![]() Murrow, This I Believe. I have shared these thoughts with smaller groups on one or two previous occasions, although not in precisely the same language. I have chosen as a title for this talk the title of a small book put out many years ago by Edward R. While I speak in a personal vein, I feel the things I mention are of universal application. I hope you will not think me egotistical. I hope you will not think me arrogant or conceited or self-righteous in doing so. I have a few personal articles of belief, ten to be exact, that I have tried to observe over the years and which this evening I would like to share with you. The thirteen articles of faith enunciated by Joseph Smith have stood as an expression of doctrine ever since 1842, when they were written as a concise statement of our theology. Everyone of us is largely the product of his or her beliefs. It was their beliefs and the motivation that came therefrom that pulled them through. I can think of scores of my peers who had nothing in those days but who, somehow, with the blessings of heaven, went forward and became men and women of strength and substance as they walked a straight and steady course, guided by principles to which they held with steadfastness. ![]() But we dated, we danced, we had a lot of fun while worrying about life, and somehow we made it and pulled through. Cars were cheaper then, but few could afford one. ![]() Yet notwithstanding this, there was much joy in our lives. It was into that world of economic distress that we of the class of ’32 arrived, breathing something of an air of cynicism. Many with greater faith held on tenaciously as they sank into the pit of poverty. Men saw their savings vanish, and some, with nothing to live for, took their own lives. The unemployment rate was not the 5 or 6 or 7 percent over which we worry today, but more than 30 percent. It was at the bottom of the great worldwide depression. That was a dark season, that year of 1932. This coming June it will be sixty years ago that we proudly and happily marched in a processional, listened to a commencement address of which I remember absolutely nothing, and went out to face the world. It dawned on me the other day that I was part of a graduating class of a sister institution in 1932. ![]() Even with that constant pressure, I think everyone of you would say it is a wonderful thing and a wonderful time to be alive and that you would not trade places with anyone else in the world. You are dreaming of happy and enduring relationships to come-although there is very little time to dream while you work to hold up to the extreme pressure of your studies. You are sparring around trying to be attractive to some young man or some young woman, whichever the case may be. Others of you, most of you, are looking in the direction of marriage. Some of you are married, and I hope it is all you dreamed it would be. You are struggling to prepare yourselves to find “a place in the sun.” You are looking ahead rather than looking back. It is always a wonderful thing to meet with university students. ![]()
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