Item Detail
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13531
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3
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0
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English
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'What a Power We Will Be in This Land' : The LDS Church, the Church Security Program, and the New Deal
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Journal of the West
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Fall 2004
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43
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no.4
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66-75
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The motivation of the Church in establishing the Church Security Progam at the height of the New Deal has been largely misunderstood. While it was once interepreted as a 'gesture of defiance against the New Deal,' historians Leonard Arrington and Wayne Hilton in 1964 suggested that it was 'not in essence a political move.' While the majority of subsequent historians have adopted their argument, Cannon suggests that the reality is a mixture of the two: the Church Security Program was not entirely a political maneuver to undermine the New Deal, nor was it entirely apolitical. Detailing the events and initial opposition that preceded the establishment of a church welfare program, Cannon demonstrates that the Church Security Program was born not only from a desire on the part of Church leaders to combat the evils of the dole and undermine the government's growing centralization of powers, but also from a desire to encourage self-sufficiency, care for members' needs, and promote the image of the Church.