A FRESH START

            Before the mid-nineteen thirties the straln of the long depression was beginning to tell, even in Brigham City, somewhat isolated from urban and industrial distress. For the most part the impact of the economic disaster had not been so drastically and suddenly felt as had been the case in the big cities. Gradually it became clear, however, that the farmers would have little or no cash income. In increasing numbers they were unable to find cash for supplies and seeds or to meet their bills for such things already obtained. Banks were unable to extend more credit and Clem, who was struggling to keep the door open to the general merchandise store had found it hard to refuse the pleas of long-time friends and neighbors from allover the county. By the time the situation reached crisis proportions some unpaid accounts were years old but the debtors still kept coming back for more credit. Clem's compassion oft times exceeded his practical judgment. He and his family were experiencing hard times with the rest. There was very little cash income at the store and the wholesale houses were restricting the extension of credit.

            Night after night he brought the account books home and spread them out on the dinng room table. Whenever he had a few moments or an hour's time off from church duties and meetings he carefully checked through each account one by one, to see which off those who owed money might possibly be expected to pay at least something. Time and again he would pause for a minute, put his hand to his forehead, close his eyes and say, "You can't get blood out of a turnip.” Once he pounded his fist on the table and said loudly enough to be heard allover the house, "Confound it, confound it, how long will this go on Some of these people are in bad shape. I don't know how they live from day.”

            The noble spirit within him despised the idea of pay and money from those who were destitute, yet he had to live too. These were times when he had constant occasion to give and not receive, but in order to continue to do so he realized he would have to borrow or sacrifice personal necessities.
Once he brought home a tramp for dinner, who, he explained, was "poorer than we are.”'We have something, he has nothing,” he said. "We will share." But the meal had been prepared with portions planned for only the usual family members at the table, so he feigned a slight stomach distress and felt it would be the better part of wisdom not to put anything in it for a few hours.

            A long-time customer came into the store one morning showing his concern with deep-furrowed brow as he sat across from Clem's desk trying to decide what to say. After a few moments he took out his leather purse with snap closed top and poured its contents out on to the desk. "There's forty-two dollars we've managed to save up, Brother Clem. I know we owe you several times that much so we ought, by rights, to pay some on our account. But, if we do then we'll have to charge again for this year's seed. Seems like we're in a rut going round and round in a circle. Don't know when we'll ever get a fresh start again. There's just no way out. My back's agin the wall."

Although he heard all that was said to him, the words, "a fresh start," kept ringing over and over again in Clem's ears, louder than all the others. Yes, that's what these people needed, as much as anything, a fresh start.

~o be free from the chains of indebtedness, to start allover again, how refreshing for everyone that would be.

            "Confound it, suppose we forget about what's on the books," he said to
the man on the other side of the desk. "Suppose we act like there never was anything owing." He took his pencil and cross-marked the whole page in the account book. "Take the forty-two dollars and buy your seed for a fresh start."

            The man left the store with tears running down his cheeks, and Clem put
on his hat and walked out to the street for his usual morning jaunt down to the bank. Coming out of the bank he met the doctor and they talked for a few minutes about the subject that had long since crowded out the weather as the ever present topic of discussion.

            Doc mentioned that, "at least our people seem to be suffering it out with some degree of human dignity. We haven't had the farmers gathering together with pitchforks to stop the sheriff's foreclosures as they did in Iowa, and
I haven't seen any hungry men sorting through the garbage cans as they have been doing in the back alleys of Philadelphia and Boston."

            "Yes, we have a lot to be thankful for," said Clem. "Our people are of good stock. They'd be able to take care of themselves if they didn't have the burden of heavy debts on their backs. What they need is a fresh start."

            "Well, I guess you and I see eye to eye on this matter, Clem. I've worried for some time about the health of these people who are too proud to come in for needed medical assistance because they still owe me for past services. Some of those bills can never be paid till hell freezes over, and in the meantime there's sick people and new-born babies without proper care. I took the bull by the horns last week and wrote off over thirty-five thousand dollars in bad debts that I know I'll never collect. Then I sent word out for people to bury their pride and come in to see me."

Clem didn't mention his own experience of that morning but he thought to himself  "I've known all along that the doctor is a better Latter-day Saint than the rest of us put together. Maybe what he's done is the answer to the problem and an example for me."

            That night he spread the books out on the dining table again and before he went to bed there were many pages of past due accounts with penned cross marks running through them. But there was much more yet to be done to get at the heart of the problem.

A broad government program based on regulation, structured economic planning and interference in general was hardly reconcilable with the tradition of stark individualism, the Mormon birthright. Mormonism would have to come up with its own solution, and it did. Clem made several trips to Salt Lake and was, at least indirectly, involved in the preparations which led to he announcement of the inspired and now world famous Mormon welfare plan, which has been pioneered by Salt Lake people.