Tithes and Security

On Hill Cumorah, near Palmyra in upstate New York, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last Week celebrated the 111th anniversary of the birth of Mormonism. According tc Mormon lore, on Cumorah, where now stands a large statue of the Angel Moroni, Founder Joseph Smith received from the angel the gold tablets on which the Book of Mormon was inscribed.

Likewise last week, Mormons everywhere marked the 100th anniversary of the month during which Founder Smith, making known to his people the will of the Lord, decreed that the work of his church should be supported by tithes-- 10% of everyone's income. How much the tithing fund of the church amounts to today, no outsider knows. Tithing is not compulsory for all Mormon wage earners, although certain privileges of the church are denied to those who give nothing. About one-third pay tithes in full, another third in part. Tithes, which Mormons claim brought in more money last year than ever before, operate the enormous Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, finance missions and schools, pay 60% toward construction of local chapels and tabernacles. And tithes are intended to pay for part of the Mormon Church Security Program, widely publicized after its establishment two years ago as a rugged, pioneering, common-sense way to get self-respecting Mormons off Federal relief.

Last week, many a Mormon -- including, some believed, venerable President Heber Jeddy Grant -- was a bit dismayed at how the Security Program had been misrepresented. Facts were that only Mormon tithepayers, and hence few indigents participate in the Program. No WPA worker could give up his job to get church aid. Although the church did get 700 projects under way -- mining, agricultural, chapel-building, etc. -- the Program was not an emergency relief venture. Yet the Program could be made to sound like an anti-New Dealer's sweetest dream, and was, by such journals as the American Banker, the Saturday Evening Post and Cosmopolitan--not without aid from the No. 2 Mormon, First Counselor of the First Presidency Joshua Reuben Clark, an arch-Republican.

Utah's percentage of population on work relief rolls (2.1) is still the eighth highest in the nation. Although some publicists claim that the Security Program has cared for 22,000 out of 88,000 Mormons in distress, most investigators have concluded that the church has as yet no reliable figures. Significantly, nonpartisan Mormons have for the church's own good lately attempted to correct widespread misunderstandings of the Security Program. Said a paragraph buried in the church's last annual report: "The church has not yet made any effort, or pretended to make any effort, to take its members from governmental work projects; it has merely urged those on such projects to do a full day's work for a day's pay."

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