Marvin O. Ashton

First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric (April 6, 1938 – October 7, 1946)

General Conference Addresses

• October 1946 General Conference
  • Goodbye
    • “There are some people—I am not guessing, I know what I am talking about—that have a thousand cattle on a thousand hills, and if you’d ask them for a thousand dollars, they’d get nervous prostration. And those same people would hammer the stand and remind us where those young people are going. As far as they are concerned, the young people would go to that place, and you know what place I am talking about. I wouldn’t want to break these fine fibres of this radio, but you know what I am trying to say. As far as those men are concerned, the young people would go there, and they would not have a return ticket, either. If we would spend more time in going with young people, we would have less trouble.”
    • “When you think of this upside down world and what the world needs, it doesn’t take much intelligence to know what the conditions are. But the important thing now is the need in this world of character, of men and women making decisions, forgetting what is going to happen if you do this or what is going to happen if you take the other course.”
• April 1946 General Conference
  • Greed
    • “Don’t worry if you are loaded too heavily. It will do you good. That is what the world needs. You will always find those people that come up to you and sympathize with you, and a lot of people who do nothing themselves but go around with a chip on their shoulder. Someone has said: You can bet your life when someone goes around with a chip on his shoulder, there is more wood farther up.”
    • “I am talking about the man who has accumulated plenty and gets the disease or bug so that he eternally chases after more, more, more, and in that chasing he neglects his duties. Some men take the cream of their energy for making money, and when they come to the Lord’s work, they’ve got nothing but skim milk, and some of it is awfully blue.”
• October 1945 General Conference
  • Power
    • “Let’s be tolerant, let’s be kind, but let’s hold to our own standards. The world is calling louder than ever for real tolerance.”
• April 1945 General Conference
  • Fine Work
    • “God bless you fine men. To repeat again, as we go around your stakes and see what you are doing, if we were to give way to our feelings we would sit down and cry like babies at your accomplishing great things. You are doing a fine job. I don’t know what some of us do for you in the way of inspiration when we stand before you, but I know what inspiration we get from you in holding your hands and looking into your eyes.”
• October 1944 General Conference
  • Fervent Prayer
    • “First, now is the time when we ought to say our prayers fervently; second, now is the time to do our own thinking.”
    • “If there is anything that the Lord has held important in our lives, it is that we be honest. Nothing in history has been awarded much greater punishment than dishonesty.”
• October 1943 General Conference
  • Humility
    • “After the impression made on all of us by our two new Apostles, I cannot resist laying aside what I was going to say and express appreciation of them. They are splendid men, and I want to sing their praises. I am speaking particularly of their humility. I am sure that when the call came to these two men from those who have a right to call, there went an ‘Amen” all through this Church. There is a combination here today of decided ability and humility. These are the characteristics that your mother and my mother tried to instil in us since we were old enough to stand bracing ourselves against their knees. I glory in such men, men of initiative, men of vision, and yet humility. I have yet to see a man who excelled at all in leadership—real leadership—that did not have those qualifications.”
• April 1943 General Conference
  • Kindness
    • “Let’s encourage more freedom of speech. It is as refreshing as a drink from a cool fountain. Let’s have more expressions that are spontaneous—yes, if you want, call it spontaneous combustion.”
    • “Now, in closing: let us be kind; do not forget that the man who has his weakness is that fellow that charges up San Juan hill to give you your liberty; that fellow that leads his fellows in battle with: “We lick them today or Molly Stark is a widow”; yes, the daredevil that bares his breast to Japanese bullets at Guadalcanal. He may have his weakness, but when you put on your slippers at night and huddle yourself to the fire of liberty, do not forget there is somebody out there who has faults, but who is the one that dares to face death to give you your liberty.”
• October 1942 General Conference
  • Be Active
    • “Someone has wisely said, “Many a man has made a false step by standing still.””
• April 1942 General Conference
  • Buildings
    • “I do want to say this before I sit down: We compliment most of you men on the way you are teaming with us. There are some of you who don’t. We don’t know why; when we visit your places, we just don’t understand; we can’t understand it. As Bishop Richards said today, climate doesn’t determine what your stake is going to be. It is initiative. We keep crying and crying to have some of these things taken care of, and they are not.”
• October 1941 General Conference
  • Restraint
    • “There is no civilization without restraint, and we do not want to forget it.”
• April 1941 General Conference
  • Hawaii and Liquor
    • “Just one more word in closing : In my observation, in going to and fro, including life on the boat, including conduct going to restaurants, it is my judgment that America never was going at such a pace as she is going right now in this liquor business. We are going fast and furious. It will take stamina of steel to stem the tide. I never was more impressed in my life. We are going drink crazy. The example we are setting the youth is criminal.”
• October 1940 General Conference
  • Raising Boys
    • “When you see a little Bishop stand up and say that he could account for every one of his Lesser Priesthood boys for the past ten years, and each one of them is wholesome, clean, and sweet, it makes you appreciate what some people are doing. Of course that sounds pretty much like the fellow they tell about crossing the plains, driving a swarm of bees. He contended he did not lose a bee. But I believe that Bishop. God bless him!”
    • “Do we have a long face on the Sabbath day and in holy places, and play a different tune in our conduct in the affairs of men in the ordinary business of life? In my judgment there is nothing doing more harm in this Church today than men who are trying to play a double game. The boy always finds it out. You can’t fool him. By our conduct we often pull up by the roots the most precious sprouts of confidence ever germinated.”
    • “Many a boy is spoiled because you can’t spank grandmothers. Yes, too, because you can’t spank parents.”
    • “Let’s handle this boy more scientifically. Let’s give him more attention. He’s more valuable than our crops, our hogs, and our business. He is the man of tomorrow. Give him the right start.”
• October 1939 General Conference
  • Have Courage
    • “Whenever the past looks glorious, look out.”
    • “Now, we have something ahead of us. Let us have the courage, and I believe we have the courage that we ought to, and we will get somewhere.”
• April 1939 General Conference
  • Addressing Problems
    • “I don’t think we read enough, but I do wonder if we don’t read more than we think, we would rather read more than we would attempt to think.”
    • “I think these are challenges to us. I think we should get down to some real, honest-to-goodness, homespun initiative, that we should analyze conditions and see what is the matter. Whether it be grammatically correct or not, we should plunge into it, knowing we are right, and pull the trigger. I think that we ought to put more steel in the backbone of our young people.”
• October 1938 General Conference
  • Spiritual Blessings
    • “I believe that sometimes to test anything you must have something happen of an unusual character. Now I think that peculiar thing has happened to the Church so far as this welfare work is concerned. I think that this thing coming upon us has been the means of testing us.”
    • “I am afraid sometimes we get in ruts and some of us who have been the most valiant sometimes are most susceptible to ruts. Some one has said the only difference between a rut and a grave is that one is a little deeper than the other. Now I say this respectfully, but sometimes men who have won their spurs, who have cut their furrows, rest while the world goes on. The Church is of such a nature and such magnitude that whether you do your duty or not, it pretty near sustains you. And you stay there, and you just hang on by virtue of the tremendous system that is over your head.”
    • “I believe that some men get it into their heads that they ought to be original, and they can not be original unless they stand off and criticise.”
    • “I wonder sometimes (to play on someone’s expression) if that same fellow who always wants the spiritual blessings to come to the other fellow, how he would appreciate it if, when he got around the table Thanksgiving Day, he would have a spiritual turkey, that was “without body, parts, or passions.””
    • “Some of us are just naturally—as one man puts it—”tight.” Our pores are closed, and we do not let charity break through.”

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