--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Heber J. Grant collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 19 number: 9 published: 1916-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Heber J. Grant, "Are You Ready to Work?," *Improvement Era* 19, no. 9 (July 1916): 833–837.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1909unse 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: improvementera1909unse start_page: 833 end_page: 837 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1916-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1909unse publication_year: 1916 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 1916, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Are You Ready to Work? — Are You Ready to Work? "We Stand for State- and Nation-wide Prohibition"— M. I. A. Slogan BY ELDER HEBER J. GRANT [Superintendent Heber J. Grant was given twenty minutes to in- troduce the M. I. A. slogan for 1916 at the joint general conference of our organizations, in the Assembly Hall, Friday, June 9. The full text of his address follows. If, as a worker in the M. I. A., young man or young woman, you are in harmony with the slogan, you have an im- mediate duty to perform: join with people in your district of like mind, in your political party, organize, select your candidates, pledge them to the cause, attend the primary in your district, present and elect candidates to the county nominating convention, pledge them to elect candidates for the legislature and for the state convention, men or women who will vigorously and aggressively stand for the slogan, so that no candidate in any party for the state legislature or for a state of- fice, from the governor down, will be elected who will not work to do away with whiskey and the saloon in Utah. Notice that the work be- gins now, and that the paramount thing is to plan and arrange to carry the primaries in your political party. If you are beaten there, your voting at the polls on election day counts for nothing in the cause. So, carry the primaries. Elder Grant tells why we should have state-wide prohibition in Utah. Editors.] Iam informed by the committee that twenty minutes will be allowed to me to talk upon our slogan "State- and Nation- : wide Prohibition." If there is one subject above another that I am interested in and pleased to talk upon, it is this question of state- and nation- wide prohibition. I believe that Utah should have been the first because the state in the Union to have adopted state prohibition, further reason I ord has given to us a prohibition law for the; given us as a people, the Word of Wisdom that the Lord has to for our temporal salvation and advancement and that we might have hidden treasures of knowledge. The Word of Wisdom is Lord to us, first given to us not today a commandment of the but of later years, given to us bv constraint or commandment," bv the Prophet Brigham Young and by the Prophet Joseph K Therefore we as a Smith, as a commandment to this people. the pioneers in this great reform for people, should have been the benefit of mankind. 834 IMPROVEMENT ERA It is unnecessary for me to say anything to you here today regarding the advantages that would come from prohibition. All who have made any study of the question know that the drinking of liquor is responsible for 25 per cent of all the insanity, 25 per cent of all the vagrancy, and 75 per cent of all the crime that is committed in our country. The government of the United States collects over $200,000,000 a year revenue from this traffic. It is estimated that $31 per capita is used by the people of the United States in expenditure for liquor; so that there is about $3,000,- 000,000 worth consumed or in other words, the government only ; collects about 10 per cent of the amount of what is paid out for this stuff that destroys the bodies and the souls of men. STATE-WIDE PROHIBITION AND PERSONAL LIBERTY Now as to the question regarding state-wide prohibition: there are people who are opposed to it, on the ground that it will interfere with personal liberty. I desire to read to you something upon this question of personal liberty, by Ex-Governor Hanley, of Indiana. What he has said is so much better than I could possi- bly say, that I will quote him: — You have a daughter splendid, beautiful and fragrant as a morn- — ing in June, with all its music and sunshine a daughter fit to be mated to an Apollo, a king! I come to you and say to you: "I am a man of lawful age, I am sound of body and clean of soul. I love your daughter. I want her for my wife, and I ask you to give her to me, to give her to me, body and soul." I am putting to you a supreme — — question one that makes you thoughtful and if you yield assent at all it is only upon the condition that I will go with you and with her, into God's holy temple, and before his high altar, and in the presence of his minister and under the ordinances of the Church and the laws of the commonwealth in which we live, and pledge myself in solemn — compact and covenant pledge myself to her, and to you, that if you give her to me I will love, cherish and defend her with my life. Thai is the condition. I assent to it. I go with you and with her, into God's holy temple, and in the presence of his minister, under the solemnity of the ordinances of the Church and the laws of the state, I solemnly enter into that compact and sign and seal it with my honor. Then I take her away. You have given to me the dearest treasure of your life— — given her to me and I have accepted her under the sanction of the highest and holiest of covenants. But the next day I come back to you and say to you, that, notwithstanding this covenant, and the solemnity in which I entered upon it, in the name of personal liberty I have a right to drink a thing that will make it impossible for — me to perform my part of the covenant come to you and say I have a right to drink a thing that will send me home to her, your daughter, whom I have so taken, a frenzied fiend; send me home to her to beat — her flesh and scar her soul that in the name of personal liberty I have a right to drink a thing after T have taken her to myself and — through her begotten children that in the name of personal liberty I have a right to drink a thing that will put the fire of degeneracy into her children's blood, the frenzy of insanity into their brain, and the rack of palsy into their hands. Men and women, hear me! That : ARE YOU READY TO WORK? 835 thing is not liberty! It's crime! Crime before God! Crime before men! DEPENDENT PERSONS Again, I quote Ex-Governor Hanley, on the most appalling and awful effects of this mind- and body-destroying traffic There are in the custodial care of my state (Indiana) more than 12,000 men and women—more than 5,000 of them insane! In the cus- todial care ,of state, county and city there are more than 4,000 de- pendent children! In the custodial care of the state alone, more than 1,200 feeble-minded children! There are more than 3,000 other men and women in county asylums. And in 1913 we jailed in a single year a vast army of men and women— more than 40,000, 18,000 of them for — being found drunk in a public place and gave in the same year out- side poor relief to another army of more than 51,000 men and women! What a mighty army they constitute, this army of the dependent, the defective, the degenerate and the criminal — more than one hundred — and ten thousand one person out of every twenty-five in all the popu- lation of the commonwealth! Who feeds this army of the dependent, the defective, the degen- erate, the criminal? Who clothes it? Who houses it? Who pays for its care? Four million dollars a year! In my state my people pay, my people pay! And so the people of Utah pay, and so do the people of every state pay. For every dollar that is paid in revenue for this liquor traffic, thereis one dollar wasted, to say nothing of the destruction of the bodies and the souls of those that use the liquor. INTER-STATE SHIPMENTS Congress was petitioned to and did enact a law preventing from wet to dry territories. Wil- inter-state shipments of liquor liam Howard Taft, as president of the United States, vetoed it. Why? Because in his language it was unwarranted and an un- delegation of federal power to the states. constitutional Commenting upon the president's veto, Ex-Governor Hanley says: By declaring a delegation of power over interstate shipments of liquor to the states to be an unwarranted and unconstitutional delega- tion of federal power to the states, the liquor traffic and William Howard Taft have made the prohibition of the traffic a federal ques- tion, and a national issue, knocking at the door of Congress until that door opens and an affirmative answer is made. It will remain a fed- eral question and a national issue, knocking at the door of the White House at Washington, until some new Abraham Lincoln, keeping step with the progress of the race, and catching a vision of a saloonless land, a sober people, and a stainless flag, shall issue a new emancipa- tion proclamation. Our forefathers gave liberty to themselves, but they failed to give liberty to the blacks, and they reaped, according to Mr. Hanley, the following: Lived to reap it in sixteen thousand millions of money expended and property destroyed. Lived to reap it in 550,000 new-made graves. Lived to reap it in the red hours at Chancellorsville; in the car- : 836 IMPROVEMENT ERA nage at Antietam; in the sacrificial baptism at Fredericksburg; in the crimson woods at Chickamauga. Lived to reap it in the three red days at Gettysburg, in the wheat- field and among the trembling hills at Spottsylvania and at Cold Harbor. Now, what are we reaping because of the compact with the liquor people for revenue to carry on the war? Reaping it in 450,000 men and women convicted of crime in this nation every year, 300,000 of whom are victims of this traffic. — In 400,000 insane men and women men and women bereft of reason, 100,000 of whom are victims of this traffic. Reaping it in 50,000 little children who fall in this nation every year, 67 per cent of whom are the victims of this traffic. Reaping it in national decay, in moral degeneracy. Reaping it in man-failure, in woman-failure, in this nation mean — institutional failure failure of institutions for which they have died at the battle's front, sad only that they had but one life to give. There are those who pray for more men in this country. I utter a better prayer than that. I pray not for more men in my country, but for more man in the men who are in my country. But we will get no more man in the men who are in the country until the country rids itself of this hateful thing that debauches daily the man in the men of the country. BEER DRINKING By the investigation of a German professor, it was found in beer-drinking Munich, that out of 100 babies born, 72 are un- sound. The same professor visited prohibition Maine and found / 7\ l 2 sound-born babies out of each 100. I believe beyond the shadow of doubt that there are 98 per cent of all babies born in the homes of the Latter-day Saints who obey the Word of Wis- dom, sound of body and mind. Dr. Carolyn E. Geisel estimates that one-half of all the babies born in the United States do not even reach childhood, and the great cause of it is this terrible liquor traffic. She says also The man who drags his soul through the shame of a licensed saloon, takes out of his unborn baby its vitality, literally cashes it in, — and the child is born feeble, cannot live because its father and some- — times, oh, the shame of it, its mother has cashed in its little life for alcohol. — Let me tell you what I saw. A feeble old woman not as old as I am, but with bowed head and bent back. She made her feeble way down the corridor in murderers' row in Joliet prison. I saw her there a few weeks ago. She came along murderers' row until she stood in front of a grated cell, then put her thin lips up and kissed a big, strap- ping fellow on the other side of the bars. She turned away and would have fallen; I helped her, and she began to cry, "Doesn't God know? He was drunk when he did it; he is not to blame. His father was a — drunkard and he must hang." And then when she was quiet again, when I had helped her to get quiet the best I could, she began pacing up and down on the green grass and wringing her hands, crying, "Doesn't God know? That is my oldest boy, my first-born son; but I have two other boys younger than he. Must they go the same way?" ARE YOU. READY TO WORK? 837 They must, and so must others who are born with this degen- erate fire in their brains. Now, we have "State- and Nation- wide Prohibition" as our slogan. Faith without works is dead What are we going to do to get state-wide prohibition ? Are we going to stay at home from the primaries ? Are we going to vote for people that have not pledged themselves against the traffic? I maintain that if the young men and the young women, of our — Mutuals, over 60,000 strong, shall rise up and work with a liv- ing faith, attending every primary, and having every man pledged, we have the power to secure this great boon. I would like to read more from this book entitled, Speeches of the Flying Squadron. I would like to read of where this lady whom I have last quoted says that if you will only give the women the vote, they will mop up every saloon in the country. The women have the vote in Utah, and if they in connection with the young men and young women of the Mutual Improvement Asso- ciations will only do their part, prohibition will come without fail. When ? Right now. Do not allow a primary to go by but what you are organized with men and women selected to be there to vote and intelligently and to a known purpose. You are the rulers, you are the sovereign people. No man should ever represent Utah in any place or position of trust, unless he has stood up and declared himself, unequivocally, without any mental reservation, upon his honor as a man, that he will stand for this thing. WHAT THE EDITOR OF THE ERA SAYS Let me read from an editorial in our own official organ, the Improvement Era: It is a well known fact that Church leaders and Latter-day Saints — generally are strongly in favor of temperance have preached it for many years, and not only believe in voluntary temperance by which people become strong by personal choice, which is the best temperance by far— but they believe in prohibition, if necessary, by which a guar- dianship is thrown about the young and the weak to keep them tem- perate. I wish to say here, once for all, that I am unalterably in favor of state-wide temperance and prohibition — I care not who is opposed to it nor whose cause is in conflict. _ One other thought. At the recent legislature numerously signed petitions were received from the people asking for state-wide prohibi- tion. The legislature did not see fit to heed these prayers. Now let the people act, and prove their sincerity by closing the saloons wherever this is possible, and make good their declarations and de- sires by sending to the next legislative body such representatives as will comply with their demands for state-wide prohibition. That is the procedure. This procedure was followed. The law was passed by the people's representatives, but the law failed because it was not signed. See to it that we send again men to the legislature who will pass a prohibition law and also elect a man who will sign it. God bless you. Amen.