“Mormonism” Makes for Good Citizenship

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"Mormonism" Makes for Good Citizenship*

BY BISHOP CHARLES W. NIBLEY

I gladly testify to you of my faith and confidence in this work of the Lord and of the blessing that it has in store for man- kind, to all who believe and obey. While the first song was being sung this afternoon, "Loyal to the true and the right," I thought in that line was composed the whole duty of man, for, if I am loyal to the truth and to the right in all things, then I must be at all points acceptable to God, my Heavenly Father. We are taught, in the revelations of the Almighty to this Church, the doctrine of loyalty. If we believe really and truly in the doctrines of the Church, and believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, then that very belief must of necessity make us better citizens than those who do not so believe. Why? Because I believe that God Almighty raised up men to lay the foundations of this great government. I believe in theBook of Mormon, which declares that there should be no king upon this land, but that God would be our King. By a singular co-incidence, the writer of one of our national songs seems to have hit upon this thought, when he declares in the last verse of the hymn, "My country, 'tis of thee" "Our father's God, to Thee, Author of Liberty, To Thee we sing; Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light; Protect us by Thy might. Great God, our King." The same inspiration that gave to Joseph Smith the under- standing that there should be no king, but that the Lord would be our King upon this land, gave to the author of the song, our national anthem (who, by the way, is a Smith also) the same inspiration, that the Lord our God should be King over this land. Believing so, and understanding that the Lord has had a hand in the establishment of this freedom and liberty that we enjoy, — say that if I really believe it, and live by it, that citizenship which I have must of necessity be more sacred to me, and will make me a better citizen than the man who does not believe that God raised up the founders of this land, and that he declared that there should Remarks at the late Annual Conference of the Church, April, 1916.

742 IMPROVEMENT ERA be no king, only that he should be King, and that we should have him and look to him as King and Ruler of all. So, "Mormonism" makes for good citizenship, don't you see? — the best, the very best that there is. I do not say but what there are millions of excellent citizens,— I know there are — in our land here, who are loyal to what they believe to be right, but I want to impress upon you, and if my words could only go out to the world who do not understand us, this further fact that my religion impels me, constrains me, nay, I may say compels me, if I will listen to its advice, to be a better citizen in consequence of the belief in that religion, than I could be without it. And so we desire, as said in Brother Stephens' song, to be "loyal to the true and the right." There is no hyphen with "Mormonism." We have in this Church no Scotch-Americans or Danish-Americans, or German- Americans, not one; we are all Americans. Why? Because God is our King. No King George of England or King Wilhelm of Germany or any other do we acknowledge here, only the great God Almighty, he is our Ruler, he is our King, him we will serve. And so right on that, a question is settled which has to a certain extent perplexed this nation at this time, the hyphenated Amer- ican, as they call him, who owes, as he thinks, some allegiance to some other country than his own, whether it be England or Ger- many or what it be. In England they are singing, today, as they sing always, "God save our gracious king, Long live our noble king, God save the king," but in this country we are singing, "Great God, our King," and the hyphenated citizen cannot exist in "Mormonism." There is a problem that is solved by our re- ligion which may trouble the people, and which has troubled some of the leaders of this nation, and is troubling them at the present time, and I would like the word to go out that by the very fact that a man is a Latter-day Saint, a member of the "Mormon" Church, if you please, that by that fact it is impossible for him to be a hyphenated citizen or to have any hyphen between his native country and his home here in the mountains. His religion teaches — him loyalty teaches him that he must absolve himself from all emperors, from all potentates, from all countries and that this is ;

the land of Zion, and that he must abide here and revere the King of this land, who is God Almighty himself. Now I am not saying that there are not good people in dif- ferent lands who take different views on this question. I admire the peoples, many of them, who are at war at this present time. — The German nation as a people there is no better people in all the world than the German people they have proved it, too, be- ;

fore this war began, in efficiency, in every man who could work being at work, work provided for him in some way, and more or less every man contented and comparatively happy. They had

"MORMONISM" MAKES FUR GOOD CITIZENSHIP 743

given all the nations of the world a lesson in this respect they had ;

even given us a lesson, but there are those who hold, and I am one of them, that the very system which has grown up there is to some extent subversive of liberty; the system, not the people; the people, I repeat, are of the very best and choicest in the world. Our German brethren and sisters, who have come from that land, and are settled with us here in this land of Zion, there are no better people among us you cannot produce them any- ;

where. But I wish those German brothers and sisters, and Eng- lish and Scotch and French, to remember this — I must repeat it — again, and my time is up, I see that there is no hyphen connected with the loyalty of citizenship when once you are a "Mormon." I used that word "Mormon" as applied to a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so that it may be more widely known, if possible, that this Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, makes for the best citizenship in all the world. The very teaching of my Church, my religion, the counsel of those who are over me, the revelations of Jesus Christ to me, impel me to the best citizenship, to be "loyal to the true and the right," and that there shall be no hyphen connected with "Mormonism" and the citizenship of any one who is con- nected with it. God bless you, bless Israel, bless those who give guidance and direction to this organization ;the Lord does that through his servants. The Lord bless those servants that we may listen to them, and if we do we will never go far wrong. The Lord bless Zion, multiply and increase the people of Zion; that we may be kind to the poor, that we may see that the people do not suffer — — that is a principle of our religion and we must live it the poor shall not want and suffer while there is abundance in the Church. The Lord bless us and help us to understand our duties and do them, and be "loyal to the true and the right," through Jesus Christ. Amen.

A clean City. A local Salt Lake City newspaper recently an- nounced that "Tomorrow night the clean-up campaign ends, and when it ends Salt Lake will be the cleanest city in the United States. This is what the health inspectors say." Now, let the police department join the health department, and have a clean-up, so that in addition to being the cleanest city in the United States as far as rubbish is concerned, she may also be the cleanest city morally. The adoption of prohibition by the next legislature would help very materially in this direction. In the mean time, there is plenty of dirt much worse than rubbish. Coincidence or Consequence? The "New York Independent" under this head says: "Women have voted in New Zealand for twenty years. The lowest death rate for babies in the world is in New Zealand. Women also vote in Norway, Australia, Sweden, Den- mark and Finland. The next lowest death rates for babies in the world are in these countries."