--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Joseph M. Tanner collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 23 number: 12 published: 1920-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Joseph M. Tanner, "A New Consciousness," *Improvement Era* 23, no. 12 (October 1920): 1077–1078.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2312unse 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: improvementera2312unse start_page: 1077 end_page: 1078 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1920-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2312unse publication_year: 1920 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 1920, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # A New Consciousness A New Consciousness By Dr. Joseph M. Tanner Among millions of the huruan family there is an awakening of a new consciousness, a consciousness of power, which has given rise to the demands of labor and which is gradually molding the conduct of the rulers of the world. In our own country labor is conscious that it may make demands upon capital, and it is gaining more and more the power to enforce its demands. The awakening of this consciousness to new power may be for good or evil purpose. There is good in it; there is freedom in it; there is justice in it; but there is also danger in it! This consciousness of power becomes dangerous just as it becomes selfish, unreasonable, or autocratic. The danger of this conscious power is doubly dangerous because when arbitrarily exercised, it may starve to death men, women and children in the populous centers of our republic, by stopping the wheels of railroads. It may bring untold calamity, by cutting off the supply of coal in the homes where comfort depends upon it. It may also shut down the wheels of commerce and throw hundreds of thousands of disinterested employes out of labor. This new conscious power is a power over life and death. May we trust those who have it to exercise it wisely and humanely? The trouble with this newly discovered power is found in the fact that, in many instances, it is in the hands of ignorant foreigners, who are more the creatures of their impulses than of their reason. They need education and refinement of the mind and of the heart, that they may take a broader outlook upon life. Such classes are dangerous because they have been among the down-trodden in the land of their birth. They have suffered injustice. They have undergone hardships, such as cold and hunger. They come here, therefore, to our country, with feelings of retaliation, but they are lacking in that discrimination which should teach them that retaliation in this free and generous republic for injustice done in Europe should have no place. In European countries where men have been forced into armies against their will, where soldiers have suffered so much in the late great war, soldiers have come to a knowledge of their conscious powers and to a knowledge of the dependence which the leaders have upon them. They are refusing now to fight, 1078 IMPROVEMENT ERA and the large labor element in England has declared that it will not make munitions of war, and that it will not labor in the transportation of supplies to Poland for the purpose of fighting the Bolsheviki. It may be asked if the laborers of England really sympathize with the Bolsheviki or believe in their doctrine. Their sympathy with the Bolsheviki does not grow out of a belief in their doctrine. The laborers believe that they and the Bolshevists have a common enemy. Class antagonisms were never so sharply drawn and so deadly as at the present time. As a people we are not outside the dangers of these classifications. We, too, may become conscious of the power of labor; but, above all, we should be conscious of our divine obligations and never misuse the powers that God has put within our keeping, unfairly or unjustly against any of our fellowmen. Value of Membership in the Genealogical Society By M. Dalebout I can scarcely reconcile the requirements of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the light of reason and justice except through the doctrine of salvation for the dead. Four years ago I took a life membership in the Genealogical Society, not because I expected to gain any information from Holland, where I came from, but for the benefit of the society. During the last twenty years I have been working in order to obtain the records of my ancestors. My two brothers and myself, while on missions in Holland, visited many places, to find the required information and spent money and time with only partly good results. Now, on April 7, after having attended a meeting and listened to the request and desire of Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, I became impressed to visit the library of the genealogical society. In the Holland part of the institution I found records in the Dutch language giving to me the explanation I needed, as to how to find records. I had sought at the places where my forefathers had been born and died, but could not obtain the desired information. But, now, here In Salt Lake City, seven thousand miles away from the places where they lived, I found the keys; names of the volumes, and the places where the record could be obtained. I am thankful to the Lord for his goodness, for the restoration of the gospel, for this goodly land, for all his revelations and offers pertaining to and for the salvation of the living and the dead. Ogden, Utah