Ezra Taft Benson (August 4, 1899 – May 30, 1994) was an American farmer, federal government official, and religious leader. He served as the 15th United States Secretary of Agriculture during the entirety of both presidential terms of Dwight D. Eisenhower; he was the 13th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1985 until his death in 1994.
Early life
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 to be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1846. When he was 12 years old, his father was called as a missionary to the midwestern United States, leaving his expectant mother alone with seven children. Benson took much of the responsibility for running the family farm and in the words of his sister, "He took the place of father for nearly two years." Benson began his academic career at the Oneida Stake Academy in Preston, Idaho and graduated in 1918. He then attended 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 worked on the family farm."President Ezra Taft Benson: A Sure Voice of Faith", Ensign, July 1994.
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 Benson came to realize how central the Book of Mormon was to the message of the church and in converting people to it. Due to local antagonism and threats of violence, LDS Church leaders sent apostle David O. McKay to personally oversee the mission. McKay was impressed with Benson and appointed him as president of the Newcastle Conference.Bringhurst, N. G., & Foster, C. L. (2011). The Mormon quest for the presidency: from Joseph Smith to Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books. page 134-135
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 had six children together. Benson received a master of science degree in agricultural economics in 1927 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. Benson encouraged crop rotation, improved grains, fertilizers, pest controls, and establishment of farmer's cooperatives to market farm commodities.Bringhurst, N. G., & Foster, C. L. (2011). The Mormon quest for the presidency: from Joseph Smith to Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books. page 135
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. Benson was a critic of national agricultural policies implemented in the 1930s under Franklin D. Roosevelt. In particular, he objected to farm subsidies, and efforts by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to raise prices by paying farmers to destroy crops and kill livestock.Bringhurst, N. G., & Foster, C. L. (2011). The Mormon quest for the presidency: from Joseph Smith to Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books. p. 136
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, overseeing around five thousand farm cooperatives which represented two million farmers throughout the country.Harris, M. L. (2019). Thunder from the right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. See also: "Ezra Taft Benson Biographical Sketch" , Box 26 Folder 2, William J. Grede Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin; and Benson, So Shall Ye Reap, 333–342
Benson became the first president of a new church stake in Washington, D.C.
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 the church leadership. 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. Since Kimball was four years older than Benson, Kimball was ordained first and was given seniority over Benson in the Quorum. Benson became President of the Quorum in 1973 when Kimball became President of the Church.
In 1946, the First Presidency sent Benson to Europe to oversee the church's relief efforts after World War II. He spent eleven months there, traveling 61,000 miles and supervising two thousand tons of relief supplies, including to Germany and Poland.Harris, M. L. (2019). Thunder from the right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Recalling this experience, he wrote to his wife, "I'm so grateful you and the children can be spared the views of the terrible ravages of war. I fear I'll never be able to erase them from my memory."A Labor of Love: The 1946 European Mission of Ezra Taft Benson (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989 pg. 188-189 Apostle Gordon B. Hinckley noted of Benson's experience in Europe, "I am confident that it was out of what he saw of the bitter fruit of dictatorship that he developed his strong feelings, almost hatred, for communism and socialism."Gordon B. Hinckley, "Farewell to a Prophet", Ensign, July 1994.
On April 25, 1950, Benson was married vicariously to his never married and recently deceased cousin, Eva Amanda Benson, with his wife standing in as proxy.
On September 16, 1980, he dedicated the newly renamed Ezra Taft Benson Building at Ricks College.
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. He became the first clergy member to be a cabinet secretary since Edward Everett in 1852, which created some controversy as crossing a boundary between church and state.Bringhurst, N. G., & Foster, C. L. (2011). The Mormon quest for the presidency: from Joseph Smith to Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books. page 138 The American Council of Churches opposed Benson for being a member of what they felt was a "pagan religion...hostile to the Biblical evangelical Christian faith."Bringhurst, N. G., & Foster, C. L. (2011). The Mormon quest for the presidency: from Joseph Smith to Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books. p. 139
At the time of assuming office, the Department of Agriculture had 78,000 employees and an annual budget of $2.1 billion.Bringhurst, N. G., & Foster, C. L. (2011). The Mormon quest for the presidency: from Joseph Smith to Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books. page 139
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. Furthermore, farming in the United States was increasingly becoming large scale agribusiness at the expense of the small farmer, and Benson was opposed to outsized portions of these government subsidies being apportioned to these large companies.Bringhurst, N. G., & Foster, C. L. (2011). The Mormon quest for the presidency: from Joseph Smith to Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books. page 140 He was once pelted with eggs by a group of South Dakota farmers over his efforts to reduce price controls. Another time, 21 congressmen from the Midwest stormed his office requesting he not lift price controls on hogs, which he refused to do, and later noted that the prices rose on their own. 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.
As Benson's term came to an end in 1961, farm commodity prices had risen 10% from the previous year, and Benson's popularity increased.Bringhurst, N. G., & Foster, C. L. (2011). The Mormon quest for the presidency: from Joseph Smith to Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books. p. 140
In 1968, the John Birch Society (JBS) made an effort to nominate Benson as a presidential candidate, with segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond as vice president, for which Benson sought and obtained approval from LDS Church president David O. McKay.Harris, M. L. (2019). Thunder from the right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Several months later, Benson flew to Alabama to meet with segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace, who asked Benson to become his vice presidential running mate for the presidency. This time McKay refused Benson's request, even after Wallace himself wrote to McKay.Harris, M. L., & Bringhurst, N. G. (2015). The Mormon Church and Blacks: a documentary history. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Dew, Ezra Taft Benson, 392
Benson's interest in politics could be seen in the subjects he chose for his biannual addresses at general conference. Three-quarters of Benson's 20 sermons at general conference during the 1960s were on a political theme. In addition, Benson gave hundreds of other talks discussing Communism and how to combat it.Gibbons, F. M. (1996). Ezra Taft Benson: statesman, patriot, prophet of God. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Co. p. 240.
Like Robert A. Taft, Benson supported a non-interventionist foreign policy.
In August 1989, Benson received the Presidential Citizens Medal from U.S. President George H. W. Bush.
Benson was a vocal proponent of limited government, individual liberty, and free-market economics. As Secretary of Agriculture, he implemented policies aimed at reducing government intervention in agriculture, including efforts to phase out price supports and promote self-reliance among farmers. A fierce critic of communism and socialism, Benson warned against the erosion of constitutional freedoms and centralized power, drawing heavily on his belief in the principles of the U.S. Constitution. He integrated these ideals into his religious teachings, frequently emphasizing personal responsibility, moral agency, and the dangers of government overreach.
Anti-communism efforts