Letters to the Editor

View PDF

Dear Sirs: 

With all the rhetoric in and out of the Church about law and order, I think it wise to get perspective on our objectivity. Thusly, I offer for consideration this statement: 

“The streets of our country are in turmoil. The universities are with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country. Russia is threatening us with her might. And the republic is in danger. Yes, danger from within and without. We need law and orderl Yes, without law and order, our nation cannot survive … . Elect us and we shall restore law and order.” The significance of this is that it was made by Adolf Hitler at Hamburg, Germany, 1932. 

Scott S. Smith 
Thousand Oaks, Calif. 

***

Dear Sirs: 

In your Interview With Harvey Cox [Spring, 1968], the Dialogue interviewers dis played a definite lack of understanding of the function of the Relief Society (probably shared by a majority of men within the Church) when they implied that the Relief Society spends its time making quilts because it has nothing more important to do. The Relief Society has always made quilts and other craft items, to encourage creativity and to beautify our homes; but this is but a small part of the total program—only one meeting a month is ever spent on those items, and only a part of that meeting, with only a part of the membership participating, is devoted to quilting; and in some Wards quilting is never done at all. 

Probably the main function of the Relief Society is educational. All four monthly meetings are devoted to educating in the four broad areas: Spiritual Living, Home making, Social Relations, and Cultural Refinement (literature mostly). The Visiting Teaching messages are designed to be inspirational as well as educational. 

As far as the compassionate service function is concerned, there is still quite a need for help, even among our “affluent membership,” and the Sisters are continually being encouraged to go outside our own group to give service. I have personally taught two lessons in the past six months that hit very hard on this very subject (in one we brought outside people to let the Sisters know just what agencies were functioning in our community in which volunteer help was needed) . The Relief Society as an organization, however, is not permitted to work with other groups outside of the Church; but the members are certainly very strongly urged to do so on an individual basis, and many do. 

(Mrs.) Carol Orgill 
Fort Collins, Colorado 

***

Dear Sirs: 

My opinions of Rustin Kaufmann’s review of The Graduate [Spring, 1969] coincide with many letters published in the Summer edition of Dialogue. I was encouraged to see such a forum. 

However, I was puzzled by your response on p. 7. 

a. If “Rexburg is a typographical error,” why did you not take that opportunity to correct it by announcing the correct city.

b. In what sense is the published indignation of protestors of the review to be likened to “possible vigilante action by the aforementioned liberals.” Do you possibly believe that liberals tolerate all ideas indifferently or are they supposed to have a good reason for defending the publication and consideration (with subsequent vigorous examination) of all ideas.

Keep up the generally good work. I think you could have made a firmer response unless this is a continuing part of the joke. 

O, Boyd Mathias 
Stockton, California 

***

Dear Sirs: 

I suppose you’ve heard Dialogue called everything else, but perhaps not “entertaining.” I refer to your section of “Letters to the Editors,” of course. I look forward each issue with delight to another round of dragonmouth from the conservative membership—I’m thinking especially of the individual from Reno [Spring, 1969], who roared about the “honor” of a self-confessed apostate and about “guts” and then left his letter unsigned. 

I think the best I’ve seen to date was the review of The Graduate by Dustin Hoffman—Oops, I mean Rustin Kaufmann; I’m glad to see that the editors have a sense of humor also: my compliments. 

Jeff Wynn 
Urbana, Illinois 

***

Dear Sirs: 

I called Rustin Kaufmann (?) of Rexburg (?) and he said he did not write the review (?).

Arch Egbert 
Director, Institute of Religion 
Tempe, Arizona 

P.S. I vote for Joe Jeppson (?). 

Kenneth W. Godfrey 
Division Coordinator 

[You win – Ed.(?)] 

***

Dear Sirs: 

Although unsigned letters are seldom if ever worthy of notice and comment I am glad you decided to publish the one you received from Reno [Spring, 1969] because it is characteristic of the oral criticism I have heard from time to time leveled against Dialogue. 

I have enjoyed and profited from reading your magazine from the beginning. To my knowledge (and I have more than just browsed through every article and letter published by you) your contributors have never used your pages for purposes of “disparaging propaganda” and to discredit and tear down the Church and its leaders. True, you have at times caused one to raise eyebrows but that is all to the good. “Doubting Thomas,” the Apostle, has been the scapegoat of “the first twelve” too long. If one will read carefully the story of Nicodemus who confronted Jesus with the question, “How can this be?” one will discover that Our Lord made very clear that doubt is quite often an open door to that very certainty one seeks. . . . Doubt is really but a negative expression of faith. That is to say, if there were no faith it is not likely that there would be any doubt. 

I am glad that you saw fit to publish Reverend Wesley P. Walters’ interesting paper “New Light On Mormon Origins.” When I was a student at the LDSU prior to WWI and studied church history under the late John Henry Evans I believed that his “One Hundred Years of Mormonism” told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Imagine my disenchantment when I gradually learned from other sources of historic facts that we adolescent youths had been spoon fed with only such background information as the Church Authorities felt we should be told! It is of course invariably more agreeable and certainly more comfortable to accept anything and everything put before us and to ask no questions. Truth is ever unafraid of light and one cannot keep it undercover for long. All honor then to those who have persevered in their researches in order to acquaint the world with ALL the facts regarding the history of the Mormon Church. It is all to the good to take the skeletons out of the closet and shake the dust out of them and let the light loose upon and through them. 

Joseph Conrad Fehr 
Rockville, Maryland 

***

Dear Sirs: 

If your job as editors is to edit, then please do! Spare us faithful readers such dubious oral disgorging as found in the recent harangue submitted by your former subscriber in Reno who understandably chooses to remain anonymous. 

David Dalton 
Bloomington, Indiana

***

Dear Sirs: 

I am a recent convert (December, 1968) to Mormonism. At my age, which is 51, the completeness of my conversion is one of my strongest testimonies of the truth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have committed the remaining years of my life to the way of life espoused by the Church and feel that I have a dedication I would be proud to see my children have. This plan of life has necessarily created many changes in the life of a career banker and his family, including, but not limited to, financial matters, alcohol, tobacco, tea, etc. 

To say that I was surprised and shocked when reading the Letters to the Editors in the Spring, 1969, issue is putting it mildly. I am referring to the revelation that the Church’s Bonneville International Corporation, which owns several radio and TV stations, has been assisting in the sale of cigarettes through use of their advertising media. Is it possible that they also advertise alcohol, coffee and tea—or possibly some of the “peculiar” movies and/or plays now permeating the theatrical scene? 

My reaction is exactly as expressed so well by Dr. Melvin Lloyd Kent of Mesa, Arizona, and certainly I can see myself in the situation so ably described by R. Garry Shirts of Del Mar, California. Please, dear Church, don’t be associated with anything that reduces your stature in the eyes of your faithful and permits knowing smirks on the faces of the unbelieving. 

E. M. Crosthwait, Jr. 
Glendora, California 

***

Dear Sirs: 

This is intended as an open letter to those interested in the subject discussed in “Letters to the Editors” [Spring, 1969] by James Moss and Leonard Wald. 

I felt that Wald’s critique was rather kind considering the seriousness of the moral issue involved. James Moss’ unnecessarily caustic reply to Mr. Wald is uninterestingly typical of the attitude of the con man for the moochers that infest our population. There is one variation of the theme, however, that I haven’t heard before. Usually it comes across as “see these poor hungry people. Won’t you please do something?” or perhaps as, “You will receive God’s ‘blessings’ if you impart of your substance in behalf of the poor.” This time it comes in a blunt, new form: “God has commanded economic sharing.” 

Mr. Moss indeed has reason to be concerned. If those who are intelligent and creative and therefore wealthy (I’m not talking about those who got wealthy in other ways) don’t make it to (Moss’ concept of) the “Celestial Kingdom,” from whom will he then mooch? From the other beggars that make it, perhaps? 

I don’t know what Jehovah’s Kingdom will be like. From what he wrote I’m convinced that Moss doesn’t either. But if a man is not to be free to use the product of his mind and hands to his own benefit and as he sees fit, with the single proviso that this use not conflict in essence with that same right for others, then I want no part of it. I confess that Moss’ attitude concerns me a bit too. I’m afraid that there may be those who are truly valuable people who might believe what he says or be sufficiently intimidated by it that they would refuse to seek citizenship in God’s Kingdom. 

The concept upon which the point I’m making is based is simple. It is not in the nature of an intelligent being to part with a valuable possession without receiving for it something of at least equal value. You may complain that this is the selfish or childish attitude of “sinful” man and claim that there is a “higher” law, but it is clear that that is a subjective observation based on your own immoral system of values. Besides that it has nothing to do with what I’m driving at. The fact is that man is an intelligent being and is as I have described. 

Furthermore, for better or for worse, men are not created equal. In fact they are neither created nor equal. They are eternal and forever destined to be unequal. Those in favor of economic sharing recognize this. If there were no inequality in ability there would be no inequality in wealth or standard of living and hence no reason to “share.” What the moochers have in mind is not sharing at all. What they really mean is that the people of one class are to be perpetually exploited in order to enforce an unrealistic equality. (Measured who knows how.)

Your beloved Nephites who tried out this stupid system for two hundred years failed in all that time to show evidence of a single worthwhile advance toward improving their standard of living. Contrast that with the last two hundred years of American history! At the end of their “prosperous” era they were still fighting battles with bows and arrows, swords, and cimitars. Only a few could afford “fine twined linen.” This you call progress?! 

You raised the question Mr. Moss. If you don’t measure progress in terms of money (material value) influence and power, then (and please be specific) how do you measure it? In terms of happiness? The other day, on my way home from the library, I saw a dog lying in the shade of a tree. He certainly appeared contented. Has he progressed further than we? No, you can’t meas ure progress by happiness or contentment unless you can first define happiness and then measure it. 

I’m sure you will agree that God has progressed. Could it be that you recognize this because he has money (does he live in a hovel or in a mansion?), influence, and power? If not why else? And which is the politico-economic environment demonstrably most capable of encouraging or permitting the production of wealth, influence and power, a free enterprise capitalistic system which, though never achieved has been approximated in the United States, or by the socialistic system employed by the Nephites? Doesn’t it appear more and more that Mormons claim about the “happiness” of those people was the statement of an ignoramus? Happy they may have been, but only because they were so ignorant. What finally destroyed their impoverished Utopia? Was it the greed of the rich who would no longer “share”? That’s what Mormon seems to imply but that isn’t how I read it. It was destroyed by the coveting, mooching, thieving poor and their con men which are the same influences that threaten to destroy the wealth and progress we now enjoy. (I’m aware that there are poor who are not offenders and rich who are. Pardon my stereotypes.) 

Having to answer the questions raised implicitly and explicitly above should place the moochers in a bit of a dilemma. I suppose that they will react in their customary manner. They will simply close their minds to the problems inherent in their scheme, continue getting sarcastically indignant whenever anyone opposes them, and go on twisting scripture and quoting platitudes. 

There is one redeeming fact lurking in the future, in which I suspect those on both sides of the question will take comfort. One cannot escape the natural consequences of his beliefs and the decisions based there on, whether they are incorrect or otherwise. 

Richard Davidson 
Los Angeles, California 

***

Dear Sirs: 

In Leonard Arrington’s article about intellectuals in the Spring, 1969, issue of Dialogue, he submitted Mr. Webster’s definition of an intellectual, but there are those who call themselves intellectuals today who deserve a more complete definition than this. From observing what intellectuals to day are doing and saying, aside from what they pretend to be doing and saying, I would like to submit a definition along with a solution to the problem of the intellectual in the world: 

Between the naivete of youth and the senility of old age, we find a high-browed creature known as an Intellectual. He comes in assorted sizes, weights, and colors, but all Intellectuals have the same creed: change. 

Intellectuals are found everywhere. They are found with their feet propped up on desks in classrooms, inside governments, climbing up and down social registers, swinging protest signs, running around with girls and jumping on to platforms. Mothers didn’t love them, little girls use them, some people are overwhelmed by them, politicians tolerate them, conservatives hate them, nobody can ignore them and heaven sends the rain upon them as well as upon the common man. 

An Intellectual can accept any ideas that are currently academic. He hopes to forsake any concept that is no longer current: yesterday the Monastery, today the new morality. He relishes any scholastic attack against the established order of things. He believes his B.A., his M.S., and his Ph.D. are shields from personal blunder as he marches bravely through life crusading for peace and progress.

When there is something important to be done, an Intellectual is an inconsiderate, bothersome, jangle of noise telling you it ought not to be done, such as fighting a war to win it, for instance. And if there is something idealistic that isn’t the least practical of accomplishment, he intrudes with lengthy monologues about how its got to be done by 3 o’clock this afternoon. An instance being his advocacy of laws that will force the colored man into the mold of the white man’s mores. He calls it integration. 

Only an Intellectual could have thought of the tower of Babel or the Nicene Creed. He considers his greatest badge of merit to be the ability to squelch effectively anyone who offers contrary opinions to his own. 

An Intellectual is a savage with a benign smile, a sadist with a rose in his hand, a lion offering honey to a lamb. An Intellectual has an appetite for profane literature with a moral, for dirty movies with a message, and he’ll hate TV until it comes mature enough to be more truthful. To an Intellectual truth is sex expressed in four letter words. 

An Intellectual cannot part the waters of the Red Sea, send manna from heaven, or heal the sick with a touch, so he knows God couldn’t do it. He strongly suspects that God doesn’t know anything he doesn’t know, but for convenience sake (to prevent any competition) he has currently arranged for God’s death. . . . 

Nobody else in this present generation has gotten so much attention. Nobody else has been able to fool so many people into thinking that if they are not marching with him, they are standing still. 

We live in a great country. You can’t lock up men for ideas, but you can burn any book you want in your own fireplace. The law won’t permit you to drown an Intellectual, but you don’t have to vote for one. And when you need to pass an exam in college you may have to write the answer the way the Intellectual sees it, but you don’t have to believe it. 

Still you may come home at night gritting your teeth and clenching your fists, trying to figure a way to silence the Intellectual which is legal, democratic and Chris tian. Put your mind at rest. There is a way. Love and acceptance. Let the common man embrace him, accept the Intellectual as he is, and this will at once rob him of the luxury of alienation, his very life’s blood. He will no doubt switch his entire philosophy in order to regain his lost status. But no matter how “way out” he gets, keep right on loving and accepting him until he is dizzy with switching and utterly confounded. 

Loya Shields Beck 
Toney, Alabama 

***

Dear Sirs: 

Congratulations on your selection of Mrs. Read’s sermon “Lot’s Wife in the Latter Days” for your Silver Award and Thank You for sharing it with us [Summer, 1969]. Surely few people, in the Church or out, who read and understand her message will come away unscathed. The most pious of us good Mormons will find ourselves trimmed down to the size that we really are. 

Mrs. Read has demonstrated an understanding of the basic problems of our day far superior to the majority of experts who have spoken and written on them. Furthermore she has pointed the way, a very simple but difficult one, which if followed will bring peace to those brave enough to try it. 

Fenton L. Williams 
Sacramento, Calif. 

***

Dear Sirs: 

I was disappointed with David Hart’s non review of the Romney book [Summer, 1969]. Several things suggest themselves: 

First, Romney could not have had the Republican nomination with Abraham Lincoln as campaign manager, let alone Dr. Gaylord Parkinson. Romney’s attitude towards the party in 1964 established that fact as certainly as political facts can be established. 

Secondly, there is not the slightest indication that, had he by miracle obtained the nomination, he would have attracted more votes from the Democrats than he lost among Republicans. Someone else would be President now, that is certain. Romney would not be, and Hart suggests several reasons why not. 

One which he does not mention is that despite the despair of Liberal Republicans, the political drift of the country is Right, not Left. Nixon’s Southern Strategy not only won him the Presidency in 1968, but as Kevin Phillips shows in The Emerging Republican Majority, the realignment Hart speaks longingly of has taken place. It is not the realignment Hart would have wished—or rather it is, it just leaves him in the minority—but it has taken place. 

Finally, the last thing the Republican Party needs is the advice of Republicans of the stripe of the Ripon Society, whose grasp of the real world can be judged by their statement endorsing Mayor Lindsay of New York, which stated that as Mayor, Lindsay had “eased racial conflict, promoted fiscal stability and reversed environmental decay.” 

I firmly believe that Mormons have a contribution to make to American politics, but I do not believe that Romney made much of an attempt to capitalize on it. His campaign was marked by the same reliance on disproved programs and Liberal platitudes that has marked his wing of the Party since 1962. And that is the story of his failure to capture the nomination or to influence the nominee. 

Gordon S. Jones 
Arlington, Va. 

***

Dear Sirs: 

Presumably everyone has their favorite “hobby horse” and there are some who almost whip it to death, but it is refreshing when one finds that others have kindred hobby horses. “If Thou Wilt Be Perfect” by James R. Moss, published in the Winter 1969 issue of Dialogue was as a voice from the dust, and Dialogue is to be congratulated for publishing such a message, especially at a time when all is well in Zion, with the deification of free enterprise, capitalism, the John Birch Society and ancient Babylon. However, if Brother Moss is really serious with his ‘socialistic and communistic’ philosophy, his effective days in the Mormon Church are limited, for it is obvious that he is ‘preaching’ false doctrine and in league with old Lucifer himself. 

Doesn’t Brother Moss know that continuing and current revelation nullifies John the Baptist’s concept of repentance? For “he answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none, and he that hath meat, let him do likewise” (St. Luke 3:11). Of course there must have been a mix-up in the translation of Brother John’s homily; and we know that the translators were twisting the words of Christ when he said: “And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh un fruitful” (Mark 4:19). Anyone who has studied elementary economics knows that it is the accumulation of riches, wealth and capital in the hands of capable managers, plus the lusting and desiring for better things that provides the life blood which has made this Nation fruitful, not unfruitful, and therefore “choice above all other lands”. .. . Is not God telling us through his modern leaders and prophets to listen to the voice of Adam Smith rather than Joseph Smith, and that the invisible hand of God is leading the businessmen of this nation and of the world, if they will but follow the dictates of their own self-interest to best serve society, including Brother Moss and his kind? 

The Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants with their numerous scriptures on equalitarian economics are now obsolete, archaic and superseded by a new dispensation that does not accept Alma’s credibility, for: 

Behold, O God, they cry unto thee, and yet their hearts are swallowed up in their pride. Behold, O God, they cry unto thee with their mouths, while they are puffed up, even to greatness, with the vain things of the world. Behold, O my God, their costly apparel, and their ringlets, and their bracelets, and their ornaments of gold, and all their precious things which they are ornamented with; and behold their hearts are set upon them, and yet they cry unto thee and say—We thank thee, O God, for we are a chosen people unto thee, while others shall perish. (Alma 31:27-28) 

Of course this doesn’t apply to us—who wants gold when stock gains, dividends, and profits will do just as well, thank you? 

Why do the liberals keep reading embarrassing scriptures from the Book of Mormon like those found in the 4th chapter of Alma, especially where Alma becomes upset about the people of the Church waxing proud because of their exceeding riches and their great successes? Why shouldn’t they be proud and why shouldn’t we be proud today? Look at what we have done and what we are doing. We have very righteous Mormons in high places of the government; we have outstanding athletes, including one of the nation’s best golfers, we have successful scholars, professional and business men. We build beautiful temples and look at the way the Church is growing. We even have Negroes joining the Church when they can’t hold the Priesthood; and some Catholic priests and Jewish rabbis are joining the Church. We are a Church on the go, why shouldn’t we be proud, with a 

. . . pride, even to exceed the pride of those who did not belong to the Church of God . . . and the wickedness of the church was a great stumbling block to those who did not belong to the church; and thus the church began to fall in its progress . . . Yea, he [Alma] saw great in- equality among the people, some lifting themselves up with their pride, despising others, turning their backs upon the needy and the naked and those who were hungry, and those who were athirst, and those who were sick and afflicted. 

But this does not apply to us for we pay our tithes, our fast offerings, and we have our great church welfare program. The liberal 4th chapter of Alma argument just doesn’t hold water. 

God in this new dispensation is not interested in economic equality, the United Order or the Law of Consecration, for we must all make money so we can reclaim Zion—beautiful Jackson County, Missouri. With the .current word from God, it would not be fitting to quote from the 49th Section verse 20: “But it is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin.” Such a concept might suggest that the Church lieth in sin. 

In the light of current and modern revelation where we quote Adam Smith’s self interest doctrine, it is in very poor taste to be digging up a revelation given to Joseph Smith way back in November of 1831, where in Joseph apparently was not entirely in harmony with the current accepted philosophy of Adam Smith, for Joseph states: “Nevertheless, in our temporal things you shall be equal and this not grudgingly, otherwise the abundance of the manifestations of the spirit shall be withheld” (D & C 70:14). 

Of course Joseph Smith missed the boat here for it is common knowledge that revelation is being recorded on a continuous tape to be securely stored away in the caves of Cottonwood Canyon, and it is obvious that we don’t have temporal equality, we don’t want temporal equality, and the Lord doesn’t want us to have temporal equality. If the Lord wanted us to be equal in temporal things, He would give our leaders and prophet an abundance of the manifestations of the Spirit, telling them to tell us to live a temporal equality. Until God directs the leaders to direct us to live a temporal equality and to cease our striving for wealth, vainglory, pride and power, you, Brother Moss, are barking up the proverbial wrong tree…. 

But for those who feel that all is well in Zion, may I suggest Mormon 8:36-38 concerning the conditions and calamities of the latter days: 

For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted. O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God?

Who is prepared to live in a modern city of Enoch? Am I? Are you? How many members of the Church, of their own volition and free exercise of agency, supported by the whisperings of the spirit, would be interested in living the Law of Consecration? How many readers of Dialogue? How many would be interested in the face of Church opposition? It is rather unlikely that there would be any more than Abraham found at Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet academic curiosity and a sincere interest in seeing a modern City of Enoch become a reality (for in trying times we need the “benefits of the abundance of the manifestations of the Spirit”) prompts me to suggest that any interested parties are invited to write outlining their interest and any other pertinent information. 

L. Mayland Parker 
Tempe, Arizona