Mariner Eccles

[volgadon]

http://mormonliberals.org/marriner-eccles/

A very good friend of mine wrote a fascinating piece on Mariner Eccles, one of the more influential Mormons in the 20th century, and sadly much-neglected now.

The financial crash of 2008 made historians and economists draw immediate comparisons to the Great Depression. A year after the crash, the reasons and complexities of why the crash occurred were easy to find. Documentaries, books, and an endless amount of media delved into the Great Recession. However, while there were tons of problems on “why” the crash occurred, there were very few books and analysis that explained how to fix the problems. Lately, historians and economists have gone back into the archives and libraries to find ways that America overcame the devastation of the 1930’s. One person keeps coming up in this search—Marriner Eccles, the American Federal Reserve Chairman from 1934 to 1948. The ideas that created the most peaceful and stable American economy from 1945-1980 were directly influenced by the philosophy and knowledge of Utah’s greatest public servant.

The bit about Mariner and Reed Smoot during the depression is particularly revealing of the political and economic dynamics at play in the church.

The Great Depression was especially devastating in Utah. In Ogden, unemployment rates reached over 50% at certain times during the 1930’s. Even the LDS Church, which played a vital role in the economic and religious lives of most Utahans, was financially in trouble. Reed Smoot, a Mormon Apostle and Senator from Utah, didn’t have answers to the throngs of parishioners who were pleading for answers to the great national calamity. As Sidney Hyman noted, “Marriner had approached the senator to say, in his trip-hammer style, that private or local governmental sources of support for relief work in Utah were exhausted; that the Mormon Church, in common with other religious institutions, could not “take care of its own”; that Church funds depended on contributing members, and the members were in a desperate condition along with everyone else; that the federal government alone was in a position to provide funds for relief on a scale needed by distressed Utahans, and by people elsewhere. Smoot, however, looked at Marriner ‘with cold eyes that received light but no images. It was clear the he was either blind to the fact of the case, or was too old and too tired to be stirred by them. (Eccles, 1951)’”