VIII
CHURCH WELFARE PROGRAM
1.
Introduction of the church welfare program at the general conference at Salt Lake City in April, 1936, caused a stir throughout the United States. Editors and reporters immediately began to ask questions, and placed varying editorial interpretations upon the answers.
It was seen as a blow against the government dole.
It was understood to be a slap at increasing demands for old-age pensions.
It was interpreted to mean that the Mormon church had actively entered politics opposed to government spending.
It was believed to be a startling new economic proposal in the midst of the scores of other economic panaceas then current.
As a matter of fact, it was in itself none of these, but a program so vast and so transcendental that it rose above all such limiting descriptions. Editors, reporters, readers, throughout the world, naturally, arrived at conclusions which were the direct results of their own limitations and provincialisms.
To Mormons, it was nothing extraordinary, nothing new. It was the logical step to be taken at that time, a perfectly normal evolution from many preceding milestones in the economic and spiritual advancement of the church. Few Mormons were surprised. They accepted its logic along with a strongly renewed faith in the divine guidance of the leadership of their church, which had been once again inspired to do the right thing at the right time for the benefit of all.
The plan stemmed directly from a fundamental principle in the creed of the Latter-day Saints. This is their belief that it is the duty of the church to actively take care of the temporal, physical, earthly needs of all its members as well as to provide them with spiritual stimulation. The Mormon church holds that it is foolish to preach to a man who has an empty stomach, whose children are crying for shoes, whose house is falling down around his ears, whose wife is in need of medical attention for which he cannot pay, or who is faced with the starkness of unemployment. Such a man, they say, is in no position to receive spiritual blessings. Spiritual brotherhood between man and man and between God and man is a two-way proposition. Man must give, spiritually, if he is to receive spiritually. And how can a man give wholeheartedly if he or his dear ones are suffering deprivation?
They believe literally that each man is his brother's keeper, that it is the primary duty of the group to which a man belongs to see that he has an opportunity to make the best use of his abilities and possessions.
This conception of religion is so foreign to the world that it is small wonder that people immediately placed all sorts of sinister and narrow interpretations upon the church welfare plan. Others, whose personal philosophies had evolved to a standard higher than that held by the average sect, denomination or religious body, but who had not come into direct contact with the Mormons, saw in this vast project the answer to many of their questions, and approached a study of it in wonder at its completeness and effectiveness.
It was not to be expected that the welfare plan would be genuinely lauded in all quarters. So far-reaching are its effects, that were it to be adopted universally throughout all the population of America, it would do away with poor houses, would abolish age-old pensions, would banish forever the system of doles, handouts, and other largesse from public treasuries, would eliminate the need for the Red Cross, would greatly reduce the drain on the veterans' administration, and so, on for hours. Think of the army of case workers, administrators, clerks, and oracles of social science who would be dethroned and made jobless by such a revolution! So it is safe to say that a majority, at least, of these folks would find it exceedingly difficult to see in this crackbrained idea of the Saints anything of lasting benefit to humanity. At least that part of humanity as represented by their personal incomes and positions of dignity!
At the beginning of the plan, the nation was in the midst of a great depression. Boondoggling and check-snatching had become the principle national pastimes. Administration of social service had become a cult, with strong social theories that rapidly were taking on the character of tenets of faith. It is small wonder that non-Mormons found this new thing one of amazement, or political argument, or a threat to their existence on doles and pensions. They didn't possess the philosophical background to understand it, or were not part of the culture and civilization that could put such a movement into effect.
The plan was an immediate success.
At that spring conference in 1936, President Heber J. Grant announced the plan and instructed the officers of all stakes and wards to begin activity on it without delay. He outlined the organization necessary, the goals to be achieved, and admonished them all to bring complete reports to the following October conference. During the intervening time, he informed them, they were to accumulate and store away enough materials within their wards and stakes to care for all their own peple during the coming winter.
At the October conference, all stakes but five throughout Mormondom had reported, and those five came through a few days later. Each stake not only had set the plan in motion within its own territory, but had completed a survey of all the needs anticipated by their poor for the coming year.
Since the whole object of the church from the time of its foundation has been the welfare of man, it was not necessary to erect a vast new social machinery to put the welfare plan into action, nor was it needed that a costly and exhaustive survey of ways and means be made. The organization of the church is such that any member can be reached at any time, so in some instances it was possible to get a complete report of all the needs of the people within a stake in a matter of a few days.
A welfare committee was instituted in every stake. Membership consisted of the bishops' council, the president of the Relief Society and her work director, and representatives from the three quorums of the priesthood. Every person within the whole body of the church in that stake was thus represented. The bishops' council consists of all the bishops of wards within a stake.
Stakes were grouped into 19 regions, according to geographical location, with some isolated stakes remaining alone in the work. The region is governed by a council consisting of all the presidencies of its stakes. One of them is designated chairman of the council and another is vice-chairman.
Above the regions and independent stakes, there was constituted the general welfare committee of the church, at Salt Lake City. That committee, at the time this book was written, was composed of: Henry D. Moyle, chairman; W. E. Ryberg, Mark Austin, Sterling H. Nelson, Stringham A. Stevens, Clyde C. Edmonds, Howard Barker, Roscoe W. Eardley, Ezra C. Knowlton, Clyde J. Brown, Paul C. Child and Lorenzo H. Hatch. Elder Harold B. Lee, one of the twelve apostles of the church, is managing director of the entire program, and his assistant is Marion G. Romney, an indefatigable businessman.
Organization of welfare work has improved steadily, and the Mormon genius for cooperative effort has developed a well-nigh foolproof system of caring for the needy.
The welfare program has been in constant operation throughout most of the church since its inception. AT the April, 1946, conference, the general officers of the church placed renewed emphasis upon it, and some stakes and missions in which it theretofore had languished were admonished to get the system into high gear.
Disorders that are due as a result of World War II were seen as a motive force for stimulating the program, especially in some industrial areas where it had not been previously needed very greatly.
The job of sending food and clothing to fill the needs of church members in Europe and other war-torn areas was one that was accomplished readily and quickly. Even the enormous amounts of arduous labor necessary to compress a huge mountain of commodities into eleven-pound packages to meet regulations of the occupying authorities was easily at hand. An army of volunteer workers was recruited at short notice.
So zealous were they in their use of the utmost value in each package that if a fracion of an ounce were found to be available at weighing, it was padded out with a handkerchief hastily tucked under the wrapper at the last moment. Few ounces of capacity were wasted.
In two days' time, the Relief Society in Salt Lake City, alone, gathered enough good clothing to fill immediate needs of European Saints. There was a rule, too, that no garment would be accepted unless it were in perfectly wearable condition.
Whether strikes, famine, floods, pestilences, inflations, depressions or wars lie ahead, the Mormon church is willing to succor all its members, and is able to do so, as well.
It was seen as a blow against the government dole.
It was understood to be a slap at increasing demands for old-age pensions.
It was interpreted to mean that the Mormon church had actively entered politics opposed to government spending.
It was believed to be a startling new economic proposal in the midst of the scores of other economic panaceas then current.
As a matter of fact, it was in itself none of these, but a program so vast and so transcendental that it rose above all such limiting descriptions. Editors, reporters, readers, throughout the world, naturally, arrived at conclusions which were the direct results of their own limitations and provincialisms.
To Mormons, it was nothing extraordinary, nothing new. It was the logical step to be taken at that time, a perfectly normal evolution from many preceding milestones in the economic and spiritual advancement of the church. Few Mormons were surprised. They accepted its logic along with a strongly renewed faith in the divine guidance of the leadership of their church, which had been once again inspired to do the right thing at the right time for the benefit of all.
The plan stemmed directly from a fundamental principle in the creed of the Latter-day Saints. This is their belief that it is the duty of the church to actively take care of the temporal, physical, earthly needs of all its members as well as to provide them with spiritual stimulation. The Mormon church holds that it is foolish to preach to a man who has an empty stomach, whose children are crying for shoes, whose house is falling down around his ears, whose wife is in need of medical attention for which he cannot pay, or who is faced with the starkness of unemployment. Such a man, they say, is in no position to receive spiritual blessings. Spiritual brotherhood between man and man and between God and man is a two-way proposition. Man must give, spiritually, if he is to receive spiritually. And how can a man give wholeheartedly if he or his dear ones are suffering deprivation?
They believe literally that each man is his brother's keeper, that it is the primary duty of the group to which a man belongs to see that he has an opportunity to make the best use of his abilities and possessions.
This conception of religion is so foreign to the world that it is small wonder that people immediately placed all sorts of sinister and narrow interpretations upon the church welfare plan. Others, whose personal philosophies had evolved to a standard higher than that held by the average sect, denomination or religious body, but who had not come into direct contact with the Mormons, saw in this vast project the answer to many of their questions, and approached a study of it in wonder at its completeness and effectiveness.
It was not to be expected that the welfare plan would be genuinely lauded in all quarters. So far-reaching are its effects, that were it to be adopted universally throughout all the population of America, it would do away with poor houses, would abolish age-old pensions, would banish forever the system of doles, handouts, and other largesse from public treasuries, would eliminate the need for the Red Cross, would greatly reduce the drain on the veterans' administration, and so, on for hours. Think of the army of case workers, administrators, clerks, and oracles of social science who would be dethroned and made jobless by such a revolution! So it is safe to say that a majority, at least, of these folks would find it exceedingly difficult to see in this crackbrained idea of the Saints anything of lasting benefit to humanity. At least that part of humanity as represented by their personal incomes and positions of dignity!
At the beginning of the plan, the nation was in the midst of a great depression. Boondoggling and check-snatching had become the principle national pastimes. Administration of social service had become a cult, with strong social theories that rapidly were taking on the character of tenets of faith. It is small wonder that non-Mormons found this new thing one of amazement, or political argument, or a threat to their existence on doles and pensions. They didn't possess the philosophical background to understand it, or were not part of the culture and civilization that could put such a movement into effect.
The plan was an immediate success.
At that spring conference in 1936, President Heber J. Grant announced the plan and instructed the officers of all stakes and wards to begin activity on it without delay. He outlined the organization necessary, the goals to be achieved, and admonished them all to bring complete reports to the following October conference. During the intervening time, he informed them, they were to accumulate and store away enough materials within their wards and stakes to care for all their own peple during the coming winter.
At the October conference, all stakes but five throughout Mormondom had reported, and those five came through a few days later. Each stake not only had set the plan in motion within its own territory, but had completed a survey of all the needs anticipated by their poor for the coming year.
Since the whole object of the church from the time of its foundation has been the welfare of man, it was not necessary to erect a vast new social machinery to put the welfare plan into action, nor was it needed that a costly and exhaustive survey of ways and means be made. The organization of the church is such that any member can be reached at any time, so in some instances it was possible to get a complete report of all the needs of the people within a stake in a matter of a few days.
A welfare committee was instituted in every stake. Membership consisted of the bishops' council, the president of the Relief Society and her work director, and representatives from the three quorums of the priesthood. Every person within the whole body of the church in that stake was thus represented. The bishops' council consists of all the bishops of wards within a stake.
Stakes were grouped into 19 regions, according to geographical location, with some isolated stakes remaining alone in the work. The region is governed by a council consisting of all the presidencies of its stakes. One of them is designated chairman of the council and another is vice-chairman.
Above the regions and independent stakes, there was constituted the general welfare committee of the church, at Salt Lake City. That committee, at the time this book was written, was composed of: Henry D. Moyle, chairman; W. E. Ryberg, Mark Austin, Sterling H. Nelson, Stringham A. Stevens, Clyde C. Edmonds, Howard Barker, Roscoe W. Eardley, Ezra C. Knowlton, Clyde J. Brown, Paul C. Child and Lorenzo H. Hatch. Elder Harold B. Lee, one of the twelve apostles of the church, is managing director of the entire program, and his assistant is Marion G. Romney, an indefatigable businessman.
Organization of welfare work has improved steadily, and the Mormon genius for cooperative effort has developed a well-nigh foolproof system of caring for the needy.
The welfare program has been in constant operation throughout most of the church since its inception. AT the April, 1946, conference, the general officers of the church placed renewed emphasis upon it, and some stakes and missions in which it theretofore had languished were admonished to get the system into high gear.
Disorders that are due as a result of World War II were seen as a motive force for stimulating the program, especially in some industrial areas where it had not been previously needed very greatly.
The job of sending food and clothing to fill the needs of church members in Europe and other war-torn areas was one that was accomplished readily and quickly. Even the enormous amounts of arduous labor necessary to compress a huge mountain of commodities into eleven-pound packages to meet regulations of the occupying authorities was easily at hand. An army of volunteer workers was recruited at short notice.
So zealous were they in their use of the utmost value in each package that if a fracion of an ounce were found to be available at weighing, it was padded out with a handkerchief hastily tucked under the wrapper at the last moment. Few ounces of capacity were wasted.
In two days' time, the Relief Society in Salt Lake City, alone, gathered enough good clothing to fill immediate needs of European Saints. There was a rule, too, that no garment would be accepted unless it were in perfectly wearable condition.
Whether strikes, famine, floods, pestilences, inflations, depressions or wars lie ahead, the Mormon church is willing to succor all its members, and is able to do so, as well.
2.
The principles guiding administration of the welfare plan are four-fold:
1. Immediate aid to those in distress;
2. Placing the individual or group receiving aid in a way to take care of themselves and become self-sustaining members of society;
3. Fostering a spirit of brotherhood and cooperation between fellow-givers, between givers and receivers, and through the manner in which the aid must take form;
4. Building, repairing and maintaining intact an organization, which in truth is really the whole church itself, that can meet any obligation that might arise at any time to one or to all of its members.
There are ward, stake, and regional storehouses, in which surpluses are gathered according to a well-formulated budget, against the day when they will be needed.
In the ward, the place of deposit is known as the bishop's storehouse, and responsibility for disbursing stored articles rests at all times with the bishop, or with groups and councils of them in the larger areas. It is the bishop's duty to sign orders releasing supplies in the storehouse to whomever needs them and is entitled to them. Members of the church, a self-reliant lot, often are reluctant to ask for aid, so it is also the duty of the bishop to seek out those who need help.
No welfare organization in the world can move more rapidly than an L.D.S. ward in alleviating suffering and hunger, often in a matter of minutes or hours. Bishops frequently drive many miles with their automobiles stocked with provisions on the mere rumor that distant families are in need.
Assistance to tide a family over an urgent situation is rendered by the bishop from the warehouse, or by outright purchase in the open market if such is necessary. This latter action is kept to minimum, because of other requirements that goods used must be produced by the personal efforts of members.
Second step is rehabilitation. This falls to the responsibility of the quorum to which the man of the family belongs. If he is an elder, then the president of the elders of that ward takes the responsibility of seeing that the man is assisted in getting onto his own feet, so that he can maintain his family and hold his head high.
Assistance takes as many forsm as there are individuals in need. In one case, the main difficulty will be that a man with a big family is employed at a job that does not pay him enough to feed them and house them properly. This would bring several different kinds of action. First, the president of the elders would inquire among all the other elders, and elsewhere, for a job for this man that would pay him a sufficient wage. If he is not fitted for a better job and can assimilate training, they secure this for him. Next, they take stock of his housing limitations and work out a plan to improve them. Maybe the man is renting. They will undertake with the bishop a method of permitting this man to purchase his own home and pay for it as he is able, according to his ability. Maybe he owns the house but it is inadequate. They will arrange with the bishop for a loan covering actual cost of materials, and the elders themselves will then gather and build the additional rooms or facilities needed. Maybe there are children old enough to contribute to the welfare of the family. Work is secured for them. If atttandance at a specialized business or trade school is indicated for fitting some of the children to earn, this is arranged, too.
Church records anonymously cite a young man of rather frail appearance who had a wife and four children. He had been employed by a chain grocery store which, when labor became plentiful, discharged him in favor of a huskier man. After thoroughly analyzing his case, his character and abilities, the welfare committee of his ward recommended that the bishop set him up in business for himself. His grocery flourished and he soon began to pay back with interest the loan that the church had advanced to him.
Often the cause of poverty in a family is vicious habits in the man. In rendering relief, the members of this man's quorum take him in hand and reason with him, trying seriously to aid him in overcoming the things that are holding him back, and soon he again stands on his own two feet and his family no longer suffers.
Sometimes a family is in a dire situation because it does not know how to manage its affairs. Maybe the wife is not an economical purchaser. Members of the Relief Society teach her the rudiments of wise shopping. Mayb she has never learned to sew, and has been spending an unnecessary amount of money for pre-fabricated clothing that might just as well be made at home at a fraction of the cost. They teach her to sew.
The act of giving, or of contributing to the working of the welfare plan is as valuable an asset to the church as is the good that derives from people being fed and clothed.
In filling the bishop's storehouse, members do not go out and buy things with money. They produce most of the objects with their own hands and their own skills. Women, members of the Relief Society, gather and repair used garments and make new ones. Everyone else does the same sort of thing in proportion to his ability and in variety as to his skill.
There usually is a community cannery in connection with a storehouse. Here products of vacant lots that have been turned into welfare gardens, extra acreages of crops that have been pledged to the program, and other surpluses are processed and made available for storage.
Throughout these activities there is a spirit of cooperation, of brotherly and sisterly working together, laying aside a surplus for all. For truly, the vicissitudes of life might make any one of them needful tomorrow of what they lay up today.
In some agricultural stakes, rental or outright ownership of acreages for growing food for the church program has been secured, along with tractor and work animal use. Men of the stake meet on call, or in their off-days from regular work, to plow, plant, cultivate and harvest the crops. Usually they meet in large numbers, endeavoring to do by community effort in a day what would take many days for an individual to accomplish. At close of the day, their womenfolk make a festival of the occasion by bringing supper to be eaten on the ground.
There is a good reason for all this stress upon the value of a work-produced contribution. They are not giving a brother or sister something of charity that they do not need themselves - they are giving him the product of their own labor, the work of their own hands, the dreams of their own minds. Money could never fill such a need to the giver, or make him feel that he is part and parcel with the taker in an action of love cementing them together.
It is impossible to say where the welfare program ends and the church begins. They are synonymous. They are inseparable. By building and expanding the welfare program in all directions to care for all the temporal needs of all its members, the church is filling out the domain of responsibility that was laid out for it at the beginning.
The welfare plan itself is a fundamental of faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is as much so as is the belief of Roman Catholics in the virgin birth of Jesus; as the belief of Christian Scientists in the efficacy of religious healing; as the belief of Baptists in baptism by immersion; as the belief of orthodox Jews in the sacredness of Mosaic law.
The stake bishops' council seeks to standardize the methods used in effecting the welfare program within each of the wards, so that cooperative effot can be obtained with little difficulty.
Through the stake welfare committee, which answers to the regional and general welfare committees above it, through quorums and organizations within the stake and its wards, the church is kept thoroughly immersed in welfare activity. Every family is reached. Every member is allocated some specific duty that makes him feel a direct personal responsibility. Through the ward-block teaching and checking system, outlined in another chapter, the entire organization of the church is maintained intact and kept moving forward.
The welfare plan, in its effect upon the church organization as a whole can be compared to the educational progress of a healthy child who learns the fist step of a skill today, the second tomorrow, and another the third day, with each successive accomplishment giving him confidence to proceed farther along the interesting and unknown path of knowledge that lies ahead of him.
The church's policy is this, that individuals and groups shall be kept learning by doing.
Even the raising of necessary money, which is one of the smaller items in the welfare program, is done in a way that gives the donor a sense of personal physical participation. Once a month, every faithful church member abstains from eating two meals on one day, breakfast and lunch, and contributes the cash value of the meals he would have eaten to the welfare cash funds. From high, low, rich, poor, from lawyers and farmers and stenographers and salesgirls, this fast offering pours into the bishop's coffers to enable him to buy for the poor what cannot be produced within the ward or stake, or cannot be bargained for by an exchange of commodities with another ward, stake or region.
Instruction and knowledge of the welfare program is not a temporary thing, but a steady, growing force that permeates every fibre of the church, reaches every soul. So vital is it deemed that a special course of instruction has been laid out for teaching it in every Sunday school. A series of lessons on the subject, which were written by Elder Afred E. Bowen, one of the twelve apostles of the church, under direction from the first presidency, was taught during the six months beginning July 1, 1946.
This action assures immediate stimulation of the program within all the church and inculcates within the oncoming generation a thorough understanding of its principles, so that greater accomplishments can be expected in the future.
In words of the late President Heber J. Grant, "This is the greatest thing the church has ever attempted."
The least that can be said for it is that it has rallied the Mormons from a quarter of a century of comparative inactivity when they spent most of their time protecting themselves from attacks by others, instead of proceeding along their own God-ordained course without regard for criticisms. And this spiritual rebirth, too, has come at an opportune time when most protestant churches are floundering from lack of leadership, falling apart from lack of an affirmative creed, and dying because of their inability to meet the needs for which humanity has learned to look elsewhere, such as state welfare agencies for temporal relief and to music, art, travel, nature appreciation for spiritual values.
Underlying the welfare plan is a basic belief that every person must work for his living.
Like so many other passages of the Bible and Book of Mormon, the admonition of the Lord that, "Man must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow," is taken literally by these people. Everything connected with the church is aimed at getting every man engaged in clean, honest toil and keeping him there. The work is nearly always his own choice, his career is his own to do with as he pleases, but the church expects every man to work, and every woman to work, each in his or her own capacity.
Therefore, there is no dole, no bounty, no gift, and there are no checks handed out in the welfare program.
There is food, clothing, fuel, shelter, remunerative employment for all who care to work, but work and faithfulness are prerequisite to participation in the plan.
The church points out that all wealth is the creation of labor. When God placed the responsibility of work upon men, He was not pronouncing a curse, but conferring a blessing. The greatest joy possible on this earth is that which comes from a sense of accomplishment, of creation, of attainment and constructiveness, through work, hard work, steady work. Work with the hands. Work with the brain. Work of a spiritual nature. The church recognizes all these classifications of labor. Work brings wealth, health, progress, mental stability and happiness.
This is why the church has been so bitterly opposed to any idea of public charity out of tax funds for its members. The church has spared no effort to keep its members off relief rolls, off pension lists, and regardless of their age or condition, to get them into gainful employment, even though it might be partial and not fully sufficient for their needs. The church gladly supplies the difference in such submarginal cases, but these are surprisingly few. It requires that the recipient make every honest effort toward his own support, and provides the counsel and assistance of the whole ward in that direction.
The church strongly condemns the practice of permitting children to become wards of the state. It stoutly maintains that the duty of providing for children until they are of age is the direct responsibility of parents, and if parents fail or become unable to do so, then it becomes the job of the church, but never of the state. It points out that nothing in this world ever comes free. If a child is permitted to grow up on the bounty of the state, it enters adult life with definite handicaps that prevent his or her exercising the full freedom of agency that God grants as a birthright to every man and woman. If a person accepts anything from the state, he is under obligation for it, and even though pressure might not be directly applied to him, he cannot escape that obligation and that limitation.
Willingness of the state to support children, whether of married or of unmarried mothers, is not conducive to the stability of home life, nor a deterrent to illegitimacy. That is one of the things that Germany did for forty years prior to World War II, and the disastrous results of nearly two generations brought up as wards of the state have been the scourge of the world.
The church recognizes no age in life that entitles a person to sit down and take it easy, or to live at the expense of others, least of all the state. It says clearly and bluntly that God has placed no age limitation on the requirement of man to sweat for his bread. This doctrine has been so well demonstrated by so many elderly members of the church, that the appeal for old age pensions of any sort sounds downright silly. All of the presidents of the church except one lived to a ripe old age, and all worked until the day of death. One of them, at the age of 88, delighed in competing with his grandsons in hoeing his garden, and was good naturedly peeved when the day came that they could move faster than he.
The Mormon church lays down the dictum that it must find or provide work for any or all of its members, aged or otherwise. But the aged must stay off public pension lists! It can find no words too bitter to describe the malicious practice of many elderly persons, when approaching the age of 65, in disposing of their properties so as to be able to qualify for old-age assistance. It strongly urges the retention of all such property, or its conversion into capital equipment that will enable the aged person to earn his or her own living, even at a reduced scale.
Especial attentionis given to those bishops who are able to convince the older persons in their wards of the wisdom of independence. One bishop was lauded for his outstanding achievement in assisting 20 elderly people in removing themselves from pension rolls and getting back to earning their own way in life. The full weight of the church is offered in this field, with the storehouses standing ready to feed, clothe, and shelter any until they are fully self-sustaining and their own bosses once more.
To a Mormon, the degree of glory which is attainable in the world to come is in direct proportion to the amount of effort spent in trying to better oneself in this world.
There is always honorable work to be done, according to a man's capacity, physical condition, training and position, in more or less remuneration, until death. A man who is able to work at anything, and does not do it, is not entitled to live, least of all at the expense of others.
The only exceptions made are in tehe case of those whose infirmities make it impossible for them to perform useful labor. These, in order to work out their destinies, must live their alloted time on earth, and it is the duty of their families, and after their families, of the church, to care for them.
Further, possession of wealth does not entitle a person to remain in idleness. Wealth broadens the opportunities a man has for work, but cannot relieve him of the necessity of unremitting toil.
The position of the church in these matters was very clearly stated by J. Reuben Clark, a member of the first presidency of the church, in an address to a citizens' meeting at Estes Park, Colo., in 1939. Part of his talk follows.
"We Mormons have cared for the essential needs of our own in the past; we can do it now... times have changed... but character building has not. The laws of righteousness and progress are eternal. There is no escape from them, either for the individual or for the nation.
"An uncorrupted citizenry builds a great State. No State ever built an uncorrupted citizenry.
"No man is politically free who depends upon the state for his sustenance.
"A planned and subsidized economy beats down initiative, wipes out industry, destroys character and prostitutes the electorate.
"I repeat - in view of all these considerations, the Church has felt that in setting up its Welfare Plan, it was not only meeting its prescribed duty as a Church to its members, but was performing a duty of patriotism to our country."
This business of patriotism to their country is not loose talk with the Mormons. They act upon it. An example is the practice of each Mormon family in keeping laid away a two years' supply of foodstuffs.
This is an essential part of the welfare plan. But all members are admonished to store up this food, to tide their families through any sort of depression, war, inflation or disaster that might come along - with the labor of their own hands. In other words, they are to dig it out of their gardens, grow it in their own feedlots, pick and preserve it from fruit trees which would otherwise have a wasted crop. The reason for this is simple, and one of the greatest services the Mormons can do the rest of the world while food is scarce. IT KEEPS THEM OUT OF THE WORLD'S FOOD MARKETS, LEAVING SCARCE FOOD FOR USE OF THOSE WHO ARE NOT MORMONS.
Members of a ward who are near the submarginal line in income are encouraged to spend some of their spare time working on welfare projects so as to accumulate a credit with the bishop against the day when they will need to draw on the storehouse.
If you are faithful in your duties to God and the church, and if you work according to your fitness, you will get everything you need.
If you are faithful and come to total incapacity, you will be cared for.
If you spend your time in idleness, though fitted for some kind of work, you will be refused necessities, and unless you mend your ways you will find yourself ostracized by the ward.
Mormons are tolerant in many things, but their law of work is inexorable.
The world owes a living to nobody.
1. Immediate aid to those in distress;
2. Placing the individual or group receiving aid in a way to take care of themselves and become self-sustaining members of society;
3. Fostering a spirit of brotherhood and cooperation between fellow-givers, between givers and receivers, and through the manner in which the aid must take form;
4. Building, repairing and maintaining intact an organization, which in truth is really the whole church itself, that can meet any obligation that might arise at any time to one or to all of its members.
There are ward, stake, and regional storehouses, in which surpluses are gathered according to a well-formulated budget, against the day when they will be needed.
In the ward, the place of deposit is known as the bishop's storehouse, and responsibility for disbursing stored articles rests at all times with the bishop, or with groups and councils of them in the larger areas. It is the bishop's duty to sign orders releasing supplies in the storehouse to whomever needs them and is entitled to them. Members of the church, a self-reliant lot, often are reluctant to ask for aid, so it is also the duty of the bishop to seek out those who need help.
No welfare organization in the world can move more rapidly than an L.D.S. ward in alleviating suffering and hunger, often in a matter of minutes or hours. Bishops frequently drive many miles with their automobiles stocked with provisions on the mere rumor that distant families are in need.
Assistance to tide a family over an urgent situation is rendered by the bishop from the warehouse, or by outright purchase in the open market if such is necessary. This latter action is kept to minimum, because of other requirements that goods used must be produced by the personal efforts of members.
Second step is rehabilitation. This falls to the responsibility of the quorum to which the man of the family belongs. If he is an elder, then the president of the elders of that ward takes the responsibility of seeing that the man is assisted in getting onto his own feet, so that he can maintain his family and hold his head high.
Assistance takes as many forsm as there are individuals in need. In one case, the main difficulty will be that a man with a big family is employed at a job that does not pay him enough to feed them and house them properly. This would bring several different kinds of action. First, the president of the elders would inquire among all the other elders, and elsewhere, for a job for this man that would pay him a sufficient wage. If he is not fitted for a better job and can assimilate training, they secure this for him. Next, they take stock of his housing limitations and work out a plan to improve them. Maybe the man is renting. They will undertake with the bishop a method of permitting this man to purchase his own home and pay for it as he is able, according to his ability. Maybe he owns the house but it is inadequate. They will arrange with the bishop for a loan covering actual cost of materials, and the elders themselves will then gather and build the additional rooms or facilities needed. Maybe there are children old enough to contribute to the welfare of the family. Work is secured for them. If atttandance at a specialized business or trade school is indicated for fitting some of the children to earn, this is arranged, too.
Church records anonymously cite a young man of rather frail appearance who had a wife and four children. He had been employed by a chain grocery store which, when labor became plentiful, discharged him in favor of a huskier man. After thoroughly analyzing his case, his character and abilities, the welfare committee of his ward recommended that the bishop set him up in business for himself. His grocery flourished and he soon began to pay back with interest the loan that the church had advanced to him.
Often the cause of poverty in a family is vicious habits in the man. In rendering relief, the members of this man's quorum take him in hand and reason with him, trying seriously to aid him in overcoming the things that are holding him back, and soon he again stands on his own two feet and his family no longer suffers.
Sometimes a family is in a dire situation because it does not know how to manage its affairs. Maybe the wife is not an economical purchaser. Members of the Relief Society teach her the rudiments of wise shopping. Mayb she has never learned to sew, and has been spending an unnecessary amount of money for pre-fabricated clothing that might just as well be made at home at a fraction of the cost. They teach her to sew.
The act of giving, or of contributing to the working of the welfare plan is as valuable an asset to the church as is the good that derives from people being fed and clothed.
In filling the bishop's storehouse, members do not go out and buy things with money. They produce most of the objects with their own hands and their own skills. Women, members of the Relief Society, gather and repair used garments and make new ones. Everyone else does the same sort of thing in proportion to his ability and in variety as to his skill.
There usually is a community cannery in connection with a storehouse. Here products of vacant lots that have been turned into welfare gardens, extra acreages of crops that have been pledged to the program, and other surpluses are processed and made available for storage.
Throughout these activities there is a spirit of cooperation, of brotherly and sisterly working together, laying aside a surplus for all. For truly, the vicissitudes of life might make any one of them needful tomorrow of what they lay up today.
In some agricultural stakes, rental or outright ownership of acreages for growing food for the church program has been secured, along with tractor and work animal use. Men of the stake meet on call, or in their off-days from regular work, to plow, plant, cultivate and harvest the crops. Usually they meet in large numbers, endeavoring to do by community effort in a day what would take many days for an individual to accomplish. At close of the day, their womenfolk make a festival of the occasion by bringing supper to be eaten on the ground.
There is a good reason for all this stress upon the value of a work-produced contribution. They are not giving a brother or sister something of charity that they do not need themselves - they are giving him the product of their own labor, the work of their own hands, the dreams of their own minds. Money could never fill such a need to the giver, or make him feel that he is part and parcel with the taker in an action of love cementing them together.
It is impossible to say where the welfare program ends and the church begins. They are synonymous. They are inseparable. By building and expanding the welfare program in all directions to care for all the temporal needs of all its members, the church is filling out the domain of responsibility that was laid out for it at the beginning.
The welfare plan itself is a fundamental of faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is as much so as is the belief of Roman Catholics in the virgin birth of Jesus; as the belief of Christian Scientists in the efficacy of religious healing; as the belief of Baptists in baptism by immersion; as the belief of orthodox Jews in the sacredness of Mosaic law.
The stake bishops' council seeks to standardize the methods used in effecting the welfare program within each of the wards, so that cooperative effot can be obtained with little difficulty.
Through the stake welfare committee, which answers to the regional and general welfare committees above it, through quorums and organizations within the stake and its wards, the church is kept thoroughly immersed in welfare activity. Every family is reached. Every member is allocated some specific duty that makes him feel a direct personal responsibility. Through the ward-block teaching and checking system, outlined in another chapter, the entire organization of the church is maintained intact and kept moving forward.
The welfare plan, in its effect upon the church organization as a whole can be compared to the educational progress of a healthy child who learns the fist step of a skill today, the second tomorrow, and another the third day, with each successive accomplishment giving him confidence to proceed farther along the interesting and unknown path of knowledge that lies ahead of him.
The church's policy is this, that individuals and groups shall be kept learning by doing.
Even the raising of necessary money, which is one of the smaller items in the welfare program, is done in a way that gives the donor a sense of personal physical participation. Once a month, every faithful church member abstains from eating two meals on one day, breakfast and lunch, and contributes the cash value of the meals he would have eaten to the welfare cash funds. From high, low, rich, poor, from lawyers and farmers and stenographers and salesgirls, this fast offering pours into the bishop's coffers to enable him to buy for the poor what cannot be produced within the ward or stake, or cannot be bargained for by an exchange of commodities with another ward, stake or region.
Instruction and knowledge of the welfare program is not a temporary thing, but a steady, growing force that permeates every fibre of the church, reaches every soul. So vital is it deemed that a special course of instruction has been laid out for teaching it in every Sunday school. A series of lessons on the subject, which were written by Elder Afred E. Bowen, one of the twelve apostles of the church, under direction from the first presidency, was taught during the six months beginning July 1, 1946.
This action assures immediate stimulation of the program within all the church and inculcates within the oncoming generation a thorough understanding of its principles, so that greater accomplishments can be expected in the future.
In words of the late President Heber J. Grant, "This is the greatest thing the church has ever attempted."
The least that can be said for it is that it has rallied the Mormons from a quarter of a century of comparative inactivity when they spent most of their time protecting themselves from attacks by others, instead of proceeding along their own God-ordained course without regard for criticisms. And this spiritual rebirth, too, has come at an opportune time when most protestant churches are floundering from lack of leadership, falling apart from lack of an affirmative creed, and dying because of their inability to meet the needs for which humanity has learned to look elsewhere, such as state welfare agencies for temporal relief and to music, art, travel, nature appreciation for spiritual values.
Underlying the welfare plan is a basic belief that every person must work for his living.
Like so many other passages of the Bible and Book of Mormon, the admonition of the Lord that, "Man must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow," is taken literally by these people. Everything connected with the church is aimed at getting every man engaged in clean, honest toil and keeping him there. The work is nearly always his own choice, his career is his own to do with as he pleases, but the church expects every man to work, and every woman to work, each in his or her own capacity.
Therefore, there is no dole, no bounty, no gift, and there are no checks handed out in the welfare program.
There is food, clothing, fuel, shelter, remunerative employment for all who care to work, but work and faithfulness are prerequisite to participation in the plan.
The church points out that all wealth is the creation of labor. When God placed the responsibility of work upon men, He was not pronouncing a curse, but conferring a blessing. The greatest joy possible on this earth is that which comes from a sense of accomplishment, of creation, of attainment and constructiveness, through work, hard work, steady work. Work with the hands. Work with the brain. Work of a spiritual nature. The church recognizes all these classifications of labor. Work brings wealth, health, progress, mental stability and happiness.
This is why the church has been so bitterly opposed to any idea of public charity out of tax funds for its members. The church has spared no effort to keep its members off relief rolls, off pension lists, and regardless of their age or condition, to get them into gainful employment, even though it might be partial and not fully sufficient for their needs. The church gladly supplies the difference in such submarginal cases, but these are surprisingly few. It requires that the recipient make every honest effort toward his own support, and provides the counsel and assistance of the whole ward in that direction.
The church strongly condemns the practice of permitting children to become wards of the state. It stoutly maintains that the duty of providing for children until they are of age is the direct responsibility of parents, and if parents fail or become unable to do so, then it becomes the job of the church, but never of the state. It points out that nothing in this world ever comes free. If a child is permitted to grow up on the bounty of the state, it enters adult life with definite handicaps that prevent his or her exercising the full freedom of agency that God grants as a birthright to every man and woman. If a person accepts anything from the state, he is under obligation for it, and even though pressure might not be directly applied to him, he cannot escape that obligation and that limitation.
Willingness of the state to support children, whether of married or of unmarried mothers, is not conducive to the stability of home life, nor a deterrent to illegitimacy. That is one of the things that Germany did for forty years prior to World War II, and the disastrous results of nearly two generations brought up as wards of the state have been the scourge of the world.
The church recognizes no age in life that entitles a person to sit down and take it easy, or to live at the expense of others, least of all the state. It says clearly and bluntly that God has placed no age limitation on the requirement of man to sweat for his bread. This doctrine has been so well demonstrated by so many elderly members of the church, that the appeal for old age pensions of any sort sounds downright silly. All of the presidents of the church except one lived to a ripe old age, and all worked until the day of death. One of them, at the age of 88, delighed in competing with his grandsons in hoeing his garden, and was good naturedly peeved when the day came that they could move faster than he.
The Mormon church lays down the dictum that it must find or provide work for any or all of its members, aged or otherwise. But the aged must stay off public pension lists! It can find no words too bitter to describe the malicious practice of many elderly persons, when approaching the age of 65, in disposing of their properties so as to be able to qualify for old-age assistance. It strongly urges the retention of all such property, or its conversion into capital equipment that will enable the aged person to earn his or her own living, even at a reduced scale.
Especial attentionis given to those bishops who are able to convince the older persons in their wards of the wisdom of independence. One bishop was lauded for his outstanding achievement in assisting 20 elderly people in removing themselves from pension rolls and getting back to earning their own way in life. The full weight of the church is offered in this field, with the storehouses standing ready to feed, clothe, and shelter any until they are fully self-sustaining and their own bosses once more.
To a Mormon, the degree of glory which is attainable in the world to come is in direct proportion to the amount of effort spent in trying to better oneself in this world.
There is always honorable work to be done, according to a man's capacity, physical condition, training and position, in more or less remuneration, until death. A man who is able to work at anything, and does not do it, is not entitled to live, least of all at the expense of others.
The only exceptions made are in tehe case of those whose infirmities make it impossible for them to perform useful labor. These, in order to work out their destinies, must live their alloted time on earth, and it is the duty of their families, and after their families, of the church, to care for them.
Further, possession of wealth does not entitle a person to remain in idleness. Wealth broadens the opportunities a man has for work, but cannot relieve him of the necessity of unremitting toil.
The position of the church in these matters was very clearly stated by J. Reuben Clark, a member of the first presidency of the church, in an address to a citizens' meeting at Estes Park, Colo., in 1939. Part of his talk follows.
"We Mormons have cared for the essential needs of our own in the past; we can do it now... times have changed... but character building has not. The laws of righteousness and progress are eternal. There is no escape from them, either for the individual or for the nation.
"An uncorrupted citizenry builds a great State. No State ever built an uncorrupted citizenry.
"No man is politically free who depends upon the state for his sustenance.
"A planned and subsidized economy beats down initiative, wipes out industry, destroys character and prostitutes the electorate.
"I repeat - in view of all these considerations, the Church has felt that in setting up its Welfare Plan, it was not only meeting its prescribed duty as a Church to its members, but was performing a duty of patriotism to our country."
This business of patriotism to their country is not loose talk with the Mormons. They act upon it. An example is the practice of each Mormon family in keeping laid away a two years' supply of foodstuffs.
This is an essential part of the welfare plan. But all members are admonished to store up this food, to tide their families through any sort of depression, war, inflation or disaster that might come along - with the labor of their own hands. In other words, they are to dig it out of their gardens, grow it in their own feedlots, pick and preserve it from fruit trees which would otherwise have a wasted crop. The reason for this is simple, and one of the greatest services the Mormons can do the rest of the world while food is scarce. IT KEEPS THEM OUT OF THE WORLD'S FOOD MARKETS, LEAVING SCARCE FOOD FOR USE OF THOSE WHO ARE NOT MORMONS.
Members of a ward who are near the submarginal line in income are encouraged to spend some of their spare time working on welfare projects so as to accumulate a credit with the bishop against the day when they will need to draw on the storehouse.
If you are faithful in your duties to God and the church, and if you work according to your fitness, you will get everything you need.
If you are faithful and come to total incapacity, you will be cared for.
If you spend your time in idleness, though fitted for some kind of work, you will be refused necessities, and unless you mend your ways you will find yourself ostracized by the ward.
Mormons are tolerant in many things, but their law of work is inexorable.
The world owes a living to nobody.
4. [sic]
After a decade of succcessful operation of the welfare plan, the church has found that the average period over which an individual needs assistance is two and one-half years. Some need help only once, and a few for longer periods. Some, of course, need continual help because of infirmities. People no longer call on the bishop's storehouse for sustenance when they have been fully rehabilitated and are once more able to maintain themselves.
The church established the Deseret Clothing factory in 1939 by taking over a closed knitting works. It rebuilt the machinery and operates the factory as a non-profit venture, with the products being sold to members of the church or going directly into the welfare commodity program, for distribution to bishops' storehouses throughout the world. This plant to date has paid out wages totaling $128,993.73. The average age of its employees is 50 years. During heavy employment, the factory took on a great number of young girls who had no previous experience, and as a result of this training they were able to go out into competitive industry as skilled operators. Many of the regular employees are those too old to find jobs in commercial establishments, but because of this activity are earning their own way, and are avoiding the ignominy of dependency upon family or taxes. One of the products of this factory was 356,480 suits of underwear. All earnings are invested toward perpetuation of the establishment.
Deseret Industries is the salvage unit of the welfare plan. It saves commodities and human beings. It collects clothing, shoes, furniture, paper, magazines, nearly everything that can be repaired. Employees of the unit clean, press, repair and launder clothing; rebuild shoes; upholster, strengthen and refinish furniture and otherwise make saleable articles out of most of the things collected.
This unit operates ten retail stores, most of them in Salt Lake City. Others are in Los Angeles, Calif., and Ogden and Tooele, Utah.
Output of the industries that is not sold through the retail stores is sent to storehouses on the requisitions of bishops whose people are in need of the objects available.
At the last computation, it was estimated that this unit had reclaimed articles valued at $380,000. It had paid out $231,000 in wages. More than 90 percent of the employees could not have found work elsewhere. Personal rehabilitation afforded by this employment is an inspiring thing. Hundreds of workers have passed through the organization. Some have stayed only a few days or a week and others have found in it permanent security and social usefulness. Many skilled workers who are adept in almost lost arts have found here a sanctuary in which they can reclaim and preserve to usefulness beautiful things that have been thrown aside in the machine age. Musical instruments, rare clocks, antique furniture, are some of the items that mechanics, craftsmen and artisans who have been forced out of the main stream of work by age, infirmity or technological conditions, have restored to mankind.
Part of the welfare plan is geared to the making of loans to worthy and needy church members. One of the prime requirements is that such a loan cannot be a bankable one. If the person needing the money can get it elsewhere, the church will not touch the matter, but will advise the applicant where he can secure the required money. Thus, the church makes only character loans.
Loans are made for the purpose of buying farms, going into business, rebuilding a home to meet decent living requirements, for assisting a person who has come to grief through bad management to consolidate his indebtedness in such a way that he can pay out, and for many other worthy needs. There is no security behind those hloans besides the integrity of the borrower, whose personal character is such that his bishop and others responsible for his welfare feel that he is worth the church's investing in him as a person. The record of successful performance is phenomenal. No commercial banking establishment, hedged about by all the security that the banking business affords, could do any better. More than 60 percent of all loans made to date have been paid in full, notwithstanding that some of them were made for long terms. During eight years of operation of the loan feature of the program, only two and one-fourth percent of the amounts loaned have been written off the books as uncollectable. Interest rates are low, but even so, they have been sufficient to more than cover all losses, and retain the revolving principal funds intact. Loans to individuals, stakes, quorums, and individual project loans, have totaled more than one half a million dollars.
Here, again, a dollars and cents value cannot be placed upon the feeling of a person whose credit was so badly impaired that he could find no commercial means of financing himself, who turned to the church and discovered there someone willing to take a chance on his manhood.
The church places heavy stress upon the production of commodities, to the subordination of money accumulations. The welfare plan is designed in its most elemental aspects to provide food, shelter, clothing, the primary essentials to physical well-being, which fill actual human needs as money itself cannot do.
The church general welfare committee determines a year in advance what are likely to be the needs of church members who will require help. The committee sets up an annual budget covering principal commodities and allocates to the various stakes the things which they ought to produce to fill these needs.
Because of centralized information concerning surpluses and shortages throughout the church, the general welfare commiittee was soon able to work out a system of exchanges so that all persons might have well-balanced diets, regardless of the places in which they lived or the local shortages that confronted them. Grapefruit produced in Arizona was taken to tables of the poor in climates where grapefruit cannot be grown. Canneries of the northwest and Pacific coast supplied fish foods, not only for the needs of their own people, but produced a surplus to be sent to inland stakes in exchange for commodities they did not produce themselves. Idaho potatoes were made available in grapefruit land. Fruit orchards in the inland valleys of California and Utah did their share in filling larders of the needy in places many hundreds, and even thousands, of miles away.
This program continued steadily, straight through the war, despite the suggestions from some quarters that it ought to be dropped because of the plentifulness of work. Thus it was that the church found itself in excellent position to aid its Saints in war-torn countries as hostilities slacked and finally ceased.
Labors of the Saints in this work have been prodigious. They raise wheat and operate mills to make it into flour and table cereals. They established and now operate dairies and creameries to produce and process milk, and to convert it into cheese, butter and other dairy products. They raise beef, mutton, pork, and process and preserve the meats. They built, equipped and now operate sawmills with which they produce lumber for homes of the poor and factories with which to expand the welfare program. They own and operate building-block producing plants. All of these things are in the name of the church, and have nothing to do with their private enterprises, which often are also available if need should arise for them.
The welfare program operates coal mines.
They equipped and operate large canneries to preserve foods produced on farms operated as church welfare projects, or to preserve the surpluses garnered from farming areas.
They make quilts, mattresses and other beddings, and in countless ways procure, manufacture, reclaim, salvage or conserve all the commodities needed for human comfort, making provision for those who require help and adding greatly to the sum total of available goods and the world's wealth.
In Welfare Square in Salt Lake City, there is a modern counterpart of the granaries and food storehouses which Joseph instituted in the land of Egypt many centuries ago. Here are stored commodities needed in the immediate area, and also those which are used to fill emergency requisitions that cannot be met by local wards, stakes or regions.
Throughout territories in which the Mormon church flourishes there are mountains of potatoes, granaries of wheat, warehouses of clothing, root cellars filled with vegetables, huge storerooms overflowing with canned goods, and refrigeration plants packed with meats.
Every one of these accumulations is a powerful monument to the fact that if a man only has faith in God and his leaders, as well as himself, and willingness to devote some of his spare time to working with his brothers and sisters, that all can be happily and comfortably provided for.
The entire Mormon culture is a demonstration that doles are not necessary, that huge salaried organizations to carry out a welfare plan are a foolish waste of money, that man will be his brother's keeper if he is given a sound means of accomplishing this end, and that no man will descend to charity if given a chance to work for what he gets.
The church established the Deseret Clothing factory in 1939 by taking over a closed knitting works. It rebuilt the machinery and operates the factory as a non-profit venture, with the products being sold to members of the church or going directly into the welfare commodity program, for distribution to bishops' storehouses throughout the world. This plant to date has paid out wages totaling $128,993.73. The average age of its employees is 50 years. During heavy employment, the factory took on a great number of young girls who had no previous experience, and as a result of this training they were able to go out into competitive industry as skilled operators. Many of the regular employees are those too old to find jobs in commercial establishments, but because of this activity are earning their own way, and are avoiding the ignominy of dependency upon family or taxes. One of the products of this factory was 356,480 suits of underwear. All earnings are invested toward perpetuation of the establishment.
Deseret Industries is the salvage unit of the welfare plan. It saves commodities and human beings. It collects clothing, shoes, furniture, paper, magazines, nearly everything that can be repaired. Employees of the unit clean, press, repair and launder clothing; rebuild shoes; upholster, strengthen and refinish furniture and otherwise make saleable articles out of most of the things collected.
This unit operates ten retail stores, most of them in Salt Lake City. Others are in Los Angeles, Calif., and Ogden and Tooele, Utah.
Output of the industries that is not sold through the retail stores is sent to storehouses on the requisitions of bishops whose people are in need of the objects available.
At the last computation, it was estimated that this unit had reclaimed articles valued at $380,000. It had paid out $231,000 in wages. More than 90 percent of the employees could not have found work elsewhere. Personal rehabilitation afforded by this employment is an inspiring thing. Hundreds of workers have passed through the organization. Some have stayed only a few days or a week and others have found in it permanent security and social usefulness. Many skilled workers who are adept in almost lost arts have found here a sanctuary in which they can reclaim and preserve to usefulness beautiful things that have been thrown aside in the machine age. Musical instruments, rare clocks, antique furniture, are some of the items that mechanics, craftsmen and artisans who have been forced out of the main stream of work by age, infirmity or technological conditions, have restored to mankind.
Part of the welfare plan is geared to the making of loans to worthy and needy church members. One of the prime requirements is that such a loan cannot be a bankable one. If the person needing the money can get it elsewhere, the church will not touch the matter, but will advise the applicant where he can secure the required money. Thus, the church makes only character loans.
Loans are made for the purpose of buying farms, going into business, rebuilding a home to meet decent living requirements, for assisting a person who has come to grief through bad management to consolidate his indebtedness in such a way that he can pay out, and for many other worthy needs. There is no security behind those hloans besides the integrity of the borrower, whose personal character is such that his bishop and others responsible for his welfare feel that he is worth the church's investing in him as a person. The record of successful performance is phenomenal. No commercial banking establishment, hedged about by all the security that the banking business affords, could do any better. More than 60 percent of all loans made to date have been paid in full, notwithstanding that some of them were made for long terms. During eight years of operation of the loan feature of the program, only two and one-fourth percent of the amounts loaned have been written off the books as uncollectable. Interest rates are low, but even so, they have been sufficient to more than cover all losses, and retain the revolving principal funds intact. Loans to individuals, stakes, quorums, and individual project loans, have totaled more than one half a million dollars.
Here, again, a dollars and cents value cannot be placed upon the feeling of a person whose credit was so badly impaired that he could find no commercial means of financing himself, who turned to the church and discovered there someone willing to take a chance on his manhood.
The church places heavy stress upon the production of commodities, to the subordination of money accumulations. The welfare plan is designed in its most elemental aspects to provide food, shelter, clothing, the primary essentials to physical well-being, which fill actual human needs as money itself cannot do.
The church general welfare committee determines a year in advance what are likely to be the needs of church members who will require help. The committee sets up an annual budget covering principal commodities and allocates to the various stakes the things which they ought to produce to fill these needs.
Because of centralized information concerning surpluses and shortages throughout the church, the general welfare commiittee was soon able to work out a system of exchanges so that all persons might have well-balanced diets, regardless of the places in which they lived or the local shortages that confronted them. Grapefruit produced in Arizona was taken to tables of the poor in climates where grapefruit cannot be grown. Canneries of the northwest and Pacific coast supplied fish foods, not only for the needs of their own people, but produced a surplus to be sent to inland stakes in exchange for commodities they did not produce themselves. Idaho potatoes were made available in grapefruit land. Fruit orchards in the inland valleys of California and Utah did their share in filling larders of the needy in places many hundreds, and even thousands, of miles away.
This program continued steadily, straight through the war, despite the suggestions from some quarters that it ought to be dropped because of the plentifulness of work. Thus it was that the church found itself in excellent position to aid its Saints in war-torn countries as hostilities slacked and finally ceased.
Labors of the Saints in this work have been prodigious. They raise wheat and operate mills to make it into flour and table cereals. They established and now operate dairies and creameries to produce and process milk, and to convert it into cheese, butter and other dairy products. They raise beef, mutton, pork, and process and preserve the meats. They built, equipped and now operate sawmills with which they produce lumber for homes of the poor and factories with which to expand the welfare program. They own and operate building-block producing plants. All of these things are in the name of the church, and have nothing to do with their private enterprises, which often are also available if need should arise for them.
The welfare program operates coal mines.
They equipped and operate large canneries to preserve foods produced on farms operated as church welfare projects, or to preserve the surpluses garnered from farming areas.
They make quilts, mattresses and other beddings, and in countless ways procure, manufacture, reclaim, salvage or conserve all the commodities needed for human comfort, making provision for those who require help and adding greatly to the sum total of available goods and the world's wealth.
In Welfare Square in Salt Lake City, there is a modern counterpart of the granaries and food storehouses which Joseph instituted in the land of Egypt many centuries ago. Here are stored commodities needed in the immediate area, and also those which are used to fill emergency requisitions that cannot be met by local wards, stakes or regions.
Throughout territories in which the Mormon church flourishes there are mountains of potatoes, granaries of wheat, warehouses of clothing, root cellars filled with vegetables, huge storerooms overflowing with canned goods, and refrigeration plants packed with meats.
Every one of these accumulations is a powerful monument to the fact that if a man only has faith in God and his leaders, as well as himself, and willingness to devote some of his spare time to working with his brothers and sisters, that all can be happily and comfortably provided for.
The entire Mormon culture is a demonstration that doles are not necessary, that huge salaried organizations to carry out a welfare plan are a foolish waste of money, that man will be his brother's keeper if he is given a sound means of accomplishing this end, and that no man will descend to charity if given a chance to work for what he gets.
5.
Depression, war, flood and other catastrophes, both local and national, have thoroughly tested the welfare plan. It has not been found lacking except in a few incidentals, which have been supplied as it moved forward, giving it greater strength and capability.
It is the most feasible means of alleviating human misery that has ever been devised. Its flexibility and its ready adjustment to fit any human needs lie in the fact that it is as much a spiritual thing as it is a material thing. The adjurations which the church had placed upon both giver and receiver have assured that it shall be a living, growing, material and physical embodiment of the spiritual values of the church itself.
Achievements during the depression have been rather well reported to the nation. Here was a group of people, and above all, a church, that actively shouldered the responsibility for its own people, at a time when nearly everybody was looking to the government to feed him. Here was a church that dared to say its purpose in the world was to fill the material needs of man, as well as to preach to him. This was an unheard of thing, and could not fail to attract attention.
Those whose admiration was aroused were prone to overestimate the immediate results. There was a rumor that not a single Mormon was on relief, that not a Mormon accepted pension checks, that not a Mormon worked for WPA. The church sadly wished that this could have been true. In fact, the beginning of the welfare plan was effected when the general officers of the church became thoroughly alarmed with the number of Mormons who were accepting relief. Characteristically, they solved the problem by making the refusal to accept public charity a measure of faith.
Public relief, they held, was a character-destroying thing, and in a short time would efface all the fine work of the church for a century. They pushed the welfare plan rapidly. When the way was opened to them, Mormons took it as a matter of pride that they need not stand in checklines, and never in all its history was the faith of the church in the integrity, independence and strength of character of its individual members so amply repaid.
The exuberance with which the assistance of the welfare program has been received in Europe in relieving warborne famine is attested by many letters every day. One of them, which was quoted recently by church officials, follows:
"With great joy I notify you of the arrival of packages to the Dutch Saints - received with gladness. I wish you could have seen the happy faces of those who received what they needed so urgently. Will you please extend our cordial thanks to those who labored for and donated these things - our cordial thanks for their generous gifts.
"We have suffered from hunger and cold and I have lost my husband and my daughter's husband due to the condition caused by the terrible war. We have went many days without meals or anything to eat.
"On many occasions we had to eat black potatoes, sometimes we got a little sugar beet pulp. We spent most of our time in bed during the winter as we had no fuel and hardly enough clothing to keep us warm.
"Oh, how I rejoiced in the gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and for that cause I'm grateful that you some of my children are in America. And how we did rejoice when your box of foodstuff arrived. Oh, that wonderful canned milk, that canned meat and fish and those soup packages and those packages of puddings, and to think that we again could have a little salt and sugar and chocolate. My daughter and three grandchildren, we wept with joy. We put the stuff in the middle of the floor and knelt in prayer to our Heavenly Father and thanked Him for the kindness He showed us through our children in America.
"You can't imagine how we ate heartily and sparingly because we did not know how long we would have to make this last. The next day the mailman brought us so many boxes of clothing. You people must be rich in America. What fine material. My son surely rejoiced over the union suits that you sent as all his underwear had worn out and there is none to be had. How glorious it was to receive those fine bars of face and wash soap. You can't realize how hard it is to wash anything without soap. We surely want to thank you for it. That fine sewing thread, those wonderful buttons, and the handkerchiefs something we haven't had for a long time."
In 1940, a flood wrought havoc among the members of the Mt. Graham stake in the Gila river country in Arizona.
Members of three wards were rendered desolate in three days' time. Heavy rains swelled the waters to unprecedented heights. The river raged through towns and across farms, cutting channels, washing away topsoil, uprooting fences, floating off haystacks, carrying away equipment, drowning animals and destroying homes. Water mains were ripped out. Power lines came down, gas mains were broken. Houses were flooded and some of them were entirely wrecked. The people had managed to do little except save themselves, so fast had been the onsweep of the waters. Their bedding, extra clothes and foodstuffs were either swept away or soaked.
Under guidance of the stake president, Elder Spencer W. Kimball, the welfare plan was immediately placed into operation. Families were at once housed and fed, while all available forces were mobilized to begin the work of rehabilitation of both farm and town. Houses were cleaned and replaced upon their foundations, bulldozers went down the line of farms, Mormon and non-Mormon alike, pushing away the debris and levelling the land for cultivation. Ton after ton of hay and grain were brought in. Livestock was replaced. Fences were rebuilt, and in a few weeks through one of the most marvelous of modern examples of community effort, the entire countryside that had been ruined was back on its way to health and progress.
In 1945, a sudden flash flood descended upon the northeastern part of Salt Lake City. Basements were flooded, silt was deposited over lawns and carried into homes and garages. Shrubbery was buried.
The stake in which this occurred mobilized its efforts, and after a week of frenzied work, found that it had not enough manpower to do the job, so issued a call for assistance to other stakes. In a short time, with the cooperation of city trucks and other means of transportation that hauled away the filth, they had rehabilitated the entire area, whether the homes they cleaned were those of Mormon, gentile or Jew. More than a thousand men participated, many of them working long hours at arduous hand labor.
Many people who have seen the welfare plan as an excellent social insurance system have written to various authorities of the church inquiring how they might secure the benefits. To these, there can be but one answer. The welfare plan is part of the Latter-day Saints religion, which cannot be parcelled out piecemeal. You either believe, or you don't.
Next: The Word of Wisdom
It is the most feasible means of alleviating human misery that has ever been devised. Its flexibility and its ready adjustment to fit any human needs lie in the fact that it is as much a spiritual thing as it is a material thing. The adjurations which the church had placed upon both giver and receiver have assured that it shall be a living, growing, material and physical embodiment of the spiritual values of the church itself.
Achievements during the depression have been rather well reported to the nation. Here was a group of people, and above all, a church, that actively shouldered the responsibility for its own people, at a time when nearly everybody was looking to the government to feed him. Here was a church that dared to say its purpose in the world was to fill the material needs of man, as well as to preach to him. This was an unheard of thing, and could not fail to attract attention.
Those whose admiration was aroused were prone to overestimate the immediate results. There was a rumor that not a single Mormon was on relief, that not a Mormon accepted pension checks, that not a Mormon worked for WPA. The church sadly wished that this could have been true. In fact, the beginning of the welfare plan was effected when the general officers of the church became thoroughly alarmed with the number of Mormons who were accepting relief. Characteristically, they solved the problem by making the refusal to accept public charity a measure of faith.
Public relief, they held, was a character-destroying thing, and in a short time would efface all the fine work of the church for a century. They pushed the welfare plan rapidly. When the way was opened to them, Mormons took it as a matter of pride that they need not stand in checklines, and never in all its history was the faith of the church in the integrity, independence and strength of character of its individual members so amply repaid.
The exuberance with which the assistance of the welfare program has been received in Europe in relieving warborne famine is attested by many letters every day. One of them, which was quoted recently by church officials, follows:
"With great joy I notify you of the arrival of packages to the Dutch Saints - received with gladness. I wish you could have seen the happy faces of those who received what they needed so urgently. Will you please extend our cordial thanks to those who labored for and donated these things - our cordial thanks for their generous gifts.
"We have suffered from hunger and cold and I have lost my husband and my daughter's husband due to the condition caused by the terrible war. We have went many days without meals or anything to eat.
"On many occasions we had to eat black potatoes, sometimes we got a little sugar beet pulp. We spent most of our time in bed during the winter as we had no fuel and hardly enough clothing to keep us warm.
"Oh, how I rejoiced in the gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and for that cause I'm grateful that you some of my children are in America. And how we did rejoice when your box of foodstuff arrived. Oh, that wonderful canned milk, that canned meat and fish and those soup packages and those packages of puddings, and to think that we again could have a little salt and sugar and chocolate. My daughter and three grandchildren, we wept with joy. We put the stuff in the middle of the floor and knelt in prayer to our Heavenly Father and thanked Him for the kindness He showed us through our children in America.
"You can't imagine how we ate heartily and sparingly because we did not know how long we would have to make this last. The next day the mailman brought us so many boxes of clothing. You people must be rich in America. What fine material. My son surely rejoiced over the union suits that you sent as all his underwear had worn out and there is none to be had. How glorious it was to receive those fine bars of face and wash soap. You can't realize how hard it is to wash anything without soap. We surely want to thank you for it. That fine sewing thread, those wonderful buttons, and the handkerchiefs something we haven't had for a long time."
In 1940, a flood wrought havoc among the members of the Mt. Graham stake in the Gila river country in Arizona.
Members of three wards were rendered desolate in three days' time. Heavy rains swelled the waters to unprecedented heights. The river raged through towns and across farms, cutting channels, washing away topsoil, uprooting fences, floating off haystacks, carrying away equipment, drowning animals and destroying homes. Water mains were ripped out. Power lines came down, gas mains were broken. Houses were flooded and some of them were entirely wrecked. The people had managed to do little except save themselves, so fast had been the onsweep of the waters. Their bedding, extra clothes and foodstuffs were either swept away or soaked.
Under guidance of the stake president, Elder Spencer W. Kimball, the welfare plan was immediately placed into operation. Families were at once housed and fed, while all available forces were mobilized to begin the work of rehabilitation of both farm and town. Houses were cleaned and replaced upon their foundations, bulldozers went down the line of farms, Mormon and non-Mormon alike, pushing away the debris and levelling the land for cultivation. Ton after ton of hay and grain were brought in. Livestock was replaced. Fences were rebuilt, and in a few weeks through one of the most marvelous of modern examples of community effort, the entire countryside that had been ruined was back on its way to health and progress.
In 1945, a sudden flash flood descended upon the northeastern part of Salt Lake City. Basements were flooded, silt was deposited over lawns and carried into homes and garages. Shrubbery was buried.
The stake in which this occurred mobilized its efforts, and after a week of frenzied work, found that it had not enough manpower to do the job, so issued a call for assistance to other stakes. In a short time, with the cooperation of city trucks and other means of transportation that hauled away the filth, they had rehabilitated the entire area, whether the homes they cleaned were those of Mormon, gentile or Jew. More than a thousand men participated, many of them working long hours at arduous hand labor.
Many people who have seen the welfare plan as an excellent social insurance system have written to various authorities of the church inquiring how they might secure the benefits. To these, there can be but one answer. The welfare plan is part of the Latter-day Saints religion, which cannot be parcelled out piecemeal. You either believe, or you don't.
Next: The Word of Wisdom
