President George Albert Smith met with U.S. President Harry S. Truman in the White House and presented the Church's plans to use its welfare facilities to help relieve the suffering of Latter-day Saints in Europe. (1)
-- Nov 03, 1945
President George Albert Smith meets with U.S. President Harry S. Truman in Washington, D.C., to obtain permission for the Church to send food and supplies to the Saints in war-torn Europe. (2)
-- Nov 3, 1945
[President George Albert Smith Journal] he meets President Harry S. Truman (3)
-- Nov 06, 1945
A group of Mexican Saints travels to the Mesa Arizona Temple to participate in the first Spanish-language temple session. (2)
-- Nov 15, 1945
The Poem "My Father in Heaven" by Eliza R. Snow is published. This poem was eventually put to music, and became one of our popular hymns "O My Father". (4)
-- Nov 22, 1945
[President George Albert Smith Journal] "Had Mrs Arthur Gaeth & son, Hans & Mrs. Grillberger [?] to thanksgiving dinner with my family. We had a fine time. Andre Anastasiou & wife & daughter came in later. We talked about the equality of the Negro and association of races. The Lord has the last decision and if we will be fair to all he will bless us." (3)
-- Nov 29, 1945
[President George Albert Smith Journal] Attended temple mtg on Nov 29, 1945 then went home to bed with flu & sick at home until Dec 18, when when (sic) to office 4 hours. (3)
-- Dec 14, 1945
Church opposed to Universal Compulsory Military Training-- also in pamphlet form.
As early as May 30, 1945, Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio had expressed concern regarding proposals for universal compulsory military training in an address at Gettysburg National Cemetery. The title of his address, which was printed in the Congressional Record, was "Compulsory Military Training in Peacetime Will Destroy Government by the People." Hearings on this subject were held by the Military Affairs Committee of the U.S. Congress in June, 1945.
On July 2, 1945, Senate Joint Resolution No. 81 was introduced, read twice by title and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs and ordered printed as follows:
"Whereas it is proposed to enact a law forthwith which would compel all physically qualified young men to submit to 1 year of military training away from home; and whereas millions of citizens at home and in the armed services are deeply and vitally interested, and opportunity should be afforded them on this issueÃÂ. it is proposed to submit to the voters at the next Congressional election the following question:
Do you favor the passage of a law by the Congress of the United States to compel 1 year of military training for young men in time of peace? Yes_________ No__________ . . ."
On July 18, 1945, Honorable Joseph W. Martin, Jr., of Massachusetts, introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives what later came to be widely known as the Martin Resolution. This Resolution urged President Harry S. Truman, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and the personal representative of the President to the United Nations organization, Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., "to begin immediately efforts to secure an agreement by the nations of the world to abandon peacetime conscription of youth for military service." Two paragraphs of the Martin Resolution are particularly significant in light of the later letter of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the congressional delegation from the state of Utah. Paragraph four of the Martin Resolution stated:
"Whereas compulsory military service would result in greater restrictions over the lives and activities of our people, would impose heavy burdens on them, causing greater taxes and profound changes in their way of lifeÃÂ. "
Paragraph six stated in part ". . . compulsory military service has never prevented war in Europe or elsewhere.
STATEMENT BY THE FIRST PRESIDENCY REGARDING UNIVERSAL COMPULSORY MILITARY TRAINING
We print below a letter dated December 14, 1945, addressed by the First Presidency of the Church to each member of the Utah Congressional Delegation-Senators Thomas and Murdock and Congressmen Granger and Robinson. Word has now been received by the First Presidency from both Senators and both Congressmen expressing their approval of and belief in the sentiments, reasons, and conclusions set forth in the letter. The letter follows:
"Press reports have for some months indicated that a determined effort is in the making to establish in this country a compulsory universal military training designed to draw into military training and service the entire youth of the nation. We had hoped that mature reflection might lead the proponents of such a policy to abandon it. We have felt and still feel that such a policy would carry with it the gravest dangers to our Republic.
"It now appears that the proponents of the policy have persuaded the Administration to adopt it, in what on its face is a modified form. We deeply regret this, because we dislike to find ourselves under the necessity of opposing any policy so sponsored. However, we are so persuaded of the rightfulness of our position, and we regard the policy so threatening to the true purposes for which this Government was set up, as set forth in the great Preamble to the Constitution, that we are constrained respectfully to invite your attention to the following considerations:
"1. By taking our sons at the most impressionable age of their adolescence and putting them into army camps under rigorous military discipline, we shall seriously endanger their initiative thereby impairing one of the essential elements of American citizenship. While on its face the suggested plan might not seem to visualize the army camp training, yet there seems little doubt that our military leaders contemplate such a period, with similar recurring periods after the boys are placed in the reserves.
"2. By taking our boys from their homes, we shall deprive them of parental guidance and control at this important period of their youth, and there is no substitute for the care and love of a mother for a young son.
"3. We shall take them out of school and suffer their minds to be directed in other channels, so that very many of them after leaving the army, will never return to finish their schooling, thus over a few years materially reducing the literacy of the whole nation.
"4. We shall give opportunity to teach our sons not only the way to kill but also, in too many cases, the desire to kill, thereby increasing lawlessness and disorder to the consequent upsetting of the stability of our national society. God said at Sinai, "Thou shalt not kill."
"5. We shall take them from the refining, ennobling, character-building atmosphere of the home, and place them under a drastic discipline in an environment that is hostile to most of the finer and nobler things of home and of life.
"6. We shall make our sons the victims of systematized allurements to gamble, to drink, to smoke, to swear, to associate with lewd women, to be selfish, idle, irresponsible save under restraint of force, to be common, coarse, and vulgar, all contrary to and destructive of the American home.
"7. We shall deprive our sons of any adequate religious training and activity during their training years, for the religious element of army life is both inadequate and ineffective.
"8. We shall put them where they may be indoctrinated with a wholly un-American view of the aims and purposes of their individual lives, and of the life of the whole people and nation, which are founded on the ways of peace, whereas they will be taught to believe in the ways of war.
"9. We shall take them away from all participation in the means and measures of production to the economic loss of the whole nation.
"10. We shall lay them open to wholly erroneous ideas of their duties to themselves, to their family, and to society in the matter of independence, self-sufficiency, individual initiative, and what we have come to call American manhood.
"11. We shall subject them to encouragement in a belief that they can always live off the labors of others through the government or otherwise.
"12. We shall make possible their building into a military caste which from all human experience bodes ill for that equality and unity which must always characterize the citizenry of a republic.
"13. By creating an immense standing army, we shall create to our liberties and free institutions a threat foreseen and condemned by the founders of the Republic, and by the people of this country from that time till now. Great standing armies have always been the tools of ambitious dictators to the destruction of freedom.
"14. By the creation of a great war machine, we shall invite and tempt the waging of war against foreign countries, upon little or no provocation; for the possession of great military power always breeds thirst for domination, for empire, and for a rule by might not right.
"15. By building a huge armed establishment, we shall belie our protestations of peace and peaceful intent and force other nations to a like course of militarism, so placing upon the peoples of the earth crushing burdens of taxation that with their present tax load will hardly be bearable, and that will gravely threaten our social, economic, and governmental systems.
"16. We shall make of the whole earth one great military camp whose separate armies, headed by war-minded officers, will never rest till they are at one another's throats in what will be the most terrible contest the world has ever seen.
"17. All the advantages for the protection of the country offered by a standing army may be obtained by the National Guard system which has proved so effective in the past and which is unattended by the evils of entire mobilization.
"Responsive to the ancient wisdom, 'Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it,' obedient to the divine message that heralded the birth of Jesus the Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the world, '. . . on earth peace, good will toward men,' and knowing that our Constitution and the Government set up under it were inspired of God and should be preserved to the blessing not only of our own citizenry but, as an example, to the blessing of all the world, we have the honor respectfully to urge that you do your utmost to defeat any plan designed to bring about the compulsory military service of our citizenry. Should it be urged that our complete armament is necessary for our safety, it may be confidently replied that a proper foreign policy, implemented by an effective diplomacy, can avert the dangers that are feared. What this country needs and what the world needs, is a will for peace, not war. God will help our efforts to bring this
about.
"Respectfully submitted, GEO. ALBERT SMITH, J. REUBEN CLARK, JR., DAVID O. MCKAY, First Presidency."
Agitation continued regarding universal compulsory military training into the year 1946. Rather than have Stake Presidents issue subsequent statements representing the views of their stake organizations in the matter, the First Presidency suggested in a letter to all Stake Presidents dated June 28, 1946, that the letter of the First Presidency of December 14, 1945, be reissued, where necessary and advisable, and sent to congressmen or senators "as indicating the views of the voters of the ward or stake involved." {1945-December 14-Improvement Era 49:76-77, February, 1946;} (5)
Footnotes:
1 - Church News: Historical Chronology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58765/Historical-chronology-of-The-Church-of-Jesus-Christ-of-Latter-day-Saints.html
2 - The Woodland Institute 'On This Day Historical Database,' http://www.woodlandinstitute.com
3 - Journals of George Albert Smith
4 - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, United Kingdom, "On This Day," https://www.lds.org.uk/show_oda.php
5 - Clark, James R., Messages of the First Presidency (6 volumes)
LDS History Chronology: George Albert Smith
Mormon History Timeline: The life of George Albert Smith
http://lds-church-history.blogspot.com/
