Ezra Taft Benson’s biography, net worth, fact, career, awards and life story

Ezra Taft Benson (August 4, 1899 – May 30, 1994) was an American farmer, government official, and religious leader who served as United States Secretary of Agriculture during both presidential terms of Dwight D. Eisenhower and as thirteenth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1985 until his death in 1994. He was the last president of the LDS Church born in the 19th century.

Biography

Born on a farm in Whitney, Idaho, Benson was the oldest of eleven children. He was the great-grandson of Ezra T. Benson, who was appointed by Brigham Young a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1846. 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 work on the family farm.

Benson served an LDS Church mission in Britain from 1921 to 1923. It was while serving as a missionary, particularly an experience in Sheffield, that caused Benson to realize how central the Book of Mormon was to the Restored Gospel message and converting people to the LDS Church. On his mission, he served as president of the Newcastle Conference.

After his mission, Benson studied at Brigham Young University and finished his bachelor’s degree there in 1926. That year he married Flora Smith Amussen, shortly after her return from a mission in Hawaii. They became the parents of six children. Benson received his master’s degree from Iowa State University. Several years later, he did preliminary work on a doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley, but never completed it.

Just after receiving his master’s degree, Benson returned to Whitney to run the family farm. He later became the county agriculture extension agent for Oneida County, Idaho. He later was promoted to the supervisor of all county agents and moved to Boise in 1930.

While in Boise, Benson also worked in the central state extension office connected with the University of Idaho Extension Service. He also founded a farmers cooperative. Benson was superintendent of the Boise Stake Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association and later a counselor in the stake presidency. In 1939, he became president of the Boise Idaho Stake. Later that year, he moved to Washington, D.C., to become Executive Secretary of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, and became the first president of a new church stake in Washington.

In August 1989, Benson received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President George H. W. Bush.

Apostle

In 1943, Benson went to Salt Lake City to ask church leaders for advice on whether to accept a new job. They unexpectedly told him that he would join them. On October 7, 1943, both Benson and Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) became members of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, filling two vacancies created by the deaths of apostles that summer. Because Kimball was older than Benson and was therefore ordained first, he was given seniority over Benson in the Quorum. Upon Kimball’s death in 1985, Benson became the president of the church in his place.

Benson’s interest in politics could be seen in the subjects he chose for his biannual addresses at General Conference. In 1967, for example, he asked David O. McKay for permission to speak on “how the Communists are using the Negros to … foment trouble in the United States”. While McKay allowed Benson to speak on this subject, other church apostles were opposed to Benson’s positions. (McKay did occasionally take action to limit Benson’s use of the church to promote the John Birch Society, such as when he deleted a couple of paragraphs from Benson’s 1965 conference address after a complaint from Hugh B. Brown.) When Joseph Fielding Smith became church president, Benson was no longer given permission to promote his political opinions.

Benson’s teachings as an apostle were the 2015 course of study in the LDS Church’s Sunday Relief Society and Melchizedek priesthood classes.

Political career

In 1948, Republican presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey approached Benson before the election that year about becoming the United States Secretary of Agriculture. Although Benson had supported his distant cousin Robert A. Taft over Dwight D. Eisenhower for the 1952 Republican nomination and did not know Eisenhower, after his election Eisenhower nevertheless appointed Benson as Secretary of Agriculture. Benson accepted with the permission and encouragement of church president David O. McKay; Benson therefore served simultaneously in the United States Cabinet and in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Benson opposed the system of government price supports and aid to farmers which he was entrusted by Eisenhower to administer, arguing that it amounted to unacceptable socialism. Nonetheless, he served in his cabinet position for all eight years of Eisenhower’s presidency. He was selected as the administrator-designate of the Emergency Food Agency, part of a secret group that became known as the Eisenhower Ten. The group was created by Eisenhower in 1958 to serve in the event of a national emergency.

Benson was an outspoken opponent of communism and socialism, and a supporter, but not a member, of the John Birch Society, which he praised as “the most effective non-church organization in our fight against creeping socialism and Godless Communism.” He published a 1966 pamphlet entitled “Civil Rights, Tool of Communist Deception”. In a similar vein, during a 1972 general conference of the LDS Church, Benson recommended that all members of the church read Gary Allen’s New World Order tract “None Dare Call it A Conspiracy”.

Church presidency

Benson succeeded Kimball as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1973, and as church president in 1985. During his early years as church president, Benson brought a renewed emphasis to the distribution and reading of the Book of Mormon, reaffirming this LDS scripture’s importance as “the keystone of [the LDS] religion.” After his challenge to the membership to “flood the earth with the Book of Mormon”, the church sold a record six million copies of the Book of Mormon that year to its membership for distribution. He is also remembered for a general conference sermon condemning pride.

Scouting

Benson was a lifelong supporter of Scouting. He started in 1918 as assistant Scoutmaster. On May 23, 1949, he was elected a member of the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America. He received the three highest national awards in the Boy Scouts of America—the Silver Beaver, the Silver Antelope, and the Silver Buffalo—as well as world Scouting’s international award, the Bronze Wolf.

Health problems and death

Benson suffered poor health in the last years of his life from the effects of blood clots in the brain, dementia, strokes, and heart attacks, and was rarely seen publicly in his final years. He was hospitalized in 1992 and 1993 with pneumonia.

Benson died May 30, 1994, of congestive heart failure in his Salt Lake City apartment at the age of 94. Funeral services were held June 4, 1994, in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and conducted by Gordon B. Hinckley. He was buried near his birthplace in Whitney, Idaho, at the Whitney City Cemetery. Howard W. Hunter succeeded Benson as LDS Church president.

Published works

• Reed A. Benson., ed. (1960). So Shall Ye Reap: Selected Addresses of Ezra Taft Benson. Deseret Book Company. ASIN B0007E7BME. 
• The Red Carpet. Bookcraft. 1962. ASIN B0007F4WJI. 
• Title of Liberty. compiled by Mark A. Benson. Deseret Book. 1964. 
• An Enemy Hath Done This. Bookcraft. 1969. ISBN 0-88494-184-1. 
• Civil Rights, Tool of Communist Deception. Deseret Book. 1969. ASIN B0007FRU42. 
• God, Family, Country: Our Three Great Loyalties. Deseret Book. 1974. ASIN B0006CF3MC. 
• Cross Fire: The Eight Years With Eisenhower. Doubleday. 1976. ISBN 0-8371-8422-3. 
• This Nation Shall Endure. Deseret Book. 1977. ISBN 0-87747-658-6. 
• Come Unto Christ. Deseret Book. 1983. ISBN 0-87747-997-6. 
• The Constitution: A Heavenly Banner. Deseret Book. 1986. ISBN 0-87579-216-2. 
• The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson. Bookcraft. 1988. ISBN 0-88494-639-8. 
• A Witness and a Warning: A Modern-Day Prophet Testifies of the Book of Mormon. Deseret Book. 1988. ISBN 0-87579-153-0. 
• A Labor of Love: The 1946 European Mission of Ezra Taft Benson. Deseret Book. 1989. ISBN 0-87579-275-8. 
• Come, Listen to a Prophet’s Voice. Deseret Book. 1990. ISBN 0-87579-351-7. 
• Missionaries to Match Our Message. Bookcraft. 1990. ISBN 0-88494-779-3. 
• Elect Women of God. Bookcraft. 1992. ISBN 0-88494-838-2. 
• Sermons and Writings of President Ezra Taft Benson. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 2003. 
• Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 2014. 

Benson also wrote the foreword to The Black Hammer, a book by Wes Andrews and Clyde Dalton. In the foreword, Benson alleges that the Civil Rights Movement is a communist plot for revolution in America.

Posthumous honors

• Idaho Hall of Fame, inducted 1997
• Ezra Taft Benson Building, Brigham Young University–Idaho

• “Franklin County – Idahoans on loan to the world”. Idahoshalloffame.org. Retrieved 2017-01-28. 
• “Ezra Taft Benson Building”. Byui.edu. 1977-09-27. Retrieved 2017-01-28.