In 1841, Apostle Parley P. Pratt warned Queen Victoria that these were the Last Days and if she and other leaders of the world did not repent then their nations would ultimately be consumed in the coming destruction of all the wicked. In 1862, Apostle Orson Hyde predicted the outbreak of the conflict we now call World War I. In 1900, the Prophet Lorenzo Snow provided the road map for avoiding these disasters and establishing local, national, international, and even world peace. Titled simply, Greeting To The World, it contains prophetic direction to political leaders, poor and lower class workers, wealthy people, and gives prophetic promises of peace and prosperity to those individuals and nations that follow the prophet’s direction.
In both the problems it addresses, the means by which to solve those problems, and the promises made to those who heed prophetic counsel, President Snow’s prophetic teachings here are just as applicable now as ever. If our forefathers had listened to and obeyed President Snow’s directions they would’ve prevented World War I, World War II, the Socialist seizure of Russia and Eastern Europe, the Socialist seizure of China and parts of Asia, the Cold War, and the War on Terror- saving hundreds of millions of lives from genocidal mass slaughter and billions from the horrors of brutal authoritarian and totalitarian domination. With all the political, cultural, social, and educational problems we face today we need these truths more than ever. And in this article I will be drawing out the most important counsel President Snow gave, providing a short explanation of what he means, and then explaining how it applies and would bless our lives today to follow his inspired direction.
To The Politicians of the World
The lessons of the past century shouId have prepared us for the duties and glories of the opening era. It ought to be the age of peace, of greater progress, of the- universal adoption of the golden rule. The barbarism of the past should be buried. War with its horrors should be but a memory. The aim of nations should be fraternity and mutual greatness. The welfare of humanity should be studied instead of the enrichment of a race or the extension of an empire. Awake, ye monarchs of the earth and rulers among nations, and gaze upon the scene which the early rays of the rising Millennial day gild the morn of the twentieth century! The power is in your hands to pave the way for the coming King of Kings, whose dominion will be over all the earth. Disband your armies; turn your weapons of strife into implements of industry; take the yoke from the necks of the people; arbitrate your disputes; meet in royal cogress, and plan for union instead of conquest, for the banishment of poverty, for the uplifting of the masses, and for the health, wealth, enlightenment and happiness of all tribes and peoples and nations. Then shall the twentieth century be to you the glory of your lives and the lustre of your crowns, and posterity shall sing your praises, while the Eternal One shall place you on high among the mighty.
Snow, Greeting To The World, pgs. 1-2
I can’t help but wonder how many of the European monarchies that collapsed in the wake of the World Wars would still be around if they had followed President Snow’s counsel. Certainly they and millions of people all over the planet would have been better off if the lords and ladies of Europe had followed the direction of the Lord’s prophet. I know why it didn’t happen though. The political divisions of Europe ran deep and had divided people for centuries if not millennia. Monarchies and nations gave people a valued and valuable sense of history and identity as individuals and as peoples. The people were not going to give those up or even diminish them as long as something else didn’t exist to replace them as the cultural, political, and economic forces in human life. But of course this is one of the main reasons the Lord’s church exists. The church is the Kingdom of God in all senses of that term and it fills the role in our lives that the nations, governments, ethnicities, and cultures of the world do today.
I am also struck by this idea that the universal application of the Golden Rule -“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 7:12)- would require national leaders to disband their armies, to destroy their weapons, and to refuse to fight. If that is true for nations, how could it not be true for individuals? Said another way, how could that be true for nations if it is not also the way individuals act? After all, politics is downstream of culture and politicians do what they believe the people will allow politicians to get away with and what people allow politicians to get away with is base don the ethics and values of the culture the people espouse. If we want nations to disband their armies, to destroy their weapons of war, and to refuse to fight -if we want to end war forever- we can only do that by doing those things first ourselves.
President Snow’s counsel then seems to be one calling for the embrace of the power of nonviolence as the means by as the means of change, both at an international level and on a personal one. I am reminded of the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith when he found church members ready to kill some snakes near their camps:
How will the serpent ever lose its venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition, and continue to make war upon it? Men must become harmless before the brute creation, and when men lose their viscious dispositions and cease to destroy the animal race, the lion and the lamb can dwell together, and the sucking child can play with the serpent in safety.
Scriptural Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Pg. 71
How do we expect to end war while continuing to endlessly plan, plot, and prepare for war? If we are ever to end the cycle of horror that is the mass slaughter of men, women, children, and babies that is war then we must at some point choose to become harmless and make ourselves actively so. Only when we refuse to destroy each other will destruction cease. It must happen some time. It has to start with some people. Why should it not happen now with us? Why should we not be the generation that eliminates the viciousness of war? We can easily start the process in our personal lives by eliminating the tools, weapons, and ideologies of violence in our homes. In doing so we will begin the movement that will revolutionize the world through the power of the Prince of Peace.
Finally, in this section, I am impressed by President Snow’s comments about race. Unless one has studied the subject in detail it is unlikely that one will truly understand how important the concept of race was in 1900. The entire Progressive Movement was built off of racism, particularly using the law to benefit White males while destroying the ability of women and minorities (especially Black Americans) to be able to care for themselves and their families. The goal was to limit and even slowly exterminate “undesirables.” (For the full historical review of these facts, I highly suggest Dr. Thomas Leonard’s Illiberal Reformers about this era.) So, for President Snow to come out and denounce the focus on race and call for the focus of human achievement to be focused on blessing and uplifting all people, irregardless of their race is serious and significant.
President Snow rightly links the magnification of race to the magnification of empire. One was used to justify the other with the most infamous examples being the Nazi extermination camps slaughtering millions for the glories of the Aryan race and Third Reich, the Nazi German Empire. Closer to home, Americans might recognize Jim Crow Laws and racial segregation (more Progressive Era programs) as homegrown examples of the same racist imperial impulse to establish an American nationalist state by dehumanizing and degrading racial minorities. But there are too many examples from this era to list them all, every one of them horrific and disastrous. Think of the glories gained and horrors avoided if only people then and now had the wisdom to listen to and heed the prophet’s voice to think of all people as the same instead of focusing on the glories of race and nation!
To The Workers of the World
Ye toiling millions who, in the sweat of your faces earn your daily bread, look up and greet the power from above which shall lift you from bondage! The day of your redemption draweth nigh. Cease to waste your wages in that which helps to keep you in want. Regard not wealth as your enemy and your employers as your oppressors. Seek for the union of capital and labor. Be provident when in prosperity. Do not become a prey to designing men who seek to stir up strife for their own selfish ends. Strive for your rights by lawful means, and desist from violence and destruction. Anarchism and lawlessness are your deadly foes. Dissipation and vice are chains that bind you to slavery. Freedom is coming for you, its light approaches as the century dawns.
Snow, Greeting To The World, pg. 2
Given the moral and political predilections of this website, perhaps we should start with what President Snow means by “anarchism and lawlessness.” In 1900, anarchy was defined almost totally as a Socialist movement and had been so since Joseph Proudhon had first popularized the term anarchy in 1840 (though he was not the first to hold anarchist beliefs.) And the anarcho-Socialist movement was incredibly violent and bloody, known for murdering people and blowing things up, a trend that only got worse after President Snow had issued this declaration. As with everything they do, Socialists took something with a kernel truth (the utter rejection of the State) and made it terrible by mixing Socialism into it, setting back the advance of anarchist ideals by at least a century as we are still dealing with the fallout of their stupidity today.
In any case, it is these so-called Socialist anarchists (and the unions that many of them influenced if not led) that President Snow denounced as “designing men” (echoes of D&C 89:4 in that phrase) seeking to manipulate the grievances of the poor. These Socialist anarchists sought (seek) to indoctrinate the middle and lower classes into a system of beliefs that would turn them into blunt instruments of rage for men and women grasping for power through violence and destruction. In this context, I do not think it is an accident therefore that President Snow talks about “the” the union of capital and labor” as one but doesn’t talk about unions themselves. President Snow seemingly understood that it was through unions, using worker’s organizations as a vector for ideological indoctrination, that Socialists were most successful in indoctrinating the working class into Socialist anarchism. And it is this kind of “anarchism” that President Snow rightly denounces. Thankfully, it is not the only form of anarchism, either anciently or modernly. Today there is a form of anarchy that embraces property rights and the ability of men and women, business owners and employees, to work together for their mutual aid and wealth.
President Snow rightfully recognized that dissipation – debauched living such as getting drunk, abusing drugs, or sexual immorality – did not and will not liberate people. Vices are chains that enslave the soul. The more vices you have, the more a slave you become as you are controlled by your addictions and urges instead of you controlling them. The Natural Man is not just an enemy to God, he is a slave to Satan. And, in purely academic terms, vices are especially stupid for poor people. Take smoking cigarettes, for example. Poor people are much more likely to smoke cigarettes and the average smoker approximately smokes a pack of cigarettes a day for a cost of $3,869 per year.
What could a poor person do with nearly $4,000 extra per year? A great deal! That is gas to get to a farther away job that pays more money, a better car to get there, job training to get a better position and a higher wage, better food so that he or she may be healthy and strong, better medical care to ensure more physical and mental health, etc. That kind of money, used wisely, is a blessing. And that’s just if you give up smoking. Combine that with savings from giving up drinking alcohol and/or abusing drugs and you’re talking about savings upwards to $10,000 a year. That would transform the lives of any person in the middle or lower classes. And that’s just by eliminating vice, it doesn’t count the ways that using your money wisely (such as investing your drug money into a better car to travel farther to get a better job) would increase the amount of money and wealth in your life.
If people today follow the prophet’s counsel from over a century ago people now would be healthier, wealthier, wiser, and happier.
To The Wealthy
Men and women of wealth, use your riches lo give employment to the laborer! Take the idle from the crowded centres of population and place them on the untilled areas that await the hand of industry. Unlock your vaults, unloose your purses, and embark in enterprises that will give work to the unemployed, and relieve the wretchedness that leads to the vice and crime which curse your great cities, and that poison the moral atmosphere around you. Make others happy, and you will be happy yourselves.
Snow, Greeting To The World, pg. 2
This is the advice that I find the least insight within. It seems to me that the wealthy already seek to employ middle and lower class people in the best capacities they can be employed. If there is any problem with this happening it is almost certainly caused by some government regulation (or combination thereof) and not a nature product of how a free market would function. That said, it is meaningful to note that in an era where Progressives were proclaiming that “God works through the State in carrying out His purposes more universally than through any other institution,” and announcing that it was therefore God’s will to increase the power of the government to regulate every aspect of human existence in order to create the Kingdom of God that the Prophet of God did not. Instead he taught that social problems should be settled privately between employers and employees. That is a free market solution that keeps the government smaller and more limited.
President Snow’s comment here that crime was a product of poverty and poor urban conditions was far ahead of its time. In his era, the scientific and Progressive explanation for crime was eugenics – the argument that all poverty, crime, and antisocial behavior originated in a person’s genetics and that races could be ordered genetically by their predispositions to live in poverty and commit various crimes. In the face of what was the overwhelming scientific consensus of his day – “The Science” if you will – for President Snow to assert that poverty and crime originated in social conditions was and is incredibly important. In shows that he had the wisdom to see the truth and the courage to declare that truth in the face of the the elites of his day just as we should in our own.
To The Innovators
He has commenced the work of redemption spoken of by all the holy prophets, sages and seers of all the ages and all the races of mankind. He will assuredly accomplish His work, and the twentieth century will mark its advancement towards the great consummation. Every unfoldment of the nineteenth century in science, in art, in mechanism, in music, in literature, in poetic fancy, in philosophical thought, was prompted by His Spirit which before long will be poured out upon all flesh that will receive it. He is the Father of us all and He desires to save and exalt us all.
Snow, Greeting To The World, pg. 3
We humans like to think that it is our own brilliance and our own creativity that innovates and invents new technologies, new ideas, and new works of art. The truth is that the inspiration for all these things come from God. As Apostle Spencer W. Kimball would say decades later, “When God didn’t have prophets he spoke through poets.” When all the world is deafened by the noise of life, poets and philosophers often were quiet enough to hear some of the faith whisperings of the Holy Spirit. Garbled though those communications may have been, nevertheless many truths were conveyed and revealed through inspiration to the degree that the people could hear and understand the truth. If this was not always the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is still better to have threads of truth than be totally deprived altogether. The same goes for those seeking inspiration for invention and scientific advancement.
Sometimes people speak of Zion or Heaven as if it will be boring. In doing so these people only demonstrate their ignorance. All of the works of art, music, literature, science, and invention that humans believe to be the greatest achievements of human history are nothing but the sparks thrown off of the infernos and Creation that make up the Celestial Kingdom. These achievements seem great when contrasted against the darkness of the fallen world but they are not even visible when held up against the creative brilliance and glories of Heaven itself. In mortality, artists paint with pigments; in Heaven the exalted will paint with stars. In mortality, inventors and innovators manipulate the resources of the Earth; in Heaven the exalted will build galaxies. In mortality, scientists explore the function of Creation; in Heaven the exalted will wield the very forces of Creation itself. In mortality, historians study the past; in Heaven the exalted will write the past, present, and future all at once. Far from boring, Heaven will be a place of invention, innovation, creation, and beauty greater than anything we have ever imagined or can comprehend.
A Benediction For All The World
Let these sentiments, as the voice of the “Mormons” in the mountains of Utah, go forth to the whole world, and let all people know that our wish and our mission are for the blessing and salvation of the entire human race. May the twentieth century prove the happiest as it will be the grandest of all the ages of time, and may God be glorified in the victory that is coming over sin and sorrow and misery and death. Peace be unto you all!
Snow, Greeting To The World, pg. 4
Unfortunately we know that the 20th century was far from the happiest and grandest century of all time. In addition to the worst wars ever fought and the development and use of the evilest weapons ever imagined, Dr. R.J. Rummel estimated that governments across the planet killed over 203,000,000 during the 20th century. But it didn’t have to be that way. It doesn’t have to be that way now. President Snow’s advice isn’t even religious in nature. He is espousing the ways and means of creating a better world – a freer world, a safer world, a more universally prosperous world – without appealing to the exalting truths of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The world cannot be perfected without Christ, but it can be improved as we live by the just and wise principles that bring about such an improvement. It is just such principles that President Snow has laid out for us in this epistle. Though the 21st century has dawned darkly, there is still hope that it will embrace the light and become the happiest and “grandest of all the ages of time.” The Way is there, the path has been laid before us for over a century now, the promises of success made for following that prophetic path are assured. We but have receive them and follow the path. (D&C 88:31-33)