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Show THE UTAH INDEPENDENT February 12, 1970 Page 6 (Reprinted from World Magazine) Kannacott Corporation's 1966 Annual Report Now $20 million precipitation plant near the Bingham Canyon Copper Mine will increase production from 2f250 to 6,000 tons per month. poor in practice. Its predominantly white staff leans toward protecting the jealously guarded seniority rights of a section of older, white workers. It is not inclined to go to bat against discriminatory hiring policies. Nationally, the union has lost .several suits brought by the NAACP against unfair promotion practices. But no such suit has yet been brought in Utah, because the majority of workers at the Geneva mill are also Mormons, and it is difficult to challenge the power of the Church, which extends far beyond .gion. O It used to be said among copper ers that Utah mines were veritable minman-trap- s, that nowhere can a worker get leaded, gassed, crushed or poisoned with arsenic or copper water more easily than in Utah." The former Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers Union changed all that. Safety conditions have improved, but since Mine, Mill merged with the United Steel Workers, the struggle against racism in Utahs copper industry has not advanced. In 1959, when the Kennecott Copper Company purchased the Garfield, Utah, Smelter from Rockefeller for $18.5 million, it inherited the only Negro wokers now employed there. Today, of 950 men in n and the local, 400 are 50 are Puerto Rican. The company hires black Puerto Rican workers, but not blacks native to the United States. Kennecott owns the copper mine at Bingham , Utah, the largest producer of copper in the United States. The open pit there rises like a huge stadium, covering 956 acres, its levels like bleacher seats for giants. Here a mountain is being eaten away by electric shovels, and automation has boosted production, but not wages. A worker told me, I am no better """ off than I was in 1950, although I am now four as times much. producing A director of Kennecott, Roy William Simmons, is at the same time president of Zions (Mormon) First National Bank, president and director of Zions Utah Bancorp, chairman of the board of Zions Savings & Loan Association, director of the Mormon-owne- d Beneficial Life Insurance of Company and the Hotel Utah. The editors of the Atlantic in its July, Mexican-America- study of communications monopolies, pointed out that Bonneville International, affiliated with the Mormon Church, is a Salt Lake City barony engaged in a variety of enterprises to the value of $60 to $75 million. Bonneville also holds a interest in the $20 million (just under Los Angeles Times. The Mormon Church may be the most extraordinary example of regional power, says the Atlantic. Through an affiliate, the Bonneville International, the Church of the Latter Day Saints not only has extensive broadcast interests of its own but has negotiated a set of alliances with other Salt Lake City media owners, giving the combined group a mighty voice throughout the mountain states of the West In Utah, Bonneville owns two TV and three radio stations, and a newspaper. In addition, its holdings include TV stations in Seattle, Los Angeles and Kansas City, five international shortwave stations, and the interest in the Los Angeles Times already mentioned. Arch L. Madsen, president of Bonneville International, was asked in a church publication, Why are the electronic mass media so important to the church? Mr. Madsen answered, in part, Because they are such effective communications tools. As a church our task is to fulfill the Lords purposes and carry the truth forward until it has penetrated every continent, and sounded in every ear. Mr. Madsens view of the truth is being challenged in a case now pending before the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, which aims to block renewal of the TV license of KSL, powerful voice of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City. 1969, 5) It seems clear that the Latter Day Saints are very much in the world. A former professor at the University of Utah, William Mulder has written (Among the Mormons, Knopf) Combining strong cen- tral direction with considerable local itiative, the (Mormon) institution is strong and solvent. The Council of the Twelve Apostles, serving as a corporation board of directors, manages a wealthy philanthropy. Mormon Apostles who have taken an active part in government include Reed Smoot, watch dog of the U.S. Treasury for Herbert Hoover, and Ezra Taft Benson, Eisenhowers Secretary of Agriculture. Nels Anderson, in his book Desert Saints (Chicago, 1942), said of Smoot: No one has ever heard the chairman of the Finance Committee raise his apostolic voice in the interests of humanity. Champion of a theological laissez-fair- e political above he is and economy, beyond the groveling masses. At protecting large in Hale-Whart- H. Budge, R. of Idaho, are Mormon leaders, as are Senators Wallace F. Bennett (R) and Frank E. Moss (D) of Utah, and Senator Howard Cannon (D) of Nevada. Seven members of the House of Representatives are Mormons, and Whos Who lists Utahs Congressman Laurence J. Burton (R) as both a member of the Mormon Church and the American Legion. The economic and political power of the Mormon hierarchy coincides with the interest of monopoly capital and must be fought as such. Ed Hunt O Two residents of that city, Ethel Hale and Paul Wharton, have documented their charge that on KSL civil rights questions receive biased or no coverage, that excessive right wing propaganda is broadcast with no provision for opposing views, and that such concentration of power in the ownership of communications is inconsistent with the public interest. In June, 1969, the FCC voted to send the information to the Justice Department to determine if anti-truviolations are involved. in- comes and running to the aid of vested interests he is rarely beaten. ' In the Nixon Administration, also believers in the sanctity of authority and the divinity of capitalism, Mormons have found a welcome place. Nixons cabinet includes two Mormons: David Kennedy, Secretary of the Treasury is chairman of the Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints Clubs. George Romney, Secretary of Housing, and the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Hamer on st Kannocott's Bingham Cappar Mina |
