LDS Freedom Forum

Note: Whether or not you agree with any personal conclusions made by Michael Quinn (I disagree with plenty of his conclusions/assumptions), his essay “Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts” is the most in-depth treatise on the topic and contains a lot of interesting information.

D. Michael Quinn wrote:From the 1950s to the 1980s Ezra Taft Benson was at the center of a series of political conflicts within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1943 he became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. With church president David O. McKay’s permission, he served as Secretary of Agriculture to U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961. Benson’s autobiography and official biography openly present the national controversies involved with his service as Secretary of Agriculture.

Less known is the quiet conflict between Secretary Benson and politically conservative LDS administrators and general authorities in Utah. As early as 1953, First Presidency counselor J. Reuben Clark said he was “apprehensive of Bro Benson in Washington.” By 1957 Clark and Apostle Mark E. Petersen agreed to instruct the church’s Deseret News to “print the adverse comment” about Benson’s service as Secretary of Agriculture. The next year several general authorities and church administrators expressed personal opposition to Benson. In March 1958, Apostle Harold B. Lee said that Benson needed “humbling” to serve “properly … as a member of the Council of the Twelve.” In July Ernest L. Wilkinson, Brigham Young University’s president, wrote that Benson “espouse certain principles which are utterly inconsistent with the feeling of the Brethren.” During the next several months Apostle Hugh B. Brown actively (and successfully) campaigned for the Democratic candidate in Utah’s U.S. senatorial race, and against Benson’s support of the incumbent Republican.

Criticism of Secretary Benson even included the First Presidency. In 1958, Counselor Clark said, “I did not think the Secretary of Agriculture would yield to argument,” in conversation with the chair of the Utah Cattlemen’s Association and the chair of the National Wool Growers Association. By 1960 Clark complained that “Sec’y Benson’s policies have about extinguished the small farmer and small cattleman.” Clark’s view was shared by the other counselor in the First Presidency, Henry D. Moyle. And in 1961 Wilkinson observed that “President McKay for the moment is displeased with some things that Brother Benson has done.” However, it is unclear whether Benson even knew that his fellow general authorities disapproved of his policies as Secretary of Agriculture. For example, J. Reuben Clark concealed his disapproval in public statements about Benson. In conversations and correspondence with Benson, he also muted his dissent.

On the other hand, almost as soon as Ezra Taf t Benson returned to Utah from Washington, D.C., in 1961, he became involved in a well-known conflict with senior members of the Mormon hierarchy. His official biographer declined to write about this controversy, and that silence is equally true in the biographies of every other general authority who was prominently involved. Despite this conflict’s significance for modern Mormonism and the national publicity it received, this story is either absent or muted in histories of the LDS church. Because these matters are significant to the internal dynamics of the operations of the LDS hierarchy, this essay examines at length Apostle Ezra Taft Benson’s conflicts with other general authorities which began in the 1960s. . . .

Download the 87-page PDF document “Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts” by D Michael Quinn.

Wow, I look forward to reading this-thanks for posting it.

I think the big issue, and just to give a concise version, is that not everything spoken of by Ezra Taft Benson was reflective of the Church as a whole, so just understand the time and context of what is being said by Benson. Don't just use his quotes about communism as a trump card.

That reads like a lot of the conflicting personalities here....

Like the destruction of our country the withdrawal of life from the church could not come from the bottom up. The people were too well founded in the principals of liberty to allow that, but only a deception from the top could sway the people away from the truth. First you need a few deceivers to work their way into key positions, than gradually change the doctrine and ordinances (1990 temple change) than rely on the loss of the Spirit of God to allow the majority of the faithful to be led astray.
Our countries current position should stand as a pattern on how Satan and his minions can come to control a vast people who are easily led by someone who will give them what they think they want.
In the pre-earth life you were most likely in the fore-ranks of those who were obedient to the voice of freedom and free agency or you wouldn't be here now. I'm sure there are still authorities in the church who cling to the truth of our God given agency and will try to get us to understand that in order for us to choose our own direction we must be able to clearly see the choice.
Pres. Benson was the 12th prophet and a wonderful example to all who love the truth and follow the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

gr8ideas wrote:Like the destruction of our country the withdrawal of life from the church could not come from the bottom up. The people were too well founded in the principals of liberty to allow that, but only a deception from the top could sway the people away from the truth.

I'm not sure about that. The people gobbled up FDR, LBJ, Clinton and now Obama.

First you need a few deceivers to work their way into key positions, than gradually change the doctrine and ordinances (1990 temple change) than rely on the loss of the Spirit of God to allow the majority of the faithful to be led astray.
Our countries current position should stand as a pattern on how Satan and his minions can come to control a vast people who are easily led by someone who will give them what they think they want.
In the pre-earth life you were most likely in the fore-ranks of those who were obedient to the voice of freedom and free agency or you wouldn't be here now. I'm sure there are still authorities in the church who cling to the truth of our God given agency and will try to get us to understand that in order for us to choose our own direction we must be able to clearly see the choice.
Pres. Benson was the 12th prophet and a wonderful example to all who love the truth and follow the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

I think the Lord has a purpose in all this. Parts of the public message of the Church have been watered down in the digital age, but like every other time this has happened it's been the Lord giving people one final chance to accept him before the hammer falls. And I think this will be the last time the hammer falls.

I agree that the wolves cannot enter unless the sheep are asleep. But the sheep don't change the doctrine or direction of the herd. the Lord's admonition about wolves entering in was not given as part of the society section it was on the editorial page of his discourses.

Interesting. I guess there are different paths. Perhaps the problems could have been avoided with a few meetings and clear instruction from the prophet. Sad to see everyone going at it like that. Too bad many foreigners understood some of it. Too bad some Americans misunderstood some of it, much like Republicans and Democrats... Well, I guess history looks back now and says, Benson was pretty much right. I just think there could have been much better ways and limits much of the time.

I do agree with the non-politics of the church, so to say; and not doing political things at the church (passing out flyers, petitions, etc.). I've seen it broken a few times, but I've seen lots of restraint, too.

A few quotes:

"Let us not undermine our government or accuse those who hold office of being soft on communism.... [or] by destroying faith in our elected officials under the guise of fighting communism."
He he... How would one say it nowadays?

"That same month, Henry D. Taylor, an assistant to the Twelve Apostles, said that "in his judgment [Reed] Benson was the laughing stock of Salt Lake" for his Birch activism."
Too much mocking?? Was Jesus a laughing stock?

"Benson was obviously under orders from the First Presidency to publish this March 1963 statement."
I don't see why it's "obviously" here.

"J. Edgar Hoover of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had publicly stated: "Let me emphasize that the American civil rights movement is not, and has never been, dominated by the communists.""
He he, says history...

He added:"Words will not stop the communists." Benson said that the U.S. government was becoming so Communistic that American citizens "can no longer resist the Communist conspiracy as free citizens, but can resist Communist tyranny only by themselves becoming conspirators government.. ,,iio against established Nationally-syndicated newspaper columnist Drew Pearson quoted that breath-taking phrase and interpreted it as Benson's invitation "for Americans to overthrow their government." One newspaper editorial claimed that "Drew Pearson wronged the former agriculture secretary by misinterpreting what he said at Logan." However, Pearson's quote was accurate and his interpretation fit the context of Benson's extraordinary
missionary farewell talk which rallied Americans to battle Communism "even with our lives, if the time comes when we must... before the Godless Communist Conspiracy destroys our civilization."
Yeah, that wasn't a misinterpretation... McQuinn shows his true colors on a flagpole here.

"...counselor Brown resumed his philosophical battle with Benson a month later. "All of us are one hundred percent against Communism in all its phases," Brown wrote in February 1965, "but the leaders of the Church are not convinced that any conspiracy exists within our own country."
Ok, that doesn't sound like what he had been saying for a while...

"Poll had also joined with twenty-one other BYU professors in publicly condemning John A. Stormer's None Dare Call It Treason as "this piece of fanatacism.""
Unfortunately, BYU now seems to be on the opposite side of constitutional fanaticism... as one student reported (I guess just as admissible as much of Quinn's evidence) even socialists who have admitted in person to being there and working their way up for the purpose of leading the church leaders down socialist paths with advice, policy, etc. and teaching some socialism to the students.

"Although there were no race riots or demonstrations at October 1965 general conference, the Birch Society's role in fomenting this race-paranoia turned some Mormons implacably against the organization."
And rightly so!

I liked Mark E. Peterson's explanations in the Church News--a much better approach than the others'.

Overall, not too bad an article... And at least he was a little more honest in his footnotes than in the article.

This website really tries to do a job on Pres. Benson.

http://mormonliberals.org/ezra-taft-ben ... -politics/

Author claims liberalism is the true Gospel and that ETB should not be listened to.

I made some comments a couple months ago arguing against the author's position but my comments have since been removed. It appears he only leaves positive comments up for display.

I have not read the piece Brian linked to above. I will be interesting to see if Quinn's document is the real source for this author's web page on ETB.

Teancum wrote:I made some comments a couple months ago arguing against the author's position but my comments have since been removed. It appears he only leaves positive comments up for display.

The comments were not deleted; they are on the 'page' instead of the 'post.' http://mormonliberals.org/but-what-abou ... mment-1960" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The page is a condensed summary of Quinn's research.

Thank you Brian for this article. I have been looking for this kind of information for a long time to help me understand a little more about what has happened within the church and pro-patriotism. I have recently joined the John Birch Society believing that it was the most effective way for me to preserve liberty. For me, I feel that I was given a personal conviction from the Lord to do so. However, if the information in the article is acurate, the false rumers supposedly started by the Birchers in the fall of 1965(?) about upcoming race-riots seems very distastful.

Daniel

More thoughts,

After I first read this I thought the author was fairly neutral. But upon reflection, he did paint Benson as an over zealous anit-communist. Was he? Yes I see that in the long run he was right. But his prediction that by 1973 our nation would be a communist dictatorship seems to be an overstatement. Also, why is Quinn so silent about President McKay's involvement in the whole thing. My understanding was that Benson was generally following the promptings and instruction from President McKay through this whole time. In reading McKays conference addresses, McKay seemed almost as anti-communist as Benson, except Benson would go a little further by pointing out such things as the race riots being instigated by the communists. He makes it sound as if Benson was against civil rights for blacks. Yet I heard Arthur Thompsom of the Birch Society recently say that yes the communists did take advantage of a truely unjust situation to foment riots and forced integration. I'm sure Benson also recognized the unjust oppressions of the Blacks.

One problem is evident that we have in the constitutionalist movement, and that is to over-generalize our descriptions of the situations, groups and organizations that we either support or are opposed to. Our view of our church is no exception because we over-generalize our statements to say that "the church used to warn us about modern-day secret combinations in government and that the constitution was as good as scripture". The statement may be accurate, but is far from precise. Saddly it appears here that the brethren were not totally united on this issue. It seems all agreed, to a degree, that the constitution was inspired but differed on how much it was inspired and how true we needed to adhere to it. They all agreed that communism was bad but disagreed that there was a conspiracy taking over our government. Some even thought that a little socialism was okay and had even been instrumental in instituting some of those programs into their countries while serving in offices in their governments like N. Elden Tanner did while in Canada. Some like Ezra Taft Benson viewed "a little socialism" the same as taking a little poison (I agree).

I guess even if there are differences clear to the top of the church it's still up to each of us individually to decide if the fight for liberty is a proper use of our time, and also how we go about it - is it in line with the will of the Lord?

Daniel

gr8ideas wrote:I agree that the wolves cannot enter unless the sheep are asleep. But the sheep don't change the doctrine or direction of the herd. the Lord's admonition about wolves entering in was not given as part of the society section it was on the editorial page of his discourses.

From the previoius comments and this (ie temple change) the Lord actually does do those things. The lord did not lead moses to the promised land and the house of israel. Why? Because they disobey God. The Lord did not keep the law of consecration. Instead replaced it (chaged it!) to the law of tithing. Why? Becuase of disobedience. Anytime something is taken away from God (perhaps this is one reason for the temple changes) is because of disobedience. Perhaps due to the extreme diversity of the saints in the Latter-Day's the Lord decided to tone it down or the saints would fall under condemnation. Nothing itself was changed anyways just some of the penaities in the Temple (mostly)...