Chapter 24
The Aim of the Church
President Heber J. Grant and his counselors moved quickly to implement Harold B. Lee’s relief program. On April 6, 1936, they announced the plan at a special meeting for stake presidencies and ward bishoprics. Several days later, President Grant appointed Harold to serve as managing director of the program, instructing him to work with apostle Melvin J. Ballard and a central supervisory committee.1
The Church’s primary goal for the next few months was to ensure that by October 1, every needy family in the stakes had enough food, clothing, and fuel to last the winter. President Grant also wanted to put unemployed Saints back to work to boost morale, restore lost dignity, and achieve financial stability.
To accomplish these goals, he and his counselors asked the Saints to pay a full tithe and increase their fast offerings. They also instructed local Relief Society and priesthood leaders to assess needs and create work projects to provide aid for people in their wards. And as much as possible, the Church itself would provide work opportunities such as improving and repairing Church properties.
“No pains must be spared to wipe out all feeling of diffidence, embarrassment, or shame on the part of those receiving relief,” the First Presidency declared. “The ward must be one great family of equals.”2
During the first week of May, President Grant traveled to California to create a new stake and speak to the Saints about the new relief program.3 Since the organization of the Los Angeles Stake in 1923, thousands of Saints had moved to California seeking warmer weather and better work. Moreover, the state had several fine universities, and many Latter-day Saints had thrived at these institutions. In 1927, Church leaders organized a stake in San Francisco, followed by one in nearby Oakland a few years later. Now the Church had more than sixty thousand members in nine stakes throughout the state.4
President Grant spent his first evening in Los Angeles speaking with the president of the new stake and meeting with local Saints about the relief program. When he awoke the next morning, however, he had temples, not the relief plan, on his mind. He and Church leaders had long contemplated building more temples outside of Utah in areas with large numbers of Saints. They had recently decided to build a temple in Idaho Falls, a small city in southeastern Idaho. Now he felt impressed that the Church needed to build a temple in Los Angeles.5
The Depression was becoming less severe, and the Church had the financial means to build two temples while also carrying out the relief program. It was free of debt and was operating on sound financial practices. The Church’s significant investment in sugar, begun in the early 1900s, was also paying dividends. President Grant did not think the new temples needed to be as elaborate and costly as the Salt Lake Temple. Rather, he envisioned modest-sized temples that met the needs of the local Saints.6
For the time being, though, establishing the new relief plan would be the Church’s top priority. Already, objections to the program were surfacing. Some Saints chafed at the heavy new workload it demanded of wards and stakes. Wasn’t the faithful payment of tithing and fast offerings enough to care for needy Church members? They also worried that the payment of tithing “in kind”—by contributing goods to local storehouses—created additional costs in handling and storage. Others felt that, as tax-paying citizens, they were entitled to government relief if they qualified for it, even if they did not necessarily need it.7
President Grant knew the program would have its critics, but he urged Harold to proceed with the work. Much depended on the next six months. If the relief plan was to succeed, the Saints would have to work together.8
Meanwhile, in Mexico, fifty-one-year-old Isaías Juárez was fighting to keep the Church from fracturing in his country. As a district president, he had been leading the Saints in central Mexico since 1926, when religious and political unrest led the Mexican government to expel all foreign-born clergy, including American Latter-day Saint missionaries, from the country. Taking counsel from Rey L. Pratt, the exiled mission president and a general authority of the Church, Isaías and other Mexican Saints had quickly filled vacant Church leadership roles, keeping the local branches from collapsing.9
Now, ten years later, the Church in Mexico faced new problems. After Elder Pratt’s unexpected death in 1931, the First Presidency called Antoine Ivins of the First Council of the Seventy to take his place as mission president. Although Antoine had grown up in the Latter-day Saint colonies in northern Mexico and studied law in Mexico City, he was not a Mexican citizen and could not legally minister in the country. As a result, he worked mainly with Mexican Americans living in the southwestern United States.10
The Saints in central Mexico were troubled by the mission president’s absence, especially when local concerns required immediate attention. The Church, for instance, needed to build more meetinghouses since Mexican law prohibited people from holding religious services in private homes or other nonreligious buildings. Yet the local Church leaders did not have the authority or resources to resolve this problem themselves.11
Feeling abandoned, Isaías and his counselors, Abel Páez and Bernabé Parra, held meetings with other concerned Saints in 1932 to discuss what to do. At these meetings, which came to be called the First and Second Conventions, the Saints resolved that it would be best if a Mexican citizen served as their mission president. During the Mexican Revolution, many of them had sided with leaders who fought against foreign powers for the rights of indigenous Mexicans, and they were frustrated with foreign political leaders who governed from a distance and seemed to ignore their needs.12
The Conventionists drafted letters lobbying for this change and mailed them to Church headquarters. The First Presidency responded by sending Antoine Ivins and Melvin J. Ballard to Mexico City to speak with Isaías and the other petitioners. The two visitors assured them that the First Presidency would find an inspired solution to their leadership dilemma. But Antoine also chastened them for directly petitioning the First Presidency without first consulting him.13
When Antoine’s term as mission president ended, the First Presidency called Harold Pratt, Rey Pratt’s younger brother, to replace him. Born in the Mexican colonies, Harold could serve freely in the country, and he soon moved the mission headquarters to Mexico City. Still, some Church members bristled under his close supervision. Other Saints were deeply disappointed that he was not culturally and ethnically Mexican. They wanted a mission president who could understand the everyday lives and needs of the people he served.14
In early 1936, the First Presidency decided to split the Mexican Mission at the national border, removing a portion of the southwestern United States from mission boundaries. This news gave some Saints hope that an ethnic Mexican would serve as the new mission president. But when Harold Pratt retained his position, a group of disappointed Saints decided to hold a third convention.
At the head of the effort were Abel Páez and his uncle Margarito Bautista. Margarito took immense pride in his Mexican heritage—and in the belief that he was a descendant of Book of Mormon peoples. He thought the Mexican Saints could govern themselves, and he resented the interference of leaders from the United States.15
Isaías sympathized with Abel and Margarito, but he urged them not to hold the convention. “Church organization,” he reminded Abel, “is not based on petitions of the majority.” When plans for the Third Convention went forward anyway, Isaías sent a letter throughout the mission, discouraging Church members from attending.
“The cause is noble,” he wrote, “but the form of proceeding is out of order because it violates the principle of authority.”16
On April 26, 1936, one hundred and twenty Saints assembled in Tecalco, Mexico, for the Third Convention. At the meeting, they voted unanimously to sustain the First Presidency. Believing that Church leaders in Salt Lake City had misunderstood their previous letter, they decided they needed to submit a new petition clearly calling for a mission president of their own “raza y sangre”—race and blood. The Conventionists then voted unanimously to present Abel Páez as their choice for an experienced indigenous president of the Mexican Mission.17
After the meeting, Isaías worked with Harold Pratt to reconcile with Abel and the Conventionists, but their efforts failed. In June, Conventionists drafted an eighteen-page petition to the First Presidency. “We very respectfully ask that you grant us two things,” they wrote. “First, that our Church grant us a mission president who is Mexican, and second, that our Church accept and authorize the candidate we choose.”
Isaías could do nothing more to keep the Conventionists from submitting the petition. At the end of the month, they sent it with 251 signatures to Salt Lake City.18
On October 2, 1936, President Heber J. Grant opened general conference with a progress report on the relief plan, now known as the Church Security Program. By the first of the month, he reminded the Saints, the Church had wanted every needy, faithful Saint in its stakes to have ample food, fuel, and clothing for the coming winter.
Although only three quarters of the stakes had met the goal, he was pleased with the promptness and efficiency the Saints had shown over the last six months. “More than fifteen thousand persons have performed labor on various stake and ward projects,” he reported. “Hundreds of thousands of work hours have been furnished by the people to this necessary and praiseworthy purpose.”19 They had harvested grain and other crops, collected clothing, and made quilts and bedding in abundance. Employment committees had helped as many as seven hundred people find jobs.
“The aim of the Church is to help the people to help themselves,” President Grant told the assembled Saints. “We must not contemplate ceasing our extraordinary efforts until want and suffering shall disappear from amongst us.”20
Two months after the conference, a film crew came to Salt Lake City to make a short documentary about the security program for The March of Time, a popular news series shown in movie theaters across the United States. The filmmakers shot footage of Salt Lake City landmarks and everyday Latter-day Saints working the land and operating Church storehouses and workshops. With the cooperation of President Grant and other Church leaders, the crew also filmed discussions and meetings about the security plan.21
Now that the Saints were better prepared to weather the cold season, the prophet’s attention again turned to temples. That winter, the Church was given land for a temple along the Snake River in Idaho Falls, Idaho, where a strong community of devout Saints lived.22 President Grant then returned to Los Angeles to visit the stakes there and follow his prompting to build a temple in the city.
In California, he found Church members working hard to implement the security program. As an urban center, Los Angeles posed challenges to the plan, which depended on farming and other rural activities to provide work for unemployed Saints. So the California stakes had adapted the program to their region. They canned fruit from the state’s abundant orchards, and as the Church continued to grow in the area, Saints who needed assistance labored as construction workers on new meetinghouses.23
Still, the Saints in California struggled to meet the goal of increasing their fast offerings. Speaking to the members of the Pasadena Stake, northeast of Los Angeles, President Grant emphasized the importance of this sacrifice. “No want would exist among our Church members,” he promised the congregation, “if once each month all Latter-day Saints would abstain from two meals and give the sum saved thereby into the hands of the bishop, for distribution to the needy.”24
When he was not meeting with the Saints, President Grant visited prospective temple sites. He found many suitable places, but each time he showed interest in buying, the owners would ask for significantly more money than he thought the land was worth.25 The best site he found was a beautiful twenty-four-acre lot located along the main thoroughfare between Los Angeles and Hollywood. He made an offer on the property, but he received no response from the owner before he had to return to Salt Lake City.
The next day, he received a telegram from a bishop in Los Angeles. The owner of the lot had accepted the Church’s offer. The prophet was overjoyed. “We have the best site in the entire country,” he told J. Reuben Clark.26
The news came just as The March of Time debuted in movie theaters, bringing positive nationwide attention to the Saints’ efforts to help the poor.27 A few weeks before the film’s premiere, a theater in Salt Lake City had hosted a private screening for Church and city leaders. President Grant was still in California at the time, so he missed the event. But David O. McKay had been able to attend, and he had high praise for the film.
“It was a beautiful movie,” he exclaimed. “The picture is so excellent and so masterfully presented that every man, woman, and child in the Church should be grateful for it.”28
Around this time, the rift between Mexico’s Third Convention and the Church continued to widen.29 After receiving the Conventionists’ petition, the First Presidency responded with a lengthy letter, reiterating the importance of following standard procedures of Church government in all parts of the world.
“If this were not so,” the presidency declared, “there would soon grow up in the Church different practices, and these would lead to different doctrines, and in the end there would be no order in the Church.”30
They urged the Conventionists to repent. “The time may come when a mission president of your own race will be appointed,” they wrote, “but this will only be when the president of the Church, acting under the inspiration of the Lord, shall determine so to do.”31
Santiago Mora González, a branch president in Puebla, Mexico, met with other Third Conventionists in November 1936 to discuss the best way to respond to the First Presidency’s letter. Some Conventionists, including Santiago, were disappointed by the letter but wanted to abide by the First Presidency’s decision. Others were outraged.
Margarito Bautista, who sat near Santiago at the meeting, jumped up from the table. “This is an injustice!” he exclaimed. He wanted the Conventionists to reject the authority of Harold Pratt once and for all. “He is no longer our president,” Margarito declared. “Our president is dear Abel!”
Santiago was alarmed. Earlier that year, he had asked Margarito what would happen if Church leaders did not agree to the Conventionists’ petition. Margarito had assured him that whether or not they got the answer they desired, they would continue to support Harold as mission president and hope he would take the issues they raised into consideration. Now it seemed the Conventionists were calling for outright rebellion.
“This is not what we agreed upon,” Santiago told his friend.
“Yes, but this is an injustice,” Margarito said.
“Well, then,” said Santiago, “we are not keeping our word.”
That night, Santiago returned home and talked with his wife, Dolores. “What should we do?” he asked. “I don’t want to be an element of opposition for the work of the Church.”
“Think it over well,” Dolores said.32
A short time later, Santiago met with more than two hundred Conventionists to discuss the way forward. Many of them were as angry over the First Presidency’s letter as Margarito was. Yet they were also troubled over rumors that Margarito was courting plural wives, a practice he had seen as a young convert in the Mexican colonies. When Conventionists discovered these rumors were true, they agreed that his behavior was unacceptable and ejected him from the organization.33
Santiago was disturbed that Margarito, one of the chief instigators of the Convention, had gone astray. After attending a few more meetings, Santiago began telling his wife and other Conventionists that he would no longer continue with the group. He and other disillusioned Conventionists soon met with Harold, told him of their desire to rejoin the main body of the Church, and asked what they needed to do to return.
“Well,” Harold said, “there is no condition for you brethren. You continue being members. You are members of the Church.”34
Santiago continued to serve faithfully as president of his branch. The Third Convention remained a relatively small movement among the Saints in Mexico, but it still drew hundreds of Church members into its ranks. After more efforts at reconciliation failed, Convention leaders sent another letter to the First Presidency, declaring their intentions to fully reject the mission president’s leadership.
Church leaders in Mexico responded a short time later, excommunicating Abel Páez, Margarito Bautista, and other Convention leaders in May 1937 for rebellion, insubordination, and apostasy.35
That spring, in the eastern United States, eighteen-year-old Paul Bang was busily serving in the Cincinnati Branch. In addition to being a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood, he was branch clerk, a secretary in the MIA, and a local missionary.
Every Sunday he and other local missionaries would go door-to-door in the city, sharing the gospel. One of his companions, Gus Mason, was old enough to be his father and tried to keep a close eye on him. On their first day working together, Paul had knocked on a door by himself and was invited in to give a gospel message. Gus, meanwhile, was frantically walking up and down the streets searching for him. After that, they knocked on doors together.36
Paul liked talking to people about the Church. Unlike young men in Utah, he was surrounded by people who did not share his beliefs. He enjoyed studying the restored gospel and taking notes on what he learned. In his spare time, he read the scriptures and other Church books, including Nephi Anderson’s A Young Folk’s History of the Church and James E. Talmage’s Jesus the Christ and Articles of Faith. He usually studied these books while tending the store on Sunday afternoons, when few people stopped in to make purchases.37
Paul and his girlfriend, Connie Taylor, were practically inseparable at Church meetings and MIA activities.38 Alvin Gilliam, who had replaced Charles Anderson as branch president in early 1936, encouraged Paul and Connie’s relationship. Over the last ten years, the branch had more than doubled in size, thanks in part to young Saints getting married, staying in the branch, and raising families.
The Depression had also uprooted many people, physically and spiritually, resulting in some growth from local converts or Saints moving to Cincinnati from economically strapped places like Utah or the American South. Others had come from even farther, including a family of German Saints from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Recently, Paul’s sister Judy had married Stanley Fish, a young man from Arizona who had returned to Cincinnati after serving his mission there.39
On June 6, 1937, Paul, Connie, and other members of the branch traveled more than a hundred miles to hear President David O. McKay at a mission conference in a neighboring state. Paul and Connie paid close attention as President McKay spoke to the congregation about the sacredness of courtship and marriage. That night, before Paul dropped Connie off at her family’s apartment, she told him for the first time that she loved him.40
A short time later, President Gilliam spoke to Paul about going on a full-time mission. Not every worthy young man was expected to serve such a mission at that time, and if Paul went, he would be the first full-time missionary to serve from the Cincinnati Branch.41 Paul was not sure if he should go. The Church certainly needed his help, given the shortage of missionaries during the Depression. But he also had his family and the store to think about. His older brothers had already moved away from home, and he knew his parents depended on him.42
Ultimately, Paul decided not to serve a full-time mission. He continued as a branch missionary, and on August 1, two days after preaching at a street meeting, he baptized six people in a swimming pool. In the fall, President Gilliam and Northern States Mission president Bryant Hinckley called Connie to be a branch missionary as well.43
Before long, Paul and Connie were heading into the streets together, passing out Church literature and preaching to anyone who would listen. For Connie’s nineteenth birthday in May 1938, Paul surprised her with a Bible and a copy of Jesus the Christ—two books she could use in her new calling.
For a while he also joked about getting her an engagement ring. But they still had a year of high school to go—and neither of them was quite ready for marriage.44