I intend to speak bluntly. We are living in a period of grave danger. It is fitting that we meet in Philadelphia, the scene of one of history’s most illustrious moments. One hundred ninetytwo years ago, September 17, 1787, thirty-nine men affixed their signatures to a document that formed a government which institutionalized safeguards to protect the freedom of its citizens. Few today appreciate the significance of this American Revolution which indeed, was a revolution for the rights of mankind everywhere.

What happened on that occasion distinguishing this revolution in the annals of time, is that men determined they, the people, were sovereign under God. The Declaration of Independence affirmed the doctrine that man’s most basic rights of life, liberty and property were unalienable. That affirmation rejected the political ideology of the centuries that such rights were subject to a sovereign’s benevolence or whim.

Too few appreciate the fact that we live in one of history’s most exceptional moments, a time of unprecedented freedom. Freedom, as the western world knows it, has been experienced by only a small fraction of the human family at any time. The stark reality of this fact led two distinguished University of Rochester professors to publish this statement during America’s Bicentennial:

Humanity has survived in various states of tyranny for thousands of years. One might even say this is the natural state ofaffairs for man. Future historians may look back and see the period 1776 to 1976 as a brief 200 year accident in the history of man in which real freedom existed for all…

Pause for a moment and ponder our legacy of freedom. Few nations enjoy the freedom to speak, freedom to own or participate in ownership of property and business, freedom to worship, freedom to print, freedom to travel at home or abroad, freedom even to censure public officials, freedom to have the privacy we desire, and freedom of private enterprise, though this latter freedom is greatly threatened by a mentality toward collectivism in recent decades.

But those freedoms are the heritage of the western world!

Today this freedom is being threatened by another revolution, a recurrence of the barbaric practice of political propaganda, human subjugation, and even mass genocide. That system of slavery, Marxism, has imprisoned the bodies and minds of over one billion of the earth’s inhabitants. Consider the contradiction of its ideology -

It proclaims peace, yet leaves in its wake the groans of the dying and the misery of the human family.

It predicts paradise on earth, but has left a trail of carnage, bloodshed, oppression, and depopulated nations -a desolate wilderness. If Communism is paradise, why have half a million Vietnamese fled from paradise?

It promises equality of privileges, but stands in contempt of the human rights of men everywhere.

Equality comes only in death and millions who have coveted Communist equality have prematurely achieved that end. Dictatorship, despotism, and demagoguery are hallmarks of its institutional soul.

George F. Will, a noted columnist, recently wrote that even the French philosophers who, after reading Solzhenitsyn, concluded (better late than never) that the “Gulag is the essence, not an accident, of Communism.”

Yet so many in the West, supposedly enlightened to Communism’s grand design for world domination, accommodate themselves to it, grant apologies for its “excesses,” capitulate to its demands, and permit the free world to become encircled by its tentacles.

Recently the President of the United States congratulated the nation on having overcome its “inordinate fear of Communism.” Perhaps he is right in one sense: there is a complacency toward Communism. But I agree with Andrew Knight, editor of The Economist of London, that the influence of the United States has been diminished in recent years because there is a lack of perception of the problem. (U.S. News and World Report, October IS, 1979, p. 77.)

I ask: Is it inordinate fear of Communism to censure its record of almost total suppression of individual rights, a fact hardly mentioned by an administration whose hallmark was to be for “human rights” of men everywhere?

Is it inordinate fear of Communism to acknowledge 60 million political prisoners in the gulag?

Is it inordinate fear of Communism to recognize the fiendish butchery of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia where perhaps over 2 million died? This is a fact that almost escaped notice in the western press.

Is it inordinate fear of Communism to distrust the Kremlin’s claim that its military build-up is only defensive?

The struggle for freedom is more momentous than a decade ago, yet the conventional wisdom says, “You must learn to live with Communism and give up your ideas of national sovereignty.” Tell that to the millions – yes, the scores of millions – who have met death or imprisonment under the tyranny of Communism! Such would be the death knell of freedom and all we hold dear.

I am a witness to nations and people deprived of their freedom. I was there. I watched the great Iron Curtain drop around nations which formerly had prized their freedom good people. I was aghast as they were written off by the stroke of a pen. I saw Poland abandoned by nations with a heritage of freedom – the United States and Great Britain.

I was in Warsaw in June of 1946. I shared a room with seven other men in the Polonia Hotel, the only hotel even partially intact in the great city of Warsaw. The United States Ambassador, Bliss Lane, had his office in part of the building. He was so saddened that he resigned and wrote the book, I Saw Poland Betrayed. which detailed the failure of the United States and England to keep their promise that the Poles would have a free election after the war.

I was saddened when the United States refused to help at the time of the Hungarian revolution – when Freedom Fighters with bare hands and stones resisted bullets, tanks, and artillery. I confess I was ashamed at the response of my country. Freedom did not die that day (October 23, 1956) for Hungary alone. Hope died for many in other captive nations and has only recently been somewhat revived by courageous men willing to speak out against oppression.

As the Cabinet member assigned to agriculture, there seemed to be little I could do. But I knew we must respond in some way. I urged the President to make a strong, vigorous denunciation of the brutality of the Soviet Union in Hungary. I was asked to draft such a statement which was later released on Human Rights Day. Here is a portion of that statement:

The recent orgy of brutality in Hungary has moved free people everywhere to reactions of horror and revulsion. Our hearts are filled with sorrow. Our deepest sympathy goes out to the courageous, liberty loving people of Hungary.

The Hungarian Massacre repudiates and negates almost every article in the Declaration of Human Rights.

It denies that men are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and that all should act in the spirit of brotherhood. It denies the human right to life, liberty, and security of person.

It denies the principles that no one shall be subjected to torture, or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

It denies that all are equal before the law and entitled to its equal protection.

It denies the right to fair and public hearings by an independent and impartial tribunal.

It denies the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

It denies the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

It denies the right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

It denies that no one shall be held in slavery or servitude.

It denies that the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.

It denies the right to leave one’s country or to seek in other countries asylum from persecution.

That these human rights have been so flagrantly repudiated is cause for mourning, national and worldwide.

…Once again the tree of liberty has been watered by the blood of martyrs. The courage and sacrifices of the brave Hungarian people have written anew in crimson the sentiment attributed to Patrick Henry nearly two centuries ago (“Give me liberty or give me death.”)

On this Human Rights Day, it is for each one of us to recognize anew that we are brothers in our Father’s house, and each is truly his brother’s keeper. We cannot shed that responsibility, nor do we want to. Let us resolve on this day that the world shall never forget what tyranny has done in Hungary.

Yes, I have stood face to face with tyranny. I was host to Mr. Nikita Khrushchev for a half-day when he visited the United States. I am not proud of this. I stated my reservation to the President and I still feel it was a mistake to invite this godless despot, dedicated to our destruction, as a state visitor.

Since that day, I have witnessed the Soviet Union spread its abominable ideology throughout the world. Every stratagem is used – trade, war, revolution, violence, hate, and immorality – to accomplish its ends. Since 1939, Europe lost three countries and parts of five others. In Asia, Outer Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam and Laos are Communist dominated. In Africa, Russia controls Angola and has a military foothold in other countries. In the Mideast, Moscow influences Syria, Iraq, and South Yemen. In Latin America, she has a satellite in Cuba, which in turn exports the Marxist revolution in Africa and Central America.

I sadly confess that I cannot understand how the United States of America can maintain diplomatic relations with a nation determined to bring about our destruction.

I did not believe I would ever see the day when my own nation would be signatory to legitimatizing the Soviet conrol over the so-called captive nations of Eastern Europe but I have. The Helsinki accords were to “open up” the closed Russian society and countries under Soviet domination. There was to be greater freedom of thought, religion, travel, and “human contacts.”

Today we must conclude that the “Spirit of Helsinki” is nothing more than a diplomatic triumph for the Soviet Union, and a solidifying of their domination over the captive nations.

I did not believe I would ever see the day when we would accede to the expulsion of liberty and freedom-loving Taiwan from the United Nations on conditions of granting full participative membership to atheistic Red China – but I have!

I did not expect to see the day when we would ever grant the diplomatic, military and political concessions to Marxist leaders – but I have!

Nor did I ever think we would see the time when the United States would permit a Soviet brigade 90 miles off its shoreline in clear violation of the Monroe Doctrine – but I have!

The Soviet Union is not interested in the freedom and the human rights of all nations. Does the mention of these countries inspire confidence in the Soviets: Mozambique, Ethiopia, South Yemen, Rhodesia, Afghanistan, Cambodia? Everyone of these countries is a symbol of Communist aggression and the contempt of the Soviet Union for the free world and the rights of men everywhere. No one with the interest of freedom for all men will really say that the “detente” process has brought about a relaxation of tension, or has contributed toward the betterment of the world in general.

Now I sincerely believe that the United States and the West have an interest in and obligation to make friends of leaders of free nations. I do not believe that we are obligated, in the interest of peace, to barter away national sovereignty, nor to export technology to a nation that has as its declared purpose the subjugation of free men of all nations. It is a matter of record that the Soviet Union has violated almost every agreement made with the United States.

How has the Soviet Union gained a stranglehold on one-third of the world’s population? Alexander Solzhenitsyn answers: “It was because of a process on the part of Americans which has been in progress for more than 30 years of short-sighted concessions, a process of giving up and giving up, in hope that at some point the wolf will have eaten enough.” His appeal to American leaders is to “stop the senseless process of endless concessions to aggressors, these clever legal arguments for why we should make one concession after another give up more and more and more.” (U.s. News and World Report, July 14, 1975.)

Then in one of the most humiliating requests ever made to leaders of free nations, Solzhenitsyn implored: “When they bury us … please do not send them the shovels … or the latest earthmoving equipment.” (Warning to the West, p. 84.)

How much more humiliation must the West endure before our spine stiffens?

It is a fact that the West has built and sustained a faltering Soviet economy. Were it not for our help, Russia could not feed its own people.

There are many things that the West must do to strengthen its position to effectively retard the onward march of Marxism. Politically, economically and militarily, we stand vulnerable. I am a strong advocate for political, economic and military strength, but these alone, I think, are not the ultimate answer to our problem.

The greatest resource against Communism is spiritual.

There are only two possible sources of man’s rights. Rights are either God-given as part of the divine plan or they are granted by government as part of a political plan. If we accept the premise that human rights are granted by government, then we must be willing to accept the corollary that they can be denied by government. I, for one, shall never accept that premise. As the French political economist, Frederick Bastiat, said,

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” (The Law, 1850, p. 6.)

It is my sober conviction that no people can long maintain freedom unless their political institutions are founded in a faith in a Supreme Being and belief in the existence of moral law. This is the foundation of Western civilization. When men reject the premise that God is the source of law, they countenance a political system based on human law. Man thus becomes his own god, and the state the benefactor of privileges. May I illustrate the consequences of these two separate premises.

When you accept the premise that the source of law and man’s rights come from a Supreme Being, you at once recognize the sanctity of the individual, his right to free expression, his right to possession of private property. The dictum that a man’s home is his castle originated in divine law. Since man was created to be free, the only logical form of government is self-government; for acceptance of ruler imposed authority is an implicit repudiation of one’s rights to free expression and ultimate liberty.

The most fundamental unit of self-government is the family, with father and mother instilling fundamental principles and skills in their children. This is the rock foundation of society, and a man’s success will never be greater than what he attains with his own family. Institutions of government were initially established to protect man’s freedom. A repudiation of our heritage is to accept – as so many Western Democracies have accepted – the supremacy of the State over the individual and family, which is the essence of Marxism.

Under self-government, when the civil government and its agencies lose their servant-role, you may know that we have slipped from our spiritual moorings.

What man thinks about God will ultimately decide what he will think, believe and accept about everything else. This is why both reason and religious conviction lead me to accept the divine origin of man’s rights.

The antithesis to this belief is represented by atheistic Marxism. There the State is supreme; man exists to serve the State. Inexorable moral laws are regarded as mythical. Since the State is the source of law, the State is god. The State, therefore, can control one’s family, education, religion, economics, property, and, yes, his very life. The individual is regarded, at best, as an economic resource. Once his usefulness is fulfilled, his life becomes expendable.

Atheism and agnosticism have consequences. When man refuses to recognize God as the source of his rights, he abrogates his right to denounce the State. The State may decide to expropriate his property, or capriciously determine to take his life. How can one take a stand against evil unless he recognizes a source of law higher than man? On what moral grounds can he object? It is a truism that “Men will either be governed by God, or ruled by tyrants.” (William Penn.)

The Communists recognize, even if some in the West do not, that the spiritual foundation is the essence of our strength. This is why they will use any device, resort to any method, expend any resource to discredit and repudiate the moral foundations of Western society. “Under present conditions,” they say, “religion appears to be the main opponent … and, consequently, an atheistic education must be prominent as a constituent part in developing a communist world outlook.” (U.A. Karpovsky, “The Cause of Religious Survival and the Means for its Elimination,” Voprosy Fi/osofli [Problems of Philosophy], No.4, Moscow, April 1964.)

With the trend in the free world moving away from self government to dependence on the state, is there not evidence that the Marxists are successful in developing a communist world outlook?

I ask you delegates to this Freedoms Conference: If we do not accept the existence of a Supreme Being; that God is the source of moral law, what more do we have to offer than Marx? On what basis can we morally resist tyranny?

I say to you with all the fervor of my soul that God intended men to be free. Rebellion against tyranny is a righteous cause. It is an enormous evil for any man to be enslaved to any system contrary to his own will. For that reason men, 200 years ago, pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.

No nation which has kept the commandments of God has ever perished, but I say to you that once freedom is lost, only blood – human blood – will win it back.

Freedom is an eternal, God-given principle. There is no genuine happiness without freedom, nor is there any security or peace without freedom. After traveling in practically all of the free countries of the world and several times behind the Iron Curtain, I say that Marxism is the greatest evil in this world and the greatest threat to all we hold dear.

Of all sad things in the world, the saddest is to see a people who have once known liberty and freedom and then lost it.

I have seen the unquenchable yearning of the human heart for liberty on two unforgettable occasions. These experiences are indelibly etched on the memory of my soul.

I saw this yearning spirit in the faces of many European people, in the aftermath of World War II. It fell my lot, as a Church leader, to be among the first to go into war-torn European countries and distribute food, clothing, and bedding to the suffering members of the Church and others. I saw first-hand entire nations prostrate, flat on their backs economically. I looked into the face of hunger – the pale, the thin, the many dressed in rags, and some barefooted. I saw the refugees, the poor unwanted souls who were driven from their homes to destinations unknown. They came with all their possessions on their backs. I visited some of their homes, shacks where as many as twenty-two people were living in one room – four complete families. I saw some fortunate to get hold of an American magazine and pore over its pages and wonder if what they saw could possibly be true. I saw the struggles on every hand to get to America or England, some legal and others illegal, all in an effort to enjoy freedom and liberty. These were a people who had once known a measure of freedom, but had let it slip away.

The second unforgettable experience was when I was in Russia in 1959. We had been touring seven European countries as a part of the objective of the government of the United States to develop world markets and create good will.

Mr. Khrushchev and Mr. Matskevich, the Minister of Agriculture, had promised me that I would be able to visit a Christian Church in Russia. During our stay there, the guides did everything possible to prevent this. Finally, on the way to the airport, before leaving Moscow, I insisted that we go to a Christian Church which I had located. It was only a few minutes out of the way. Reluctantly, we were taken to the church. Our guides had told us that the churches were empty, that no one attended church any more, that religion was the opiate of the people, and that the people had risen above religion.

We arrived at a Baptist Church and found it full to overflowing. We learned that they were holding three services on Sunday and two on weekdays to accommodate the desires of the people. I looked into the faces of the people. Most were middle-aged and older. As the ten members of the America press were being ushered to pews, which were vacated for our unexpected visit, people reached out and grasped for our hands to touch us. They were in misery and yet a light shone through their eyes. Like frightened children they gripped our hands.

Later in the service, I was asked to address the congregation. I spoke to them about God and Jesus Christ, I encouraged them to be unafraid and to pray for peace. I spoke to them about the reality of a resurrection, that this life is only a part of eternity. In closing, I told them that truth would endure, that time was on the side of truth.

I don’t recall all I said, but I do remember being inspired by their rapt faces. As we were about to leave, the whole congregation spontaneously broke into a favorite hymn of my youth, “God Be With You Till We Meet Again.” As we walked down from the platform and the members of the press walked up the aisles, the congregation waved their handkerchiefs in farewell. It seemed all 1500 were waving as we left. Through it all, members of the American press witnessed the event with tear-dimmed eyes.

As we were leaving the church, a young lady Russian guide whispered to my wife, “I am a Christian, too.”

It has been my privilege to speak before many church groups in all parts of the world, but the impact of that experience is almost indescribable. I shall never forget that evening as long as I live. Seldom, have I felt the oneness of mankind and the unquenchable yearning of the human heart for freedom so keenly as at that moment.

Never will I forget this victory of spirit over tyranny, oppression, and ignorance. Never can I doubt the ultimate deliverance of the Russian people.

Today we are in a worldwide battle for the bodies and souls of men. It is a battle between two opposing systems freedom and slavery. The persistent efforts of God-respecting men will determine whether freedom is victorious in our time. A faithless generation will not be equal to the task. Is it not time for us to reevaluate our commitment to the principles which the Marxists fear the most?

I fully believe that we can turn things around if enough men and women in the Free World will have the determination, the morality, and the faith to do so.

Here in the West we hold in our hands the only hope of mankind; and it will be to our shame and disgrace before God and man if we allow that hope to wither and die. May God bless us to be equal to the task.

Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one as we are.

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

That they all may be one: as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe in us. (John 17:11–21.)

As nearly all of you readily recognize, I have quoted from one of the most sublime prayers ever offered among men. It is an Intercessory Prayer. The occasion makes the things prayed for most significant. In it Jesus makes unity preeminent among his followers.

Unity and its synonyms, harmony, goodwill, peace, concord, mutual understanding, express a condition for which the human heart constantly yearns. Its opposites are discord, contention, strife, confusion.

Unity in the Home

I can imagine few if any things more objectionable in the home than the absence of unity and harmony. On the other hand, I know that a home in which unity, mutual helpfulness, and love abide is just a bit of heaven on earth. I surmise that nearly all of you can testify to the sweetness of life in homes in which these virtues predominate. Most gratefully and humbly, I cherish the remembrance that never once as a lad in the home of my youth did I ever see one instance of discord between father and mother, and that goodwill and mutual understanding have been the uniting bond that has held together a fortunate group of brothers and sisters. Unity, harmony, goodwill are virtues to be fostered and cherished in every home.

Unity in Church Organizations

In branches and wards, there is no virtue more conducive to progress and spirituality than the presence of this principle. When jealousy, backbiting, evil-speaking supplant confidence, self- subjection, unity, and harmony the progress of the organization is stifled.

Unpatriotic Activities a Menace to Free Government

However, what really prompted me to emphasize this principle is the presence in our own United States of influences the avowed object of which is to sow discord and contention among men with the view of undermining, weakening, if not entirely destroying our constitutional form of government. If I speak plainly, and in condemnation lay bare reprehensible practices and aims of certain organizations, please do not think that I harbor ill-will or enmity in my heart towards other United States citizens whose views on political policies do not coincide with mine. But when acts and schemes are manifestly contrary to the revealed word of the Lord, we feel justified in warning people against them. We may be charitable and forbearing to the sinner, but must condemn the sin.

Timely references and appropriate warnings have been given during this Conference on the danger and evils of war. There is another danger even more menacing than the threat of invasion of a foreign foe. It is the unpatriotic activities and underhanded scheming of disloyal groups and organizations within our own borders. This country is so situated geographically that there need be little fear of invasion by an outside enemy. Furthermore, the government knowing who and where the enemy is can make ample preparation to meet his attacks. But the secret, seditious scheming of an enemy within our own ranks, hypocritically professing loyalty to the government, and at the same time plotting against it, is more difficult to deal with.

Disintegration is often more dangerous and more fatal than outward opposition. For example, an individual can usually protect himself from thunder showers, and even from tempests, from freezing weather or intense heat, from drought, or floods, or other extremes in nature; but he is often helpless when poisonous germs enter his body or a malignant growth begins to sap the strength of some vital organ.

The Church is little if at all injured by persecution and calumnies from ignorant, misinformed or malicious enemies; a greater hindrance to its progress comes from fault-finders, shirkers, commandment-break-ers, and apostate cliques within its own ecclesiastical and quorum groups.

So it is in government. It is the enemy from within that is most menacing, especially when it threatens to disintegrate our established form of government.

Washington’s Greatest Trial

Perhaps the most gloomy, discouraging period of the American Revolution was when General Washington’s army was in Winter Quarters at Valley Forge. He had fewer than 10,000 men. Soldiers were thinly clad, some half naked, others with no clothing but tattered blankets wrapped around them. “So many were sick as the result of privation,” writes one commentator, “so many were without coats, blankets, hats, or shoes that one wonders how the army held together at all.” Critical and desperate as were these conditions, a greater trial and sorrow, I surmise, came to Washington when some of his friends such as John Adams and Richard Henry Lee turned against him; when General Gates insulted him by sending reports direct to Congress instead of to Washington, his superior officer. As carrion hawks hover around dying creatures, so in Washington’s dire calamity came men to seek to crush him-men who formed what has been called the “Conway Cabal,” a contemptible attempt to dishonor Washington and to supplant him by a self-assrting, arrogant schemer. This internal discord, and such disloyalty from one-time friends were more crushing than were the attacks of the opposing army.

Anti-Americanism Sowing Discord

Today there are in this country enemies in the form of “isms.” I call them Anti-Americanisms. Only a few of the leaders fight openly-most of the army carry on as termites, secretly sowing discord and undermining stable government. Of the truth of this statement recent investigations made by a committee of the United States Senate bear ample evidence. Of the menace of one of these, Dr. William F. Russell, Dean of Teachers’ College, Columbia University, in an address “How to Tell a Communist, and How to Beat Him,” is one of the many authorities whom we might quote as to the pernicious activity of these groups.

A Statement As to Communism

He says:

Communist leaders have steadily insisted that Communism cannot live in just one country. Just as we fought to make “the world safe for democracy,” so they are fighting to make the world safe for Communism. They are fighting this fight today. Every country must become Communistic, according to their idea. So they have sent out missionaries. They have supplied them well with funds. They have won converts. These converts have been organized into little groups called “cells,” each acting as a unit under the orders of a superior. It is almost a military organization. They attack where there is unemployment. They stir up discontent among those oppressed. * * * They work their way into the unions, where they form compact blocks. They publish and distribute little papers and pamphlets. At the New York Times they pass out one called “Better Times.” At the Presbyterian Hospital it is called “The Medical Worker.” At the College of the City of New York, it is called “Professor, Worker, Student.” At Teachers College it iscalled “The Educational Vanguard.” These are scurrilous sheets. In one issue I noted twenty-nine errors of fact. After a recent address of mine they passed out a dodger attacking me, with a deliberate error of fact in each paragraph, These pamphlets cost money-more than $100 an issue. The idea is to try to entice into their web those generous and public-spirited teachers, preachers, social workers and reformers who know distress and want to do something about it. These Communists know what they are doing. They follow their orders. Particularly they would like to dominate our newspapers, our colleges and our schools. The campaign is much alike all over the world. I have seen the same articles, almost the same pamphlets, in France and England as in the United States.

You see, when it comes to fighting Communists I am a battle-scarred veteran. But after twenty years I cannot tell one by looking at him. However, only the leaders proclaim their membership. The clever are silent, hidden, anonymous, boring from within. You can only tell a Communist by his ideas.

Their method of working their way to the seizure of power he describes as follows:

Talk about peace, talk about social equality, especially among those most oppressed. Talk about organization of labor, and penetrate into every labor union. Talk on soap boxes. Publish pamphlets and papers. Orate and harangue. Play on envy. Arouse jealousy. Separate class from class. Try to break down the democratic processes from within. Accustom the people to picketing, strikes, mass meetings. Constantly attack the leaders in every way possible, so that the people will lose confidence. Then in time of national peril, during a war, on the occasion of a great disaster, or on a general strike, walk into the capital and seize the power. A well-organized minority can work wonders.

Warning to Latter-Day Saints

I have been informed from several sources that some of these spurious political growths are sprouting here in our own midst, that members of these groups have even received instructions regarding what to do in case this country should become involved in war. The nature of these instructions savors very much of the diabolical gun-powder plot n the time of James the First of England.

Latter-day Saints should have nothing to do with secret combinations and groups antagonistic to the Constitutional law of the land, which the Lord “suffered to be established,” and which “should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles;

That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.

Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.

And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood. (Doc. and Cov. 101-77, 80.)

Of course there are errors in government which some would correct, certainly there are manifest injustices and inequalities, and there will always be such in any government in the management of which enter the frailties of human nature. If you want changes go to the polls on election day, express yourself as an American citizen, and thank the Lord for the privilege that is yours to have a say as to who shall serve you in public office.

Importance of Upholding the Constitution

Next to being one in worshiping God there is nothing in this world upon which this Church should be more united than in upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States.

May the appeal of our Lord in his Intercessory Prayer for Unity be realized in our homes, our wards and stakes, and in our support of the basic principles of our Democracy.

In the words of John Oxenham:

God grant us wisdom in these coming days,
And eyes unsealed, that we clear visions see
Of that new world that He would have us build,
To life’s ennoblement and His high ministry.
God give us sense,-God-sense of Life’s new needs,
And souls aflame with new-born chivalries-
To cope with those black growths that foul the ways,-
To cleanse our poisoned founts with God-born energies.
To pledge our souls with nobler, loftier life,
To win the world to His fair sanctities,
To bind the nations in a Pact of Peace,
And free the Soul of Life for finer loyalties.
Not since Christ died upon His lonely cross
Has Time such prospect held of Life’s new birth;
Not since the world of chaos first was born
Has man so clearly visaged hope of a new earth.
Not of our own might can we hope to rise
Above the ruts and soilures of the past,
But, with His help who did the first earth build,
With hearts courageous we may fairer build this last.

God guide this Church, and particularly the Priesthood, in building according to God’s plan, and in establishing his kingdom on earth, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Missionaries are not supposed to leave their companions for any reason. But here in this compact area, we decided to each take a side of the lane. Opportunities to teach anyone were so rare that we thought it wise to cover as much territory as possible. If a friendly reaction was received by one of us, the other would cross the street to share in the visit. Usually, we could see each other every minute and could almost touch hands across the lane. So the plan was working well, as we doubled our tracting efficiency.

At one door, a man answered and said yes, he would like to hear more about our beliefs. I looked for my companion, but he had disappeared. So I tried to stall until the Elder came back. He had obviously gone around one of the numerous meanderings and should reappear at any moment. I explained that my companion would be back in a minute or two. (Much later, I discovered that around the corner was a “milk bar”, where he had gone for a milk shake while he waited for me. The Elder assumed that since I was right behind him, I would soon show up there.)

After a few more minutes, the man became impatient and said, “I don’t talk standing in the lane. If you’re not interested, never mind.”

So I said, “Okay, I’ll come in.” My intention was to visit briefly, make an appointment, and return with my wandering companion.

As I began to explain our purpose, he interrupted, “Mr. Law, we have a better plan.” So I asked about his “better plan”.

The Melbourne man, as I call him, described how Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, had designed a different kind of society. This man’s plan would follow similar lines. There would be three classes of people: the leaders, the workers, and the teachers. The teachers would be trained to condition a sinless society (“…as you call sin…”, he said) – there would be no hate, no greed, no jealousy, no envy, no lust, no malice – no sin. The workers would not be envious of the leaders. The leaders would not oppress the workers. The teachers would condition each class to willingly accept their assigned role in this “perfect” society.

The Melbourne man further described how breeders would be chosen, based on superior intelligence, physical perfection and longevity genes. Children would be taken from their mothers at birth and placed in communal nurseries, and through various tests, their classes would be determined. They would then receive specialized conditioning for that particular class. All defective babies had to be eliminated. The total number of births would need to be controlled to prevent overpopulation and depletion of natural resources. By this selective breeding, a master race of geniuses could be created.

Worker-scientists were assigned to research life extension techniques until future generations could “live forever”. Through space research, they would reach out into the universe to develop planets hospitable to human life. This perfect society then spreads throughout space in a never-ending cycle.

I asked, “How will you condition them?” He then explained, in detail, the basic conditioning tools. They included diet, drugs, music, movies, education, etc.

He described how diet (the basic elements of life, food and water) could be a major desensitizing and conditioning instrument. The Melbourne man said that by using additives and special formulas, by changing plants and animals, the diet of the people leaves them submissive and easily controlled.

When that man told me that the materials, systems and procedures were already in place in 1947, my farm-boy mentality refused to accept it. Especially when he explained drug addiction. He outlined how drug addiction changes personalities, making them so dependent that they will agree to anything to satisfy their needs. I protested that people will not allow themselves to be manipulated that way. He just laughed and said, “Mr. Law, you’re such a child. Wait and see.”

I did not see how music could be used. The man then described “melodic dissonance” for me, in detail. He told of the conditioning experiments of the Russian scientist Pavlov in communist Russia, using dogs and metronomes. Pavlov found that he could condition a dog to salivate when a metronome beat at 60 beats per minute. Then he learned that he could condition the same dog to never produce saliva when the metronome beat at 120 beats per minute.

In another experiment with the same dog, Pavlov had both metronomes beating at the same time, one at 60 beats, the other at 120 beats per minute. The conditioned dog was required to do two totally opposite functions at the same time. This produced nervous shock, and the dog collapsed, unconscious.

Next, with the same dog, Pavlov had the 60-beat metronome suddenly jump to 120 beats per minute. At the same instant, the 120-beat metronome dropped to 60 beats per minute. This produced a melodic dissonance. When the metronomes were switched back and forth rapidly, the dog became so distressed that it died. In communist Russia, these experiments were then extended to humans, with similar results.

Using variations of this melodic dissonance, a new music form was created. Musical scores and lyrics were developed. A team of musicians, called “the Beatles”, was trained in Europe and introduced to America on the popular Ed Sullivan Talent Show, on national television. They were an instant hit, and all other forms of music became “old-fashioned”.

I could not understand such a phenomenon in 1947. But years later, when I first heard “rock & roll”, everything flashed back to 1947; I realized that the Australian did know that it would be a powerful tool for their conditioning plan.

The Melbourne man said they had already begun “behavior modification conditioning” in government schools, using audio-visual programs. When they introduce their messages, beginning in preschool, the results are intense and permanent.

A monster was emerging, that I found sinister and all-controlling. I could not believe what I was hearing. But over and over, he said, “Wait and see. You will live to see our perfect plan in full operation. When we control all the conditioning processes, everything will fall neatly into place.”

I protested that they were forcing their will and control on people, taking away freedom of choice. His answer was, “No, they can still choose, but they will always choose exactly what they are conditioned to choose.”

“But that’s not right!” He laughed at my evident simplicity.

So I protested again, “But God won’t allow it.”

“Why not? How can a just God – there is no such being – keep these sinless souls out of heaven? That’s what you believe, isn’t it, Mr. Law?”

So he began a different tactic. “Who do you love, Mr. Law? You certainly don’t love the Australian people.”

“Oh yes, I do, that’s why I came on a mission.”

“So, how many have you saved?”

This was a hard mission. Few and far between were our welcomes. Fewer were our converts. I admitted grudgingly, “Not many.”

“And,” he said, “all the rest are consigned to hell.”

“Oh no, there are three degrees of glory, and…”

“We know all about your three degrees of glory. It means that many are called to be Mormons, but few are chosen to be gods. We know all about your church. We control every church in the world, except yours, and we will infiltrate that.”

“Mr. Law, you don’t love anybody, do you?”

“I love my mother.”

“No, you don’t. Under your plan, she can either choose to go to hell, or make a mistake and fall through the cracks into hell. If you really loved your mother, you’d be eager to guarantee that she would go to heaven. With our plan, it is guaranteed. In fact, no one will he lost; they will all go to heaven. Of course, we don’t believe in heaven or hell, anyway. But if you really love your fellow man, our plan is the only way to show it.”

I said, “I think I’ve heard this plan before.”

“Where could you have heard it?”

“It must have been in the Council in Heaven, before I was born.” He just laughed.

I was reeling under his attack, but I could not leave. There were no chains on me. But I felt as if I was bound, hand and foot, to the chair – as though I was paralyzed. So I asked, “Who are you? What do you call this plan?”

“I am one of three members of the central planning committee of the communist party for Australia.”

I said, “I’ve heard of communism.” But I knew very little about it.

The Melbourne man told me that the world understood economic, and political, and military communism. But the plan he was outlining to me, he called “spiritual communism”, that would evolve into a worldwide government. He said they were using the current governments until they controlled the world. Then those political, economic, and military leaders would need to be eliminated because they are violent men. Then the new world order would take over.

I asked how they could make the plan work, when there are so many people who are not prepared to accept it. He said, “We will have to annihilate all who cannot be conditioned to be either a worker or a teacher.”

“How many will you kill?”

“Hundreds of millions, maybe even you and me.”

“But that is murder.”

“That is a Christian term that has no meaning. It is really a part of cleansing. We need to reduce the population to a more manageable size, anyway. Only the inner corps of the elite leaders know about the plan. The present communist leaders don’t know it. Spiritual communism is not written or recorded anywhere. It is a secret plan.”

“Then why did you tell me?”

He was a bit perplexed, but he had an answer. “I don’t know. But we are looking for zealous young men who will join this work to help bring about this heaven on earth. Think about it, not one soul will be lost.”

I was not ready to give up yet. “You’ll never take over the world!”

He answered, “Mr. Law, we now control two-thirds of all world governments, politically or militarily or economically. Only the United States of America remains as the last major hurdle to world domination.”

So I boldly declared, “You’ll never take over the United States!”

But he said, “Mr. Law, let me tell you how it is!” He said they controlled all major conditioning instruments in America now: the entertainment industry, the news media, the education system, the courts, the financial system, political parties. Where they don’t have full control, they have infiltrated and have embedded their agents into all important decision-making bodies. He said they control every agency that affects daily living in America. Their agents were everywhere, doing their jobs.

But since I was a high school graduate, twelve years in an education system, I thought that made me an expert in education. Quite triumphantly, I said, “You don’t control the education system.”

Again, “Mr. Law, let me tell you how it is! When you get home, examine any textbook in any school, at any level, from preschool to university graduate school. You will find no mention of Jesus Christ or God or His plan. But you will find our plan being taught at every level. It’s written into every textbook.”

How right he was. I have spent almost 40 years of my life in education, as a teacher and an administrator, in public and private school systems. Satan’s plan is there; God’s plan is forbidden by law. God has even been declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.

I asked when would all this take effect, and his spiritual plan be put into operation. He said, “We have a progressive agenda. We are prepared to take two steps forward, one step back, two forward, one back, until it is time. The American people won’t even know it is happening. When it is favorable, then everything will move swiftly to the purging, or cleansing stage. People will be stunned into immobility. We won’t want a time lag between take-over and full operation of our spiritual phase.”

Then he asked, “What do you think? Are you ready to join our forces?”

I fell back to the only sure ground I knew. “I believe in God, our Heavenly Father and in His Son, Jesus Christ. It’s their plan that I will follow.”

The Melbourne man became violently angry and shouted, “There are no such beings! They are myths created to enslave the minds of men. They don’t exist!”

I answered simply, “But I have felt the power of the Holy Ghost fill me with fire from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, and I have heard the voice of God testify to me that Jesus Christ is His Son. His plan is the truth, and that is what I teach.”

He lunged across the room and attacked me with his fists. Suddenly, I was free. I could move, and I ran outside into the lane. I found my companion wandering around, desperately looking for me. He didn’t dare leave, but had kept on searching for me. He had to help me on and off the tram. I was so exhausted that I was unable to get out of bed for a couple of days.

Elder Matthew Cowley, of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, was President of all the Pacific missions. He visited us often in Australia. In my interview with him, shortly after this experience, he sensed that something was disturbing me. He asked if I would like to tell him what was wrong.

So I outlined the Melbourne man’s spiritual communism to him. Elder Cowley told me why the man told me the plan. Now that I had been permitted to hear Satan’s plan, in detail, I could choose which I would follow, Satan or Christ.

Twenty-five years after this event, I was in Elder Ezra Taft Benson’s office and told him the account. He said that he had never heard Satan’s plan in this life. But he recognized the details that Satan used to persuade one-third of our brothers and sisters to follow him in the pre-existence. They were willing to trade their agency to choose, for Satan’s guaranteed salvation. Now, I could choose again which I would follow, Christ’s plan of agency, or Satan’s plan of total control. After sixty-three years, my choice is more firmly anchored than ever before.

I have watched spiritual communism eat its ghastly way into every country and into every government, including our own. It is everywhere. All 10 points of Karl Marx’s communist manifesto have been quietly incorporated into American life. They have been accepted as “social progress”.

The Book of Mormon tells how secret combinations destroyed two great civilizations, the Jaredites and the Nephites. The Prophet Moroni warns us:

“Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you.” Ether 8:24

Are we awake? Evidences of the secret combination – spiritual communism – are everywhere. What can we do about it? When the Jaredites and the Nephites followed the Prophets, they were protected. When they rejected the Prophets, they were destroyed. My only escape from the Melbourne man was my witness of Jesus Christ.

The Prophet Nephi warned his people:

“…nothing can save this people save it be repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ…Yea, how long will ye suffer yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides?…” Helaman 13:6, 29

There is a wonderful lesson to be learned from the Jaredites and the Nephites. There is safety in following the Prophets. I encourage all of us to follow the temporal and spiritual counsel of the latter-day Prophets, Seers and Revelators!

(Note: This is a corrected and updated recount of the real-life events described by Marion Law in a previously titled transcript, The Brother Law Fireside)

Humbly and gratefully I approach you today. Humble in the awesome task of speaking to you-grateful for the gospel and a prophet at our head. I concur in this great address on man and free agency given by the Lord’s mouthpiece. President McKay will go down in eternity as one of the great champions of free men.

Years ago my great-grandfather, while an investigator, attended a Mormon meeting during which a member had a quarrel over the Sacrament table with the branch president. When the service was over, Mrs. Benson turned to Ezra T. and asked him what he thought of the Mormons now. I’ll always be grateful for his answer. He said he thought the actions of its members in no way altered the truth of Mormonism. That conviction saved him from many a tragedy. Before joining the Church, Grandfather was moved by a marvelous prayer of Apostle John E. Page.

But later the young convert was greatly shocked by the same man whose actions reflected his gradual apostasy.

Ironically, when Elder Page eventually was excommunicated, Brigham Young selected the young convert to fill Elder Page’s place in the Quorum of the Twelve.

Six of the original Twelve Apostles selected by Joseph Smith were excommunicated. The Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon left the Church. Three of Joseph Smith’s Counselors fell-one even helped plot his death.

A natural question that might arise would be, that if the Lord knew in advance that these men would fall, as he undoubtedly did, why did he have his Prophet call them to such high office? The answer is; to fill the Lord’s purposes. For even the Master followed the will the will of the Father by selecting Judas. President George Q. Cannon suggests an explanation, too, when he states:

“Perhaps it is His own design that faults and weaknesses should appear in high places in order that His Saints may learn to trust in Him and not in any man or men.” (Millennial Star 53:658-659. February 15, 1891.)

And this would parallel Lehi’s warning; put not your “. . . trust in the arm of flesh. . . .” (2 Nephi 4:34.)

“The Church,” says President McKay, “is little, if at all, injured by persecution and calumnies from ignorant, misinformed, or malicious enemies.” (The Instructor, February 1956, p. 33.)

It is from within the Church that the greatest hindrance comes. And so, it seems, it has been. Now the question arises, will we stick with the kingdom and can we avoid being deceived? Certainly this is an important question, for the Lord has said that in the last days the devil will “rage in the hearts of . . . men,” (2 Nephi 28:20) and if it were possible he shall “deceive the very elect.” (See Joseph Smith 1:5-37.)

“The adversary,” said Brigham Young, “presents his principles and arguments in the most approved style, and in the most winning tone, attended with the most graceful attitudes; and he is very careful to ingratiate himself into the favour of the powerful and influential of mankind, uniting himself with popular parties, floating into offices of trust and emolument by pandering to popular feeling, though it should seriously wrong and oppress the innocent. Such characters put on the manners of an angel, appearing as nigh like angels of light as they possibly can, to deceive the innocent and the unwary. The good which they do, they do it to bring to pass an evil purpose upon the good and honest followers of Jesus Christ.” (JD 11, 238-239.)

Those of us who think “. . . all is well in Zion . . .” (2 Nephi 28:21) in spite of Book of Mormon warning might ponder the words of Heber C. Kimball when he said, “Yes, we think we are secure here in the chambers of these everlasting hills . . . but I want to say to you, my brethren, the time is coming when we will be mixed up in these now peaceful valleys to that extent that it will be difficult to tell the face of a Saint from the face of an enemy against the people of God. Then is the time to look out for the great sieve, for there will be a great sifting time, and many will fall. For I say unto you there is a test, a Test, a TEST coming.” (Heber C. Kimball, 1856. Quoted by J. Golden Kimball, Conference Report, October 1930, pp. 59-60.)

One of the greatest discourses that I have ever heard or read on how to avoid being deceived was given from this pulpit during the priesthood session of the October, 1960 semiannual conference by Elder Marion G. Romney. (Ibid., October 1960, 73-75.) I commend it to you for your close study and wish that there were time to reread it. During the talk Elder Romney stated that there was no guarantee that the devil will not deceive a lot of men who hold the priesthood. Then, after referring to a talk on free agency by President McKay, Elder Romney states, “. . . Free agency is the principle against which Satan waged his war in heaven. It is still the front on which he makes his most furious, devious, and persistent attacks. That this would be the case was foreshadowed by the Lord. . . .”

And then after quoting the scripture from the Pearl of Great Price regarding the war in heaven over free agency (Moses 4:1–4) Elder Romney continues:

“You see, at the time he was cast out of heaven, his objective was (and still is) `to deceive and to blind men and to lead them captive at his will.’ This he effectively does to as many as will not hearken unto the voice of God. His main attack is still on free agency. When he can get men to yield their agency, he has them well on the way to captivity.

“We who hold the priesthood must beware concerning ourselves, that we do not fall into the traps he lays to rob us of our freedom. We must be careful that we are not led to accept or support in any way any organization, cause or measure which, in its remotest effect, would jeopardize free agency, whether it be in politics, government, religion, employment, education, or any other field. It is not enough for us to be sincere in what we support. We must be right!”

Elder Romney then outlined some tests to distinguish the true from the counterfeit. Now this is crucial for us to know, for as President [John] Taylor said, “Besides the preaching of the Gospel, we have another mission, namely, the perpetuation of the free agency of man and the maintenance of liberty, freedom, and the rights of man.” (JD 23, 63.)

It was the struggle over free agency that divided us before we came here; it may well be the struggle over the same principle which will deceive and divide us again.

May I suggest three short tests to avoid being deceived, both pertaining to this freedom struggle and all other matters.

1. What do the standard works have to say about it? “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them,” said Isaiah. (Isa. 8:20.) This is one of the great truths of Isaiah so important that it was included in the Book of Mormon scriptures. There it reads: “To the law and to the testimony; and if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” (2 Nephi 18:20.) And Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: . . .” (Hos. 4:6.)

We must diligently study the scriptures. Of special importance to us are the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph Smith said, “. . . that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” (DHC 4, 461.)

The Book of Mormon, Brigham Young said, was written on the tablets of his heart and no doubt helped save him from being deceived. The Book of Mormon has a lot to say about America freedom, and secret combinations.

The Doctrine and Covenants is important because it contains the revelations which helped lay the foundation of this great latter-day work. It speaks of many things. Section 134, verse 2, states that government should hold inviolate the rights and control of property. This makes important reading in a day when government controls are increasing and people are losing the right to control their own property.

2. The second guide is: what do the latter-day Presidents of the Church have to say on the subject-particularly the living President? President Wilford Woodruff related an instance in church history when Brigham Young was addressing a congregation in the presence of the Prophet Joseph Smith:

“Brother Brigham took the stand, and he took the Bible and laid it down; he took the Book of Mormon, and laid it down: and he took the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and laid it down before him, and he said, `There is the written word of God to us, concerning the work of God from the beginning of the world, almost, to our day.’ `And now,’ said he `when compared with the living oracles, those books are nothing to me; those books do not convey the word of God direct to us now, as do the words of a Prophet or a man bearing the Holy Priesthood in our day and generation. I would rather have the living oracles than all the writing in the books.’ That was the course he pursued. When he was through, Brother Joseph said to the congregation: `Brother Brigham has told you the word of the Lord, and he has told you the truth’. . . .” (Conference Report, October 1897, pp. 18-19.)

There is only one man on the earth today who speaks for the Church. (See D&C 132:7, 21:4.) That man is President David O. McKay. Because he gives the word of the Lord for us today, his words have an even more immediate importance than those of the dead prophets. When speaking under the influence of the Holy Ghost his words are scripture. (See D&C 68:4.) I commend for your reading the masterful discourse of President J. Reuben Clark Jr., in the Church News of July 31, 1954, entitled: “When Are Church Leader’s Words Entitled to Claim of Scripture?”

The President can speak on any subject he feels is needful for the Saints. As Brigham Young has stated: “I defy any man on earth to point out the path a prophet of God should walk in, or point out his duty, and just how far he must go, in dictating temporal or spiritual things. Temporal and spiritual things are inseparably connected, and ever will be.” (JD 10, 364) Other officers in the kingdom have fallen but never the Presidents. Keep your eye on the captain is still good counsel. The words of a living prophet must, and ever will take precedence.

President McKay has said a lot about our tragic trends towards socialism and communism and the responsibilities liberty-loving people have in defending and preserving our Constitution. (See, Conference Report, April 1953, pp. 112-113.) Have we read these words from God’s mouthpiece and pondered on them?

3. The third and final test is the Holy Ghost-the test of the Spirit. By that Spirit we “. . . may know the truth of all things.” (Moroni 10:5.) This test can only be fully effective if one’s channels of communication with God are clean and virtuous and uncluttered with sin. Said Brigham Young:

“You may know whether you are led right or wrong, as well as you know the way home; for every principle God has revealed carries its own convictions of its truth to the human mind, . . .

“What a pity it would be if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire of themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path that the Lord dictates, or not. This has been my exhortation continually.” (JD 9, 149-150.)

Elder Heber C. Kimball stated: “The time will come when no man or woman will be able to endure on borrowed light.” (Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, 1888 edition 461.)

How then can we know if a man is speaking by the spirit? The Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants give us the key. (See D&C 50:17–23; 100:5-8; 2 Nephi 33:1; 1 Cor. 2:10–11.) President Clark summarized them well when he said:

“We can tell when the speakers are moved upon by the Holy Ghost only when we, ourselves, are moved upon by the Holy Ghost. In a way, this completely shifts the responsibility from them to us to determine when they so speak . . . the Church will know by the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the body of the members, whether the brethren in voicing their views are moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and in due time that knowledge will be made manifest.” (Church News, July 31, 1954.)

Will this Spirit be needed to check actions in other situations? Yes, and it could be used as a guide and a protector for the faithful in a situation described by Elder Lee at the last general priesthood session of the Church when he said:

“In the history of the Church there have been times or instances where Counselors in the First Presidency and others in high station have sought to overturn the decision or to persuade the President contrary to his inspired judgment, and always, if you will read carefully the history of the Church, such oppositions brought not only disastrous results to those who resisted the decision of the President, but almost always such temporary persuasions were called back for reconsideration, or a reversal of hasty action not in accordance with the feelings, the inspired feelings, of the President of the Church. And that, I submit, is one of the fundamental things that we must never lose sight of in the building up of the kingdom of God.” (Conference Report, April, 1963, p. 81.)

These then, are the three tests: The standard works; the inspired words of the Presidents of the Church, particularly the living Presidents; and the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

Now, brothers and sisters, in this great struggle for free agency just think what a power for good we could be in this world if we were united. Remember how President Clark used to reiterate in the general priesthood meeting of the Church that there was not a righteous thing in this world that we couldn’t accomplish if we were just united.

And President McKay has reiterated it again and again when he’s stated: “Next to being one in worshiping God, there is nothing in this world upon which this Church should be more united than in upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States!

“May the appeal of our Lord in His intercessory prayer for unity be realized in our homes, our wards, our stakes, and in our support of the basic principles of our Republic,” said President McKay. (The Instructor, February 1956. p. 34.)

To that I say Amen and Amen.

President McKay speaks of a unity on principles. President Clark said:

“God provided that in this land of liberty, our political allegiance shall run not to individuals, that is, to government officials, no matter how great or how small they may be. Under His plan our allegiance and the only allegiance we owe as citizens or denizens of the United States, runs to our inspired Constitution which God Himself set up. So runs the oath of office of those who participate in government. A certain loyalty we do owe to the office which a man holds, but even here we owe, just by reason of our citizenship, no loyalty to the man himself. In other countries it is to the individual that allegiance runs. This principle of allegiance to the Constitution is basic to our freedom. It is one of the great principles that distinguishes this ‘land of liberty’ from other countries.

“Thus God added to His priceless blessings to us.

“I wish to say with all the earnestness I possess that when you youth and maidens see any curtailment of these liberties I have named, when you see government invading any of these realms of freedom which we have under our Constitution, you will know that they are putting shackles on your liberty, and that tyranny is creeping upon you, no matter who curtails these liberties or who invades these realms, and no matter what the reason and excuse therefore may be.” (The Improvement Era, 43, [July 1940] 444.)

We all should know by now what President McKay has said about liberty-loving peoples’ greatest responsibility. We’ve heard him tell of our drift toward socialism and communism. We know of his feelings regarding recent tragic decisions of the Supreme Court. We know the Church’s position supporting right to work laws and the Church’s opposition to programs of federal aid to education. These and many more things has President McKay told us that involve the great struggle against state slavery and the anti-Christ. Now, inasmuch as all these warnings have come through the only mouthpiece of the Lord on the earth today there is one major question we should ask ourselves. Assuming we are living a life so we can know, then what does the Holy Spirit have to say about it?

We are under obligation to answer this question. God will hold us responsible.

Let us not be deceived in the sifting days ahead. Let us rally together on principle behind the prophet as guided by the promptings of the Spirit.

We should continue to speak out for freedom and against socialism and communism as President McKay has consistently admonished us. We should continue to come to the aid of patriots, programs and organizations which are trying to save our Constitution through every legal and moral means possible.

God has not left us in darkness regarding these matters. We have the scriptures ancient and modern. We have a living prophet, and we may obtain the Spirit.

Joseph Smith did see the Father and the Son. The kingdom established through the Prophet’s instrumentality will roll forth.

We can move forward with it.

That we may all do so and be not deceived is my humble prayer. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

…the Church has not found it possible to follow along the lines of the present general tendency in the matter of property rights, taxes, the curtailment of rights and liberties of the people, nor in general the economic policies of what is termed the “New Deal”….unless the people of America forsake the sins and the errors, political and otherwise, of which they are now guilty and return to the practice of the great fundamental principles of Christianity, and of Constitutional government, there will be no exaltation for them spiritually, and politically we shall lose our liberty and free institutions….We believe that our real threat comes from within and not from without, and it comes from the underlying spirit common to Naziism, Fascism, and Communism, namely the spirit which would array class against class, which would set up a socialistic state of some sort, which would rob the people of the liberties which we possess under the Constitution, and would set up such a reign of terror as exists now in many parts of Europe….We confess to you that it has not been possible for us to unify our own people even upon the necessity of such a turning about, and therefore we cannot unfortunately, and we say it regretfully, make any practical suggestion to you as to how the nation can be turned about. (Heber J. Grant, also J. Reuben Clark, Jr. and David O. McKay signed as the First Presidency, written during World War II Letter to the U.S. Treasury, September 30, 1941.)

Enjoy.

http://www.latterdayconservative.com/downloadables/ezra-taft-benson/Ezra-Taft-Benson-A-Race-Against-Time.mp3

To address you this morning is a signal honor, a very great pleasure and a challenging responsibility. My gratitude for this opportunity is increased by the realization that it may be several months-possibly years-before I come to this campus again.

I am grateful for the call which has come to me to again preside over the European Mission, even though I leave my beloved country this time with greater anxiety for its future than ever before.

Because of the nature of the message I bring to you, I have committed most of it to writing. I shall speak to you frankly and honestly. Some of you may not agree fully with everything I say. Thank God in this blessed land we can still speak our convictions without fear. I have been in nations where this blessed privilege is no longer enjoyed.

What I shall say are my personal convictions borne out of an active life which has taken me into forty-five nations and brought me close to the insidious forces which would destroy our way of life in this choice land. I express these convictions and warnings today because of my love for you, the true Church of Christ, and our beloved country.

I am not here to tickle your ears-to entertain you. I will talk to you as one who loves this great nation. The message I bring is not a happy one but it is the truth, and time is always on the side of truth. “Truth must be repeated again and again because error is constantly being preached round about.” (Goethe, 1749-1832, quoted in The Freeman, July, 1958.)

This morning I will dispense with the usual amusing story so often told at the beginning of a speech. I do this because time is so rapidly running out that I feel I must have your ears during every moment of the time allotted to me. I do not mean that the hour is late today. I do mean that the hour is very late indeed, on the time table of national survival. As Ernst Tillich stated in his testimony as an expert witness before the House Committee on Un-American Activities several years ago: “On the clock of survival the time is now five minutes before midnight. We have but this brief interval to choose between survival or extinction.”

The events which have taken place since Mr. Tillich testified have fully supported this grave warning. We have been plunging headlong down the primrose path toward the inevitable destruction of our great country. It is quite true that while the Socialist Communist Conspiracy, of itself, does not have, as yet, the power necessary to do the job, it is nevertheless receiving vital aid and comfort from the Fabian Socialists, fellow travelers, dupes and liberals, to such a degree that the communists are jubilant at the course of events.

In less than half a century this evil system has gained control over one-third of mankind, and it is steadily pursuing its vicious goal of control over all the rest of the world. Since World War II people have been brought under the communist yoke at the rate of more that 6,000 per hour, 144,000 per day, 52,000,000 per year. Truly the Fabian Socialists in this country are rolling out the red carpet, which will, without a doubt, unless we arouse ourselves, eventually result in a complete Communist take-over of America. This is their hope, their plan and their bold prediction.

This is not to say that all those lending their support to the Fabian Socialist camp are consciously helping the Communists. Undoubtedly there are many well-meaning people who have been misled or confused. However, it makes little difference who pulls the trigger of a gun aimed at your heart. The end result is the same.

There are real dangers ahead. Why do I have anxiety and fear for the future?

I fear for the future when I realize that for some thirty years our once-free institutions, political, economic, educational and social, have been drifting into the hands of those who favor the Welfare State, and who would “centralize all power in the hands of the political apparatus in Washington. This enhancement of political power at the expense of individual rights, so often disguised as ‘democracy’ or ‘freedom’ or ‘civil rights,’ is ‘socialism,’ no matter what name tag it bears.

“Here we should recall the warning of the late Dean Inge: ‘History seems to show that the powers of evil have won their greatest triumphs by capturing the organizations which were formed to defeat them, and that when the devil has thus changed the contents of the bottles, he never alters the labels. The fort may have been captured by the enemy, but it still flies the flag of its defenders.’” (Admiral Ben Moreell, November 22, 1963.)

I fear for the future when the Central Government now owns more than one-third of the total land area within the boundaries of the fifty states.

I fear for the future when the Central Government owns and operates more than 3,000 businesses and commercial activities in competition with its own private tax-paying citizens.

I fear for the future when I realize that the functions of the Federal Government are carried on by some 2,000 major operating units.

I fear for the future when the Federal Government directly lends $1 for every $5 loaned by private banks and that much of the federal funds loaned are at rates below the cost of the money to the government.

I fear for the future when in 1913-15 a couple making $10,000, paid in federal taxes $60, but in 1956 a couple earning $10,000 paid $1,590 in federal income tax.

I fear for the future when I realize that twenty-five years ago the Federal Government received one-fourth of all taxes collected in the United States. Today the Federal Government collects not one-quarter but 68 per cent of all our taxes.

I fear for the future when foreign governments have used and are using American tax money to pay for socialism.

I fear for the future because twenty-five years ago all taxes, federal, state and local, took 14 per cent of our national income. Today taxes take 35 per cent.

I fear for the future when I see our federal debt soar well above 300 billion dollars-over $7,000 per family of four-sixteen times the combined debt of the fifty states and at the same time see no evidence that this dangerous trend will be curtailed.

I fear for the future when I see an affluent but complacent citizenry paying little or no attention to these and many other socialistic trends in America.

Dr. V. Orval Watts, noted political economist, has described this socialist system which I fear-and I have but suggested a very few evidences. Here are his words:

“Socialism… is the theory and practice of coercive collectivism. It is the evil fruit of greed for other men’s possessions and greed for control over other men’s labor.

“This greed for goods and power is as old as man and as widespread as the human race. It goes by many names, disguised in many forms, as men think up many excuses for robbing and ruling their fellows.

“Socialist theory is a modern excuse, an elaborate rationalization for this greed and for the organized looting and despotism it seeks to achieve. But its materialism, its collectivist point of view, its reliance on violence and coercion, even most of its economics, are as old and as common as sin.

“It holds out to men the hope that they may reap where they have not sown. It teaches that man is the creature of his environment, and that he may be happy and good if he gets enough wealth, regardless of how or where. All that is needed, says the Socialist Tempter, is to bow down and worship the Socialist State, turning over to it authority and power to take wealth where it finds it and to direct labor as it wills. Just a little class hatred, a little lying propaganda, a little violence on the picket lines, a little suppression of adverse critics, and a few generations of compulsory education in Socialistic thought, then surely we shall see the bright new day of equality, peace, brotherhood, and freedom! So says the Socialist.”

In 1878, the great Southern statesman, Benjamin Hill of Georgia, warned us of these dangers on the floor of the United States Senate, in these prophetic words:

“I dread nothing so much as the exercise of ungranted and doubtful powers by this Government. It is, in my opinion, the danger of dangers to the future of this country. Let us be sure that we keep it always within its limits.

“If this great, ambitious, ever-growing corporation becomes aggressive, who shall check it? If it becomes wayward, who shall control it? If it becomes unjust, who shall trust it? As sentinels of the country’s watchtower, I beseech you to watch and guard with sleepless dread that corporation which can make all property and rights, all states and people, and all liberty and hope, its playthings in an hour, and its victims forever.”

Admiral Ben Moreell, who has spoken here, has wisely declared:

“We do not place our trust in government mechanisms, formulas, affirmations or men. Our faith is in God and in the capacity of free men and women to govern themselves. There is a proper function for government in a free society. But that function does not include the power to order citizens how to live their lives. Our government was not designed to administer the affairs of men; it was devised to administer justice among men, who would administer their own affairs.”

That great and wise American, Thomas Jefferson, warned us of the danger of conferring unwarranted power upon our government administrators in these sobering words:

“It would be a dangerous delusion, were a confidence in the men of our choice, to silence our fears for the safety of our rights. Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power; our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go… In questions of power, then, let not more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

We are now-this very day-at war with the Socialist-Communist Conspiracy. This is a point that a lot of people do not seem to realize. They think that just because we are not shooting at each other with bullets that it isn’t a real war. But, we are really at war and we must win this war if we expect to survive as a free people. The following quotations by J. Edgar Hoover point this out clearly:

“We are at war with the communists and the sooner every red-blooded American realizes this the safer we will be. . . . We are living in an age of uncertainty-an age of awesome national peril-an age when the struggle between freedom and totalitarian enslavement is drawing toward a climax.” (J. Edgar Hoover, Address, December 7, 1961.)

“The Communist Party, USA, has been and is engaged in an all-out war against American freedom. Its tactics of confusion, retreat, advance, infiltration, and hypocrisy are in full play. The attack is both legal and illegal, offensive and defensive, open and concealed.

“Above the surface a gigantic propaganda and agitation campaign is in progress, a campaign that depends for success upon the support of non-communists.” (Hoover, Masters of Deceit, p. 195.)

“Communists are committed to the destruction of our way of life and dedicated to the establishment of a world Communist society. This conflict with communism is not a struggle of our choosing. But, even though we did not start it, we cannot ignore it. We must win the struggle if freedom is to survive.” (Hoover, A Study of Communism, p. 18.)

Yes, “We are at war with this sinister conspiracy! Every communist today must be considered an enemy, wherever he may be, at home or abroad! A ‘soft’ approach toward the menace of communism can lead only to national disaster! . . .”

The communists are winning the war and building their empire largely with the help of non-communists-fellow travelers, sympathizers, dupes, liberals, etc.

Some people foolishly believe that the communists are changing, that they are “mellowing.” This is not true.

“Today’s headlines,” says Hoover, “remind us there has been no basic change in Communist imperialism. The danger which world communism presents to the free nations has not abated. If anything, it has increased.” (Hoover, A Study of Communism, Foreword.)

“In our quest for peace, we must never lose sight of the well-documented fact that every Red leader from Marx and Engels through Khrushchev, Mao and the American communist spokesman Gus Hall is dedicated to an ideology which upholds world conquest as its ultimate goal.

“The communists have never deviated from this objective.” (Hoover, Address, November 16, 1963.)

The intellectuals, liberals and dupes are so obsessed with the idea of “academic freedom” that they encourage the use of communist speakers in our colleges, at youth conventions and even high schools. This is perversion of the true meaning of academic freedom.

Again J. Edgar Hoover warns us and expresses his fear in these words:

“I do fear so long as school boards and parents tolerate conditions whereby communists and fellow travelers under the guise of academic freedom can teach our youth a way of life that eventually will destroy the sanctity of the home, that undermines faith in God, that causes them to scorn respect for constituted authority and sabotage our revered Constitution.” (Hoover, Menace of Communism, p. 11.)

“Today, the communists are engaged in an intensive campaign to control the minds and win the allegiance of American youth. . . . During the past two years, communist spokesmen have appeared on nearly 100 campuses from coast to coast. Their purpose: To create confusion, raise questions and spread doubt among our young people concerning the American way of life. . . . “They are setting a trap for the nation’s youth.

In a masterful address, “Keys to Freedom,” before the Catholic Youth Organization last month, J. Edgar Hoover issued shocking and timely warnings to complacent Americans.

“Today,” he declared, “the communists are engaged in an intensive campaign to control the minds and win the allegiance of American youth. Toward this end, a National Youth Commission has been established within the Communist Party, USA; special publications have been issued; front groups have been organized; and an ambitious speech program has been directed against our colleges and universities.

“It is indeed ironic that Communist Party speakers-whose minds and thoughts and actions are in no manner free-should demand the opportunity to parrot the Moscow line to young Americans under the guise of academic freedom!

“Academic freedom is not an instrument for the perpetuation of conspiratorial ideologies. Nor is it an agent of self-destruction-a freedom to destroy freedom. As a free-flowing channel of truth and knowledge, academic freedom is not obligated to carry along the silted tributaries of lies and distortions of known communists.

“The communists look upon students as potential sympathizers, supporters and contributors to the Party’s cause. Nor are they unmindful of the rich opportunity for infiltration presented by unwary racial and nationality groups.

“This is especially true of the intense civil rights movement within the United States-for America’s 20 million Negroes and the countless other citizens who share their objectives in the current struggle are a priority target for communist propaganda and exploitation. Every organization engaged in this struggle must constantly remain alert to this vital fact, for, once under communist domination, all freedoms and rights are lost.”

One of the dangerous present-day fallacies is the idea that we can continue with a policy of “Peaceful Coexistence.”

Here again Hoover warns us as follows:

“Key to the new Soviet strategy is the so-called ‘peaceful coexistence’ policy. It is a broad, psychological tactic cleverly devised by Khrushchev to serve a number of objectives. It is another powerful weapon in the Communist arsenal of deception, a weapon concealed behind an alluring campaign designed to provide a cover for the goal of attaining a world-wide communist society through revolutionary means.

“Through the weapon of peaceful coexistence, Soviet Communists are seeking to lull the free world-particularly the United States-into a false sense of security. It is a means of means of buying time through which they can consolidate past gains while probing for soft spots in the non-Communist world which present opportunities for future expansion.” (Hoover, A Study of Communism, p. 149.)

More is needed than merely to say that we oppose communism. We must aggressively take action to defeat it:

“It is the duty of all Americans to fully understand the true import of this threat to our heritage, to expose it, and to combat it with every weapon at our command.” (Hoover, Communist Target-Youth, p. 11.)

“It is not enough to be against communism. We must shed our complacency and aggressively meet this challenge.” (Hoover, Address, February 22, 1962.)

As the Ward Teaching Message, July, 1961, stated:

“It is the duty of freedom loving people to oppose and resist this evil with all the strength God has given us. If we do not, we stand to lose all we and our forebears have gained through the centuries.”

What is needed is more patriotism-more real “super patriots” if you will.

“A free society,” says Hoover, “depends for its vitality and strength upon the vigor and patriotism of its individual citizens.” (Hoover, A Study of Communism, Foreword.)

“Today, perhaps as never before, America has need for doers of extraordinary deeds, men and women with the moral strength and courage of our forefathers. The smoldering embers of patriotism should be fanned into a flaming spirit of loyalty so that the whole world will know Americans will stand, fight, and die for the dignity of man.” (F.B.I., Law Enforcement Bulletin, July, 1962.)

The real threat is here at home.

The seriousness of the insidious “internal” threat cannot be over-emphasized.

Again Mr. Hoover warns:

“The communist threat from without must not blind us to the communist threat from within. The latter is reaching into the very heart of America through its espionage agents and a cunning, defiant, and lawless Communist Party, which is fanatically dedicated to the Marxist cause of world enslavement and destruction of the foundations of our Republic.

“The Communist Party in this country has attempted to infiltrate and subvert every segment of our society.” (Hoover, Address, December 7, 1961.)

Unjust criticism of the anti-communists/anti-socialists helps the Conspiracy and is dangerous to our future.

In April, 1962, President David O. McKay, in his closing remarks at General Conference, quoted J. Edgar Hoover as follows:

“There is no place here in America for part-time patriots. This nation is face to face with the greatest danger ever to confront it, a sinister and deadly conspiracy which can be conquered only by an alert, informed citizenry. It is indeed appalling that some members of our society continue to deplore and criticize those who stress the communist danger. Public indifference to this threat is tantamount to national suicide. Lethargy leads only to disaster.” (F.B.I., Law Enforcement Bulletin, March, 1960.)

Yes, J. Edgar Hoover, probably the best informed man in America on the threatening Conspiracy, has repeatedly warned us that the gravest danger we face today comes from the Socialist-Communist Conspiracy-and from within.

Many people cannot see how this statement by Mr. Hoover can be true, since there are supposedly only about 10,000 or so Party members in this country. Those who doubt Mr. Hoover overlook the fact that for every member of the Communist Conspiracy there are at least ten others willing and eager to do their bidding. In addition to this, the Communists and their fellow travelers move toward key positions by which they can influence many others, just as iron filings move toward a magnet. Also, the Communists, at this stage, do not themselves intend to do much of the actual close-in fighting. Instead, they make use of non-Communists to serve their purposes. Their method of operation is to confuse the issues, divide one group against the other, and thus to conquer.

The Communist method of confusing the issues is to use pseudo-idealistic and pseudo-moral words and phrases in order to trap the unwary into following their designs. The fisherman knows that he cannot entice a fish to bite upon a raw, steel hook, so he dresses it up with a nice, juicy worm and the poor fish bites. In the same way, the pseudo-moral and pseudo-idealistic expressions trap many innocents so that they will follow out the aims of the Communist Conspirators, for example, the false appeals made by the Communists in the name of “peace” and the “brotherhood of man.” They know full well that Communism has nothing in common with these expressions as we understand them. Yet, they deliberately misuse them in order to deceive.

This has been the means by which the Communists, throughout the world, have been able to set class against class, religion against religion, race against race and group against group. The Conspiracy so enflames people against one another that they fight among themselves and thus bring about mutual destruction. The Communists then come in and take over.

The present strength of the Communist Conspiracy by itself would be insufficient to accomplish their aims in this country. However, they are being given a tremendous push and able assistance by the Fabian Socialists, their fellow travelers, dupes, liberals, etc. The name, Fabian, is derived from that of a Roman general who always avoided clear-cut contact with the enemy. Instead, he would whittle down the antagonist little by little, until the latter was so weakened that he would succumb.

The communists are eager to capitalize upon all areas of misunderstanding and unrest. Their cause is the cause of Soviet Russia, for the Communist Party, USA, is an inseparable part of the sinister international conspiracy which is financed and directed by the Kremlin. No amount of lies and duplicity can conceal this carefully documented fact.

If you want the terrifying facts about the Communist use of the Negroes, I recommend Manning Johnson’s book, Color, Communism and Common Sense, a reprint by American Opinion Magazine (Belmont 78, Massachusetts). The author, a Negro, was a Communist for ten years and served on the National Committee for the Communist Party here in America and assisted in planning the Conspiracy against his own race.

Let me pause a moment to point out some Pro-communist propaganda which has been widely circulated. It is frequently stated that Communism is on the extreme left and Fascism is on the extreme right. This is absolutely false. It is true that Communism is on the extreme left, but Nazism and Fascism are so closely allied with Communism that J. Edgar Hoover has called Communism, Red Fascism and Nazism, Black Fascism. They are all forms of Socialism. And, as has been pointed out by well-informed people in the West, they are all forms of “GOVERNMENTISM” where the government becomes lord and master and we become serfs and slaves.

The extreme right wing is composed of the anarchists who believe that people are so good at heart that no government at all is needed. Our forefathers knew that, while most people try to do the right thing, there are a few who run amuck. They, therefore, established our great constitutional Republic-a government of limited powers. They believed that we must have some government but it must be bound down by the chains of our Constitution, so that it will not slip farther and farther over into the realm of “GOVERNMENTISM” whether it be Communism, Nazism, Fascism, Welfare-Statism or some other form of Socialism.

Please note the words of George Washington, who stated:

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence-it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master!” And, at a later date, Woodrow Wilson said that “the history of liberty is the history of limitations of government power, not the increase of it.” And at a still later day, that great spiritual leader and patriot, President David O. McKay, said this: “During the first half of the twentieth century we have traveled far into the soul-destroying land of socialism.” (Deseret News Church News Section, March 14, 1953.)

Now I want to point out just a few of the ways in which America is tripping down the primrose path. Anyone who is interested and who would care to make a careful study of the subject, will be both amazed and shocked at the progress made by the Marxian Socialists. Their tremendous influence and power can be grasped if we will read the carefully documented book by Dan Smoot, a former F.B.I. administrative supervisor and assistant to J. Edgar Hoover, entitled The Invisible Government. This book shows how the Fabians, operating through many influential organizations, have reached out their tentacles and are throttling free enterprise at the same time they are pyramiding and concentrating immense power in the Federal Government. In this way the advance of Communism is being comforted, aided and abetted by those who are not members of the Communist Conspiracy but who adhere to the same principles.

Dr. Carew Hunt, a world-wide authority on communist strategy, states: “Yet, where the ends they seek are concerned, Socialism and Communism are virtually interchangeable terms, as anyone who consults the ‘Oxford English Dictionary’ or any standard textbook will discover… Indeed, Lenin’s party continued to call itself ‘Social Democrat’ until the seventh Party Congress of March, 1918, when it substituted the term ‘Bolshevik’ as a protest against the non-revolutionary attitude of the socialist parties of the West.”

President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., expressed his conviction on this point in these significant words:

“The paths we are following, if we move forward thereon will inevitably lead us to Socialism or Communism, and these two are as like as two peas in a pod in their ultimate effect upon our liberties.

“And never forget for one moment that Communism and Socialism are state slavery. World conquest has been, is now, and ever will be its ultimate goal.”

The communists and fellow travelers have never deviated from this objective. Despite the high-pressure campaign they have insidiously directed behind Khrushchev’s phrase of “peaceful coexistence,” the communists know that this is simply a propaganda slogan. It is devised to further their own ends by stirring the hopes and emotions of those who seek an end to the turmoil, fear and sorrow that world communism itself created.

Actions continue to speak louder than words, and certainly the communists have shown no indication of a sincere quest for peace. Here are a few examples. There are many.

The take-over of Cuba and the establishment of a Communist base and island fortress in America; the ever-constant infiltration of Red Fascists into countries of Central and South America to create a Sovietized Latin America; the increase of espionage activities by Soviet and satellite agents in our country, particularly those who strive to penetrate our government processes from the protection afforded them by diplomatic assignments in New York in the United Nations and in Washington; the frantic efforts of the Communist Party, USA, to subvert our youth; and the intense drive of the Communists operating from concealed positions to wrest control of the movement for Negro rights-does all this indicate a real and sincere desire to live in “peaceful coexistence”?

To the Socialist-Communist Conspiracy there is no such thing as “peaceful coexistence” except as a tool for further conquest. Their stated objective is to “bury” us.

Since about the time of Woodrow Wilson, Fabian Socialists have been able to cuddle close to key people in our government and those who exercise influence. I will not take the time to trace their activities through the various administrations since Wilson’s time. I will be content to give you two or three examples approximating that of the Fabian Socialists.

It may shock you to learn that the first communist cell in government, so far as we know, was organized in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the 1930′s. John Abt was there. It was John Abt whom Oswald, the accused assassin of President Kennedy, requested for his attorney. Harry Dexter White was there. Lee Pressman was there. And Alger Hiss, who was advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt at Yalta and Tehran and who was the principal architect and first Secretary General of the United Nations organizing meetings was there also.

Today, Walt Whitman Rostow, who is the chief planner for the State Department, has expressed a dangerous point of view somewhat like this: We must do everything in our power to avoid irritating and antagonizing the Communists. They are, after all, merely rough and crude Socialists and we must avoid doing anything that would escalate into a war. In fact, what we should do is to help them to develop so that they will mature and outgrow their violent impulses. In this way the Communists will move somewhat over in our direction. At the same time we must move our country over toward the left with more and more socialism until, ultimately, the two will merge. Each country will then give up its armaments and armed forces and place them in the hands of a One-World Government. (See the book, A Proposal: Key to an Effective Foreign Policy, by Wait W. Rostow and Max F. Millikan, Harper, New York, 1957. An outgrowth of the Dartmouth Conference in the fall of 1960 and the Crimea Conference of May, 1961, was the pamphlet, Freedom from War, the United States Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World, U.S. State Department Publication No. 7277, Disarmament Series 5, released September, 1961, U.S. Government Printing Office.)

And Arthur Schlessinger, Jr., former professor of history at Harvard and now high in the councils of government, has said: “There seems no inherent obstacle to the gradual advance of socialism in the U.S. through a series of New Deals,” and, that socialism appears quite practical as a long time proposition.

In either case the whole tendency is toward more and more GOVERNMENTISM, more and more centralization and less and less individual responsibility and freedom.

An interesting example of the socialist mind at work is the present so-called Civil Rights Bill of 1963. I am going to quote, in part, from a talk made by John C Satterfield, past president of the American Bar Association, over the Manion Forum, weekly broadcast No. 468, September 15, 1963:

“It is clothed in the name of civil rights and is called the Civil Rights Act of 1963. As a matter of fact, it is 10 per cent civil rights and it is 90 per cent extension of Federal executive power at the expense of individuals, states and municipalities-in fact, at the expense of everyone . . .

“Do you borrow money from a bank that is in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation system or the Federal Reserve system? Have you an FHA or VA loan? Have you a Small Business Administration loan? Are you a realtor, developer, home owner? Are you interested in schools and colleges? Are you a farmer who has anything to do with the Farm Credit Administration, Commodity Credit Corporation, Soil Conservation Service, Federal Crop Insurance, REA, Agricultural Research?

“If you are any of these, or participate in any of these, then under this Act the Federal Fair Employment Practices Commission will dictate to you whom you may hire, whom you may fire, whom you promote, whom you demote, and how you may handle your employees . . .

“Not only that, but it brings in almost every profession and every business-lawyers, realtors, doctors, small establishments, restaurants, gasoline stations, theaters, hotels, motels and lodging houses-and the Federal control will never end . . .

“Under the provisions of this Act, combining them all, the United States Commissioner of Education could come into a school and force the transfer of children from one school to another until there was either racial balance or religious balance . . .

“Not only that, but the next step to a complete and uncontrolled dictatorship of any government is the control of the voting and of the electoral machinery and transfer from the states to the Federal Government the right to fix qualifications for voters, contrary to the provision of the Constitution of the United States. It would also transfer, under the circumstances stated in the Act, the right of registration of voters from the state and local officers to Federal referees . . .

“You should think about this legislation because it destroys everything that we have heretofore felt protects us from a complete and absolute power of a central government. It is something that strikes home to every businessman, every home owner, and every worker in the United States . . .”

In other words, we may say that the states would be reduced to little more than subdivisions within the central government and largely subject to its control. It would be almost certain to result in an all-powerful national government with authority to intervene in the private affairs of individual citizens. It would, furthermore, control and adjust relationships between men in accordance with the dictates of those in charge.

It has been truly said by our former Chief Executive, Dwight D. Eisenhower, that, “The federal government did not create the states of this Republic. The states created the federal government. . . . If the states lose their meaning, our entire system of government loses its meaning and the next step is the rise of the centralized national state in which the seeds of autocracy can take root and grow.”

Those are strong but true words.

Never forget that history is filled with examples of men who mean to be good rulers but who nevertheless mean to rule.

With reference to the United Nations and spurious appendages, I would like to quote the Internal Security Annual Report for 1956, p. 213, as made by the Senate Internal Security Sub-Committee, as follows: “What appears, on the surface at least, to be by far the worst danger spot, from the standpoint of disloyalty and subversive activity among Americans employed by international organizations, is UNESCO-the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Among less than ninety Americans employed by UNESCO the International Organizations Employees Loyalty Board found fourteen cases of doubtful loyalty.” Then, in the footnote, we see this: “Information in the possession of the sub-committee, indicating a great deal of evidence not yet publicly adduced, points to the possibility that the parent body, the U.N., may be the worst ‘spot’ of all.” There is no indication that there has been the slightest improvement in the United Nations or its satellites since that time.

I have in my possession a copy of an unpublished manuscript on the United Nations Charter prepared in 1945 and given to me by that eminent international lawyer and former Under Secretary of State J. Reuben Clark, Jr.

President Clark’s declarations on this, as on other subjects, emphasize more and more with the passing of time his vision and statesmanship.

Commenting on the United Nations Charter and the “travesty on exhaustive consideration” as the charter was hastily approved by the Congress, under urging from the State Department, he continues with a devastating analysis and a sober warning to the American people that there will be a day of reckoning. I believe that day is near at hand. The hopes and the aspirations of the people have been betrayed. I hope this scholarly, unpublished memorandum by President Clark with its penetrating analysis will someday soon be available in full. Meantime, I urge all to read the solid volume, Stand Fast by the Constitution, which embodies much of J. Reuben Clark’s timely instruction. Meantime let us have no further blind devotion to the communist-dominated United Nations.

Today it is becoming an increasing handicap, it seems, to one’s career in government for a man or woman to take seriously his pledge of allegiance to our Constitution. Witness the firing of Mr. Otto F. Otepka, because he believed in a higher service-that service to our nation comes above service to any particular department of government.

The open and covert management of the news in this country is another case, frightening in its implications. One high government official has made the appalling statement to the effect that it is all right for the government to lie to the people if it serves the government’s purpose to lie. Certainly lies can take place by omission as well as by commission.

At this point I quote a statement by Virgil Jordan: “In these days of fear and confusion, let us remember that the endless repetition of a lie, or the multiplication of an empty promise does not make a truth. Truth is something more than the greatest common denominator of mass ignorance and greed. It is never determined or demonstrated by majorities or pluralities or popular error and appetite. Ultimately, with God’s aid, it always emerges and finally prevails, supreme in its power over the destiny of mankind, and terrible in its retribution for those who deny, defy, or betray it.”

Constantine Brown, in an article in a recent issue of the Congressional Record, told of prominent people who had defected from Communism who now fear they have joined the losing side.

They gave two reasons:

1. Communism will win because western leaders (particularly in the United States) do not want to believe that the Soviets are planning to conquer the world.

2. Khrushchev knows that the United States will offer only token opposition to the Soviets’ plan to conquer in Latin America.

Now the question arises-what can we do to preserve our Constitution, and how can we avoid being misled into doing those things that would actually help to destroy it? During last October Conference I spoke on the subject “Be not Deceived.” I said there were three keys one could use to avoid deception: first, the scriptures; second, the words of prophets, especially the President of the Church (particularly the living one); and third, the Holy Ghost.

The scriptures tell us about the war in heaven over free agency-similar to the war we are going through now, where the devil’s program was guaranteed security as opposed to the Lord’s program of letting each choose for himself even if he makes the wrong choice. Once you understand these scriptures you will understand why the Presidents of the Church have opposed Communism, Socialism, and the Welfare State and you will see why you must oppose them, too, if you are in harmony with the word of the Lord.

The scriptures also tell about our inspired Constitution. If you accept these scriptures you will automatically reject the counsel of men like Senator Fulbright and others who depreciate our Constitution. If you use the scriptures as a guide you know what the Book of Mormon has to say regarding murderous conspiracies in the last day and how we are to awake to our awful situation today. I find certain elements in the Church do not like to see the Book of Mormon and D&C so much-it has too much to say about freedom.

The second criteria is the prophets, especially the living President. Do you realize what President McKay has said about some recent decisions of our Supreme Court? Do you realize that he has called Communism the greatest threat to the Church today and has said that this country has traveled far into the soul-destroying land of Socialism? He has opposed programs of federal aid to education; he has supported right-to-work laws. Are you in harmony with the prophet’s declarations? If you accept the scriptures and the prophets, then you will automatically separate yourself from the philosophy of some Mormons and you will have to part with a number of our national leaders and their programs.

The last criteria is the Holy Ghost-the test of the spirit. You cannot use this test unless you have the spirit of the Lord with you and that only comes through righteous living-which means being in harmony with Church doctrine in addition to simply being active in Church work and attending meetings.

These are the three main keys-apply them and you will avoid pitfalls and traps which even members of the Church and some teachers may set for you. President Joseph F. Smith said that one of the three things that plagued the Church within was false educational ideas-and I am sure you will be introduced to some of these ideas somewhere along your path. Using the scriptures and the prophets and the spirit as a guide, we can eliminate a lot of the deceptions and false philosophies and cure-alls of men and discern between the wheat and the chaff.

Thus, with the scriptures and the words of the prophets for a guide line, it is easier to select our reading-for we need information out of the best books to help us in this fight for our freedom. And when it comes to the writings of men, in addition to the tests we have suggested, it is helpful to select the men who have proved most accurate over the years. On this basis may I give to you my own personal recommendation of some reading which will help you in the fight to save our Constitution.

First, for a number of years President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., served on the board of trustees of the Foundation for Economic Education while he was a member of the First Presidency. President Clark, as you probably know, was an Under Secretary of State and Ambassador to Mexico. He wrote the famous memorandum on the Monroe Doctrine. In 1923 in the Salt Lake Tabernacle he warned us of the Communist-Socialist menace and what it was going to do-and he was right. No one in the Church has shown greater insight regarding our Constitution and the Socialist-Communist threat to it. The Foundation for Economic Education with which he served puts out some of the most enlightening freedom literature available. They also put out a free monthly magazine, entitled The Freeman, which is excellent. They will be happy to send you a free catalog of their literature. May I mention some of the books which they distribute: The Federalist, written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison, three of our inspired rounding fathers, explaining why the need of a constitution; The Constitution of the United States, by Mussatti; The Clich of Socialism; The Mainspring of Human Progress, by Weaver; Economics in One Lesson, by Hazlitt; and The Admiral’s Log, by Admiral Ben Moreell, which book is also on the M.I.A. reading list. The address for the Foundation for Economic Education is simply Irvington-on-Hudson, New York.

These books and others will show you what America stands for-our free enterprise system-our Constitutional Republic-how we became the world’s greatest power. For For first you need to know what America stands for before you can realize what could be a threat to it. For as President McKay has said, the fostering of full economic freedom lies at the base of all our liberties.

The next thing we must know about is the major enemy to our way of life-Socialistic Communism. In October Conference, 1959, President McKay admonished us to read what he called an excellent book, The Naked Communist. I agree with the President of the Church. Probably no man in America knows the internal Communist threat better than J. Edgar Hoover-his two books on Communism should be must reading. They are Masters of Deceit, and A Study of Communism. You Can Trust the Communists, by Dr. Fred Schwarz, whom President McKay called a true friend of freedom, is also an enlightening book. The House Committee on Un-American Activities and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee have both put out instructive information. A list of their publications is available free of charge from the U.S. Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D.C.

Once you get the facts about our American Constitutional Republic and the threats to it-then you are going to want to do something. Certainly those who are organized and have a plan and are dedicated, though they be few, will always defeat the many who are not organized and have no plan or dedication. The Communists have proved this and the fighters for freedom must realize it too. If, then, you want to have impact through an organization, make sure that organization squares with the scriptures and the prophets and the spirit. Then move forward and use your free agency to accomplish that which is virtuous and praiseworthy and let the devil and his agents and dupes howl.

Yes, the Fabian Socialists are as busy as bees rolling out the red carpet which leads inevitably to Communism. Faced with this situation our first duty is that of education. Starting with ourselves we must become familiar with the broad outlines of our movement toward destruction. We must, as President McKay has urged, become alerted and informed. After becoming informed ourselves, we must carry the word to all within hearing or seeing range, so that they, too, can become awakened. Take every opportunity to pass sound literature and books around so that your neighbors and their neighbors will awaken before it is too late. We are literally in a race against time and we must take every opportunity to spread the word.

We must not become confused over side issues. Our enemy is not the Catholic, not the Protestant, not the Negro, not the white man, not the Jew, not the Gentile, not employers, not employees, not the wealthy, not the poor, not the worker, and not the employer. Our mortal enemies are the Satanic Communists and those who prepare the path for them.

It is not, however, enough to be acquainted with the grave dangers facing these United States. We must also instruct ourselves, and others, in the great spiritual values underlying our Divinely inspired Constitution and our American free-enterprise system. One of the many sure ways of defeating our enemy is to instruct the people about the eternal verities of our own country. A mind, so enlightened, will reject Marxian Socialism whether it be in the form of Communism, Nazism, Fascism, Welfare-Statism or some other man-made monstrosity.

In this time of deadly peril we must choose men and women to represent us in our government who have attained an inner atunement of mind, heart and soul with God. Only these people have anchors firmly rooted and strong enough to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. They, only, have the inner sense of direction, stability of spirit and firmness of character essential to our survival.

We must not place in positions of trust cheap opportunists who will sell their souls for a mess of pottage. Rather we should place in public office men and women who place the love of God first in their lives and who, as a consequence, can serve their fellow men with true wisdom.

Not cheap politicians but statesmen are needed today. Not opportunists but men and women of principle must be demanded by the people. In this time of great stress and danger we must place only those dedicated to the preservation of our Constitution, our American Republic, and responsible freedom under God. “Oh God, give us men with a mandate higher than the ballot box.”

In closing let me quote Bishop Exeter:

Give us men
Strong and stalwart ones;
Men whom highest hope inspires
Men whom purest honor fires,
Men who trample Self beneath them,
Men who made their country wreath them
As her noble sons,
Men who never shame their mothers,
Men who never fail their brothers
True, however false are others:
Give us men-I say again
Give us Men!

Give us Men!
Men who, when the tempest gathers,
Grasp the standards of their fathers
In the thickest fight:
Men who strike for home and altar,
(Let the coward cringe and falter)
God defend the right:
True as truth though lorn and lonely
Tender, as the brave are only:
Men who tread where saints have trod,
Men for Country,-Home-and God:
Give us Men: I say again again-
Give us such Men!

God bless you, my brothers and sisters, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

President Ernest L. Wilkinson

This, my brothers and sisters, is a day of international sorrow, caused by the apparent collapse before it got underway of the summit conference which untold millions hoped would bring peace to a jittery world. It is, however, just another example of the failure of governments, necessary though they be, to accomplish that desired goal. For those who place their faith in peace through political action, this will be another chapter in world history of great disillusionment–disillusionment caused by their confusing political power with the power of righteousness, which alone will ultimately prevail in the world.

Fortunate, therefore, are we who are blessed with revealed truth, for we know that universal peace will come to the world only through the peoples of the world living in righteousness and accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this day of world-wide gloom, it is therefore a most fitting and happy circumstance that we are honored to have as our speaker the earthly ambassador of the Prince of Peace, through whom peace will eventually reign in the hearts of men. I give you as the worthy successor to the Prophet Joseph Smith, the one who in this last dispensation of time holds the keys to everlasting salvation and eternal peace, our present-day prophet, President David O. McKay.

President David O. Mckay

President Wilkinson, members of the faculty, and students of the Brigham Young University: No one can face this audience of 10,000 students and friends without his soul being filled with emotion. It is difficult for me to keep back the tears. I have visited this school many times since Dr. Brimhall’s day, with Dr. Harris, Dr. McDonald and Dr. Wilkinson. I think I have never been more overwhelmed with a reception than this morning. The greatness of this institution, its opportunities, its responsibilities, one cannot fully realize.

I was due here two weeks ago, and had a theme to deliver which I thought was timely and appropriate, but I come with another theme this morning-Two Contending Forces. Those forces are known and have been designated by different terms throughout the ages. “In the beginning” they were known as Satan on the one hand, and Christ on the other.

In Joshua’s time they were called “gods of the Amorites,” for one, and “the Lord,” on the other. Paul spoke of “the works of the flesh” on the one hand, “fruits of the spirit” on the other. They are often spoken of as “selfishness” for one, “life of service,” the other. In these days, they are called “domination by the state,” on one hand, “personal liberty,” on the other; communism on one hand, free agency on the other.

As a text I say to you, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” (Josh. 24:15.)

Choice of Theme

Two incidents since this appointment was made have prompted me to choose this theme. One was a young girl, an unmarried mother, taken to the hospital recently, where she gave birth to a little boy whom she preferred never to see, saying, “It would be easier that way.” No mother stood by her side; very few knew where she had been living recently. A kind woman, a truly Christian woman, took care of her. The little baby boy was turned over to the Relief Society. He will never know his father. It is just as well-the human rat. He will never know his mother. Let us hope that some couple will be made happy by mothering and rearing and loving the unknown babe. That is one, the fruit, the result of one of the forces operative in this universe since the story of man.

The other President Wilkinson has referred to, the wreck of the summit conference last Monday. Two forces are operative. A great battle of ideas is in progress in’ the world today-has been for years. I want to say a few words about that a little later, and shall repeat much of what you know already because I shall quote from an instructor in this institution. There is no question, students, that we are living in what may be the most epoch-making period of all time. Scientific discoveries and inventions, the breaking down of heretofore approved social and moral standards, the uprooting of old religious moorings-all give evidence that we are witnessing one of those tidal waves of human thought which periodically sweep over the world and change the destiny of the human race.

In the beginning a being known as Satan came before the Father saying:

Behold, here am I. Send me . . . I will do it; [saving the human family who were to people this earth] wherefore, give me thine honor.

[Another-] But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me, Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever.

Two Great Forces

There you have placed before you the two great forces.

Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down;

And he became Satan, yea, even the Devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would hearken unto my voice. (Pearl of Great Price, Moses 4:3, 4.)

“Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.”

Let us look at the man who disrupted the great consultation of the leaders of the world. In his heart are the teachings of Karl Marx. You students who have heard know about the kind of life he lived, how his wife suffered, how his children starved. Here is what one man said about him:

Marx loved his own person much more than he loved his friends and apostles, and no friendship could hold water against the slightest wound to . . . his vanity. Marx will never forgive a slight to his person. You must worship him, make an idol of him, if he is to love you in return; you must at least fear him if he is to tolerate you. He likes to surround himself with pygmies, with lackeys, and flatterers. All the same, there are some remarkable men among his intimates. In general, however, one may say that in the circuit of Marx’s intimates there is very little brotherly frankness, but a great deal of machination and diplomacy. There is a sort of tacit struggle, and a compromise between the self-loves of the various persons concerned, and where vanity is at work there is no longer place for brotherly feeling. Everyone is on his guard, is afraid of being sacrificed, of being annihilated.

Marx is a chief distributor of honors, but is also the invariably perfidious and malicious, the never frank and open incitor to the persecution of those whom he suspects, or who had the misfortune of failing to show all the veneration he expects. As soon as he has ordered a persecution there is no limit to the baseness of infamy of the methods.

So wrote Mikhail Bakunin the first Russian to become interested in revolutionary activities, and a party pillar who fell under the purge.

Doctrine of Lenin

That same doctrine was advocated by Lenin who succeeded, who was a leader in the revolution in Russia. Note the same spirit:

We must hate. Hatred is the basis of communism. Children must be taught to hate their parents if they are not communists.

Listen to the amazing declaration of the former Russian commissar of education.

We must hate Christians and Christianity. Even the best of them must be considered our worst enemies. Christian love is an obstacle to the development of the revolution. Down with love of one’s neighbor! What we want is hate. Only then will we conquer the universe. (From “The Naked Communist” by W. Cleon Skousen, p. 288.)

That same spirit was manifest by a man by the name of Hitler, I quote from him:

In my great educative work, I am beginning with the young. Weakness has to be knocked out of them. . . . A violently active, dominating, intrepid, brutal youth-that is what I am after. There must be no weakness or tenderness in it. I want to see once more in its eyes the gleam of pride and independence of the beast of prey.

That is from “The Voice of Destruction,” pp. 251-252, by Herman Rauschning, confidant of Hitler and a member of the secret conclaves from 1932 to 1935.

Different View Point

Remember we were talking about two conflicting forces. You know the story of Hitler. Now, Khrushchev who, during his American tour last fall, according to The Salt Lake Tribune, said, “If anyone believes that our smiles involve abandonment of the teaching of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, he deceives himself poorly. Those who wait for that must wait until a shrimp learns to whistle.” That was 1959!

He spoke about a common goal. According to good authority, Edward Hunter, foreign news correspondent, who has studied Communism for many years, said that Communist goal means something different from what you and I have in mind when we speak about the millennium or a universal peace.

Unity in the Communist mind is voluntary submission to Communist discipline. This writer says: “To which force? Voluntary submission to Communist discipline.

When you speak of peace, the Communists mean the cessation of all opposition to Communism, the acceptance of a Communist world. Then, and only then, can there be peace. This alone is what peace means in Communist language. Once this is understood the utter falsity and hypocrisy of Communist references to peace becomes at once obvious.

I have mentioned these things simply to emphasize one dominant force which has as its ultimate achievement and victory-the destruction of capitalism, the destruction of the free agency of man which God has given him, and that destruction may be brought about-as advocated by Marx himself-in a brutal way.

What is the other force? It is just the opposite. Jesus said to the man who came and asked him which is the greatest law, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve, and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

When Marx was asked one time what was his object, he answered, “To dethrone God.”

Jesus, the other force, said: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt. 22:37–40.)

Perhaps there was never a time in the world when these two forces faced each other as they did last Monday, as they are facing right today.

Now let us look at this second force. On a momentous occasion two thousand years ago, eleven men assembled near a mountain in Galilee-eleven humble, obscure men who had been chosen and ordained apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. According to appointment, these men’ met the resurrected Christ who made what to them must have been a startling declaration. They had been with their master not yet three years and had been expressly enjoined by him to go not in the way of the Gentiles, to enter no city of the Samaritans, but to go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. But at this meeting, as His final parting instructions, he opened their eyes to the final universality of the gospel by giving them this divine commission: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world.” (Matt. 28:19, 20.)

In the restricted experience of the eleven disciples, the idea of preaching Christ and his saving doctrine to any but members of their own race germinated very slowly. Indeed the Savior of men found it necessary to give another direct revelation to Peter, the chief apostle, before even Peter fully realized that the Gentiles “should hear the word of the gospel and believe.” When he heard that revelation and saw that they were entitled to it,

Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:

But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. (Acts 10:34–35.)

However, as the light of truth dawned in the hearts of those eleven men, these earnest followers set about to give the gospel to the world, “Twelve simple men,” writes an English historian and novelist.

Twelve simple men, with only the wind to bear them over the seas, with only a few pence in their pockets and a shining faith in their hearts. They fell far short of their ideal. Their words were twisted and mocked; and false temples were built over their bones, in praise of a Christ they would have rejected. And yet, by the light of their inspiration many of the world’s loveliest things were created, and many of the world’s finest minds inspired. (From “The Fool Hath Said” by Beverly Nichols)

Can you not see many nations yet to hear the truth, students, Jew as well as Gentile India and China both awaking, Russia enveloped with communism-a new religious freedom must come. God will overrule it, for that people must hear the truth, and truth in simplicity. Truly there is much for the Church to do in the coming century!

A scientist who has been studying the process of the world, believing man came through long eras of evolution, reaches the same conclusion which Christ has given to us by revelation, and I thought I would quote him this morning:

Let every man remember that the destiny of mankind is inconquerable, and that it depends greatly upon his will to collaborate in the transcendent past. Let him remember that the law is and always has been to struggle; and that the fight has lost nothing of its violence by being transposed from the material on to the spiritual plane. Let him remember that his own dignity, his nobility as a human being must emerge from his efforts to liberate himself from his bondage and to obey his deepest aspirations.

Khrushchev would have us go back to the animal plane, eliminate God; dignify a human being as the only God to worship, by giving you a picture of such men as they hold up as leaders. But this scientist says, that even from his reason man has “to liberate himself from his bondage and to obey his deepest aspirations [the bondage of appetite and passions], and let him above all never forget that the divine spark is in him alone, and that he is free to disregard it, to kill it, or to come closer to God by showing his eagerness to work with him and for him.” (From “Human Destiny,” by Lecomte du Nouy.)

Mankind Must Choose

Students, two forces are at work. There might be a conflagration such as the world has never known Mankind will have to choose the one course or the other.

It is difficult, if not quite impossible, for one to say of anything with absolute certainty that “this is the best,” or “this is the worst.” If one were so to express himself, another with greater intelligence and more experience may say with much more accuracy, that something else is best, or some other thing the worst. It is, therefore, the better part of wisdom not to dogmatize or to speak with too much assurance of things about which there may be a divergence of opinion, and upon which one person’s judgment would be as weighty as another’s. It is somewhat presumptuous, therefore, ‘to point out specifically the noblest .calling in life, for as soon as it is named, someone may prove conclusively that we have used the superlative degree inadvisedly.

However, whatever its name, it is evident that man’s noblest work must be impregnated with the greatest of all forces, and that force is love. Furthermore, this power must be directed not for selfish purposes, not to achieve personal ends-to cause the downfall of that young girl, who might have joined the class of people described by Victor Hugo when he describes the state reached by Fantine. Do you remember? My heart bled the other day when I heard about that young girl. I want to give you a picture. Victor Hugo says:

The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilization, but it does not yet permeate it. It is said that slavery has disappeared from European civilization. That is a mistake. It still exists, but it preys now only upon woman, that is to say, upon grace-upon feebleness, upon beauty, upon maternity. This is not one of the least of man’s shames. (From “Los Miserables” by Victor Hugo.)

Furthermore, this power of love must be directed not for selfish purposes, I repeat, nor to achieve personal ends. Though self-preservation is the first law of nature, a calling that has in view only the preservation cf self cannot be called noble-a term that excludes all sordidness, and includes greatness of mind and generosity of soul.

The element, then, that makes true motherhood divine must also permeate that call or vocation which may be distinguished by the term, noblest. The most worthy calling in life, therefore, is that in which man can serve best his fellow man. It is not preaching; it is not teaching; it is not medicine; it is not engineering, nor any other vocation common among men. Each of these, though offering opportunities for service, may be followed by men actuated by the most selfish, the most sordid motives. The noblest aim in life is to strive to live to make other lives better and happier.

Browning sounds the keynote in Paracelsus when he says,

There is an answer to the passionate longings of the heart for fulness, and I knew it. And the answer is this: Live in all things outside yourself by love, and you will have joy. That is the life of God, it ought to be our life. In Him it is accomplished and perfect; but in all created things, it is a lesson learned slowly against difficulty.

Such a divine message was given to the Prophet Joseph Smith in the words, “Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.” (D&C 18:10.) Such is the philosophy expressed by the Redeemer in the seemingly paradoxical statement, “He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matt. 10:30.) The meaning of this becomes clear in the light of another passage which says, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matt. 25:40.)

To no other group of men in all the world is given a better opportunity to engage in the noblest calling in life than that which is afforded the elders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to the members of that Church, to establish salvation and peace to the extent that their individual efforts, their lives are dedicated, to make the world a better and fitter place for man, their talents and means are consecrated.

Just to be associated with men striving toward such an aim is a joy; and to assist them in their quest, an inspiration. Unselfishly, they are trying to serve their fellowmen in love. Thus far, at least, they are true followers of the Master; for “at the very heart of the Christian faith, the most sublime of its teachings and to him who penetrates its deepest sense, the most human, is this: To save lost humanity, the Invisible God came to dwell among us, in the form of man, and willed to make himself known by the single word-love.”

Young men and women, life is before you.

Two forces are operating, two voices are calling-one coming out from the swamps of selfishness and force, where success means death; and the other from the hilltops of justice and progress, where even failure brings glory. Two lights are seen on your horizon-one, the last fading marshlight of power, and the other the slowly rising sun of human brotherhood. Two ways lie open for you-one leading to an even lower and lower plane, where are heard the cries of despair and the curses of the poor, where manhood shrivels and possession rots down the possessor; and the other leading to the highlands of the morning, where are heard the glad shouts of humanity, and where honest effort is rewarded with immortality. (John P. Altgeld.)

“Choose you this day whom ye will serve!”

You saw the two forces facing each other last Monday. They are facing it today. God alone can control the outcome.

To the thousands, the ten thousand students assembled here, I pray with an earnest heart, God keep you away from the low, seeking, scheming plans of him who enthrones passion, who decries self-control, who renounces the sacredness of the family-and who, in the words of Marx himself, would “dethrone God.”

God inspire you to sustain and to fight for and die for, if necessary, the light of Christ. It says: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart . . . and with all thy mind, and . . . strength . . . and . . . thy neighbour as thyself.” (Mark 12:30–31.)

I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Book of Mormon Warns America

As I’ve listened to and read through this talk, I feel that even though it was given over 40 years ago, it is still relevant to us today. Many want to deny the existence of ‘conspiracies’ and secret societies attempting to destroy the nation and our freedoms; I suppose they don’t understand the Book of Mormon, if they have read it. The label ‘conspiracy theory’ and ‘conspiracy theorist’ is used over and over again to discredit people. I admit that there are many theories out there which are simply theories. What’s unfortunate is that the conspiracy facts get thrown into the same pot, and the idea that our own government would be involved in such combinations is unbelievable to many people – to those people, I invite you to read the Book of Mormon (be sure to pay attention to what happened because of Secret Combinations in those days, and the warnings of the same thing happening today, even specifically in America.)

Some claim that this subversive threat to our government ended with communism (even though communism is still well alive in other parts of the world), and that the threat of a communist take-over of America is over.

The Prophets have not told us that we are no longer under condemnation and safe from the destruction of our nation for upholding Secret Combinations, letting them get power, gain, and destroy our freedoms – we know this continues on to this day. The prophets continue to warn us of the increasing wickedness of the people of this nation and that “political machinations ruin the stability of nations, despots grasp for power” and so on… Yes, they are being more careful about how they say it, with good reason, but the warning continues.

When you read/listen to The Book of Mormon Warns America (and many other past talks by prophets warning about communism) replace the word communism with socialism, fabianism, progressivism, or collectivism, and it very much still applies to the problems we face today. The enemy, with Lucifer at the head, has simply changed some of it’s strategies and tactics; the threat still exists.

As Ezra Taft Benson stated:

Suffice it to say that they have penetrated every major segment of our society, as J. Edgar Hoover has testified – the news media, the schools, the churches, the unions, etc. But their greatest desire and most successful drive has come from their effective penetration of government.

The open threat of communism in America may have been defeated, but it’s clear that Lucifer, through those in the Secret Combination and the assistance of “the misguided idealists, the political opportunists, the dupes and fellow travelers, and the ignorant and apathetic Americans” still has control of “every major segment of our society… the news media, the schools, the churches, the unions… government”

There may be some trials ahead – The War in Heaven continues on earth today – but I know that in the end Christ wins, along with those of us who stand with Him, and stand up for the Gospel, for Truth, Agency, Freedom, and Liberty.

Enjoy…

Humbly and gratefully I stand before you. I am not here today to tickle your ears, to entertain you. The message I bring is a very serious one. It may not be popular with everyone, but it is the truth–and time is on the side of truth.

Because of the nature of the message , I have committed it to writing, and because our time is limited, I will proceed immediately to the subject, which is “The Book of Mormon Warns America.”

The Book of Mormon

The eighth Article of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reads as follows:

We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

It is because of our belief in the Book of Mormon, along with the Bible, that we were nicknamed “Mormons.”

The Restoration of the Gospel

On a spring day in the year 1820, in the state of New York, a young boy by the name of Joseph Smith went into a grove of trees on his father’s farm to pray. He needed help. He wanted to join a church, but he was confused as to which one. Seeking an answer, he read one day these words from the Bible:

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. (James 1: 5.)

This Joseph Smith did. In response to his prayer, our Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ appeared to him. Joseph was told to join none of the churches.

Joseph was to learn that Christ established the Church in former days when he was here on earth. Its members were called saints, but because of the wickedness of men, the prophets were taken away from the people and so revelation ceased, the scripture ended and the doctrines and creeds of uninspired men prevailed. As predicted in the scriptures, there was an apostasy.

But, as had also been predicted, the Lord was planning to restore his Church in these latter days, prior to his second coming, and like the former-day Church, his restored Church was to have apostles and prophets and have new revelation and added scripture. And so through Joseph Smith the Lord established The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

On the evening of September 21, 1823, an angel to the Prophet Joseph Smith. The angel’s name was Moroni. He was the last of a long line of ancient prophets of two great civilizations who lived here on the American continent centuries ago. The angel told Joseph Smith that a history of these early inhabitants of America was written on metallic plates and lay buried in a hill nearby.

These records covered a period of American history from time of the Tower of Babel until about 421 A. D. Part of these cumulative records engraved and handed down from generation to generation were abridged by Moroni’s father, Mormon. Moroni added some additional writings and then laid the records in the earth where they remained until he delivered them to Joseph Smith. Under the inspiration of God, Joseph Smith translated part of these records which is known today as the Book of Mormon.

Besides Joseph Smith, there were other witnesses who saw the angel and the plates and whose written testimony you will find printed in the front of each copy of the Book of Mormon.

As the Bible is a scriptural account of God’s dealings with his children in the Old World, so also is the Book of Mormon a scriptural account of God’ s dealings with his children in the Americas.

The Book of Mormon is a second witness along with the Bible that Jesus is the Christ. It testifies of Christ’s appearance to the American inhabitants shortly after his resurrection in Jerusalem. It makes plain many of the precious truths of the gospel.

The Prophet Joseph Smith said:

…the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book. (November 28, 1841. Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 194.)

The last chapter of the Book of Mormon contains the promise that if a person will read the book, he may then ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if the book is not true, and if he shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, God will manifest the truth of it unto him by the power of Holy Ghost. (Moroni 10:3–7.)

We invite all men to make this test.

America a Land of Promise

One of the great themes of the Book of Mormon is that America is a land of promise – a chosen land. Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, … (Ether 2: 12.)

Two Great Civilizations Destroyed

The Book of Mormon records the rise and fall of two great civilizations. They fell because they failed to serve the God of the land, Jesus Christ. The American Indians are the descendants of that last great civilization.

Fortunately, under the inspiration of the Lord, many of the Book of Mormon prophets realized that the historical account which they were making of their people would eventually come forth in this day and age while our own great civilization was flourishing here in America.

These prophets were anxious to see that the tragedies that befell their ancient American civilizations would not happen to us. It would be well for us to seriously consider their warnings.

A Warning to America

They record that both of their great civilizations were destroyed through the insidious work of a murderous, secret conspiracy whose designs were to get power and gain and to overthrow the freedom of all lands. And then realizing that in our time we would be threatened with a similar conspiracy, the Book of Mormon warns as follows:

Wherefore … it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain–and the work, yea, even work of destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be.

Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; …

For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; … for it is built up by the devil. (Ether 9:23–25.)

The Threat of Communism

Today, the international, criminal, communist conspiracy fits this Book of Mormon description perfectly, for there is a combination of gangsters who lust for power, who have liquidated some 70 million people, brought one-third of the world’s population under bondage, and who seek to overthrow the freedom of all nations. I have talked face to face to some of these godless leaders, on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

President David O. McKay, whom we sustain as a latter-day prophet and as President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has said:

The position of this Church on the subject of communism has never changed. We consider it the greatest satanical threat to peace, prosperity, and the spread of God’s work among men that exists on the face of the earth. (General Conference Address, Priesthood Session, April 9, 1966.)

And then as the Lord commands us in the Book of Mormon to awake to a sense of our awful situation, so President McKay commends and encourages those who are seeking to

… awaken a sleeping and apathetic people to the alarming conditions that are rapidly advancing about us. (Ibid. )

Then President McKay adds:

We wish all of our citizens throughout the land were participating in some type of organized self-education in order that they could better appreciate what is happening and know what they can do about it. (Ibid.)

Supreme Court Decisions

The Book of Mormon points out how these ancient conspirators were able to fill the judgment seats, usurp power, destroy justice, condemn the righteous, and let the guilty and the wicked go unpunished. Do you see any parallel between this and the present-day decisions of our Supreme Court?

President McKay has stated that the Supreme Court is leading this Christian nation down the road to atheism. I believe the court is also leading us down the road to anarchy and atheistic communism. Here is the net effect of a few of their decisions:

Communists can work in our defense plants.

U.S. v. Robel, U.S., 88 S. Ct. 419 (1967)

Communists can teach in our schools.

Slochower v. Board of Education of N,Y, 1350 U,S. 551(1956)

Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234 (1957)

Communists can hold offices in labor unions.

U.S. v. Brown, 381 U. S. 437 (1965)

Communists can run for public offices.

Yates, et ., v, U.S., 354 U.S. 298 (1957)

Communists can serve in the merchant marines.

Schneider v. Smith, U.S. , 88 S. Ct. 682 (1968)

Today by court edict a person is allowed to advocate and convince others of the duty and necessity to overthrow the 90vernment by force and violence. (A memorandum on Supreme Court Decisions by G. Edward Griffin, American Opinion, Belmont, Massachusetts.)

The Supreme Court justices would probably have been accused of treason if they had dealt in this manner with the Nazis during World War II. Yet how does one explain the court’s attitude towards the communist conspiracy which is a much greater threat than the Nazis ever were. Perhaps you can understand why the communists have held victory rallies to honor the Supreme Court and its decision.

I have not even covered the areas of how the court is hamstringing the police, destroying property rights, encouraging civil disobedience, undermining state sovereignty, and so forth.

Communism and Serious Charges

And now I come to a passage in the Book of Mormon which gives me great concern about the future of our country because of the way we are helping the communists. The passage reads as follows:

And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations I to get power and gain, until they shall spread over the nation, behold f they shall be destroyed; … (Ether 8:22.)

And so the crucial question is, “Has our nation upheld communism so that it could get power and gain?” The tragic answer is, “Yes.” And so, unless we as a people can soon stop and reverse the disastrous course we are taking I then our nation shall be destroyed. For the sad truth is that communism would be insignificant in our country and the world today were it not for the consistent and persistent help which it is continuing to receive from right within our own government.

I know these are serious charges. There is ample evidence.

American Opinion Magazine Articles

Returning a few days ago from a month in Europe and the Middle East, I found in my accumulated mail an advance copy of a courageous, hard­hitting, truthful magazine–a rare thing today–and one not carried by the liberal news agencies on our newsstands. On the title page, the fearless young managing editor, Scott Stanley, Jr., had this in his “Letter to the Readers” :

Dear Reader:

We write in the wake of burning and looting in 168 American cities, at a time when we are at war in Vietnam and our own government is sending raw materials to the arsenal of an enemy killing our soldiers in the field. We write in the midst of an economic crisis described by the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board as the most serious since the Depression year of 1931. And, as we write, a leading candidate for the Presidency of the United States has called for openly paying blackmail to the Communists, and for the resignation of J. Edgar Hoover, the anti­Communist Director of the F.B.I.

It is a time when black Marxists call for burning down America, and make a good try at it, and every Presidential candidate – save one – recommends buying off those burning our cities with more of the federal subsidies which are enlarging the inflationary debt about to destroy our entire economy. It is a day in which men who have been chair­man of officially cited Communist Fronts sit even in the Cabinet of the President of the United States and protect the revolutionaries, promote Marxist schemes, and drive America’s back ever closer to the wall. (American Opinion Magazine I June, 1968.)

From his letter transmitting the June issue, I read the last paragraph:

The Constitution surely hangs by a thread. Without God’s help this Republic will fall as certain as it was with His help that it was born. (Ibid.)

From the lead article, which I recommend to all, entitled “Insurrection – Is America Sleeping Through a Civil War?,” I quote from the first page:

America has just endured the most widespread civil uprising in a hundred years – except for the Civil War, the largest in American history….

Arrests totaled well over twenty thousand. Washington, D. C. [and it would do us good if we could go through the streets of Washington, D. C. , now - down 14th Street two blocks from our Mormon chapel - 7th Street in the business section], reported more than a thousand fires set by arsonists. Baltimore between seven and eight hundred, Pittsburgh five hundred, two hundred in Chicago, and so on…

The federal government was itself effectively shut down on Friday afternoon, April fourth, as word of unchecked, marauding mobs ranging freely in the downtown…

All over the world, sophisticated people must have laughed at us uproariously, and a hundred million no doubt lost any faith they ever had in us…

The author, Dr. Susan L. M. Huck, concludes the 25-page article with these words:

Okay, let’s take the gloves off. This insurrection didn’t just happen. It was set-up – just as the assassination of Martin Luther King was a set-up. The Communists and their Black Power fanatics have been working to create just such a situation for years. They even told us what they were planning to do, again and again, as they did it.

This is only the beginning! And, this time the Administration used only seventy thousand troops to stop them. This time our politicians who have tied the hands of our police officers, have, by employing curfews enforced by federal soldiers, put only ten million or so good citizens under house arrest. This time the insurrectionists hit only 168 towns and cities; they killed only forty-three people; and, they set only three thousand or so major fires.

And remember, the Reds and their Black Power troops have promised us that this is only the beginning! Stokley has said that his forces plan to burn down America.

They’re sure going to try.

How do you stop it? It’s very simple. You stop Communist racial agitation; you arrest the leaders for conspiracy to commit murder, arson, and burglary, prove their guilt in a court of law, and lock them up; and, you free the hands of our police so they can prevent rioting and looting and arson by those citizens now convinced by the actions of our “Liberals” that theft, incendiarism, and assault will be tolerated.

Don’t kid yourself. The people who are behind all of this mean to have a civil war. We either stop them now or they will escalate this thing. (Ibid.)

The Law Breakers

Also on my desk as I returned from abroad was the new volume entitled The Law Breakers – America’ s Number One Domestic Problem, by the brilliant young editor of the Indianapolis News, Mr. Stanton Evans. I give you the opening paragraphs:

Americans in this second half of the twentieth century have been told, with some justice, that they never had it so good. By every material standard, ours is the richest society on earth. We have higher personal incomes, more consumer goods, less poverty, and more leisure than any other nation known to history. And our government has set about, through a variety of programs in every field of human effort, to supply deficiencies in the web of comfort.

Yet if in that sense we never had it so good, in another sense we never had it so bad. Or so scared. Precisely as we have achieved our present affluence, precisely as our government has proclaimed its readiness to spread the good things more widely still, the nation is clawed by nameless apprehensions. Richer than any other generation of Americans, we are also more frightened. Blessed with better food, finer clothes, and more expensive cars, we are also haunted by the fear that the enjoyment of these things might be taken from us by marauders who stalk our streets and attack our homes.

The paradox is of the sort suggested by the Pennsylvania Dutch saying, “The faster I run, the behinder I get.” The faster we multiply our material comforts, the greater seems the likelihood of losing them through hoodlum terror. The more our government suggests we are advancing toward utopia, the more we stumble backward toward the jungle. We are a people for whom anything seems possible – except to defend ourselves against primitive evils which the rudest of societies can control.

The people of the United States are fast losing one of their most precious rights – the simple right to move as they please, to      go to church meetings at night, to shop where and when they would like, to take walks near their homes.

A survey conducted by the Crime Commission found that “one-third of a representative sample of all Americans say it is unsafe to walk alone at night in their neighborhoods. Slightly more than one-third say they keep firearms in the house for protection against criminals. Twenty-eight per cent say they keep watchdogs for the same reason.” (Stanton M. Evans and Margaret Moore, The Law Breakers [New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 1968], p. 1.)

There is not time for a full outline of this treacherous development.

Communist Penetration of Government

We have mentioned briefly the help which the communists have received from our Supreme Court. Suffice it to say that they have penetrated every major segment of our society, as J. Edgar Hoover has testified – the news media, the schools, the churches, the unions, etc. But their greatest desire and most successful drive has come from their effective penetration of government.

They knew the power, prestige, influence, and finances that would be theirs once they got the machinery of the United States government headed in their direction. And they were right. For let the government of the United States stop helping communism and communists all over the world, and in a short period of time the conspiracy would be in retreat and in due time would collapse.

But we extend the advantage of diplomatic recognition to their puppets when they come to power. We send them billions in foreign aid. We’ve trained their pilots. We ship them wheat. Through cultural and other exchanges, their spies come to America. We supply them know-how. We extend them credit. We buy their goods. Their propaganda goes through our mails at our expense. We’ve helped them in their conquests through secret agreements. Our government does all it can to keep the anti-communists from coming to power in any country.

And once we’ve helped the communists to take over a nation such as China and Cuba, we do all in our power to keep the anti-communists from freeing their land. We even negotiate with these butchers and sign treaties with these criminals who have no respect for treaties. Said President McKay:

I would not deal with a nation which treats another as Russia has treated America. It is a condition which cannot be permitted to exist. (Church News [weekly section of Deseret News], August 6, 1952.)

But it does exist and every day brings in new evidence of the increasing help which our government extends the communists.

A Few Traitors

The vast majority of American citizens and federal employees are loyal to our Republic. But there are a few traitors whose numbers are growing and who are in key positions to influence and help shape government policy. In fact it is becoming increasingly apparent that appointment to high government office today is not hampered by one’s pas t affiliations with communist fronts or one’s ability to follow the communist line. You don’t need to look further than the President’s Cabinet and recent appointments to the Supreme Court to find ample evidence of this fact. (See: “The Unelected,” by Gary Allen, American Opinion, June 1968, p. 81.) Parrot the communist line and you can expect to be glamorized by the liberal news media and pushed to the front. But take a strong anti­communist position and you can expect to be passed over, smeared, and silenced. And this has happened and is happening to too many great and distinguished Americans to be accidental.

Communist Tactics

Now mind you, the communists could not do this all by themselves. They knew that communism would also have to be built by non-communist hands. And so, as in the past, they use, to suit their purpose, the misguided idealist, the political opportunists, the dupes and fellow travelers, and the ignorant and apathetic Americans.

Nor does the communist always deal in totally black instrumentalities – especially when he is trying to come to power. He must deceive. He must produce counterfeits. He must be willing at times to take one step backward – especially when it pacifies people about his past advances and makes it easier for him to take his next two steps forward.

He knows that some of his greatest successes have come with programs which have been sold to the American public as ways to fight the communists but which in reality had the net effect of promoting communism. This has been true of our foreign aid program. Designed, supposedly, to help nations, its overall effect has been to keep socialist governments in business, enhance the communists, discourage free enterprise and demoralize the anti-communists.

Win in Vietnam

Another illustration is the war in Vietnam. We are supposed to be fighting the communists in Vietnam, yet we are helping them everywhere else. Why do we trade with communist countries and supply them the means with which to kill our sons? Why do we build plants for them? We ship them machinery, metals, chemicals, rubber, airborne equipment and many other things for their war machine. In return we get back coffins – hundreds of them per week.

We cancelled a $17 million debt which the Polish communist government owed us on the very day a Polish ship pulled into Haiphong harbor with war materials to kill our men. On one side of Stettin harbor in Poland they unload the wheat we send them and on the other side of the harbor they load their ships with equipment to kill our men in Vietnam.

Why not let our men win in Vietnam? Why handcuff them? In war there is no substitute for victory. We have been pouring tens of billions of dollars into defense for years. Is it possible that we cannot win a war against a third-rate country of 17 million people, smaller than the state of Missouri? Honest and competent military men in whom I have great confidence have stated that we could win the war in six weeks or less.

TRAIN Committees

What can you do, you ask? Listen to the conclusion of a shocking article which every American should read by Wallis W. Wook, Coordinator for TRAIN Committees (TRAIN takes its name from To Restore American Independence Now):

What can one person do? You can try to match the determination of Lieutenant Colonel Wilbur Outlaw of North Carolina. He is a twenty-five-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. His oldest son, Bill, is now a helicopter pilot in South Vietnam, and in the past nine months has been shot down once and strafed several times. In a recent letter to his family from Vietnam, he urged: “Tell those fools back home that there is a war going on over here and they’d better start doing something about it, either by Signing those petitions or by getting the powers that be (which is probably impossible) to start fighting a war instead of playing Mickey Mouse games. I feel sure that everyone else over here is as tired as I am of being shot at and knowing they can’t do anything about it most of the time.”

As Bill’s father told me: “I spent twenty-five years trying to defend my country; now I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to save it.”

What can you do? You can help protect the lives of your fellow Americans -the 500,000 super-patriots fighting Communism in Vietnam. You can get to work with TRAIN, or on your own, to help stop this treasonous aid and trade with the enemy – and, insist on the removal of the restrictions on our military. If not? Well, if not, mister, go back to sleep. But don’t call yourself an American. (American Opinion, May 1968, p. 14.)

A Personal Letter

What can you do? Hear the pleading warning and counsel of a Mormon elder, an air force captain, in the following letter:

APO San Francisco
26 March 1968

Elder Ezra Taft Benson
of the Council of the Twelve

Dear Sir:

I am an Air Force Captain serving in ______, Republic of Viet Nam. I have a wife and three young sons living in ______ whom I love very deeply and for whom I want to secure the freedom that I have thus far enjoyed. In discussions with members and non-members alike who are caught up in this war, I’ve found a unifying fear concerning the destiny of our country, a fear which I feel confident that you and many Church leaders share. Since this is an election year, and a very crucial year for the future of our nation, I’d like to do more than I am presently doing to further the cause of freedom.

I’ve attached a letter which I’ve prepared intending to express thoughts which our elders must employ with their own [members] if we’re to survive the present challenge to our nation. Certainly I’d like to go into greater detail with them about the communist threat… but what I’ve written may be useful.

As a member of the Armed forces I cannot actively participate in the political destiny of my country; but as an elder in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I am obligated to watch over the Church and to do what I can to protect the liberty that God has given us. Therefore, I write the accompanying letter, hoping that it might have some use in convincing the priesthood of their pressing obligation to the cause of freedom.

Then he signed his name, and attached this letter, which is addressed to the priesthood of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

Dear Brethren:

We in Viet Nam, who are struggling and dying that men and women, you and your loved ones, might maintain the free agency which thousands before us have died to protect, are deeply concerned with the state of our beloved nation…

The news that comes to us from home is disheartening. While we endeavor to assist in securing freedom for a weak and tottering nation, but a nation filled with people desirous of freedom, the greatest nation of all, our homeland, now overflowing with selfish and materialistic millions, is staggering clumsily but steadily toward the clutches of self-imposed slavery. How sincerely we cry to our countrymen in words similar to those of our Master who cried “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,… how often I would have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” (Matthew 23:37–38.)

Dear Brethren, we stand upon the very threshold of calamity…

Brethren, truly our freedom hangs by a thread, and if we wish to keep it then we, the elders of Israel, must now step forward to preserve it.

I am a soldier. I am doing what I can to help. You are free and educated citizens capable of guiding our country’s destiny. How can you do it? Your local political organizations need your support and your participation. Your newspapers need your opinions. Your representatives in your state and national legislatures need your continuing support, interest, and advice… We know only too well the consequences if we fail to meet the challenge before us. It is time to act, to be doers and not hearers only. We plead with you from this the dark side of the earth. Put your shoulders to the wheel and push with your might…

Oppose Communist Aggression

Are there advantages to the communists of our being involved in a long no-win war? Can it eventually be converted into World War III? Can it be used to create bitterness, confusion, and a breakdown in American morale? Can it be used as an excuse to institute greater socialistic controls over the people – to weaken our economy? Can it be used to get the American people to accept peace on almost any terms?

If we really mean to oppose communist aggression, why did we pick distant Vietnam instead of Cuba? We had the Monroe Doctrine before there ever was a U.N. or a SEATO. If our government leaders are really opposed to communism, why don’t they start cleaning them out at home?

Why do they allow the Office of Economic Opportunity to be the means of providing finances and programs for the communist revolutionaries and their allies who plan to ravage and burn down America?

Yes, communism is tightening its strangle hold on America and the world because of the help it is receiving increasingly from right within our own government. Americans are destroying America.

And so I return to the grave warning of the inspired Book of Mormon:

And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations, to get power and gain, until they shall spread over the nation, behold they shall be destroyed; … (Ether 8: 22.)

God grant that we may repent, prayerfully study the Book of Mormon, follow the prophet, do our homework, and wake up in time to reverse the tragic course we are following, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I suppose the best way to start a comparison of socialism and the United Order is with a definition of the terms. Webster defines socialism as:

Socialism defined

“A political and economic theory of social organization based on collective or governmental ownership and democratic management of the essential means for the production and distribution of goods; also, a policy or practice based on this theory.” (Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2nd ed. unabridged, 1951.)

George Bernard Shaw, the noted Fabian Socialist, said that:

“Socialism, reduced to its simplest legal and practical expression, means the complete discarding of the institution of private property by transforming it into public property and the division of the resultant income equally and indiscriminately among the entire population.” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1946 ed., Vol. 20, p. 895.)

George Douglas Howard Cole, M.A. noted author and university reader in economics at Oxford, who treats socialism for the Encyclopedia Britannica, says that because of the shifting sense in which the word has been used, “a short and comprehensive definition is impossible. We can only say,” he concludes, “that Socialism is essentially a doctrine and a movement aiming at the collective organization of the community in the interest of the mass of the people by means of the common ownership and collective control of the means of production and exchange.” (Ibid., p. 888.)

Socialism arose “out of the economic division in society.” During the nineteenth century its growth was accelerated as a protest against “the appalling conditions prevailing in the workshops and factories and the unchristian spirit of the spreading industrial system.”

Communism, starting point

The “Communist Manifesto” drafted by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for the Communist League in 1848 is generally regarded as the starting point of modern socialism. (Ibid., p. 890.)

The distinction between socialism, as represented by the various Socialist and Labour parties of Europe and the New World, and Communism, as represented by the Russians, is one of tactics and strategy rather than of objective. Communism is indeed only socialism pursued by revolutionary means and making its revolutionary method a canon of faith. Communists like other socialists, (1) believe in the collective control and ownership of the vital means of production and (2) seek to achieve through state action the coordinated control of the economic forces of society. They (the Communists) differ from other socialists in believing that this control can be secured, and its use in the interests of the workers ensured, only by revolutionary action leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the creation of a new proletarian state as the instrument of change. (Ibid.)

German Socialism

A major rift between so-called orthodox socialism and communist socialism occurred in 1875 when the German Social Democratic party set forth its objective of winning power by taking over control of the bourgeois state, rather than by overthrowing it. In effect, the German Social Democratic party became a parliamentary party, aiming at the assumption of political power by constitutional means.

Fabian Society

In the 1880′s a small group of intellectuals set up in England the Fabian Society, which has had a major influence on the development of modern orthodox socialism. Fabianism stands “for the evolutionary conception of socialism . . . endeavoring by progressive reforms and the nationalization of industries, to turn the existing state into a ‘welfare state.’” Somewhat on the order of the German Social Democrats Fabians aim “at permeating the existing parties with socialistic ideas [rather] than at creating a definitely socialistic party.” They appeal “to the electorate not as revolutionaries but as constitutional reformers seeking a peaceful transformation of the system.” (Ibid.)

Forms and policies of socialism

The differences in forms and policies of socialism occur principally in the manner in which they seek to implement their theories.

They all advocate:

(1) That private ownership of the vital means of production be abolished and that all such property “pass under some form of coordinated public control.”

(2) That the power of the state be used to achieve their aims.

(3) “That with a change in the control of industry will go a change in the motives which operate in the industrial system. . . .” (Ibid.)

So much now for the definition of socialism. I have given you these statements in the words of socialists and scholars, not my words, so they have had their hearing.

The United Order

Now as to the United Order, and here I will give the words of the Lord and not my words. The United Order the Lord’s program for eliminating the inequalities among men, is based upon the underlying concept that the earth and all things therein belong to the Lord and that men hold earthly possessions as stewards accountable to God.

On January 2, 1831, the Lord revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith that the Church was under obligation to care for the poor. (See D&C 38.) Later he said:

“I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, . . .and all things therein are mine.

“And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine.

“But it must needs be done in mine own way. . . .” (D&C 104:14–16.)

Consecration and stewardship

On February 9, 1831, the Lord revealed to the Prophet what his way was. (See D&C 42.) In his way there were two cardinal principles: (1) consecration and (2) stewardship.

To enter the United Order, when it was being tried, one consecrated all his possessions to the Church by a “covenant and a deed which” could not “be broken.” (D&C 42:30.) That is, he completely divested himself of all of his property by conveying it to the Church.

Having thus voluntarily divested himself of title to all his property, the consecrator received from the Church a stewardship by a like conveyance. This stewardship could be more or less than his original consecration, the object being to make “every man equal according to his family, according to his circumstances and his wants and needs.” (D&C 51:3.)

This procedure preserved in every man the right to private ownership and management of his property. At his own option he could alienate it or keep and operate it and pass it on to his heirs.

The intent was, however, for him to so operate his property as to produce a living for himself and his dependents. So long as he remained in the order, he consecrated to the Church the surplus he produced above the needs and wants of his family. This surplus went into a storehouse from which stewardships were given to others and from which the needs of the poor were supplied.

These divine principles are very simple and easily understood. A comparison of them with the underlying principles of socialism reveal similarities and basic differences.

Comparisons and contrasts: Similarities

The following are similarities: Both

(1) deal with production and distribution of goods;

(2) aim to promote the well-being of men by eliminating their economic inequalities;

(3) envision the elimination of the selfish motives in our private capitalistic industrial system.

Differences

Now the differences:

(1) The cornerstone of the United Order is belief in God and acceptance of him as Lord of the earth and the author of the United Order.

Socialism, wholly materialistic, is founded in the wisdom of men and not of God. Although all socialists may not be atheists, none of them in theory or practice seek the Lord to establish his righteousness.

(2) The United Order is implemented by the voluntary free-will actions of men, evidenced by a consecration of all their property to the Church of God.

One time the Prophet Joseph Smith asked a question by the brethren about the inventories they were taking. His answer was to the effect, “You don’t need to be concerned about the inventories. Unless a man is willing to consecrate everything he has, he doesn’t come into the United Order.” (Documentary History of the Church, Vol. 7, pp. 412-13.) On the other hand, socialism is implemented by external force, the power of the state.

(3) In harmony with church belief, as set forth in the Doctrine and Covenants, “that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property” (D&C 134:2), the United Order is operated upon the principle of private ownership and individual management.

God-given agency preserved in United Order

Thus in both implementation and ownership and management of property, the United Order preserves to men their God-given agency, while socialism deprives them of it.

(4) The United Order is non-political.

Socialism is political, both in theory and practice. It is thus exposed to, and riddled by, the corruption that plagues and finally destroys all political governments that undertake to abridge man’s agency.

(5) A righteous people is a prerequisite to the United Order.

Socialism argues that it as a system will eliminate the evils of the profit motive.

The United Order exalts the poor and humbles the rich. In the process both are sanctified. The poor, released from the bondage and humiliating limitations of poverty, are enabled as free men to rise to their full potential, both temporally and spiritually. The rich, by consecration and by imparting of their surplus for the benefit of the poor, not by constraint but willingly as an act of free will, evidence that charity for their fellowmen characterized by Mormon as “the pure love of Christ.” (Moro. 7:47.)

Socialism not United Order

No, brethren, socialism is not the United Order. However, notwithstanding my abhorrence of it, I am persuaded that socialism is the wave of the present and of the foreseeable future. It has already taken over or is contending for control in most nations.

“At the end of the year [1964] parties affiliated with the [Socialist] International were in control of the governments of Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Israel, and the Malagasy Republic. They had representatives in coalition cabinets in Austria, Belgium, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, constituted the chief opposition in France, India, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and West Germany; and were significant political forces in numerous other countries. Many parties dominant in governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America announced that their aim was a socialist society.” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1965 Book of the Year, p. 736.)

United States has adopted much socialism

We here in the United States, in converting our government into a social welfare state, have ourselves adopted much of socialism. Specifically, we have to an alarming degree adopted the use of the power of the state in the control and distribution of the fruits of industry. We are on notice according to the words of the President, that we are going much further, for he is quoted as saying:

“We’re going to take all the money we think is unnecessarily being spent and take it from the ‘haves’ and give it to the ‘have nots.’” (1964 Congressional Record, p. 6142, Remarks of the President to a Group of Leaders of Organizations of Senior Citizens in the Fish Room, March 24, 1964.)

Socialism takes: United Order gives

That is the spirit of socialism: We’re going to take. The spirit of the United Order is: We’re going to give.

We have also gone a long way on the road to public ownership and management of the vital means of production. In both of these areas the free agency of Americans has been greatly abridged. Some argue that we have voluntarily surrendered this power to government. Be this as it may, the fact remains that the loss of freedom with the consent of the enslaved, or even at their request, is nonetheless slavery.

As to the fruits of socialism, we all have our own opinions. I myself have watched its growth in our own country and observed it in operation in many other lands. But I have yet to see or hear of its freeing the hearts of men of selfishness and greed or of its bringing peace, plenty, or freedom. These things it will never bring, nor will it do away with idleness and promote “industry, thrift and self-respect,” for it is founded, in theory and in practice, on force, the principle of the evil one.

As to the fruits of the United Order I suggest you read Moses 7:16–18 and 4 Nephi 2:-3, 15-16. If we had time we could review the history, what little we know, of Zion in the days of Enoch and about what happened among the Nephites under those principles of the United Order in the first two centuries following the time of the Savior.

What can we do?

Now what can we do about it?

As I recently reminded my wife of the moratorium on the United Order, which the Lord placed in 1834 (D&C 105:34), that socialism is taking over in the nations and that its expressed aims will surely fail, she spiritedly put to me the question: “Well, then, what would you suggest, that we just sit on our hands in despair and do nothing?” Perhaps similar questions have occurred to you. The answer is, “No, by no means!” We have much to do, and fortunately for us the Lord has definitely prescribed the course we should follow with respect to socialism and the United Order.

Constitution God-inspired

He has told us that in preparation for the restoration of the gospel, he himself established the Constitution of the United States, and he has plainly told us why he established it. I hope I can get this point over to you. He said he established the Constitution to preserve to men their free agency, because the whole gospel of Jesus Christ presupposes man’s untrammeled exercise of free agency. Man is in the earth to be tested. The issue as to whether he succeeds or fails will be determined by how he uses his agency. His whole future, through all eternity, is at stake. Abridge man’s agency, and the whole purpose of his mortality is thwarted. Without it, the Lord says, there is no existence. (See D&C 93:30.) The Lord so valued our agency that he designed and dictated “the laws and constitution” required to guarantee it. This he explained in the revelation in which he instructed the Prophet Joseph Smith to appeal for help,

Just and holy principles

“According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles;

“That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.

“And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose. . . .” (D&C 101:77–78, 80.)

Sustain Constitutional law

Previously he had said:

“And now, verily I say unto you concerning the laws of the land, it is my will that my people should observe to do all things whatsoever I command them.

“And that law of the land which is constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind and is justifiable before me.

“Therefore, I, the Lord, justify you, and your brethren of my church, in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land [the test of its constitutionality in the words of the Lord here is whether it preserves man's agency];

“And as pertaining to law of man, whatsoever is more or less than this cometh of evil.

“I, the Lord God, make you free therefore ye are free indeed; and the law [that is, constitutional law] also maketh you free.

“Nevertheless, when the wicked rule the people mourn.

“Wherefore, honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil.” (D&C 98:4–10.)

These scriptures declare the Constitution to be a divine document. They tell us that “according to just and holy principles,” the Constitution and the law of the land which supports the “principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before” God; that, “as pertaining to [the] law of man whatsoever is more or less than this, cometh of evil.” They remind us that the Lord has made us free and that laws that are constitutional will also make us free.

“When the wicked rule, the people mourn”

Right at this point, almost as if he were warning us against what is happening today, the Lord said: “Nevertheless, when the wicked rule the people mourn.” Then, that we might know with certainty what we should do about it, he concluded: “Wherefore, honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold. . . .”

In its context this instruction, according to my interpretation, can only mean that we should seek diligently for and support men to represent us in government who are “wise” enough to understand freedom—as provided for in the Constitution and as implemented in the United Order—and who are honest enough and good enough to fight to preserve it.

“. . . under no other government in the world could the Church have been established,” said President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and he continued:

“. . . if we are to live as a Church, and progress, and have the right to worship as we are worshipping here today, we must have the great guarantees that are set up by our Constitution. There is no other way in which we can secure these guarantees.” (Conference Report, October 1942, pp. 58-59.)

Now, not forgetting our duty to eschew socialism and support the just and holy principles of the Constitution, as directed by the Lord, I shall conclude these remarks with a few comments concerning what we should do about the United Order.

What to do about United Order

The final words of the Lord in suspending the order were: “And let those commandments which I have given concerning Zion and her law be executed and fulfilled, after her redemption.” (D&C 105:34.)

Further implementation of the order must therefore await the redemption of Zion. Here Zion means Jackson County, Missouri. When Zion is redeemed, as it most certainly shall be, it will be redeemed under a government and by a people strictly observing those “just and holy principles” of the Constitution that accord to men their God-given moral agency, including the right to private property. If, in the meantime, socialism takes over in America, it will have to be displaced, if need be, by the power of God, because the United Order can never function under socialism or “the welfare state,” for the good and sufficient reason that the principles upon which socialism and the United Order are conceived and operated are inimical.

In the meantime, while we await the redemption of Zion and the earth and the establishment of the United Order, we as bearers of the priesthood should live strictly by the principles of the United Order insofar as they are embodied in present church practices, such as the fast offering, tithing, and the welfare activities. Through these practices we could as individuals, if we were of a mind to do so, implement in our own lives all the basic principles of the United Order.

As you will recall, the principles underlying the United Order are consecration and stewardships and then the contribution of surpluses into the bishop’s storehouse. When the law of tithing was instituted four years after the United Order experiment was suspended, the Lord required the people to put “all their surplus property . . . into the hands of the bishop” (D&C 119:1); thereafter they were to “pay one-tenth of all their interest annually. . . .” (D&C 119:4.) This law, still in force, implements to a degree at least the United Order principle of stewardships, for it leaves in the hands of each person the ownership and management of the property from which he produces the needs of himself and family. Furthermore to use again the words of President Clark:

“. . . in lieu of residues and surpluses which were accumulated and built up under the United Order, we, today, have our fast offerings, our Welfare donations, and our tithing all of which may be devoted to the care of the poor, as well as for the carrying on of the activities and business of the Church.”

What prohibits us from giving as much in fast offerings as we would have given in surpluses under the United Order? Nothing but our own limitations.

Furthermore, we had under the United Order a bishop’s storehouse in which were collected the materials from which to supply the needs and the wants of the poor. We have a bishop’s storehouse under the Welfare Plan, used for the same purpose. . . .

“We have now under the Welfare Plan all over the Church, . . . land projects . . . farmed for the benefit of the poor. . . .

“Thus . . . in many of its great essentials, we have, [in] the Welfare Plan . . . the broad essentials of the United Order. Furthermore, having in mind the assistance which is being given from time to time . . . to help set people up in business or in farming, we have a plan which is not essentially unlike that which was in the United Order when the poor were given portions from the common fund.”

It is thus apparent that when the principles of tithing and the fast are properly observed and the Welfare Plan gets fully developed and wholly into operation, “we shall not be so very far from carrying out the great fundamentals of the United Order.” (Conference Report, October 1942, pp. 51-58.)

The only limitation on you and me is within ourselves.

A Prayer:

And now in line with these remarks for three things I pray:

(1) That the Lord will somehow quicken our understanding of the differences between socialism and the United Order and give us a vivid awareness of the awful portent of those differences.

(2) That we will develop the understanding, the desire, and the courage born of the Spirit, to eschew socialism and to support and sustain, in the manner revealed and as interpreted by the Lord, those just and holy principles embodied in the Constitution of the United States for the protection of all flesh, in the exercise of their God-given agency.

(3) That through faithful observance of the principles of tithing, the fast, and the welfare program, we will prepare ourselves to redeem Zion and ultimately live the United Order, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.