Ezra Taft Benson

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Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1994), an American farmer, government official, and religious leader who served as the 15th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1985 to 1994.

Early life

Benson, who was born on a farm in Whitney, Idaho, was the oldest of eleven children. He was the grandson of Ezra T. Benson, who was elected by Brigham Young to be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1846. When he was 12 years old, his father was sent as a missionary to the Midwestern United States, leaving his pregnant mother alone with seven children. Benson assumed a lot of the farm's running, but his sister said, "He took the place of father for almost two years." Benson began his academic career at Utah State Agricultural College (USAC, modern Utah State University), where he first met his future wife, Flora Smith Amussen. Benson alternated quarters at USAC and spent time on the family farm.

Benson served in the United Kingdom from 1921 to 1923 as a LDS Church missioner. It was during his service as a missionary, particularly in Sheffield, that Benson learned how important the Book of Mormon was to the church's message and in converting people to it. Apostle David O. McKay was sent by LDS Church leaders to personally oversee the mission due to local protestation and threats of violence. McKay was captivated by Benson and named him as the president of the Newcastle Conference.

Benson completed his bachelor's degree at Brigham Young University after his mission. He married Flora Smith Amussen in Hawaii the year after she returned from a mission in Hawaii. They had six children together. Benson received a master of science degree in agricultural economics from Iowa State University in 1927. Several years later, he did preliminary work on a doctorate at the University of California in Berkeley but never finished it.

Benson returned to Whitney to oversee the family farm shortly after receiving his master's degree. He later became the county agriculture extension agent for Oneida County, Idaho. In 1930, he was promoted to be the head of all county agents and moved to Boise. Benson promoted crop rotation, improved grains, fertilizers, rodent monitoring, and the establishment of farmer's cooperatives to sell farm products.

While living in Boise, Benson served in the University of Idaho Extension Service's central state extension office. He also started a farmers cooperative. Benson was the superintendent of the Boise Stake Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association and later a counselor in the stake presidency. Under Franklin D. Roosevelt, Benson was a critic of national agricultural policies in the 1930s. He objected to farm subsidies, as well as efforts by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration's attempts to raise prices by paying farmers to destroy crops and kill livestock.

He became president of the Boise Idaho Stake in 1939. He migrated from Washington, D.C., to become Executive Secretary of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, which was responsible for over five thousand farm cooperatives nationwide, representing two million farmers.

In Washington, D.C., Benson became the first president of a new church stake.

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Political career

Thomas E. Dewey, a Republican presidential nominee from 1948, approached Benson about becoming the United States Secretary of Agriculture before the election was held the following year. Despite Benson's election, he still nominates Robert A. Taft as Secretary of Agriculture after he voted Dwight D. Eisenhower for the 1952 Republican nomination and did not know Eisenhower. Benson accepted with the permission and support of church president David O. McKay; he continued to serve in both the United States Cabinet and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles simultaneously. He became the first clergy member to serve as a cabinet secretary after Edward Everett in 1852, causing a little controversy when crossing a boundary between church and state. Benson was condemned by the American Council of Churches for his opposition to him as a member of what they perceived as a "pagan faith...hostile to the Biblical Christian faith."

The Department of Agriculture had 78,000 workers and a $2.1 billion budget at the time when it was assumed office.

Benson opposed the system of government price subsidies and assistance to farmers, which he had been entrusted by Eisenhower to handle, saying that it was in violation of unacceptable socialism. In addition, farming in the United States was increasingly competitive, and Benson was resistant to outsized portions of these government subsidies being distributed to these large corporations. A group of South Dakota farmers once pelted him with eggs for the purpose of lowering price controls, but not for long. 21 congressman from the midwest screamed over his office for refusing to lift price controls on hogs, something he refused to do, although later found that the prices had increased on their own. Despite this, he remained in his cabinet position for the entire eight years during Eisenhower's presidency. He was chosen as the administrator-designate of the Emergency Food Agency, which was part of a little-known group known as the Eisenhower Tent. Eisenhower's group was established in 1958 to act in the case of a national emergency.

Farm commodity prices had risen 10% from the previous year, and Benson's fame came to an end in 1961.

The John Birch Society (JBS) attempted to nominate Benson as a presidential nominee in 1968, with segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond as Vice President, for which Benson sought and received permission from LDS Church president David O. McKay. Several months later, Benson travelled to Alabama to speak with segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace, who had asked Benson to be his vice presidential running mate for the presidency. And after Wallace himself wrote to McKay, this time McKay refused Benson's request.

In the topics he chose for his biannual addresses at the general conference, Benson's interest in politics could be seen. The majority of Benson's 20 sermons at a general conference in the 1960s were on a national theme. In addition, Benson held hundreds of other talks about Communism and how to combat it.

Benson, like Robert A. Taft, favoured a non-interventionist foreign policy.

Benson was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by US President George H. Bush in August 1989.

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