Sugar Trust Saints. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The materialist basis of Smythe-Piggott’s “Abode of Love” was demonstrated by the fact that the Spaxtonites were large shareholders in the VV Bread Co. Now the following from the “Daily Chronicle,” June 28, shows the “alliance” between the Latter Day Saints and the Sugar Trust. How happy the trust employees must be to know that their "saintly” employers use the proceeds of their exploitation to provide “Turkish delight” for the elders of the Mormon Church!

  “Testimony given by Joseph Smith, the head of the Mormon Church, before the committee of the House of Representatives investigating the methods of the Sugar Trust to-day, showed how converts were made chiefly through the use by the Latter Day Saints of their enormous profits on their Sugar Trust securities. 

   "He explained that the beetroot industry, with its sugar products, was a leading industry of Utah, and that owing to the fact that refineries in the west were making beetroot sugar cheaper than the cane sugar of the trust, an 'alliance’ was made between the Mormon Church and the American Sugar Refining Company. 

  “The Mormons showed themselves as cunning as the heads of the trust, and instead of the latter buying out the Mormons to their exclusion, Mr. Smith testified that the Latter Day Saints were the heaviest holders of Sugar Trust stock. 

  “The proceeds from these securities, however," said the witness, "are not used for the material advantage of our society, but for the conversion of Gentiles." 

   “We use this money for the development of religious work, and especially for defraying the expenses of our missionaries abroad." Mr. Smith knew nothing of the ‘watering’ of the trust’s stock or anything about the company’s 'high finance,’ but only that the money derived from the ‘alliance’ was highly useful in making converts.”