Mormons in New York City

A visit by Pres. Heber J. Grant and the conference held and the Brooklyn chapel in March 1930 drew a reaction from a poet for the Brooklyn Eagle, who wrote a poem lampooning the speech given by Elder Marvin J. Ballard during the conference. John Alden, whose poetry about current events (called occasional poetry) frequently appeared in the Eagle, drew on Ballard’s remarks about the benefits of the word of wisdom as inspiration for his witty take.

President Grand and Elder Ballard were in New York as part of a periodic tour of the Eastern States Mission, which included speaking at both Sunday morning and evening services in Manhattan, as well as at services in the afternoon at the LDS chapel in Brooklyn. Newspaper coverage added that they would hold a conference for 25 missionaries in the Brooklyn Chapel on that Monday.

Both President Grant’s remarks and those of Elder Ballard focused on the Word of Wisdom, suggesting that tobacco, alcohol, tea, and coffee should not be used. Elder Ballard also claimed that the divorce rate among church members was 1/5th that of the United States as a whole. According to a report in the Eagle, Ballard said:

“Marriage is the foundation of church and state, and when the institution loses stability, the nation stumbles and church declines. The low rate of divorce among Mormons is due to the fact that Mormon marriage is contracted not for this world alone, but for the hereafter, and is as a consequence more sacred.”

The report said that Ballard also lauded the “Mormon system of community economics” (probably the nascent welfare program).

Alden, in a preface to his poem, quotes Elder Ballard as saying:

“If any people could save the price of tobacco, tea, coffee and liquors they would derive an economic benefit alone that would make them leaders. And they would derive other benefits. Average life in our Church is six years longer than outside it.”

Following this, Alden added the following poem:

On coffee and tea and tobacco,
.   The Latter Day Saints are at war;
Opinions they form on the old Book of Mormon
.   Aggressive and irritant are.

Of course they soft-pedal beet sugar¹,
.   Which goes with the coffee and tea;
But thinkers may seize on the adequate reason—
.   What Smoot might explain it to be.

They’re stricter than all the Wahabis²
.   Or Mecca in fixing their creed;
They frown on the habits of even our Babbitts³,
.   And never a protest they heed.

Like Moslems, with pre-Volstead⁴ firmness
.   All drinks alcoholic they shun;
They line up their forces against all divorces,
.   Except the divorces they’ve won.

Let’s own they’re more saintly than we are.
.   They shame common everyday chaps;
No doubt ever jostles their dozen apostles,
.   But we are more human, perhaps.

¹ Reference to the Church program to grow Sugar Beets in order to produce Sugar.
² A reference to a fundamentalist Muslim sect, who strictly prohibited alcohol and other Muslim beliefs.
³ Reference to Sinclair Lewis’ 1922 novel, Babbitt, which critiqued middle class conformity in the U.S. The controversy over the novel led, in part, to Lewis receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature later in 1930.
⁴ The 1919 Volstead Act implemented the 18th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting alcoholic beverages. Prohibition was in force when this poem was written, and wasn’t repealed until 1933.

This week I added to the wiki a list of items in the LDS Church archives that were categorized under “New York City New York History” in the computer catalog. The list includes some tempting items, including several interviews and diaries that I don’t think we knew existed, and yet another indication of LDS branches operating in New York City after the Easter States Mission was closed.

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