The day after President McKinley had called for 125,000 volunteers for the Spanish American war Apostle Brigham Young Jr. gives a talk in the Tabernacle: "It is wrong for us to think of sending our young men to Cuba to fight in the present conflict. The fact that they would go from these lofty mountains into the malarial swamps of the South would make them much more liable to catch fevers and perish than volunteers from almost any other part of the country. There are other ways in which we can show our patriotism than by sending our sons to fight for our country at this crisis. The United States needs money with which to prosecute this war, and it will be far better for us to subscribe to this $50,000,000 bond issue than to send volunteers to perish miserably and uselessly in the swamps of the Southern coast." The next day Young is chastised by President Wilford Woodruff for speaking without authorization and told not to oppose the enlistment of Mormon volunteers.
[Source: On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com]
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