Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Religion
Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Latter Day Saint churches
And this fact alone, without any business ability on his part, but
with capable subordinate guidance for his enterprises, insures their
success, and danger and possible ruin for every competitive enterprise.
Independent of these business concerns, he is in receipt of an income
like unto that which a royal family derives from a national treasury.
One-tenth of all the annual earnings of all the Mormons in all the
world flows to him. These funds amount to the sum of $1,600,000
annually, or 5 per cent upon $32,000,000, which is one-quarter of
the entire taxable wealth of the State of Utah. It is the same as if
he owned, individually, in addition to all his visible enterprises,
one-quarter of all the wealth of the State and derived from it 5 per
cent of income without taxation and without discount. The hopelessness
of contending in a business way with this autocrat must be perfectly
apparent to your minds. The original purpose of this vast tithe,
as often stated by speakers for the church, was the maintenance of
the poor, the building of meetinghouses, etc. Today the tithes are
transmuted, in the localities where they are paid, into cash, and
they flow into the treasury of the head of the church. No account is
made, or ever has been made, of these tithes. The president expends
them according to his own will and pleasure, and with no examination
of his accounts, except by those few men whom he selects for that
purpose and whom he rewards for their zeal and secrecy. Shortly after
the settlement of the Mormon Church property question with the United
States the church issued a series of bonds, amounting approximately
to $1,000,000, which were taken by financial institutions. This was
probably to wipe out a debt which had accumulated during a long period
of controversy with the nation. But since, and including the year 1897,
which was about the time of the issue of the bonds, approximately
$9,000,000 have been paid as tithes. If any of the bonds are still
outstanding, it is manifestly because the president of the church
desires for reasons of his own to have an existing indebtedness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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