80 years ago today - Jun 1, 1945

The Improvement Era, states: "When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done." This is the ward teacher's message to all members for the month. To an inquiring Unitarian minister George Albert Smith writes that "not a few members of the Church have been upset in their feelings, and General Authorities have been embarrassed" by the above statement. "Even to imply that members of the Church are not to do their own thinking is grossly to misrepresent the true ideal of the Church," he continues. However, the church president's retraction reaches one non-Mormon, while the original statement reaches the entire LDS population without a similar correction.

[The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]