CHURCH WELFARE PLAN
A Discussion by
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
I am asked to tell you about the Welfare Plan of the Mormon Church.
May I urge you to remember that this Plan is not a municipal, county, state, or Federal Plan; it is completely divorced from politics. It is wholly a Church Plan, based upon religious principles and carried out entirely by purely Church instrumentalities and agencies.
Perhaps I might best begin by saying that basic to this Plan are deep, sincere, religious convictions built on God’s universal command given to all men through ancient Israel in the Wilderness:
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” (Lev. 19:18) – religious convictions which carry with them simple and abiding faith in, and indeed a spiritual knowledge of (1 Cor. 2:11), God and His Son Jesus Christ, the atoning sacrifice for the original sin, “the light of truth,” (D&C 88:6) who is the same “yesterday, and today, and forever,” (Heb. 13:8).
To this simple faith is added a firm belief that, as to God’s commands, “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” (1 Sam. 15:22.) Like Abraham of old, Church members stagger “not at the promise of God through unbelief,” but are “strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was able also to perform,” (Rom. 4:20, 21).
Church members accept as truth the exhortation of the great Law Giver, “Know therefore that the Lord The God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations.” (Deut. 7:9.)
Finally, Church members have a humble, trusting faith that the heavens are not closed, that God has not shut Himself off from His children, that all truth has not yet been revealed, and that through His chosen and ordained servants, God still speaks to His children, and in love and mercy yet directs their course in time of need, giving them comfort and succor.
Among the faithful members of the Church all these things are realities. Existence itself is not more certain.
The whole spiritual and temporal life of the Church member is built upon these foundations: An appreciation of this fact is necessary to an appraisal and understanding of the working of the Church Welfare Plan.
In so far as the Plan is concerned, the foregoing elements may be resolved into three factors.
The Law of Giving
First, as to the obligations of those who have to those who have not, – the love of neighbor:
The Church accepts literally the Messianic dictum, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” (Acts 20:35), and also the declaration of James: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the World.” (James 1:27.)
The Church likewise literally accepts the Master’s words to the rich young man who affirmed that all his life he had kept the great commandments: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow Me.” (Matt. 19:21.)
The Church affirms that through His modern prophets, the Lord has commanded: “And behold, thou wilt remember the poor and consecrate of thy properties for their support, that which thou has to impart unto them with a covenant which cannot be broken. And inasmuch as ye impart of your substance unto the poor, ye will do it unto Me.” (D&C 42:30, 31.)
“Behold, I say unto you, that ye must visit the poor and the needy and administer to their relief.” (D&C 44:6.)
“Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls, and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended and my soul is not saved!” (D&C 56:16.)
“Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of My gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in Hell, being in torment.” (D&C 104:18.)
“But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God.
“And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ, ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.” (Jac. 2:18, 19.)
“Verily, thus saith the Lord, in addition to the laws of the Church concerning women and children, those who belong to the Church, who have lost their husbands or fathers;
“Women have claim on their husbands for their maintenance until their husbands are taken; and if they are not found transgressors they shall have fellowship in the Church.
“All children have claim upon their parents for their maintenance until they are of age.
“And after that, they have claim upon the Church, or in other words, upon the Lord’s storehouse, if their parents have not wherewith to give them inheritances.
“And the storehouse shall be kept by the consecrations of the Church; and widows and orphans shall be provided for, as also the poor.” (D&C 83.)
The Law of Receiving
Next as to certain social obligations resting upon all, including the poor, and involving certain principles that are fundamental to a free and ordered society:
To Adam at the very beginning came the judgment: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” (Gen 3:19.) This is the law of this earth.
At Sinai the law was more fully stated:
“Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: . . .
“Thou shalt not steal….
“Thou shalt not covet.” (Exod. 20:9, 15, 17.)
The Church accepts as the word of the Lord in this day this commandment on covetousness:
“Wo unto you poor men, whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite and whose bellies are not satisfied, and whose hands are not stayed from laying hold upon other men’s goods, whose eyes are full of greediness, and who will not labor with your own hands.
“But blessed are the poor who are pure in heart, whose hearts are broken, and whose spirits are contrite, for they shall see the kingdom of God coming in power and great glory unto their deliverance: for the fatness of the earth shall be theirs.
“For behold, the Lord shall come, and His recompense shall be with Him, and He shall reward every man, and the poor shall rejoice;
“And their generations shall inherit the earth from generation to generation, forever and ever.” (D&C 56:17-20.)
The great leader Brigham Young said:
“My experience has taught me, and it has become a principle with me, that it is never any benefit to give out and out, to man or woman, money, food, clothing, or anything else if they are able-bodied and can work and earn what they need, when there is anything on earth for them to do. This is my principle and I try to act upon it. To pursue a contrary course would ruin any community in the world and make them idlers.”
“To give to the idler is as wicked as anything else. Never give anything to the idler.”
“Set the poor to work-setting out orchards, splitting rails, digging ditches, making fences, or anything useful, and so enable them to buy meal and flour and the necessities of life.”
In the earlier days of the Church the word came:
“Now, I, the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them, and their children are also growing up in wickedness: they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness.
“These things ought not to be, and must be done away from among them.” (D&C 68:31, 32.)
Thus the Divine commands to the Church and the directions of its leaders to the people, require as a fundamental principle of their religion that Church members not in distress shall care for the needy widow and orphan, and for the poor, and that these latter shall not lay their hands on other men’s goods, they shall not be greedy or covetous, they shall not be idlers, and the physically fit shall work for what they get. No exception has been made to these commands, and no person has been taken out from under them.
The Church vigorously decries idleness. Industry, economy, and thrift are extolled. Deceit, avarice, dishonesty, lying, greed, graft, are condemned. Honesty, truthfulness, sobriety, willingness to give, love for fellowmen, sympathy for woe, misery, and want, service to and for others, are urged to the point of a command.
These are the reasons for setting up the Church Welfare Plan; they are the principles underlying it.
Constitutional Government
But the Church has felt that in following this course, it was meeting its highest duty in another way.
The Church unequivocally declares, nothing doubting, that God Himself set up the Constitution of the United States, and that He so declared, saying: “I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose,” and the Constitution shall “be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles.” (D&C 101:80, 77.)
The Church further declares that such laws must be framed “and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life.” (D&C 134:2.)
The Church has, for one hundred years, accepted as complying with the divine mandate, the form of government set up under the Constitution. The Church has insisted that basic to this Constitutional government was the greatest possible degree of local self-government, and that this carried with it the right, the duty, and the responsibility of solving all purely local problems, such as the care of the poor, by and in the locality itself.
Some Church History
For a hundred years the Church has, by itself, handled the want and distress of its people, though at times their trials have been grievous.
A hundred years ago, armed mobs plundered, burned, and murdered us. I speak without heart-burning or malice, and with full charity.
Three times we were driven by force of arms from our homes and all our property that we could not carry on our backs or in our wagons was taken from us without a penny in return.
Once we fled for our lives under a governor’s order of actual extermination. Again and again we builded cities, only to be driven out of them.
Once only when we seemed in extremes, we asked Washington for succor-not food, clothing, or shelter, but for security of property and safety of life against State aggression and local persecution. The Chief Executive answered us, as I think he must have answered us under his oath of office: “Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you.”
When ninety-five years ago our prophet leader was slain by an unrestrained local mob, and we began our westward march over plain and mountain under that genius in leadership, Brigham Young, we moved under our own power, without subsidy, without loan, wished on our way only by the maledictions of those who drove us out from our own homes and then appropriated, without paying for it, the property they forced us to leave behind.
Arrived in the Valleys of the Mountains, we planted all our wheat, with enough flour to last only to harvest; our nearest food supply was one thousand miles away, reached only by ox team; thousands of others were on the way to join us. A pest of locusts came, devouring everything in their way. Famine raised its gaunt frame. Then came the miracle of the gulls, the crop was saved, starvation was beaten back-a miracle as real as any that aided ancient Israel in her escape from the bondage of Egypt. But even then we lived on short rations of the simplest foods, eked out by wild roots dug from the hillsides. So we struggled on against want and misery; toil and hardship were with us daily.
From Salt Lake City as a center, pioneer groups thrust out east, west, north, south, over the whole Great Basin area. Every settlement struggled through the same want, misery, toil and hardship. No aid came from the outside; we never dreamed of asking for it. The Church helped as its meager funds permitted; but neighbors gave the real succor. A last pound of flour was often shared.
Forty years later, as a final phase of the struggle between the Church and the government over polygamy, all Church property was confiscated by the Federal Government. Only a part of it was ever returned.
But the Church survived; the people prospered. Character endured intact. We took care of our own poor. In times of scarcity neighbors helped one another.
Time and time again, we passed through the fiery furnace; we came out of it each time, refined, with the dross burned away, re-inspirited, sanctified.
We Mormons have cared for the essential needs of our own in the past; we can do it now. We can do it in the future, if we can be relieved of the debauchery to character which follows along with a dole.
Pioneer Virtues
We claim no monopoly on the virtues which have made our achievement possible. These virtues have been the common heritage of every pioneer out-thrusting in America.
Save perhaps in degree, our experience has been the experience of all the pioneers of Western America, None were subsidized, none had easy money, none either asked for or received, government gratuities. Had they waited for these, indeed had they got them, America would never have been built.
Some justify our present economic course by saying, “times have changed.” So they have, but character building has not. The laws of righteousness and progress are eternal. There is no escape from them, either for the individual or for the nation.
An uncorrupted citizenry builds a great State; no State ever built an uncorrupted citizenry.
No man is politically free who depends upon the State for his sustenance.
A planned and subsidized economy beats down initiative, wipes out industry, destroys character, and prostitutes the electorate.
I repeat-In view of all these considerations, the Church has felt that in setting up its Welfare Plan, it was not only meeting its prescribed duty as a Church to its members, but was performing a duty of patriotism to our country.
I come now to the Plan itself and its operation. Here you must bear a little with me while I explain, very briefly and inadequately, the organization of the Church which operates the Welfare Plan.
As I have shown, the principles underlying the Plan have been operative in the Church since its beginning a century ago. There is nothing new.
The Priesthood of the Church
The Church has no priestly or ministerial class. Every male member of the Church over twelve years of age holds some grade of the Priesthood, the Church thus reaching the Mosaic aspiration of “a kingdom of priests.” (Exod. 19:6.) There are two main grades of Priesthood-the lesser or Aaronic Priesthood, normally made up of boys from twelve to eighteen years of age, and the Melchizedek or higher Priesthood. The lesser Priesthood Aaronic-is divided into three groups, deacons, teachers, and priests, and each of these, for convenience of administration, is divided into sub-groups called quorums. Twelve deacons make a quorum, twenty-four teachers, and forty-eight priests. The higher Priesthood-Melchizedek-is likewise divided into three principal groups-elders, seventies, and high priests-and each of these into the sub-groups called quorums. Ninety-six elders make a quorum, seventy of the seventy, and an indeterminate number of high priests. Speaking generally, the administrative officers, or presiding authorities of the Church are taken from the high priests.
Church Administration
For administrative purposes, the Church is divided into units as follows:
The primary unit is the ward, presided over by a bishop and his two counselors, with a ward clerk. There are 1,137 wards in the Church. The normal population of a ward is from 500 to 1,000 souls, all told. The quorums of the lesser Priesthood-the Aaronic-are ward quorums.
The wards are grouped together into stakes, presided over by a President and his two counselors, with a stake clerk. Each stake presidency is assisted by a group of twelve men, known as the Stake High Council. There are 127 stakes in the Church, with an average of ten wards to a stake. The quorums of the Higher Priesthood-the Melchizedek-are stake quorums, though in fact a quorum may be wholly made up of members of one ward. Wards and stakes are from time to time divided and sub-divided to keep them roughly within the population limits indicated.
The Church is composed of the wards, stakes and missions, which latter are both domestic and foreign.
The Church is presided over by a president and his two counselors, known as the First Presidency. The Council of the Twelve are next in authority. Other General Authorities of the Church are the First Council of Seventy (seven men), who head the quorums of seventy of the Church, and the Presiding Bishopric (a Presiding Bishop and his two counselors), who are heads of the Aaronic Priesthood of the Church, and have general supervision, subject to the First Presidency, over all the bishops of the Church.
In addition to the Priesthood groups of quorums already noted, there are five principle auxiliary organizations in each ward-the Primary organization for the children up to twelve, boys and girls; the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association, for the boys and young men from twelve years and older; the Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Association for the girls and young women of the same age span; the Sunday School for persons of all ages; and the Women’s Relief Society, made up of the women of the Church, of all mature ages.
Each of these organizations has a stake board to look after the ward organizations of the stake; and a central general board to supervise the whole stake organizations of the Church.
The First Presidency of the Church have directive authority over all of the officers, quorums, and organizations of the Church.
The Bishop is looked upon as the Father of the Ward. His responsibility is to look after the spiritual and temporal welfare of his people. To aid him in this work, his ward is divided into districts, or blocks, and to each district is assigned two teachers who visit at least once a month each family in their district, to encourage them in living rightly, to adjust any differences that may exist in the family or between neighbors, and to report on the general welfare of the Church members. The Bishop is assisted in looking after the poor of his ward by the Women’s Relief Society, whose primary duty it is to extend relief to those in need, to assist in nursing the sick, and to help in burying the dead.
The Bishop is thus able to know intimately the spiritual and temporal condition of every man, woman, and child in his ward.
Except for small allowances made to bishops and stake presidencies to cover actual out-of-pocket expenses in carrying on their work, none of the officers, ward and stake, receive any compensation for their Church labor. All must engage in some secular gainful occupation for a livelihood.
Church Income Sources
The income of the Church is derived principally from four sources:
- Tithing: Each Church member is supposed to give to the Church a voluntary, wholly free-will contribution of one-tenth of his annual increase. The member himself is the sole judge of the amount.
- The Fast Offerings: Each member is asked to fast for two meals on the first Sunday in each month, and to give as a wholly voluntary contribution, the equivalent of those meals, which is used for the support of the poor. More than 184,000 Church members made contributions of this sort during 1938.
- Ward Maintenance: Each member is asked to make a voluntary contribution of something for the maintenance of the ward meeting house, amusement hall, and like buildings.
- Auxiliary Organizations; Small voluntary contributions to the auxiliary organizations are made by their members to cover cost of publications, editorial and clerical help, and like purposes.
- Income from Invested Surpluses of the Church of Past Years: These investments are mainly in local Utah securities, and chiefly in financial institutions and commercial industries. The Church has made its investments primarily to assist in establishing these enterprises for the general welfare of the people of the area, members and non-members. The Church owns no railway securities, no national industrial or financial securities, and a small amount only of government securities. The Church does not have great wealth. Out of the total budget for 1938 only a little over 12% came from Church surplus investments.
The Church is thus almost completely dependent for its activities and support upon the voluntary contributions of its members, and no Church or other discipline is invoked to force contributions or against those not making such contributions, which are thus wholly free-will offerings. A man failing to pay his tithing is not regarded as in “good standing,” but no action of any kind is taken against him for his failure.
Since the setting up of the Church Welfare Plan, opportunity has been afforded for special contributions to this purpose. Members and non-Church members have generously responded, but the bulk of all revenues comes from the foregoing regular sources.
The Ward Bishop
From the statement already made of Church organization, it will be seen that the problem of caring for the needy is a problem for the bishops of the Church, that is, those in charge of the primary constituent administrative units of the Church organization.
The securing of necessary funds is primarily for the Bishop. He goes to those who have, to get the wherewithal to care for those who have not. He may collect cash, foodstuffs, clothing, fuel, or any commodity which the unemployed need. This is a work requiring constant attention and effort. Those who have must be encouraged, built up, spiritually fed; the brotherhood of man must become a part of their lives; they must feel they are in fact their brothers’ keeper.
To assist him in this work the Bishop may call upon any organization in his ward, but he looks in this labor principally to the Women’s Relief Society, and next to the “block” teachers.
In normal times these agencies, when used, are sufficient. But the stringencies of the last few years, increased the problems to such a degree that certain coordinative steps had to be taken to assist the bishops in their tasks. This is the only essential new thing which the Church Welfare Plan does.
In normal times, except for the few who are wholly incapacitated for work, and the few old folk without relatives to support them, the bishop’s job is to afford temporary relief while the needy find re-employment. But since the depression took firm hold, the bishop has been forced to take on the added duty of finding employment for the employables who were unemployed. This greatly increased his temporal duties. Then the need and unemployment brought on a marked lowering in the general morale of the people, and this in turn reacted harmfully on their spiritual outlook. Thus the bishop’s spiritual duties were likewise added to.
Since the most pressing need was food, shelter, and clothing-the maintenance of life-the bishops were directed to adjust their organizations and to intensify their work, to this end. Bishops’ storehouses have been established for the collection of fuel, food, and clothing, these materials to come from the voluntary contributions of the people of the wards. Thus neighbors are to help neighbors, through the medium of the storehouse. This puts into the relief a personal sympathy that is wholesome for all, and tends to prevent imposition and over-reaching. There is an infinity of difference between the sack of flour that comes over the back fence from your next door neighbor and a sack that is sent to you from Washington. The one hallows the giver, and raises and enspirits, with the human love and sympathy behind it, him who thankfully eats it; the other debauches the hand which doles out that which is not his, and embitters and enslaves him who with malediction devours it.
The Bishop’s Welfare Committee
Normally, as already stated, the bishop depends for his information about the needy upon the “block” teachers and the Women’s Relief Society. But the depression brought new and complicated problems. So the bishops were instructed to set up a bishop’s committee to help. This committee is made up of the bishopric, and a representative of the Relief Society, and of each of the higher Priesthood quorums in the ward, together with male and female work directors. This gives the bishop certain checks and balances that enable him to get a really true picture of the conditions of his needy people.
The problem of employment being acute, this committee assists the employables who do not have work.
Furthermore, both in matters of sustenance and of employment, the bishop, with his committee, helps to coordinate his ward situation with that of other adjacent wards, exchanging surpluses of one kind for deficiencies of another.
Priesthood Quorum Help
In addition to and supplementing the foregoing task of the bishop, each higher Priesthood quorum is asked to take responsibility for the care of its needy members, particularly to the point of putting their members on a permanently self-sustaining basis.
This assistance may take the form of helping the needy brother in his actual need and problem, to build a home, or to start in a small business, or, if he be an artisan, to get him a kit of tools, or, if he is a farmer, to get him seeds, or to help him plant or harvest a crop, or to meet some urgent credit need he has, or to supply him with clothing, or shelter, or food, or medical assistance or schooling for the children, or to give aid in any number of other ways.
Actual Need-Measure of Giving
The Church Plan aims to give wisely in kind and in amount supplementing with some cash where necessary, the exact help which each individual needs, instead of distributing a more or less equal, standardized, blanket cash assistance to all destitute members of a community, taking no account of the exact individual requirements. The Church plan materially reduces the total amount necessary for adequate relief in any given community. Too much stress can hardly be placed upon this element, from the point of view of giving adequate assistance, of eliminating waste and graft, and of furnishing an economic and saving expenditure and use of funds and materials.
In spiritual matters the bishop uses for help the regular “block” teachers and the Priesthood quorums, upon which latter is imposed the initial responsibility of seeing that their fellow members live rightly. The Relief Society works particularly among the women.
The bishop is also charged to see that the unfortunate are made participants in all recreational and amusement activities in his ward, and under conditions which shall not leave any feeling of inferiority or loss of self-respect, or of resentment.
Ward Projects
In addition to all the foregoing, and in order to give labor or to secure supplies, or to get produce to sell in order to have some necessary cash for his general problem, the bishop may undertake a purely ward project such as (in farming communities) raising a few acres of potatoes or beans or peas or wheat. The higher Priesthood quorums do likewise. In one case, the elders’ quorums of a stake farmed 950 acres of land (donated to the Welfare Plan by President Grant), and raised thereon 15,000 bushels of wheat, which, because of its high grade was sold at a premium for seed wheat, and the money realized used for the Welfare Program of the stake.
In a great many non-urban areas the wards set up canning and preserving units to care for the surplus fruits and berries they raise. All this material goes into the bishop’s storehouse for distribution to the necessitous.
Furthermore, the ecclesiastical building plant of every ward includes, normally, a meeting house-chapel-an amusement hall for dancing, with a stage for dramatics; a gymnasium, classrooms for Sunday School, Priesthood groups, and improvement associations; a large kitchen for use in Church social gatherings; lockers, heating plant, etc. Funds for building this plant are furnished fifty percent from the general funds of the Church (sixty percent in the earlier stages of the depression), and fifty percent by the ward doing the building. The ward is allowed to furnish part of its portion by using its unemployed labor, which is compensated for its work mostly from the bishop’s storehouse.
While the Priesthood activities above referred to are primarily for the adult or higher Priesthood, the lesser Priesthood-the boys and youth-is called into service wherever feasible.
The Relief Society
In all that relates to the supplying of clothing, the preparation and preservation of foodstuffs, the nursing of the sick, the burial of the dead, in all that relates to the infinities of kindly attention and sympathy, in all that relates even remotely to the love and ritual of motherhood, the Women’s Relief Society carry the burden. The bishop is the father of his ward; the Relief Society is the mother. The Church Welfare Plan could not be carried on without them; it serves in greatest measure where they are most active. They establish sewing and cooking centers, they help with making budgets, they encourage the heavily burdened and despondent, they hold up the hands of the faint-hearted, they sweep despair out of the hearts of the distressed, they plant hope and faith and righteousness in every household. Womanhood ripened into righteous motherhood, is the nearest approach to the divine, which mortals ‘know. Mothers make the great membership of the Relief Society.
Welfare Service Uncompensated
Of all those who work in these ward activities, the bishop only, who labors in the center of this web of relief activity, receives any compensation whatever, and he in an amount so scanty as merely to emphasize how much he does for love only for his fellow man. On an average this compensation does not equal the normal so-called old-age pension. In absolute fact, he must do all this work, and then in addition earn his living besides in some regular secular employment. It is a modern miracle that he can live and keep his family.
Rule of Welfare Aid
To the foregoing rule and practice regarding compensation, this further exception must be made: Whenever it is possible to use the unemployed in helping on the general plan, they are used. The normal rule of their compensation is this: No cash value is placed on service. A man is paid according to his need. Where necessary he is given some cash. A man with no dependents is given what he needs. A man with five dependents is given what he and they need.
This work of furnishing funds and supplies could not be done by bridge parties, by social afternoon teas, nor by an occasional charity ball by the “400.” Far deeper springs of human action must be reached than these. Any motive less lofty and spiritual than “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” will hardly do it.
The Stake
The Welfare Plan above described is the Plan as it operates in the lowest ecclesiastical administrative unit-the ward, with a population, on an average, of somewhere between 500 and 1,000 souls. Obviously, few wards are of a character to be wholly self-contained. The normal ward will have a surplus in some things, a deficiency in others. There must be coordinating, supplementing, augmenting, and cooperation, as between and among wards.
The first coordinating agency is the stake, which, as already stated, is in itself a collection of, on an average, ten wards, with a population say of 6,000. At the head it the stake presidency-a president and his two counselors,-with a stake clerk, and with twelve men-Stake High Councilmen-to assist them.
Bishops’ Council
Normally the Stake Presidency sets up a bishops’ council, composed of all the bishops of his stake, though one or more stakes in more thickly settled areas may combine in setting up such a bishops’ council. Thus in addition to the general information which the stake presidency may have of the conditions of the various wards of his stake, he brings together for fuller information the bishops of all his wards, who have all the information he lacks. The stake presidency and the bishops’ council then work out the details for the exchange of commodities and labor, or for supplementing the same where no exchange is possible. The stake presidency also has more completely available to their purposes, the stake-wide Priesthood quorums of the higher Priesthood. Just as there were ward projects, so there may be stake projects: one such-that of the wheat growing-has already been described.
Governmental Administrative Analogies
This ward and stake set-up may be easily understood, if it be thought of in terms of towns and counties of rural areas. The towns are the equivalent of the Church wards. The town will have its mayor, or other presiding authority; it will have its councilmen and its various town officers, its Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations, its social clubs, its special organizations for relief purposes, and, in urban industrial areas, its labor unions. If these were all banded together in a voluntary organization to carry out, under the direction of the mayor, welfare work among the unemployed needy of the town, the organization would in essentials be similar to the Church organization. If then the county commissioners coordinated the welfare work of the various towns of the county by exchanging surpluses between towns, the function of the Church stake would be approximated.
If instead of levying taxes to meet the needs of the Welfare work, the individuals of the towns were asked voluntarily to contribute the funds, food, clothing, fuel necessary for the work, the analogy to the Church plan would be more complete.
Finally, if all persons engaged in this welfare work in towns and counties served without compensation in this labor of love and common brotherhood, the analogy would be complete.
The Region
The same considerations of coordination and cooperation for supplying deficiencies and exchanging surpluses, which required the setting up of a stake welfare organization, has led to the church-wide grouping of stakes into regions. There are 17 regions in the Church. Each region has a regional council, made up of the stake presidents of the various stakes composing the council, one of whom is chosen president of the council. This regional organization sets up such sub-committees as the particular situation and needs of the individual region may demand, so as to insure a proper distribution in the region of the available foodstuffs, clothing, fuel, and labor.
The region may be thought of as a State of the Union, coordinating the activities of the various component counties.
The General Committee
To coordinate the work of the regions and unify the whole plan, there is a General Committee, set up by the Presidency of the Church. This General Committee has a chairman, a vice-chairman, and a managing director, who is the full-time member of the committee. This general committee has ten members, of whom two are lawyers, one a practical farmer, one an industrialist, one an expert in cooperative marketing, one a dealer in grains, one a contractor, one a printer and publisher, and one a dairyman. To this committee there are added three advisors from the Council of the Twelve, two from the First Council of Seventy, the Presiding Bishopric, and the Presidency of the Women’s Relief Society. This general committee is under the final direction and control of the First Presidency of the Church.
The General Church Welfare Committee is in many respects essentially similar (in other respects dissimilar) to a department of the Federal Government, with a cabinet officer at its head, subordinate to the President of the United States.
Ultimate Aims
While as indicated the first task of the Church Welfare Plan was to supply food, clothing and shelter, it was recognized from the outset that the measures taken to meet this task would not be cures but paliatives, would be treating the symptoms and not the disease, and that as rapidly as possible treatments must be developed to meet the financial disorders of the social and economic body. Many of these disorders appeared so clearly discernible and so urgent that a tendency to broaden the scope of our operations to include them all has had to be constantly and consciously restrained.
The general economic principle behind the Church Plan is to build up, develop, and establish individual security which promotes and preserves religious free agency and civic freedom and liberty, as against the presently touted tendencies to set up an alleged mass security which destroys all three.
Effect of Scanty Church Funds
Anomalous and contradictory as it may seem, the Church has been helped in its work by its lack of large funds upon which to draw for its welfare work, because it is so much easier to give help than to bring about self-help-which is the only true help. The Church has thus perforce, because of its own financial limitations, been obliged to foster self-help in the largest possible measure.
The Church helps people to help themselves.
The Sub-Committees
To this end, the General Welfare Committee has set up sub-committees, drawing in other leaders in their particular lines to assist in this self-help plan.
It has created an Agricultural Committee, whose function is to assist farmer Church members in achieving better farm and home management and better marketing, to help in the production of new crops and new crop uses, in water conservation and utilization, in increasing production, in looking up new opportunities for young farmers in other agricultural regions of the country, and even to help in establishing new industries. This committee-nine members-is one of the ablest committees ever appointed in this country, having among its members an engineer of long experience in practical agriculture, two college presidents, each a specialist in agriculture, the head of one of the most successful cooperative marketing agencies of the country, a professional statistician and economist, a practical agriculturalist, and an advisor of world-wide renown as a chemist and agricultural expert. Sub-committees of this central sub-committee have been appointed in all the farming areas in the intermountain areas.
The General Committee of the Church Welfare Plan has appointed other committees, the members being of equal distinction, experience, and training in their particular fields, with the members of the Agricultural Committee.
There is a Deseret Clothing Factory Supervisory Committee (of seven members) and a Deseret Industries Supervisory Committee (nine members) organized to supervise and direct the manufacturing and salvaging and reconditioning of clothing for distribution under the Church Plan, so providing cheap clothing which is purchasable by anyone. The aim is to make this operation self-sustaining as soon as possible.
One of the principal efforts made in this work is to provide something to do for people who are able to work but who for some reason, frequently some physical ailment or defect, are unable to secure employment in the regular industries.
Another committee (six members) is the Food Processing Committee whose function is to anticipate and ascertain the food needs of each region, to supervise the production of needed materials through so-called food projects, and to investigate and give information regarding better methods of canning, the conservation of foods and storage, and to assist in establishing welfare canning units throughout the Church.
Another committee (four members) is the Finance Committee. This committee (which operates through a legal entity-the Cooperative Security Corporation) makes small non-bankable loans to worthy Church members to help them to remain self-supporting and to assist others again to become self-supporting. These are all character loans, for a very few hundred dollars at most. The few thousands of dollars made available by the Church for this committee are operated as a revolving fund. In many cases those receiving the help are put into sort of moral financial receivership under their bishops and stake presidencies. This has been very helpful.
A sixth committee (seven members) known as the Special Projects Committee, has been set up to investigate in a general way the feasibility of establishing industries for supplying the needs of the Church Welfare Plan, of recommending plans for setting up such industries, including the creation of other committees to carry out the recommended projects themselves.
A seventh committee (six members), known as the Housing Committee, is now in the formative stage, to develop a plan aimed to provide better housing conditions for those in the low-income groups, the maximum of labor to be furnished by unemployed Church members, and using the maximum of materials manufactured by other Church Welfare agencies and projects.
Non-Interference with Private Enterprise
It is the vigilant aim to conduct all of these activities in a way that will not inflict any real injury upon existing industries. It is not the intent to try to set up any sort of collectivism. The Church does not aim to destroy but to promote individualism. It is the aim to introduce and foster the maximum amount of cooperation in working out the problems of the under-incomed group of our Church membership.
Members Engaged in Relief Work
There are engaged in this General Committee and its sub-committees more than forty different men and women. These Committees generally hold meetings weekly or oftener if necessary. Some of the members travel as many as 150 miles going and coming from these meetings. Numbers of them make weekly journeys, sometimes of thousands of miles and taking two or three days, to hold stake or regional conferences.
Besides contributing their skill and experience, they are giving to their work an enthusiasm and devotion for which it would be hard to find an equal. They act with the knowledge that they are doing the will of the Master, and they bring to their work a corresponding love of men and deep sympathy for their suffering.
Only one key person of all this number draws any compensation for the work he does in connection with the Church Welfare Plan, and that one, who devotes all his time, has a pay that would not satisfy the cashier of a first class country bank.
In addition to these forty at the center of the hub, there are in the organizations that radiate thence outward to the perimeter of the Church Welfare Plan-region, stake, ward, Priesthood, and auxiliary agencies-as many as 14,000 others who act as the supervisors in this great plan without any money or other material compensation whatsoever. In addition to them, a few-unfortunately too few-who, being in need, give labor in exchange for materials of livelihood. You may add to this number the total membership of the Women’s Relief Society, (some 80,0,00 women) all of whom are directly or indirectly engaged in the welfare work, by establishing and conducting sewing centers and food collecting and preserving centers, by caring for the sick, and by other acts of mercy, and none of whom receives any compensation for their labors. Thus you have a grand total of 100,000 persons who are directly engaged in this welfare plan.
As a matter of fact, every adult Church member, if he be living up to his opportunities and to his active and positive duties, is either a benefactor of the Church Plan or a beneficiary of it.
In essence, therefore, the Church Welfare Plan is a neighbor to neighbor plan. The cardinal commandment is “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The Church organization is such that it enables every Church member effectively to keep this commandment.
No Politics
All Welfare work is carried out with fairness and justice, and without discrimination, fear, or favor. There are no politics, Church or otherwise, in the administration of the Church Plan. No one has anything to gain or to lose in a material way by any relief which he may extend under the plan. Those carrying it out have neither friends to reward nor enemies to punish.
Effectiveness of Plan
I would not wish you to get the impression that this Church Plan is one hundred per cent effective or even near to that standard. Even though the machinery of the Plan may be looked upon as perfect, it is dealing with imperfect humans and human agencies. Not all Church members believe in the Plan; it is hard to persuade some people who can get something for little or for nothing that they should labor for what they get; it is hard to persuade others that self-help for a modest competence is better than regimented raids on the public treasuries for more; it is difficult to make many see that the ease and luxuries of life are of less worth than the essential moral and spiritual values, and that a millionaire’s life is not the highest prize that mortals can reach. Furthermore, aware of the obvious fact that the Church had insufficient funds for unlimited aid for an indefinite time, some have preferred Government aid, which, they believe possesses an eternity of an increasingly abundant life without work.
But the great bulk of the Church has been devotedly loyal to the Plan, else it would not have worked at all.
Spirituality Test
The Church has found that the whole problem is essentially a question of spirituality, rather than of finance or economics. Where the spirituality has been high, the Plan has succeeded; where the spirituality is low, the plan has lagged. The Church has proved there is no substitute for the great commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy might, mind, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself.”
There will be no sure and enduring recovery in this country except these laws shall be obeyed.
But this much may be said in truth for the efficiency of the Plan, no one who was hungry or cold or ill has ever been turned away unhelped from any bishop’s door.
Basic Elements
The basic elements of the Church Welfare Plan may be shortly put thus:
All funds and materials received for this service to the needy are considered as marked with the sacred trust of brotherhood of man, and are so administered.
All welfare relief is distributed by the Bishop of the ward, or under his immediate direction, that is, it is help at the hands of a friend and neighbor, who bestows it with the sole thought of giving needed succor to a neighbor in distress. The bestower has nothing to gain or to lose materially by the gift. This is of the essence.
The Welfare relief is not a blind giving of money, but a furnishing to the family of the things which the family actually needs, in the quantities which are in fact necessary.
An able-bodied family shall do work for what it gets; the confirmed idler is not entitled to help.
Self-confidence and self-reliance shall be built back into the characters of those receiving welfare relief.
The unemployed employables shall as fast as possible be put back into the normal economic life of the communities, either as wage earners or as small economic units.
Finally, and this in the ultimate appraisal, is the most important, the spiritual lives of the needy shall be built up and strengthened. “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” (John 17:3.)
Plan’s Modest Achievements
Perhaps a few closing words will be permitted that may indicate the modest achievements the Church has been able to compass during the last fiscal year. I am not cataloguing: I am only summarizing.
During the year 1938 more than 56,000 Church members received assistance of some sort from the various welfare agencies above named. As a part of that assistance, and it is only a part, there was expended $1,827,000, a considerable part of which was cash, and there were on hand at the end of 1938 some $127,450 worth of preserved foodstuffs, clothing, and fuel, available for distribution in 1939.
These figures do not include the literally thousands of cases in which help has gone across the back fence of one neighbor to another. No approximate estimate can be made of the mere money value of this assistance.
It should be remembered that while the total Church population is about 784,000, only some 630,000 are within the Plan because the missions of the Church are not fully under the Plan. Financially, the Church membership is exceedingly humble; there are almost no exceptions.
As a part of the Plan there have been established in Salt Lake City, one Central Bishop’s Storehouse; in addition there are 67 Regional and Stake Storehouses that serve approximately 100 of the 127 stakes, and there are small emergency Bishop’s Storehouses in the remote rural wards of the Church.
Budget for 1939
For the current year foodstuff production budgets have been put in operation throughout the Church. These budgets were based upon surveys (made at the end of 1938) of the estimated umber of persons who may be in need of assistance during the winter of 1939-40.
Food tables prepared by the Utah State Agricultural College and the United States Department of Agriculture were used to determine the approximate amounts of various foodstuffs that would be needed to supply the required amounts for the necessities. Under this plan the whole Church is under a unit budget operation for relief. Each budget area is informed as to the amount and kind of foodstuffs (all kinds) or fuel it will be counted on to produce for the coming winter season. This will all be collected and distributed under the direction of the General Church Welfare Committee.
This plan calls for a production of the following items, using average yields to estimate the numbers of acres that will be needed to supply the estimated required foodstuffs:
Wheat, acres – 2,908
Sugar beets, acres – 403
Potatoes, acres -. 203
Fruit, bushels – 3,870
Fresh vegetables, acres – 155
Vegetables (to be canned), cans – 400,000
Meat (canned), cans – 6,000
Meat (dressed), pounds – 100,000
Poultry products:
Chickens – 4,000
Eggs, dozen – 2,200
Butter, pounds – 5,100
Cheese, pounds – 4,200
Cereals – $1,755.00
Soap and Cleansers – $1,500.00
Honey and Molasses, gals. – 2,000
In addition to the above named items a variety of products will be obtained such as oranges, lemons, grapefruit, grapefruit juice, figs, walnuts, salmon, etc. No definite amounts have been assigned of these items, but localities producing the same are requested to produce to the limit of their possibilities.
The Welfare Plan operates a coal mine, a large canning factory, (besides the smaller units scattered all over the Church) a clothing factory, a clothing renovating shop and salvage plant, with six stores established to distribute their output, two sawmills (to assist in providing building materials for those who would otherwise be unable to obtain homes).
One stake is undertaking an experimental soap manufacturing project and another has just delivered, as an opening of its work, several tons of cereals manufactured in a project under the Church Welfare Plan. One group is manufacturing ladders, another adobes for building homes.
The Church feels it has but begun its work. The commandments and principles recited at the beginning of our discussion, require not that there shall be an economic levelling, an economic equality among all men for this has always meant a levelling downward not upward-but that all able-bodied men (the infirm and sick are in a different category) are entitled to have the opportunity to earn and acquire the necessaries and the essential comforts of life, which embrace food, clothing, shelter, hospitalization, education, amusement and cultural activities, and above all opportunity for spiritual growth and joy. The Church will not have filled its mission or reached its destiny till all of this has come to its members. And, Gentlemen, along this road, the Church is on the march.”
Source
1939-June 20-Original pamphlet, 36 pp., Clark Papers, Brigham Young University Library, Provo, Utah, also drafts; Deseret News, Church Section, July 1, 1939, pp. 1, 3, 5-7; also pamphlet with extracts from other addresses, 31 pp. distributed by the General Church Welfare Committee.
Background
Church Welfare Program, Estes Park, Colorado, Presentation, June 20, 1939
The invitation to President Clark to represent the First Presidency and the Church in discussing the Church Welfare Program came in a letter dated April 10, 1939, from A. D. H. Kaplan, Director, Department of Government Management, University of Denver (Colorado). The invitation read in part:
“This is an invitation which I have the honor to extend to you in behalf of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the University of Denver, at the suggestion of a committee headed by John Evans, President of the First National Bank of Denver. A regional Citizens’ Conference on Government management to be held at Estes Park, Colorado, will have for its general assembly topic . . . the subject, ‘Federal Relief-Emergency Measure or Permanent Program?’ We are extending invitations for two addresses, one by yourself, the other by Colonel F. C. Harrington, administrator of the WPA.’ [Works Progress Administration] . . .
“It is the hope of the committee on arrangements that out of your willingness to describe the approach of your Church to the current problems of unemployment, there will come a frank joining of issues with the Administration, favoring WPA’s method of meeting the problem.”
Sensing in the invitation a possible anticipated debate between Harrington representing the federal government and himself, representing the Church, President Clark accepted the invitation in a letter on April 14, but with this proviso:
“. . . I may say that I would not aim to make my presentation of the subject in any way controversial. If any controversy should arise it would be because of my statement of principle and not because of any criticism or comment that I would make of any other plan”
