--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Spencer, S. H. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 26 number: 7 published: 1923-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'S. H. Spencer, "Our Tribute of Love", *Improvement Era* 26, no. 7 (May 1923): 603–605.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2607unse 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: improvementera2607unse start_page: 603 end_page: 605 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1923-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2607unse publication_year: 1923 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 1923, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Our Tribute of Love Our Tribute of Love* By S. H. Spencer, Principal Montpelier Seminary I join myself tonight with the sons ami daughters present and gratefully act as their mouthpiece in voicing a united trib- ute of love to our parents. To our mothers we pay first tribute. We realize now, dear mothers, that you entered the valley of the shadow of death that we might live. Yours was the watchful love that guarded us in our days of frailest infancy. Yours the soft hand that cooled our fevered brow and soothed our murmuring soul. Yours were the feet which so quickly and uncomplainingly brought you to us no matter how often we called. Your kiss administered in sympathetic love was the best antedote for all our childish bumps and bruises. You were the haven from all storms. Exultingly we brought to you our first school-day achieve- ment and no matter how crude the product you found it worthy of praise. In self sacrifice you preferred the neck or the back of the chicken that we might have the breast or the leg. The same deep love caused you to forget longed-for concerts and balls that we might have your care, or perchance that we might attend. Long hours at night, after our work and worries were buried in slumber, you toiled on, patching, darning, making, that in daylight's brilliance we might appear becomingly in spite of scanty family finance. Regularly, punctually, three times daily ycu satisfied our giant appetites and just as regularly wracked your brain to know what to get under the conditions provided you. But this is but half. To another side of us you ministered equally well. Your lips were first to teach us of a great God. Following your utterance we lisped our baby prayers. Seated at your knees we listened to stories of truth and bravery and because of your admiration for the good and noble we vowed to be so. Surely because of these things and many more unnamed we must say with honored Lincoln: "All that we are or ever hope to be, we owe to our angel mothers;" or agree with Richter when he said, "To the *Read at an M. I. A. Assembly met to honor parents. 604 IMPROVEMENT ERA man who has had a good mother all women are sacred for her sake." The likeness of the love you have given us, dear mothers, is not equaled in this mortal state. No matter how callous or un- grateful we were, yet it enfolded us. Well did Kipling say: "If I were hanged on highest hill, Mother 0 mine, O mother O mine! I know whose love would follow me still, Mother 0 mine, O mother O mine! If I were drowned in the deepest sea, Mother O mine, O mother O mine! I know whose tears would come down to me, Mother O mine, O mother 0 mine! If I were cursed of body and soul, Mother O mine, O mother O mine! I know whose prayers would make me whole, Mother 0 mine, O mother O mine! But our tribute is only partially given. You, our dear fathers, are not forgotten. You were the brave knights of our child- hood. All tales of hardihood and daring found in you a suit- able setting. For your home-coming we watched expectantly hours before you could possibly arrive. You were our play- mate in romps. Your back was the first on which we gleefully rode. Your foot and knee were better horses than we have found since, because their motion was guided by fatherly love. Upon all fours you sorted us equally well as dog or bear. You cared more for boys than for straw stacks, and we shall ever remember our joys of "Bunker Hill." You were seldom going to far, nor were you in too big a hurry but that we might go, and if driving you often let us hold the lines. Often you wore your old suit another year that we might have new ones. Continually you breasted the severest of storms that we might be in comfort. You were the companion of our childhood, the ideal of our youth and the standard of our manhood. You made us partners with you in your business. You gave us nickles and dimes, colts and calves to be indeed our very own. You trained us in thrift and industry and gave us a heritage of self reliance that shall be to us a lasting blessing. And now, dear parents, may we pay you tribute jointly? You made a house a home. You took turns reading us stories. You played games with us. You taught us to love good books and good companions. You made our home an Eden. For us the street had no charms, and from indecent stories we fled as from poisonous snakes. You blessed us with good bodies, un- ONR TRIBUTE OF LOVE 105 encumbered with inherent weaknesses. You implanted within us faith in God and trust in humanity. You gave us a name, noble and untarnished. You set us an example in devotion to all that is noble and Godlike, and pointed an ideal from which we cannot side step, even should we wish. Surely we must call you blessed and do you honor all our days, for if we fall below the best there is in us we shall have proved ungrateful to you and undeserving of your trust. Montpelier, Idaho. Tobacco Men Shaky About Publicity By Will H. Brawn A man who had been brought into court for trial was very nervous. In the hope of calming him the Judge said: "Don't worry; I'll see that you get justice." With blanched face the defendant blurted out: "That's just what I'm afraid of!" A topic much discussed in the tobacco organs has been as to whether or not a "tobacco exposition" should be held in some large city. Such a move would no doubt be pleasing to anti- tobacco workers in general, for it would surely furnish them with a lot of good arguments against the business. In the "good old days" when "personal liberty" talk was heard in connection with the fight against liquor, some boozer suggested organizing "liberty parades" throughout the country as a protest against the rising tide in favor of prohibition, but a distiller headed off the proposition by declaring: "Never! If people e\er saw you fellows together in a bunch it would be the end of the liquor business!" The parades were never held. The Tobacco Leaf, which has labored earnestly to keep to- bacco men in the "safety zone" of public opinion, is shaky about holding a tobacco exposition, saying editorially: "This in- dustry has men who detect great danger in some kinds of pub- licity that, to the ordinaiy publicity man, would appear to be both innocent and helpful. We in the tobacco industry- know that the trade is constantly on trial before public opinion. We know that legislatively and hygienically it is always tvalking on thin ice, and it has many enemies, individual and organ:zed, hid- den and exposed." "Walking on thin ice," is certainly the truth about tobacco, in view of the rising tide against the whole business. Oakland, Cal.