Conference Address

My brethren and sisters, as I approach this solemn duty, I sense fully the need of your united support, and particularly the sustaining influence of the Spirit of the Lord. ¶

Importance of Environment ¶

It is my purpose this morning to say a few words about the effect of environment upon youth, and the responsibility of adults to make home and civic environment a contributing factor to their right living. ¶

The following is pertinent to what I have in mind: ¶

It is the age that forms the man, not the man that forms the age. Great minds do indeed react on the society which has made them what they are, but they only pay with interest what they have received. (Macaulay.) ¶

So also is this ancient proverb applicable: ¶

If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in society. And if there is order in society, there will be peace in the world. ¶

From the pulpit and public press, even in homes and social circles, we hear discouraging comments on the delinquency of youth. ¶

If there is concern about the recalcitrance of boys and girls, this generation is no exception to those which have preceded it. Our great-grandfathers and their great-grandfathers worried about the forwardness and recklessness of their children, and the bleakness of their future just as we do today. ¶

Confidence in Young People ¶

Speaking generally, I have confidence in our young people. This confidence springs primarily from my intimate associations with hundreds of returned soldiers and others who have gone on missions, particularly during the last three years. While our young men were in the army, most of them (there were exceptions, of course) conducted themselves creditably. They met as regularly as possible for sacred service. As an illustration: During the war in the Pacific when the conflict was at its height, a chaplain one day accosted a colonel, saying, "Are you going to conference tomorrow?" "What do you mean, conference?" answered the colonel. "The Mormon soldiers in New Britain are holding a conference tomorrow." ¶

I heard that same colonel say, upon his return from the army, "Those soldiers are among the best missionaries that the Church has ever had." ¶

Many of these young men saved their money to pay the expenses of missions which they are now filling in various parts of the world, some of them in lands where they fought as soldiers. One of these, as others of his comrades, sent his savings home, requesting his mother to keep them to pay the expenses of his anticipated mission after his discharge from the army. Then he added, "If I do not return, use my savings to send out some other comrade to preach the gospel." He did not return, but in keeping with his desire, his parents are now using this soldier's savings to support another youth who is fulfilling the dead soldier's request. ¶

I tell you, so long as there is an indication of that spirit among our youth, I am going to uphold them and have confidence in them. ¶

I know that it is hardly fair to judge the group by those especially selected as missionaries, but I have been in touch with other groups whose lives tip the scales against delinquency. Recently there was held in this city a convention of one of the national college fraternities. For dignity, temperance, brotherhood, and other commendable virtues, it was one of the choicest conventions if not the choicest convention ever held by such an organization, and that was said by one who had attended fifty of them. In nearly every detail, it was planned and carried out by our local youth. ¶

A recent outing by that same group, one hundred twenty strong, was characterized by actions most creditable. ¶

That there is a threatening increase in delinquency in our communities, particularly among boys and girls of high-school age, is all too apparent to anyone who will open his eyes to see, and his ears to hear; and steps should be taken to curtail this delinquency. ¶

Delinquency of Adults ¶

It is with this purpose in mind that I refer not to the delinquency of youth, but to the delinquency of adults. ¶

Youth is influenced by example and environment. Dominating groups exerting this influence are the home, the church, the school, social circles, and civic conditions. ¶

There are too many delinquent fathers and mothers. Our homes are the centers that determine the type of our citizenry. To dignify home and parenthood is one of the noblest aims of human society. The greatest responsibility given to women is the divine gift to be a mother. She thus blessed, who has health and opportunity, and shirks the responsibility for social prestige and pleasure, is recreant to her duty as wife and mother. The father, particularly, if he be a member of the Church and holds the priesthood, who fails to set a proper example before his children is a delinquent, and is a contributor to child delinquency. ¶

Need of Proper Home Environment ¶

Upon the responsibility of parents to have proper home environment, modern revelation is most explicit: ¶

And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents. ¶

For this shall be a law unto the inhabitants of Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized. ¶

And their children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of the hands. ¶

And they shall also teach their children to pray and to walk uprightly before the Lord. (D. & C. 68:25-28.) ¶

Quarreling among parents and children, faultfinding, backbiting, smoking cigarets, drinking intoxicating liquors, using profane language, make a home environment that contributes to delinquency. No parent can consistently teach faith in Christ who profanes the name of Deity. Profanity is never heard in the well-ordered home. Swearing is a vice that bespeaks a low standard of breeding. Blasphemous exclamations drive out all spirit of reverence. Irreverence is always a mark of delinquency. ¶

Wrote General George Washington to his Continental soldiers: ¶

The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it. ¶

Profanity is a vice all too prevalent in America, and though we say it with embarrassment, all too frequently used in the Church. ¶

The great Chinese philosopher, as a minister of crime, is reported to have set free a son who had offended against the canon of filial behavior, on the ground that the father who had so ill-taught him was the one to blame. Said he: ¶

When superiors fail in their duty, should inferiors die? This father never taught his son to be filial. To act upon this charge would be to kill the innocent. ¶

But until the millennium there will be delinquent parents and delinquent homes, and as a result from out of these there will come children inclined to delinquency. ¶

Duties of Church and School ¶

It is the duty of the Church to render such assistance as is possible. First, to find these delinquents, and then to awaken higher ideals in daily living and to inspire faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. ¶

But only a small percentage of children and youth ever come in contact with the church. In New York City alone, fifty thousand children are unaffiliated with any church. A potent factor, therefore, in character development is the public school. ¶

To these democratic institutions come children from all kinds of homes, including the delinquent. All I can say this morning is that every teacher in church and in school should realize that he has the moral as well as the assigned responsibility to impress upon his students the true value of the highest and noblest things in life. ¶

White House Conference Report ¶

More concern, it is now apparent, should be given to the influences outside the home, the church, and the school. One of the most important conferences ever held in this country was the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection held during President Hoover's administration. Governor George Dern followed the matter up in Utah. As a result, hundreds of progressive people, forward-looking citizens, participated in the Utah State White House Conference, and considered influences that affect the child. From one of these reports I quote as follows: ¶

The decadence of the old-type home with its wide physical arena of family life, its home with genius industry, its concern in the individual welfare and control over the child, yields to community influences which now have a larger part in the life of the child. ¶

With the great masses of sensationalism and artificial stimulation to which the child of today is subjected in this age of mechanical wonders, it is of the gravest importance that society realize that it is only in the example of sincere living upon the part of the individual members of society that the child finds a dynamic impulse for his own wholesome development. ¶

If we are sincere in our desire to reduce this delinquency among youth, let us look to ourselves as members of the community and as leaders and officials in civic circles. I continue to quote: ¶

A nation that has conquered great material difficulties, and harnessed its physical powers must have' some more effective means of combating the cynicism of its youth — the cynicism born of widely flaunted dishonesty of those in high places, insincerity of leadership, and gaudy pageantry of crime. ¶

We have been termed the most lawless nation in the world. This is not merely that we have so many laws that any one enactment loses sanctity. This is not merely that the administration of criminal law has failed to keep pace with our urbanization. This is not merely that we feel that individual rights stand above the law. Deeper than all this lies a form of lawlessness that pervades our whole people, that infects our children — the tragic result of our unlimited natural resources, the facility of their wealth and the apparent omnipotence of our machinery — the heritage in our generation of the vicious belief that somehow more can be gotten out of life than one puts into it. This is truly in its deepest and most devastating sense a belief in lawlessness. ¶

Delinquency in Hollywood ¶

Recently a delinquent adult, a prominent movie actor, was caught with others in an illegal "dive." A few days later, a columnist published in the public press, the following: ¶

I don't quite savvy all this sudden bleeding over the plight of a droopy-eyed young movie actor who seems to have been caught by the cops on a reefer binge with a couple of blondes. For one thing, it is not an unusual offense in Hollywood. Dragging the weed ranks roughly in the film colony with taking benzedrine as a substitute for sleep and sobriety. ¶

I ask you, I ask the American public, to consider, what effect such comment would have upon young people who are already inclined to yield to the urge of new experience. More shame to the adult delinquent than to the youth! ¶

Wholesome Community Environment ¶

It is the duty of every law-abiding citizen to see to it that our children have a wholesome community environment in which to live during their tender and impressive years. ¶

I commend those officers who recently broke up that gambling den out here in our county, where sixteen adults — well, more than that — when the sheriff and his deputy caught them because of the activity of some neighbors . . . sixteen adults who were guilty of gambling and cock-fighting. Eleven were caught, arrested, and fined fifty dollars each. The officers broke it up, but now the gamblers are active in another county, I am informed. ¶

The secret, illegal selling of bawdy literature and obscene pictures, the drinking of intoxicating liquors in public, the harboring of gambling devices, and particularly of "one-armed bandits" in "joints" throughout the state, and I speak advisedly, lure the youth into an atmosphere of criminality. Sale of liquor by the drink would only increase the danger and make more readily accessible to young people a demoralizing environment. ¶

I am throwing out these two thoughts to emphasize the need of keeping our young people, as far as possible, in a wholesome and not a demoralizing environment. ¶

Gratitude for the Church In conclusion, let me say: ¶

Let us here and now express gratitude for the Church of Jesus Christ with quorums and auxiliaries specially organized to combat these evils. It was established by divine revelation of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. Its glorious mission is to proclaim the truth of the restored gospel; to uplift society that people may mingle more amicably one with another; to create in our communities a wholesome environment in which our children may find strength to resist temptation and encouragement to strive for cultural and spiritual attainment; to make ineffective the influence of designing men who would make profit out of their fellows who are fallen' so low as to be slaves to their appetites and passions — and who would fill their purses through the weaknesses of addicts to gambling, and the pitiable courtesan outcasts. The gospel is a rational philosophy that teaches men how to get happiness in this life, and exaltation in the life to come. ¶

The mission of the Church is to establish the kingdom of God upon the earth, which, in the words of Thomas Nixon Carver, is not a mystical but a real kingdom. It is a body of people dominated by ideals of productivity, which is mutual service. We do not strive for the things which satisfy but for the moment and then leave a bad taste. We strive for the things which build us up, and enable us and our children to be strong, to flourish, and to conquer. We strive to make ourselves worthy to receive the world by flitting ourselves to use the world more productively than others. We believe that obedience to God means obedience to the laws of nature, which are but the manifestations of his will; and we try by painstaking study to acquire the most complete and exact knowledge of that will, in order that we may conform ourselves to it. ¶

We believe that reverence for God is respect for these laws, that meekness is teachableness and willingness to learn by observation and experience. By practicing this kind of meekness, or teachableness, we believe that we shall inherit the earth; whereas the unmeek, the unteachable, the pigheaded, who are dominated by pride of tradition, shall not. We offer you hard work, frugal fare, severe discipline, but a share in the conquest of the world for the religion of the productive life. ¶

God help us to discharge our responsibilities to our youth by making an environment in home, in school, in church, and in our communities that will be uplifting, wholesome, faith-inspiring, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶