The affairs of government were to be the concern of the whole commonwealth; for, as the king proclaimed with convincing plainness, "the burden should come upon all the people, that every man might bear his part." It is gratifying to know that the Nephites adopted the proposition, straightway set about creating election districts, and at the appointed time chose by vote the first elective rulers of the new Republic.
From American soil, which of all was first to be prepared for the cultivation of representative government by the people, the seed of democracy shall be carried to every other land, until all men are free, in accordance with Divine intent.
— 55 —
PERPETUITY OF AMERICAN NATION
Assured by Prophecy
As late as but a few months prior to that fateful date—August 1, 1914—when the war storm burst in Europe, some of the world's great ones, eminent in scholarship and leaders of thought, aggressively proclaimed their belief that a great war was impossible. They held that the affairs of nations were so intimately related, the interests common to humanity so closely knit, as to safeguard the world against any such devastating conflict as would be entailed by the outbreak of war among great nations with the frightfully efficient enginery of destruction developed by present-day science. There was neither ambiguity nor reservation in the academic pronouncement that the human race, in its course of evolutionary progression, had happily risen above the barbarous incentive to wholesale murder and ruthless destruction such as characterized the less cultured epochs of history.
Certain optimistic protagonists averred that if, contrary to their demonstrated facts and figures, great nations should plunge recklessly into war, the struggle would of necessity be brief, for the total wealth of the world was insufficient to maintain for more than a few weeks at most the waging of war with modern equipment.
Yet in spite of all prognostications, as though derisively flouting the wisdom of the wise, August 1, 1914, was so deeply crimsoned that the weathering of ages future will not dull the stain. That day and all the days since have witnessed the fulfilment of the prediction relating to the last dispensation, the time in which we live, as voiced by Isaiah:
"Behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid." (Isa. 29:14.)