Address Given by President Spencer W. Kimball at Welfare Services Meeting Saturday, October 5, 1974

Beloved brethren and sisters: As I remember, the Lord said at one time, “For ye have the poor always with you …” (Matt. 26:11). So I do not expect that this program of Welfare is going to be abandoned. I think we need make no apologies for considering this matter very seriously, constantly.

I think the program that has been mentioned and shown in the filmstrip of the projects has a tremendous effect upon peoples’ characters and souls; to see the brethren, banker and merchant, wealthy and poor, go into the fields, into the orchards, into the gardens and work together to produce. It is a wonderful program for the individual himself; it is a common leveler.

I think one of the beautiful pictures that I remember back in the early days of the program was when we looked up and saw a beautiful field, white with cotton bolls, and then saw the Relief Society sisters, the Primary children, the men and women and children in the rows of cotton with their long bags trailing behind them. They were learning to pick cotton. When they went to weigh, they always were disappointed. They thought they had 150 pounds dragging behind them, and it turned out to be only eight or ten. I remember they were happy; they were doing something that was constructive. They were helping others. I remember sometimes in their happiness they would sing songs like “Way Down Upon the Swanee River.”

I have seen them picking fruit, cherries, apples and peaches, and it seems to me there was a new dimension that had been added when they felt they were doing something constructive, something they did not have to do, something they wanted to do for their own people.

I am sure that there is a tendency on the part of many of us to forget and think, “Well, that was yesterday.” But Welfare is today and tomorrow and next week and next year. I think it is forever, for the poor we always will have with us.

I was with President Tanner in the city of Cardston a few weeks ago and noted a clean city; and I mentioned it time and time again as we drove through the streets, a clean city. I noticed no backyards filled with trash and other waste, and I could not help but mention to him again, “Look at the row there, this whole row of homes, and as far as you see there are gardens, corn and beans and squash.” There were little fruit trees in between, and nearly every yard, as far as we could see, every backyard was cultivated; and I am sure the good people there were living considerably out of their yard, rather than out of the store. I was pleased indeed to see that there are many of our people who have not forgotten the lessons of yesterday, and are still listening to the words of the leaders.

I think there is a lesson that we must never forget, we bishops, that we must be wise. How wise we must be! Sometimes we may feel that we are being overgenerous in giving them much without their giving any service in return, that maybe we are generous and that we are kind; but we are really unkind. It works the other way. We are unkind if we teach people to take without giving, without doing what they can do in reason.

My brothers and sisters, this program is divine, and as we will always have the poor with us, we hope that they will always be taken care of properly.

I remember as I went through the streets of Calcutta, seeing the great numbers of starving people; they were actually starving. I remember being on the fifth floor of a big hotel in Calcutta and looking down on the back street where these people in their meager clothing were lying on the sidewalks, actually lying on the sidewalk with no place to go and nothing to eat, and no shelter. I saw the rain come, and I saw these people move back a little farther under a little shelter. I saw the people in Peru where they have just now had an earthquake. I saw them suffer, and when we were upbraided by one of the press one day for not taking care of all these poor people—“Why did we travel the world and do all these things and did not take care of these people,” he asked—I said: “That is something you don’t understand. If these people would accept the gospel of Christ, the program is provided and they could be taken care of, and their sufferings could be alleviated. They could enjoy reasonable conditions in their homes and in their living.”

And that is true, brethren and sisters. In my feeling, the gospel is the answer to all the problems of the world, if we go deeply enough and all are united in solving them. And that is why we work harder in missionary work, so that we can gradually bring the gospel to all the people, this part of the gospel, as well as their testimonies, the gospel of serving the poor, taking care of those who are less fortunate than ourselves.

We are grateful for all that you do in carrying forward this work. We hope that the bishops will never forget that one of their very most important duties is to look after the people in their communities, in their wards, and see that they do not suffer. See that they do not have luxuries, but see that they do have the actual necessities.

God bless you, brethren, in this great and holy cause, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.