This describes Mormonism: Its empty promises deceive. Relentlessly, inexorably, it fastens its victims in its loathsome glue. It has one vulnerable point. It is not to be educated; it is not to be civilized; it is not to be reformed. It is to be crushed. Dr. Richard T. Ely has declared that there is nothing comparable to its system except the German army. Quietly it moves to the eastern coasts, to foreign capitals. It strangles communities; yet with what easy indifference we regard it. If 2,000 men afflicted with smallpox were turned loose upon a community, the nation would rise in a panic. We would flee or would grapple with the danger. But to be told there are 2,000 men abroad trying with deathless art to infect a nation with a religious system that is blasphemous and with practices that are subversive of social morality and destructive of the national conscience, is to awaken a mild protest here and there. … Mormons send missionaries to us far faster than we send missionaries to them. Beware of the octopus.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There is one moment in which to seize it, says Victor Hugo. It is when it thrusts forth its head. It has done it. Its high priest claims a Senator\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chair in Washington. Now is the time to strike. Perhaps to miss it now is to be lost. [9]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Ely was writing, and Thompson speaking, at a time when the philosophy of Herbert Spencer was much in vogue. Spencer taught that social organizations (like Mormonism, although I have found no specific reference to Mormonism in his writings) evolved much as biological organisms were believed to do. Societies, like biological life, began as simple units, which joined and combined and grew and became more complex. As biological entities evolved, units within the organism began to perform specialized functions \u00e2\u20ac\u201c i.e., organs developed. Likewise, as social entities evolved, subdivisions within them took on more specialized tasks. The more \u00e2\u20ac\u0153organ-ized\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a body became, the more sophisticated it became \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but at the same time, the units composing those organs became less and less able to function except<\/em> as units within the body. Just as a heart or a stomach cannot function outside the body that sustains it, individual humans within a highly organized society lose their ability to function as individuals. They lose their autonomy, their free will, their very humanity. <\/p>\nSo was Ely complimenting Mormonism by saying that its unity led to achievements which individuals could not have made? Or was he saying that Mormonism so perfectly organ-ized its members into a mass \u00e2\u20ac\u201c turned us into unthinking, dependent units of a whole \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that freedom and individuality were lost? Or was he going even farther, to say, as Dr. Thompson did, that Mormons were toy soldiers, tools ordered about by the hierarchy, for sinister purposes? [10]<\/p>\n
[1] Nels L. Nelson, Scientific Aspects of Mormonism, or, Religion in Terms of Life <\/em>(New York: G.P. Putnam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Sons, 1904), 1. Epigram to Chapter 1.<\/p>\n[2] C.W. Sorenson, Conference Report, October 1910<\/em>, 106.<\/p>\n[3] Orson F. Whitney, Gospel Themes: A Treatise on Salient Features of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mormonism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> (Salt Lake City: The Church, 1914.<\/p>\n[4] Adam S. Bennion, Conference Report, October 1925<\/em>.<\/p>\n[5] J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1956<\/em>, 82.<\/p>\n[6] Legrand Richards, Conference Report, April 1958<\/em>.<\/p>\n[7] Edward L. Clissold, Conference Report, April 1959<\/em>.<\/p>\n[8] Richard T. Ely, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Economic Aspects of Mormonism,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Harper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Monthly Magazine<\/em>, vol. 106, no. 635 (April 1903), 668.<\/p>\n[9] \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mormon Church Must Be Crushed to Earth, Presbyterian Minister Says It Cannot Be Educated, Civilized or Reformed,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ogden Standard<\/em>, 26 May 1903, 1.<\/p>\n[10] This is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153J. Stapley Memorial Footnote,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d entered to beef up the footnote count solely for J.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pleasure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No other organization is so perfect as the Mormon Church, except the German army.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}