Third in a series on the Church in the 20th Century.

"Growth amidst difficulty" might best describe the Church during the period of 1920-29.

During the 1920s, automobiles began crowding city streets and country roads, and the "moving picture" industry provided a glimpse of modernity and progress. During the prior decade, war wreaked death, devastation and despair on the world. While people dealt with the previous years' residue, 1920 dawned — a prelude to a decade holding great promise, some prosperity and much potential.

Among indicators of the Church's progress and growth during the 1920s was the dedication of two new temples, one in Cardston, Alberta, in western Canada, the other in Mesa, Ariz. (Please see other highlights of the Church during the 1920s on page 5.)

Elder David B. Haight of the Quorum of the Twelve is very much a "product of the 1920s." Born in 1906, in Oakley, Idaho, the 92-year-old apostle has fond and not-so-fond memories of the 1920s.

He recalled that while the world at large saw a degree of prosperity in the aftermath of World War I, recession and depression followed.

"There were several depressions in the 1920s, not like in 1929 when the stock market failed. These others were farm depressions. When the farm prices were low, it made it difficult on everybody. We weren't farmers, but we were very much affected as part of the community. I thinned beets and worked in the potato fields, like nearly everybody else."

An example of the up-and-down sides of the economy is that in November 1920 raw sugar was quoted on the U.S. market at 6 cents a pound; in August, just three months earlier, it had been 30 cents. The economy seemed to rise and fall much like a ship that, at one moment, rode the crest of the wave and plummeted into a trough the next. Much like passengers aboard a ship plying troubled waters, many people held their breath, hoping for smooth sailing.

Elder Haight spoke of how those "little depressions of the 1920s" affected his family. He was 9 when his father died in 1916. "My mother was left the old home and the property around it; the rest of the things that she had were wiped out in the depressions that came along."

Some saw education as the best form of protection against hard times. Elder Haight was among them. "I knew if I was going to go to school to get an education I would have to work." After he graduated from high school in 1924, he worked as a "grunt" for the Idaho Power Company. "The man who climbed the pole was the one who made the money," he said. "The grunt was the one on the ground with the block and tackle to send up the equipment. It was the best money I could make."

Part of the money was used for tuition at Utah State Agricultural College in Logan, Utah. Elder Haight remembers the tuition as being "less than $100. I had to pay $20 for out-of-state tuition, and thought that was highway robbery."

"The Church didn't have its institute program at colleges when I was a student," he said. It wasn't until 1926 that the Church established institutes of religion adjacent to college campuses to provide a religious curriculum to complement regular secular studies. The first institute of religion for college students opened adjacent to the University of Idaho.

"When I was a student in Logan, we just found a ward and attended meetings. No one came looking for us; we had to go looking for the Church," Elder Haight said.

He moved to Salt Lake City in 1928 and met Ruby Olson at a dance at the University of Utah. As they made plans for their marriage, which took place in 1930, they were unaware of impending economic difficulties. "When the stock market crashed [on Oct. 24, 1929], it was just 'Boom!' It was as if a bomb had been dropped," Elder Haight said. "We had no warning."

With membership still predominantly American, the Church was especially affected by the events occurring in the United States during the 1920s. States Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vol. 2: "Almost from the outset, President [Heber J.] Grant's administration was beset with hard times. Farming and mining, two of Utah's main industries slumped badly in the 1920s. . . . "

Still, progress was made. And members often gauged that progress as they looked at how far the Church had come. Ninety years before, in 1830, the Church was organized with just six members. As 1920 began, there were 507,961. By the end of 1929, membership was 666,652.

From Elder Joseph Fielding Smith's Essentials in Church History are these details concerning the Church in 1920: "Its [The Church's] property in meetinghouses, tabernacles, temples and other structures was valued at many millions of dollars. There were 83 stakes of Zion, 871 organized wards and 83 independent branches within the stakes. Missionary work had been carried to various parts of the earth, and there were 24 missions regularly established with numerous conferences (later called districts) and branches. The total number of men holding the Melchizedek Priesthood was 57,600, and the total number holding the Aaronic Priesthood was 49,780. Thousands of young people were actively engaged in the auxiliary organizations of the Church, and it was conceded by many ministers of other churches that the 'Mormon' Sunday Schools were the best that could be found in all the world." (Twenty-fifth edition, 1972, p. 522.)

During the 1920s, some significant milestones in Church history were reached. At the April 1920 general conference, the 100th anniversary of Joseph Smith's First Vision was commemorated. Elder Smith wrote: "Remarks by the brethren had a bearing upon the great work accomplished by the Prophet Joseph Smith, and the authenticity of his story. A cantata by Evan Stephens, which was prepared for the occasion, was presented before a crowded house in the Tabernacle, and special topics were considered in the wards throughout the Church following the April Conference." (Ibid., p. 641.)

Three years later, Church leaders and members observed the 100th anniversary of the revealed existence of the plates of the Book of Mormon by the Angel Moroni to the Prophet Joseph. In B. H. Roberts' History of the Church 6:252-253) is this description: " . . . A celebration by the Eastern States Mission was held at the Joseph Smith farm near Palmyra, New York, and at the Hill Cumorah, continuing through three days, from and including Sept. 21st to the 23rd, 1923. President and Sister Grant honored the occasion by their presence; as did Elder Rudger Clawson, president of the apostles' quorum, and Elders Joseph Fielding Smith and James E. Talmage, members of the same quorum. . . .

"Three meetings were held each day; those held in the morning and afternoon alternating between the Hill Cumorah and the Sacred Grove; the evening meetings being held in a large assembly tent set up adjacent to the Smith Farm home. The third day of the celebration fell upon Sunday. The forenoon meeting was held Sunday morning in the Sacred Grove, where the holy sacrament was administered to the large assembly of saints and elders of the mission. It was an unusual meeting and the Spirit of God was richly poured out upon the people in this 'First God's Temple' of the New Dispensation, where Joseph Smith received his first great vision of God the Father and the Son. . . . "

The international scope of the Church was reflected in an assignment that President Grant gave in the autumn of 1920 to Elder David O. McKay of the Quorum of the Twelve: The 47-year-old apostle was sent on travels around the world in the interest of the Church.

"His instruction was to observe the operation of the Church in remote areas while strengthening and motivating members and leaders alike; to study the administration of the Church school system in the Pacific; and, if he felt inspired to do so, to dedicate the formidable land of China for the preaching of the gospel. Implicit in the assignment was the duty to enhance the image of the Church in the eyes of government officials and the public generally and to be alert to ways in which the work could be advanced in the countries he would visit." (Francis M. Gibbons, David O. McKay — Apostle to the World, Prophet of God, p. 100.)

Elder McKay and his traveling companion, Hugh J. Cannon, editor of the Improvement Era, went by train from Salt Lake City to Vancouver, British Columbia. From there, they embarked on Dec. 7, 1920, on the Empress of Japan. They arrived in Yokohama, their first port of call, on Dec. 22.

By the end of their year-long assignment, they had traveled 61,000 miles, of which more than 23,000 miles were by various forms of transport on land, and some 38,000 miles by water. They visited 15 missions and met with several hundred missionaries. Their travels took them to Asia, Australia and the isles of the Pacific, the Far East, the Middle East, Europe and the British Isles.

The experiences that the apostle had, the people he met and the knowledge he acquired during his world tour had a long-range impact upon the Church as well as on Elder McKay, who served as president of the Church from 1950-1970.

During the 1920s, increasing emphasis was placed upon missionary work. One particularly momentous effort was in March 1921 when Elder Rey L. Pratt and eight elders from the United States, went to Mexico City and other sections of Mexico to resume missionary work that had been interrupted by the Mexican Revolution and subsequent years of difficulty. Although in some districts of the mission, the people had been without the missionary "elders from Zion," in some cases for nine years and in Mexico City and vicinity for seven years, many members had remained faithful. Many people were baptized because of "the work being done by the local native Mexican priesthood." (History of the Church 6:272-273,)

An indication of increasing emphasis on missionary work was the opening of the Missionary Home and Preparatory Training School in 1925. A home, located at 31 N. State St. in Salt Lake City, was purchased, remodeled and furnished to accommodate the missionaries. The home was dedicated Feb. 3, 1925, by President Grant. Other facilities were added as the number of missionaries increased. A week-long program for departing missionaries emphasized gospel topics, Church procedures, personal health and proper manners. The home accommodated the outgoing missionaries until the 1960s.

In 1929, an invaluable missionary effort was brought to the forefront. After Church-owned KSL radio became an affiliate of the National Broadcasting Company, the Tabernacle Choir began a nationwide broadcast every week. The radio station had only one microphone; its broadcasting stopped while a technician carried it from the studio to the Tabernacle. An engineer stood on a ladder, holding the microphone in front of the choir. The choir's weekly program is the longest continuous network broadcast in the world.

That missionary work was a major preoccupation is reflected in the increasing numbers of converts. During the 1920s, more than 11,000 German-speaking people joined the Church. Most converts during the decade, however, "came from English-speaking areas: Great Britain, Canada and the United States, with the Southern States Mission being the most successful. Unfortunately, there, as elsewhere, missionaries were subject to acts of physical violence." (Encyclopedia of Mormonism 2:633-634)

The media, which had played such an active role in arousing "anti-Mormon" sentiment in earlier decades began serving a more positive role. "By the late 1920s President Grant conceded that virtually anything the Church might request could be placed in the media," states Encyclopedia of Mormonism 2:633. "Time Magazine gave President Grant cover treatment, while Hollywood studios completed such favorable motion pictures as 'Union Pacific' and 'Brigham Young.' "

Further, Encyclopedia of Mormonism states: "In part the change in public attitude came from the integration of Church members into the larger American society. Nineteenth-century Latter-day Saints expanded their agricultural settlements throughout the Mountain West and even into Canada and Mexico, although their agrarian communities were often tightly knit, provincial enclaves.

"In contrast, as LDS outmigration continued in the twentieth century, Church members now rubbed shoulders with fellow Americans in urban settings. During the 1920s, for instance, the percentage of Latter-day Saints living in the Intermountain West declined while those living on the American West Coast rose. In 1923 the Los Angeles Stake, the first modern stake outside the traditional Mormon cultural area, was created. Between 1919 and 1927 the number of Latter-day Saints in California increased from fewer than 2,000 to more than 20,000.

"The twentieth-century Church dispersion had begun, first with the migration of large numbers to the West Coast, then also with increasing volume to the East and Midwest."