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Show one should not give equal weight to the few who break the law as to the millions who benefit from it. He believed there had been a dozen times as much drinking before prohibition went into effect. Millions of homes were thus being spared from being wrecked through drunkenness. In February 1933 the Twenty-first Amendment which would repeal the Eighteenth Amendment had passed both houses of Congress. Before the year was out Utah became the necessary thirty-sixth state to ratify the repeal amendment thus putting it into law. The repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment was a great disappointment to the leaders of the Church. Elder George F. Richards, of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, declared: "When the President of the Church stands up in general conference and declares in favor of prohibition, it has been a source of great regret to me that prominent, leading, faithful men in this Church have felt justified in voting in favor of the return of liquor as against the expressed will of the President of the Church, who I believe expressed the mind and will of God unto this people."61 Another member of the Twelve, George Albert Smith, ten years after the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed told of the penalty of rejecting a prophet's counsel. We are fortunate today to have the servant of the Lord who presides over the Church, the mouthpiece of the Lord to us, sitting in our midst. There are thousands of people who would walk any distance they were able, in order that they might see the face and touch the hand of the Prophet of the Lord, and yet there are many of our own people who disregard his guidance and his counsel. From this very stand he pleaded with us to not repeal the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. He didn't speak as Heber J. Grant, the man. He spoke as the President of the Church and representative of our Heavenly Father. And yet in a state where we could have retained what we had, there were enough Latter-day Saints, so-called (some of them hold positions in the Church, or did at that time), who paid no attention to what the Lord wanted, ignored what he had said through His Prophet, and what is the result? Such delinquency as we have never known is in our own community today, and the sons and daughters and grandchildren, and in many cases the fathers and mothers, who defied the advice of our Heavenly Father and said, We will do as we please,' are paying the penalty and will continue to do so until they turn away from their foolishness and desire with all their hearts to do what our Heavenly Father desires us to do.62 President Grant, himself, deeply disappointed that the Saints had not listened to him stated in general conference: "I want to tell you that starting with Brigham Young and coming down to your humble servant, the Lord has been with us and has directed this Church. May the Lord help us so to live that you will sustain us, and may I never live long enough that when I am in favor of a thing and all the brethren are in favor of it, such as was the case when we were opposed to bringing whisky back, that Utah and the Mormons will be in opposition to 133 |