---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 2
number: 4
published: 1899-02
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: "Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, \"Editor’s Table: Attitude of the Church Towards Reform,\" *Improvement Era* 2, no. 4 (February 1899): 310."
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera24unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera24unse
start_page: 310
end_page: 310
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-02)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera24unse
  publication_year: 1899
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Editor’s Table: Attitude of the Church Towards Reform

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EDITOR'S TABLE.
ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TOWARDS REFORM-
POLITICAL PARTIES.
From M. D. Fitzgerald, of Lynn, Massachusetts, the editors of
the Era received the following, under date of January 4th, in relation to the evils of the world and the plans proposed by the Social
Labor Party to eradicate the same.
I am prompted to write you this letter because I have been favored
in making the acquaintance of Elder Charles Westover of your Church.
The doctrine, etc., of the Church so far as I understand it from a simple
study of its cardinal principles, are certainly "Godlike," and superior to
many conflicting doctrines that surround me here. I am a Catholic by
baptism and education, and can only find a reason for deviation from the
doctrine of our Savior Jesus Christ by so-called Christian Churches in this
fact, that they have admitted the right of private ownership of the means
of production and distribution, thus entailing usury, the competitive
system, the disinheriting of the masses, wars, having an economic basis,
and other evils too numerous to recapitulate in this short letter.
On this New England coast are many cities containing thousands of
idle men and women, living in poverty, in enforced idleness, while the
means, i. e. natural resources and machinery, capable of being united to
and operated by their intelligence for the purpose of producing untold
wealth, are also lying comparatively idle. Churchmen and statesmen are
continually tinkering or vainly endeavoring to remedy this deplorable
condition; I believe it can only be aggravated by these so-called panaceas,
viz: free trade, protection, monetary reform, expansion, (imperialism,) etc.