American Consulate, Hermosillo April 27, 1987 Editor The Economist London Sir: You are in my opinion the best magazine in the world and I look forward to the arrival of my copy each week. This does not seem to keep you from error when you write about Utah or the Mormon Church. I have written you on several occasions in the past when you let go on the Mormon Church, for which you seem to have an especial blindspot, to correct errors in your otherwise marvelously accurate reporting of world events. You never seem to have space to print my letters (though your editors have from time to time written me to than me for my comments). I am a Harvard educated American (and a Mormon) who has spent half his life in Europe -- a good bit of it in Great Britain: first as an eighteen year old Mormon missionary, and later as an American diplomat. Please permit me to correct a few of the most egregious errors and oversights in your April 24 article on Utah v. the Feds (p.30). True, Utah like most other Western states is these days rather more conservative than liberal (in the modern, spendthrift, Democrat Party sense) -- but then so are current voters in France, Germany, and Britain. You tell us that Mrs. Thatcher is a virtual shoo-in if she calls elections this summer. In The Economist' s own more classical sense of what is liberal , I think you'd find most Utahn's quite in your own tradition. For the most part, Utahn's believe in limited government, leaving the private sector to do what the private sector can do most efficiently, and limiting government to what individual's can't do, or can't do as well; to policing excesses of private ownership; to handling the nation's international relations; and seeing to the national defense. When the Federal Government owns upwards of seventy per cent of the state's land (as you point out in your April 24 article), significantly reducing the property tax base, it is not to be wondered at that Utah's Congressional delegation seeks as much Federal business as is otherwise consistent with the state's well-being (note that Utah turned down the opportunity to be a basing site for the MX missile -- though a few ICBMs are located there). But to say that the Republican Party has a "stranglehold" on Utah's voters is just plain nonsense. Franklin Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover in Utah by a landslide. Democrat Earl Maw was governor of the state during most of my youth. And Democrat Calvin Rampton was governor during much of my young adulthood. Wayne Owens (whom you describe as the Democrat exception in Utah's current congressional delegation) was a Democrat Congressman ten years ago (before being called to serve as Mormon Mission President in Canada) and has always been popular in the state, as is evidenced by his recent reelection. And my good friend David King (later a member of the IBRD Board of Governors and currently Mormon Mission President in Haiti) served several terms as Democrat from Utah in the US House of Representatives. Nor is it correct to say that one must be Mormon to be elected (you cite as an only exception Salt Lake City Mayor Chris Paulos). Among other non-Mormons, a Jew by the name of Bamberger was governor of Utah during the 1920's, and J. Bracken Lee, a non-Mormon, was a highly popular governor of the state for the maximum three terms during the late '50s and early '60s. Many of the senior aides to governors, senators, and congressmen are non-Mormons, as well as a good proportion of the legislators and city councilmen, county commissioners, and mayors of other Utah towns and cities. Utah has substantial Greek and Hispanic minorities and a strong labor tradition, as would be known to anyone familiar with its history (Joe Hill of labor union fame was a Utahn), or aware of the strength of mining, steel making, and manufacturing in its economy. The Salt Lake-Provo corridor is known as the Rocky Mountain Silicon Valley. Utah is really an urban, not an agricultural state, some 70 per cent of its population living in the four largest cities -- all within 40 miles of each other. With Latter-day Saints constituting sixty per cent of Utah's population it would be strange if not a few of them were elected to public office. Furthermore, your assertion that the Church is a "steamrolling political machine" would raise smiles among political science professors in the several universities of the state. It was the electorate of Utah who, voting directly against the rarely expressed views of Church Authorities, who made Utah the ratifying state in passing the Twenty-first Amendment revoking Prohibition. So much for Mormons who abstain from tea, coffee, and hard drinks, but who recoil (perhaps as a result of the persecution they suffered in their own early days) from imposing their views on others. It was also Mormon voters, again voting against the advice of their Church leaders, who voted to adopt a "mini-bottle" law permitting sale of drinks in hotels and restaurants to encourage tourism in the state. As for Adnan Kashoggi's going broke over his Triad investment in Salt Lake City, hogwash! Despite his extravagant promises, Kashoggi spent no more than start-up money on the Triad Center. And after his major losses in oil and other investments elsewhere, Triad sits less than half finished with tons of rusting structural steel encumbering the view not three blocks from Temple Square, the headquarters of the LDS Church and a major tourist site. What you say about "Mormon housewive's hoarding" must give economists on your staff a good case of the "guilts". "Hoarding" is the useless accumulation of goods or money, or the selfish overbuying of goods in short supply for storage at the expense of one's neighbor's needs. There is currently no shortage of foodstuffs in America (as is confirmed by your own chart on the world surplus of foodstuffs and commodities later in the same issue). No one is being deprived of anything by Mormon housewives' precautionary buying in compliance with the Church's program to instill independence and initiative among its membership through encouraging families to have a six month's to one year's supply of essential commodities on hand in event of accident to the breadwinner, loss of work, or natural catastrophe. (The economic hardship presently taking place in Utah is an excellent example of the wisdom of such policy. Not to mention that 70 per cent of the population lives along the earthquake prone Wasatch fault). Every financial advisor I know recommends at least six months' savings as insurance against financial reverse. The Church simply recommends food storage instead/as well as, recognizing that in event of regional catastrophe food stores would be sold out in three days. (This policy has proved wise in several states and regions of the world where there are populations of Latter-day Saints, and where food supplies have been disrupted by tornadoes, floods, or earthquakes [Guatemala was such an example in 1976]). So your "hoarding Mormon housewives" are really doing their neighbors a favor by extending the time food stores can continue to sell food to the non-provident in communities where even modest numbers of Mormons live. Storage items are carefully rotated to prevent wastage and to help families learn how to cope in event of emergency. Would you prefer that Utahn's complacently relied on government jobs and spending (which is what you accuse them of doing when you aren't accusing them of "hoarding"), instead of taking precautionary measures to preserve as much self-reliance as possible in the modern world -- rather than turning to public welfare when the Great Salt Lake rises destroying tourist attractions and tourist-related jobs, when almost simultaneously Thiokol experiences a major cutback following the Challenger explosion, when Chilean copper drives Kennecott out of business after a hundred years of mining, and when dumping of Japanese steel forces US Steel to close its Geneva plant? (And when Kashoggi's reverses cause him to renege on his Triad Center promises). I would have preferred seeing my favorite magazine commend Mormon Church leaders for their extraordinary prescience in preparing their people for the sequence of unforeseeable events which have hit the Utah economy in recent months. You can bet that Utah Mormons who've been living their religion have been less hard hit by the adversity which is the subject of your article than those who haven't. As a young graduate I worked under a non-Mormon governor as statistician and research analyst for the non-Mormon Commissioner of Public Welfare of Utah. Before accepting public office, this mid-Westerner had headed Sears Roebuck's regional operations. As a businessman, non-Mormon, non-Utahn, and fiscal conservative, this Welfare Commissioner, instead of poking fun at the LDS Church and its welfare program (as my favorite magazine is wont to do), had nothing but praise for the Church's Welfare Doctrine "Teach individuals to take care of themselves; teach families to take care of each other; and in case of need beyond the reach of individuals or families, let the Church take care of its members. Avoid the dole of public assistance like the plague." This wise Commissioner, pointing out that Utah had the lowest per capita welfare expenditure in the nation despite having one of the highest average family sizes, said that this was only possible because Utah's people had been taught to prepare for a rainy day on an individual basis, and because of the Mormon Church's policy of stepping in to help its members in need without recourse to government. There are other things you could have said which might have told your readers important things about Utah and the Mormons other than that they are peculiar and in recent years (along with voters in other Western democracies) have tended to vote conservative in reaction to the socialistic overspending which has brought the United States into economic hot water. Ironically, your own advice to the U.S. government, as given in earlier pages of the same issue which takes Utah to task, (Economics by Lobotomy , p. 12) sounds a great deal like what Utah's Congressmen and Senators (and Governor Bangerter) have been saying: Get the national budget in order. But when Utah voters support this policy they are made to appear somewhat offbeat if not slightly wacky. Let me recite some statistics your readers might find interesting: o Utah has the largest family size in the nation, but one of the lowest public welfare loads. o Utah has more universities per capita , and more students per capita in them than almost any other state. o Utah born individuals register more listings in Who's Who and American Men and Women of Science compared to total state population than any other state in the Union. o Utah sends more self-supporting Christian missionaries into the world (in absolute numbers) than any other region (or religion). o Utahns have served as Secretary of the Treasury, Under Secretary of State, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board*, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Interior, Justice of the Supreme Court, Solicitor General, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, President of the Federal Home Loan Bank, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, Executive Assistant to former Chief Justice Burger, Executive Secretary of the Federal Judicial Conference, Executive Secretary of the National Bicentennial Commission, Member of the Board of Directors of the IBRD, Director of the National Security Agency, Counselor to the President, National Domestic Affairs Advisor to the President, Director of the National Air and Space Administration (NASA) -- on two occasions, as governors of half a dozen states, as U.S. Ambassadors (dozens), as Director of Bell Laboratories, As Head of the National Centers for Disease Control, as Acting Surgeon General, as Admissions Director of Harvard University (and Presidents of a dozen other major universities including the University of California -- the largest state university system in the United States). Utahns/Mormons teach as professors at two dozen major universities across the nation -- including Harvard Business School and Harvard Medical School. Until recently the Foreign Minister of Guatemala was a Mormon, and there are Mormons presently serving as legislators/cabinet members in Yugoslavia, Alberta, and several Latin American countries. * Marriner Eccles, President of First Security Bank, N.A., was the first American banker to devise a legal method for inter-state banking, though forming a "National Association" of related banks. First Security thus was able to form related banks in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Arizona. By astute maneuvering of deposits between his banks, Eccles was able to save them when many banks were failing during the Great Depression. Franklyn Roosevelt, contrary to popular thought, entered his Administration without a well-thought-out program. One of his first appointments, however, was that of Marriner Eccles to be Chairman of the Fderal Reserve System. Eccles, who had read and understood Keynes' General Theory well before many of the academic economists who later got credit for popularizing Keynes, had a careully-considered, inter-related program to resuce the American economy on Roosevelt's desk within two months of assuming office. The Eccles program included an independent FRB, a proposal for a Securities and Exchange Commission to prevent the kind of stock market manipulation which had triggered the Depression, a suggestion for a public works (WPA) program to put the unemployed back to work, and a compulsory minimum federal retirement program and related program for the support of children whose father might be absent or out of work (which became the Social Security Administration and Aid for Dependent Children). Each of these suggestions was eventually enacted, becoming known collectively as The New Deal. See Israelson paper presented at May 19, 1994 Utah Academy of Sciences, Art, and Letters. o The University of Utah has one of the best medical schools in the world where the Jarvik replacement heart pump was developed and the gene for predisposition to colon cancer was discovered. Cold Fusion, which if proved out, will be one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time, was first performed at the University of Utah. o Utah is home to two of the most important computer companies in the world -- Word Perfect and Novell, as well as a number of other high tech manufacturing companies. o Mormon-related Brigham Young University is the largest private university in the U.S. and its J. Rueben Clark Law School has provided more clerks to Supreme Court Justices than many other older and more renowned law schools. o Utah has the best snow in the world and international skiing events are regularly held in Solitude, Snowbird, Park City ( home of the U.S. Olympic Team), Sundance, Alta, and Brighton. o Mormons founded over a hundred American cities including San Diego, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, and Reno in the Far West and Kirtland, Ohio; Nauvoo, Illinois (which before the Mormons were driven out was bigger than Chicago and the largest city in Illinois); Omaha, Nebraska; and Rock Springs and Evanston in Wyoming. Further north, Mormons settled a dozen cities in Idaho (Idaho's governor visited Utah during Idaho's Centennial Year to thank Church leaders for sending early settlers to his state which insured Idaho's being admitted to the Union as a separate state rather than as part of Oregon or Montana). Mormons also founded several towns in Alberta, Canada and, to the south, Mormons settled a dozen cities in what is now Arizona, and half a dozen in Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico. It was Mormons in Sacramento, California who, after being disbanded from the Mormon Battalion (which fought in the Mexican War, thus gaining for America much of what is now the Western United States), who discovered gold at Sutter's Mill setting off the Gold Rush. A Mormon Sam Brannan was a major figure in the founding of San Francisco, its first millionaire and one of its early mayors. o As Territorial Governor, Brigham Young petitioned Congress for the admission of the Territory as the State of Deseret, with borders to include all present day Utah reaching west to the Sierra Nevadas (now part of Nevada), Idaho to the Salmon River (and including a corner of what is now Oregon), the southwest corner of what is now Wyoming, and east to the Continental Divide (almost a third of what is today Colorado). To the south, Deseret would have included the north west corner of New Mexico (the four corners area) and Arizona south to the Salt River -- altogether an area twice the size of Texas. Because of political prejudice related to the practice of polygamy (though serial polygamy, with or without benefit of clergy is no longer even an eyebrow raising event in the United States today), Utah was not admitted as a state for another 45 years, pieces of its territory being sliced off from time to time as enough non-Mormon settlers moved into the Nevada and Colorado mines or the Wyoming and Arizona cattle ranches to permit creation of nearby non-Mormon states. This interesting chapter of history is little know even to most Americans, so one can hardly fault the Economist for not informing its readers of it. Be this as it may, some Mormons think this was the Good Lord looking out for his Church better than his earthly representatives were doing, since Mormons are now predominant -- or an important minority -- in nine states instead of one, with the possibility of electing eighteen U.S. Senators instead of two (there have in fact been as many as nine Mormon Congressmen in the House and Senate at one time, something that would have been impossible under the Brigham Young plan for statehood). While not yet generally accepted as a "Main Line" Church (though getting close to it), Mormonism is now the fifth largest and most rapidly growing denomination in the United States and the second non-Catholic denomination in several Latin American countries. A noted student of world religion Rodney Stark has recently said that "Mormonism shows all the signs of the rise of a new world religion." On the basis of statistical projections he says the LDS Church will be the middle of the next century "have a worldwide following of 265 million, comparable with that of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and other dominant world faiths." The Church is growing so fast in Africa that acceptance of new members must be limited in order not to outgrow its leadership base. The LDS Church now operates in 95 countries and 20 territories. As a British newspaper interested in reporting important world events, these are some of the things you might have said about Utah and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and which your readership might have found of interest in the year in which the Church is commemorating the sesquicentennial of its establishment in Great Britain. Britain was the first country in which the Church gained membership outside the United States and which became the missionary base for Europe. England was the birthplace of its Third, and one of the Church's greatest Presidents (John Taylor), and the nation from which the bloodlines of each of its thirteen Presidents has flowed. Instead you went for the cheap shot with your flip and basically misleading jab at Utah's politics and life-style. Let me suggest that you get in touch with the Mission President in London and follow-up with a more thorough sesquicentennial report on Mormonism in Great Britain. Cable address; Quickmere, London. Sincerely,