--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Evans, John Henry collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 13 number: 1 published: 1909-11 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'John Henry Evans, "Some Men Who Have Done Things—I. Anthony W. Ivins," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 1 (November 1909): 69–73.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1301unse 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: improvementera1301unse start_page: 69 end_page: 73 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-11) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1301unse publication_year: 1909 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 1909, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Some Men Who Have Done Things—I. Anthony W. Ivins : Some Men Who Have Done Things. BY JOHN HENRY EVANS, OP THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS' UNIVERSITY. I.— Anthony W. Ivins, THE MAN OP GENERAL EFFICIENCY. Very likely Anthony W. Ivins never heard of that remark of Professor James's about "the efficient ones." Anyway, he did not hear of it when he was a boy on that Washington county farm, forty-odd years ago, for the very simple reason that it was not then written. And yet if he had read it and made up his mind to follow it — which would be just like him,— his life could not more perfectly have been a fulfil- ment of its fine prophecy. This is the passage, and I may as well give it, now that I have referred to it Let no youth have any anx- iety about the upshot of his edu- cation, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working day, he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning to find himself one of the competent Anthony W. Ivins. ones of his Generation, in what- 70 IMPROVEMENT ERA. ever pursuit he may have singled out. Silently, between all the details of his business, the power of judging in all that class of matter will have built itself up within him as a possession that will never pass away. Only, in the case of Anthony W. Ivins, he seems always to have been one of the competent ones of his community, if we may judge by the honors he has received at the hand? of the State and the Church. He has been town constable, city councilman, mayor, county attorney, state legislator, and member of a state constitu- tional convention. He could have been anything else that he wanted, had his attention not been so much with spiritual affairs. Religiously he has held about every office in the priesthood from that of deacon, dusting the benches and kindling the fires, to that of apostle, the second office in the Church. He has been president of the M. I. A., he has filled several missions, and he has presided over two large stakes. And always these places of honor, political as well as religious, have come to him wholly unsolicited. Even an anti-"Mormon" paper in Salt Lake had to admit that his nomi- nation to the apostleship was "a good one." Why? Well, it is a short story and soon told: First of all, there is the man himself. One cannot help think- ing as one reviews the strange events of this energetic man's career that here was a singular spirit cultivating alfalfa and hoe- ing potatoes in the St. George valley, reading betimes out of some book or other! When he climbed the grand old cliff that shuts off so abruptly all view from the north, the great stretches of plain and mountain spoke to him loudly of opportunity and re- source That, of course, was the man. Out of the death of his father, the head of a large family, young Ivins gathered inde- pendence and a sense of responsibility. That, too, was the man. And if he heard, as he often did, the coarse language and the ob- scene jests of the herdsmen and the freighters of those rough days, it did not invite him to senseless imitation, but rather it roused in him, by very contrast, a passion for purity of thought and life. And that, pre-eminently, was the man. As a boy he was a great reader. Especially was he fond of history. He knew by heart the history of England. The heroes of the past 'made a profound impression on his mind, and he SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 71 sought, to the extent of his opportunities, to act out the qualities that made them strong. In his pocket, while he worked, was a book ready for the hand when, at noon or night, the hand quit its task, in whose pages he looked for something that could lift him out of the alfalfa field or the potato patch. Always, too, per- haps as a result of his reading, he diligently cultivated the friend- ship and association of superior boys and men. He knew that only these had anything worth while to give him. Very early, also, he learned that there are higher things in life than money— a thing very hard to learn nowadays, and a thing that some never learn. And then there are the man's ways, known, but not read of all men. The lives of successful men often seem complicated and hard to resolve into anything like simplicity. In reality, however, they are simpler than the lives of most men that fail. For always, when looked into carefully, there appears some one supreme guid- ing principle. Every great reformer, every great educator, has had but a single idea to preach — only, he did so in a variety of ways. The career of such different characters as Abraham Lin- coln and John Wanamaker is based on the simple axiom that men ought to be honest in everything. This high demand for single- ness of aim and foundational simplicity has crystalized itself into the proverb: "Beware of the man of one idea." Of this basic simplicity Anthony W. Ivins is a fine example. He began life with an established conviction that integrity is the main thing — a plodding, persistent devotion to whatever cause he happened at the time to be serving. He cherishes the belief that when you work for a man, you ought to serve him well; that if you are in the employ of the public, you should give the best ser- vice you can; and that if you engage to serve God, you ought to do so with devotion. To be sure, a good many people have entertained precisely the same notion. But Anthony W. Ivins has practiced it! Who- ever heard of his betraying a trust? Really, out of this one animating purpose has grown his whole career of usefulness, trust, and responsibility. He made up his mind that he would be trustworthy, that he would give honest ser- vice all the time. And presently men found this out and trusted 72 IMPROVEMENT ERA. him. No wonder he said to me, when I asked him what one thing he thought a boy ought to have beyond all others — "Integrity, a constant endeavor to serve with devotion, in big and little things, whomsoever he is supposed to serve. That sums up all the virtues, in my opinion. I do not believe that any boy needs to be con- cerned for his future who in everything will give honest service now." To this aim, too, is partly to be traced his peculiar methods of acquiring knowledge. Anthony W. Ivins is an educated man in the highest and best sense of the word. And he got his education in this way. Casting about him for big things to do, he took in the whole situation in Now, Washington county is no Washington county. place for such men as Harriman, who expect to make millions And yet there were two tolerably big jobs crying out to be done by somebody. Anyway, that was what young Ivins thought. One was stock raising. So he invested his savings in grazing lands, a little at a time. He bought cows and calves whenever he could. In the end, he conducted this business on a large scale — larger than anyone else there. And he studied the business till he knew it from A to Z. Meantime, he had his eye on the hill country, which he thought might contain valuable ore, and he hoped some day to en- gage in mining. Now, he knew nothing of assaying. But he wanted to— which is the next thing to knowing. Besides, he did not like to be dependent on others, even for information. So he studied geology, mineralogy, chemistry, and assaying. To this day he can tell you more about these subjects than most college graduates. And this is thoroughly characteristic of the man. He is never satisfied till he knows all about a subject. And while I am on this aspect of this interesting personality, I may as well tell one thing more about his reading. When An- thony W. Ivins reads in the newspapers about troubles between the Chinese and the Japanese, he straightway reads up on the sub- ject in books. He never lets the matter drop till he knows some- thing of the geography of the Orient, the ethnology of its inhabi- tants, their history, and a hundred and one other things. After that he can follow anything in current affairs that concerns these SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 73 Eastern peoples. And so he does with every other important topic of present day interest. He has read law, too.He felt that he needed law in his business. And then he did not want to depend on others, where he could depend on himself. And so he studied and practu ed law. The judicial history of Southern Utah will tell you that he argued cases with some of the best Northern lawyers. It will tell you also that he never lost a case. And that shows how much of law he read and how well he read it. "How on earth have you done all this?" I demanded. "Surely you have had to earn a living!" "Yes," he replied, "I have had to work for a living. But I have been a reader all my life, and I have read a little every day and whenever I could." That is why I call the whole career of Anthony W. Ivins a standing rebuke to scores of men in our settlements who bemoan tearfully the fact that they have little education and then give as a reason the excuse that they have had to work so hard and have had so little opportunity to learn! And sometimes they add that Church duties have required so much of their time. But here is a man who, starting with nothing, has given more than his share of attention to Church duties, has had to earn his bread by hard work and thought, and has in the meantime acquired a fine educa- tion. That was because, depend upon it, there was no lounging on the corner grocery in his life and no twiddling of the thumbs. Apostle Ivins smiled when I asked him to compare the oppor- tunities a boy has today with those he had. Then he leaned over and said in his earnest way: "There is no comparison. Opportunities in my day had to be made. Now they lie ready to hand— if a boy will only show that he can be depended upon. And they are innumerable, too. Edward H. Harriman may bequeath his railroads to his wife, but he can- not bequeath the men who are to run those roads. These will have to be found in the boys who today live along the lines. There will always be big places to take, for the reason that the men who them now will not live always. And these places are every day fill growing in number and size. They are the heritage of our boys today."