By the late 1950’s the Bishop’s Storehouse had net resources in farms, plants, and other welfare enterprises of about $50,000,000 and attracted wide attention. In 1960 the New York Times stated that the Mormon welfare program was based on the proposition that the responsibility for man’s economic maintenance rests on himself and that the church should come into play into play to help a church member help himself. The Times rightly noted that this principle was also the basis of the farm program of Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, who was one of the Twelve Apostles governing the modern church.