ain order out of the confusion of the
older methods of administration. But, in 1897, my father proposed a
comprehensive plan of Church finance that included the issuance of
Church bonds and the formation of responsible committees to regulate and
manage the business affairs of the Church, so that the bonds might be
made a normal investment for Eastern capital by having a normal business
method of administration to back them. The idea was tentatively approved
by the Presidency, and I was asked to draw up the plan in detail.

To this end there were placed in my hands sheets showing the assets,
liabilities, revenues and disbursements of the Church. They gave a total
cash indebtedness of $1,200,000, approximately. The revenues from
tithes for the year 1897 were estimated at a trifle more than a million
dollars--the total being low because of the financial depression
from which the country was just recovering. The available property
holdings--exclusive of premises used for religious worship, for
educational and benevolent work, and such kindred purposes--were valued
at several millions (from four to six), although there was no definite
appraisal or means of obtaining appraisal, since the values would
largely attach only when the properties were brought into business use.
I was advised that the incomes of the Church would probably increase
at the rate of ten per cent per annum, but I do not know by what
calculations this ratio was reached.

The disbursements were chiefly for interest on debt, for the maintenance
of the temples and tabernacles, for educational and charitable work,
for missionary headquarters in other countries, and for the return
of released missionaries. The missionaries themselves received no
compensation; they were supposed to travel "without purse or scrip;"
their expenses were defrayed by their relatives, and they had to pay
out of their own pockets for the printed tracts which they distributed.
Neither the President nor any of the general authorities received
salaries. There was an order that each apostle should be paid $2,000 a
year, but this rule had been suspended, except, perhaps, in the cases
of men who had to give their whole time to religious work and who had
no independent incomes. Some occasional appropriations had been made for
meeting houses in communities that had been unable to erect their own
chapels of worship, but for the most part there were few calls made upon
the Church revenues to sup