditure for nothing but Church purposes, and while at the moment we seem to have plenty of money, we are trying to guard it as carefully as we know how, because it is expected that the time will come when we shall have use for it, if it shall then be worth anything. ¶

Brother Marion G. Romney read to us yesterday from some of the early instructions sent out by the First Presidency covering the question of so-called pensions, doles, or gratuities. You remember on one occasion the Savior talked about the duty running between parents and children, and based it upon that statement in the Decalogue, "Honor thy father and thy mother." It would be a grievous thing, brethren, if any of you, or if any of us, were to cast off our parents on the State. ¶

The Church is prepared, with your help and assistance, to take care of those who need such assistance, and if any of the Saints have cast their parents off, see if you can not get them to take them back and administer to their wants themselves, and if they need help in this, let them go to the bishop and get it in the right way. ¶

Think of it, brethren, casting off the mother that bore and nursed you, the father that begot you, letting the State care for them — and there are such cases. ¶

If we shall hold ourselves together, if we shall work shoulder to shoulder, if we shall rise to the dignity of our Priesthood, and assume the obligations which God has given to us, we will care for our own; and we can do it. Do not be lulled to sleep by any such false religious, or governmental, or social slogan as that the State owes to every man a subsistence. ■ "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" (Gen. 3:19). ¶

Welfare Fundamentals ¶

Now about the Welfare. We have always regarded the Welfare as being set up for the needy; and when we have spoken of the needy we have thought of those who did not have enough to eat or to wear; but there is a new group of needy coming now — those who will need help to carry on their work — whether they be farmers or merchants, or industrialists. In the good old days when I was a boy we used to change work. You men out in the country know all about that, and those who are as gray as I am have been through it. Brethren, the man who has a crop that needs harvesting is just as much in need as anyone else. See to it that your Priesthood quorums are so organized that that need may be cared for, and do not push off this work upon the Chamber of Commerce. It is your responsibility. ¶

For several years we have been talking about Welfare gardens. Remember, we began that some time ago, long before Victory gardens were thought of, and we urged you that if you could not get a garden spot for yourself, that you get together in groups, that you raise what you needed, and having raised it, that you then "process" it, as it is now called. Now, with all the earnestness that I possess, I urge this course upon you again. I do not know how serious this food shortage is, but I do know this: We cannot feed the world, feed ourselves, fight the world, and furnish arms and ammunition for the world, and still live. I know what the situation is around here, because I am in a position where I have to know. ¶

I want to say something more: Up to this time your home-processed foods have not been touched. You have not had to count them. Of course in principle it is a little difficult to see the difference, on the one hand, between the man who, foreseeing and trying to forestall a future shortage, went out into the market a year or two or three years ago and bought and stored foodstuffs, and, on the other hand, the man who for the same purposes went out and raised his food and then did his own processing. If they can ration what is yours that you bought, by the same token they can ration what is yours that you raise. Now, you might have that in mind, too. Your own processed foods will probably be the last thing that will be touched, but you had better have it in mind that it may be rationed if not actually taken. ¶

However, I can see no other wise course but to raise all that you can. Waste nothing. Try to help others who cannot raise their own. Process enough to keep your family, and then if you have to surrender it, you have done your part, and the judgment and responsibility for the result will rest upon somebody else. ¶

I would like to say something about another point. Ever since the Welfare Plan began, we have been urged to try to do a great number of things. Times such as these make men prolific in theories; they are filled with wild ideas. One of the most difficult things that we have had to do is to stick to our knitting, to see that we did not get off into lines of activity which we could not successfully carry on, because the Church — do not forget this, brethren — the Church must not fail! ¶

Some of the brethren are anxious to begin cooperatives. We are quite willing that they shall go forward in any plan of that kind that they themselves determine, but we ask you to remember that it takes a merchant to run a cooperative; just anybody cannot do it. It involves great and difficult problems in credit — credit to friends and credit to neighbors, who may be good or bad risks. But go ahead with your cooperatives if you wish, if you feel you are set up for it. But please remember cooperatives are not part of the Welfare Plan. That plan has to do with the caring for the wants of those who are in need and distress, not in saving money or making money for groups. ¶

I would like you to give most careful consideration to these things which I have named. There are one, or two other points that I want to mention. ¶

Social Problems ¶

From the foundation of this Church, almost, we have regarded marriage as one of the holiest relationships into which we enter, marriage for time and eternity, a home here and a home hereafter. Now, you can only be married that way in the temple, and only those who are worthy members of the Church may go into the temple. No one else enters there. The rite is performed for no one else but worthy members. ¶

Long experience has shown that marriages between our young people and young people not members of the Church do not, as a rule, work out happily. In the great bulk of cases, the opposite is the result. These mixed marriages cannot be performed in the temple. ¶

Furthermore, we stand for a single standard of chastity for boys and the girls. We look upon unchastity as a sin next to murder. ¶

For these reasons we have from the very beginning discouraged indiscriminate social minglings between our young people and young people who, as we have coined the phrase, "are not of us." ¶

We are now called to sacrifice our sons. I did not ask you to rise, but I am sure there are many men here who have lost sons. I lost a son-in-law, as dear to me as my own son. Almost the first explosion at Pearl Harbor took him. But the point I wish to make is that because we have to sacrifice our sons is no reason why we should sacrifice our daughters. ¶

Every consideration of faith, principles of right living, Church doctrine, and Church standards, require that we should guard, as we would guard our lives, the chastity of our girls. There are all kinds of influences at work to break down these standards. I was told the other day that we have a new phrase, that young girls who smoke and drink and may be doing other things, talk about "new Mormons" as distinguished from the "old Mormons." I wish to say to them that those who abandon the standards and principles of the Church are not Mormons at all. ¶

But we must all be "old Mormons." We are all a little bit too sensitive to the praise of others. We are too eager that people shall say sweet things about us. We must go forward, whether people praise us or censure us. We must guard the chastity of our girls no matter what anyone says about it. ¶

To the Young Women of the Church ¶

I want to say something to the young girls of the Church, and as it is a difficult subject, I have written down what I wish to say. ¶

Your brothers, your sweethearts, your young husbands are in the armed service of their country. They went away with pledges of devotion and loyalty to you, pledges that they would keep themselves sexually clean. You are hoping, praying, and expecting that they will keep their pledges to the letter. You made counter pledges orally or in your hearts. You expect them to keep their pledges: they expect you to keep yours. Either violating the pledge, has no right to expect its observance by the other. ¶

Furthermore, you young women and girls, whose loved ones are in the service, expect them to keep themselves pure in mind and heart as well as in body. You expect them to remember that the Lord said: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matt. 5:28); and that in our day He has added: "If any shall commit adultery in their hearts, they shall not have the Spirit, but shall deny the faith and shall fear" (D. & C. 63: 16). That they may be free from this sin of the heart, you expect them to keep wholly clear from social associations with bad companions, men or women. You expect them to forego those light or frivolous amusements or recreations that might lead to this sin, — you expect this notwithstanding they are subject over repeated periods of time to the hazard of immediate death itself, periods which give rise to the imperative need for intervals of relaxation and diversion so that reason may retain her throne and insanity be kept off. ¶

All this you expect of them. ¶

May they not rightfully expect as much of you? May they not justly expect that you too will remain free from bodily sin not only, but from this sin of the heart as well? May they not expect that if they who are subject to the horrors and misery of war, subject to the stress and strain of mortal combat, often hand to hand, that if they, to remain pure and clean, shall stay in camp away from the social diversions that bring temptation, that then you who are living in the peace and quiet and security of home and parents and friends will give up the frivolities of social relaxation in order that you may surely keep yourselves clean and pure for them? Surely your sacrifice is as the molehill against theirs as the mountain. Putting it at the lowest price, just good sportsmanship would require this much of you. Memory of the plighted faith would demand it. ¶

I urge you young women and girls to remember that in the schedule of crimes, unchastity comes next to murder. Do not subject yourselves to its penalty. The Lord has said: "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8). ¶

The Great Paradox ¶

What a tragic spectacle man is showing to his God today. We have rightly boasted for nearly a hundred years that in this, the Last Dispensation of the Fulness of Times, the Lord was pouring out His inspiration and His blessings upon all the world, unlocking to His children secrets that never were dreamed of by the ancients, giving them powers and dominions over the forces of nature, bringing under subjection almost the universe. Look at what the last century has given us in art, literature, science, discoveries, for our blessing and advancement. God gave all this to us to bless us. And then consider that now, in this terrible hour, every device, every invention, every discovery God gave us to bless us is being used to destroy one another in one of the most barbarous wars of all time. God will not hold guiltless those responsible for this holocaust. ¶

God give us strength and power to resist evil. You brethren here, the governing authority of the Church, have almost infinite power in your hands, if you will but reach out and magnify your calling and live righteously. The brethren today have time and again told you of your responsibilities. Personally I always think of the responsibility I have; it helps to keep me at least reasonably humble. But think also of the power that you have, the power to bless, the power to heal, the power to do all the things that the Lord wants done. The Lord will hold us responsible for the exercise of that power. May He help you, I repeat, to magnify your calling. May you be able to bring to the people in the times that are to come, comfort, and consolation. May He help you to build up their faith, increase their testimonies, develop their knowledge, so that you may really honor His Priesthood, exercising the full functions thereof. ¶

May God bless us always, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶