In the present status of capital and labor there should be mutual interests; and at the same time workmen should realize that there is a limit to the pressure which capital can endure by the demands made upon it. Competition has always given some measure of relief to the laborer by the demands of capital for human service, and men should not therefore abandon themselves to the supposed power of arbitrary demands which labor unions are now making in many cases upon their employers. The contention for the recognition of unions is often a very indefinite factor, for no one seems to know just what that recognition means now, or what it is to mean in the future. If recognition means the exclusive right of any class of men to gain a livelihood by their work, then recognition should be persistently and forcefully resisted.
The Latter-day Saints, whether in the unions or out of them, know very well whether individual or united demands are arbitrary and unjust, and they will lose nothing by a manly refusal to violate their sense of justice.—Juvenile Instructor, Vol. 38, June, 1903, p. 370.
CAUSE OF WAR. The condition of the world today presents a spectacle that is deplorable, so far as it relates to the religious convictions, faith and power of the inhabitants of the earth. Here we have nations arrayed against nations, and yet in every one of these nations are so-called Christian peoples professing to worship the same God, professing to possess belief in the same divine Redeemer, many of them professing to be teachers of God's word, and ministers of life and salvation to the children of men, and yet these nations are divided one against the other, and each is praying to his God for wrath upon and victory over his enemies and for his own preservation. Would it be possible, could it be possible, for this condition to exist if the people of the world possessed really the true knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ? And if they really possessed the Spirit of the living God—could this condition exist? No; it could not exist, but war would cease, and contention and strife would be at an end. And not only the spirit of war would not exist, but the spirit of contention and strife that now exists among the nations of the earth, which is the primal element of war, would cease to be. We know that the spirit of strife and contention exists to an alarming extent among all the people of the world. Why does it exist? Because they are not one with God, nor with Christ. They have not entered into the true fold, and the result is they do not possess the spirit of the true Shepherd sufficiently to govern and control their acts in the ways of peace and righteousness. Thus they contend and strive one against another, and at last nation rises up against nation in fulfilment of the predictions of the prophets of God that war should be poured out upon all nations. I don't want you to think I believe that God has designed or willed that war should come among the people of the world, that the nations of the world should be divided against one another in war, and engaged in the destruction of each? God did not design or cause this. It is deplorable to the heavens that such a condition should exist among men, but the conditions do exist, and men precipitate war and destruction upon themselves because of their wickedness, and that because they will not abide in God's truth, walk in his love, and seek to establish and maintain peace instead of strife and contention in the world.—Oct. C. R., 1914, p. 8.
ATTITUDE TOWARDS WAR. We do not want war. We do not want to see our nation go to war. We would like to see it the arbiter of peace for all nations. We would like to see the government of the United States true to the constitution, an instrument inspired by the spirit of wisdom from God. We want to see the benignity, the honor, the glory and the good name, and the mighty influence for peace of this nation, extended abroad, not only over Hawaii and the Philippines, but over the islands of the sea east and west of us. We want to see the power, the influence for good, for elevating mankind, and for the establishment of righteous principles spread out over these poor, helpless peoples of the world, establishing peace, good will and intelligence among them, that they may grow to be equal, if possible, to the enlightened nations of the world.—Oct. C. R., 1912, p. 7.
WE WANT PEACE. We want peace in the world. We want love and good will to exist throughout the earth, and among all the people of the world; but there never can come to the world that spirit of peace and love that should exist, until mankind will receive God's truth and God's message unto them, and acknowledge his power and authority which is divine, and never found in the wisdom only of men.—Oct. C. R., 1914, p. 7.
WHEN PEACE SHALL COME. We will never have peace until we have truth. We will never be able to establish peace on earth and good will until we have drunk at the fountain of righteousness and eternal truth, as God has revealed it to man.—Oct. C. R., 1914, p. 129.
PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN. We certainly live in troublesome times; and, notwithstanding the peace that pervades our own land, we are not without our troubles at home. There is, among us today, I am sorry to say, the germ of the spirit that has prompted, very largely, the conditions that exist in Europe today—internal unrest, dissatisfaction, discontent, internal contention over political, labor and religious matters, and almost every subject that affects society at this time. And the very germ that has prompted the terrible results that we see in the nations of Europe, is at work among us here today. We need not forget it, nor ignore it, either.
There is just one power, and one only, that can prevent war among the nations of the earth, and that is true religion and undefiled before God, the Father. Nothing else will accomplish it. It is a very common expression today that there is good in all religions. So there is; but there is not sufficient good in the denominations of the world to prevent war, nor to prevent contention, strife, division and hatred of one another.
And, put all the good doctrines, in all the denominations of the world, together, and they do not constitute sufficient good to prevent the evils that exist in the world. Why? Because the denominations lack the essential knowledge of God's revelation and truth, and the enjoyment of that spirit which comes from God that leadeth unto all truth, and that inspires men to do good and not evil, to love and not to hate, to forgive and not to bear malice, to be kind and generous and not to be unkind and contracted.
So, I repeat, there is but one remedy that can prevent men from going to war, when they feel disposed to do it, and that is the Spirit of God, which inspires to love, and not to hatred, which leads unto all truth, and not unto error, which inclines the children of God to pay deference to him and to his laws and to esteem them as above all other things in the world.