Show 1NSUE OFSMOOT I A I BY MORMON TEACHER V SJllS UP GHURCH Bishop Orders Nicol Hood Suspended From Class APOSTLE WRITES LETTERS I Suspects Democratic Brother of Writing to the Press Anonymous Communication in Democratic Demo-cratic Organ Brings Hood Under V Displeasure of Authorities V Perilous Indeed is the path of politics for one in the bosom of the Mormon church if the experience of Nicol Hood of Sugar House ward is any criterion Mr Hood has been a lifelong and faithful member of the church When I the announcement went fqrth that the Mormons were at liberty to consult their own inclinations and Judgment In matters political he took the authorities at their woid and became a Democrat Not only that but he remained a Democrat Dem-ocrat through all the vicissitudes of his party NOMDEPLTJME NO PROTECTION When Apostle Smoot was elected to the United States Senate Mr Hood expressed ex-pressed his candid l sentiments in a letter let-ter to the Democratic organ He took advantage of the nomdeplume Citizen Citi-zen but even this proved no ptelec lion from the inquisitors oC the church Within rt day or two after the appearance appear-ance of the article ApostluSenatorclect wrote two letters to discover the authorship I au-thorship of the newspaper article Five days afterward the superintendent of the Sugar ward Sundayschool was directed di-rected to remove Mr Hood from the clabs which he was teacher and one week aftci the offending contribution was printed Its author was visited by the Bishop and hia two counsellors and Informed that he was suspended from his religious duties The article above referred to appeared in the Herald of January CtJi and reads as follows HOODS ARTICLE To the Salt Lake Herald Now that the ficnatorhhlp has been nettled and Rcid Smoot Is home In Provo shaking hands with hlimclf for being the first financial political apostle ever elected to the United States Senate a word or two from t member of the Mormon church In regard to how his political 1 ambition la looked upon by a largo following of the church may not be out of place That SL great number both Democrats and Republicans members or the Mor ConUnucil on page 71 7 I V i ENSURE Of SMOOT Continued from page Lion L-ion church nro thoroughly disgusted l uwl others Very much dissatisfied with Kied Smoots political ambition Is well known throughout the whole State The ucsllon H I often asked What bcncllt Is this church to derive from Reed SmootH election to the position of Senator lie ays In bin speech of acceptance that his whom time nnd efforts will be given to ho Jllllng oC thin high ofilcc Docs thiit mean ho will resign bin apostleship or do ho church authorities allow this man Privileges they deny to others Jf so why I A great many of tho Mormon I > co Tile arc puzzled over these things and you can hear questions iico these discussed on street corners In street cars and In nf ces and stores and while there Is l a dl crslty of opinion yet tho fact remains hut today I tho church Internally la l racked to pieces over politics poltca I Rood Smoot 1M l a pronounced parllsan so Is Aposllo John Henry Smith and for that muter so Is Joseph F Smith and It looks politically as It thoy have no use for their Democratic brethren In Democratc olltlcs and not much use fo them In church except to pay their tithing fast omulona and a great many other donu lonn too numerous to mention here So hat I tho church leaders aro practically csponslblo for tho dissensions In tile church loll and as tho question was skcd tho wrier the other day whether Apostle Smoot would rather have bin ipostlcshlp In the church and sec his church united and living In peace with all tho world or have a seal In the United Suite Semite and see his brethren divided alI the members of the church at logger icadK mcqhers another and giving tho enemies of the church I chance to Use his political ambition as a weapon to blackguard black-guard tho church nnd its principles and > ordinance the answer given was that In the writers opinion the upoHtlo would chooso the latter but In order to get It correct I will imams It up to Brother Smoot There Is an old scriptural saying As VLI the priest ho with the people and It never wns more verified than It Is tony to-ny In the Mormon church all over Utah 1ho Mormon people arc very much like t he children of Israel In oldon lays they ollowcd their lenders When the lead era did rood time people were good When he leaders did evil the people followed Milt I was not so much that the peo ilc wanted to be bad but they wanted to please their lendcro null so It Is to tiny When it was announced prior to the election that Apostlo Reed Smoot wns a candidate for the Scnatorship is was nkcn for granted by the Mormon Rcpub loanfe that Apoatlo Smoot hud received permission from the church authorities to make tho announcement and from the Ime I of his tea party announcement of his political ambition to he Senator from Utah till the day of election the battle cry of the unscrupulous l Mormon Ropub Ican anti In somo cases n nonMormon Republican waR that It would plenso the Irst presidency to have Apostln Smoot represent the Mormon people In the Senile Sen-ile of the tnlted States so therefore vote tho Republican ticket and help to send him there onl I dont charge that tho first presidency gave theso people tho authority to uso heir name in this munncr but I do charge that It was used to further the political ambition of Apostle Smoot and while I am a pronounced Democrat I hopo the Denocnitlc party will nuvnr stoop to such low political methods to win an election Hotter by far to be defeated de-feated than to win an election by l the methods adopted by the Republican party In the last election Another thing T 1 cnluro tho assertion that If It were left to tile Mormon people by secret ballot to say whether they sanctioned the political ambition of Apostle Heed Smoot or any other apostle or high church leader to aspire to high political preferment they would mid that a roodsized majority would vote against such I proposition 3ut Apostle Smoot Is elected and no matter mat-ter how It omit he has gained the height of his ambition What docs ho caro for the church or his brelhran whether they dwell in peace or unity or raise lii 1 or potatoes Tbo way a great many of us Mormons look at It Apostlu l Recd Smoot Is after tho al7iighty dollar llrsl Ihon comes the Senatorshlp and last and least of all him apOHtloflhlp jind that Is what makes all thv trouble as a majority or the Mormon people thing his apostleship ought to be hula above everything else hut we mire only the common people md occasionally may be seen but not heard md if IOlItlcK doc disrupt the church what does It mater with us as long as ho leaders are satisfied Yet hot much better would It be to have peace and unity among us and meet our enemies with a solid front Instead of having one half of the church light the other half and all on account of a church lenders political ambition If Apostle Snoot can with a clear conscience con-science look upon the turmoil and strife he has caused to arise both insldand outside out-side the church there must he something mentally wrong with the man If ho Is clearminded and waiHs the respect of tho lioplo of Utah lic would yet resign his Senulorflhltr and let our goodlooking Governor Gov-ernor Hobcr M Wells wear his Senatorial Sena-torial toga lie can do moro for the poo plo 7 of Utah in a month than Apostlo Smoot can reasonably expect to do in a your under tho circumstances and this would bring peace and happiness to Utah and especially to the Mormon church CITIUEN1 Sugar House January 23 1903 I APOSTLE ACCUSED RELATIVES Among the residents oC Sugarhouse I Is Bishop W C A SmoQl a brother to the apostle This Mr Smoot long I ago withdrew from the church In politics pol-itics ho Is l a strung Democrat A day or two after the publication referred to I Bishop Smoot received u letter from Provo The missive contained a clipping clip-ping of an article and a short note which read A friend sent me the Inclosed with the suggestion that you wrote It X I you did I am sure you will be man I enough to tell me so I The letter wus signed by Apostle I need Smoot Bishop Smoot wrote back denying the authorship of the letter Then W C A Smoot Jr a son of the bishop who lives In Salt Lake received a similar Inquiry from the Senatorelect asking If he wrote the article and If not who did ORDERED SUSPENDED The next development occurred on Thursday January 29lh On that date the authorities of the ward notified Superintendent Su-perintendent Bird Murphy superintendent superin-tendent of the Sugarhouse Sunday school that Mr Hood should be sun pended n n Sundayschool teacher because church be-cause of his attitude toward the HOOD CONFESSED AUTHORSHIP I Up to thlH time Mr Hood had not been asked concerning the authorship of the anonymous communication and had admitted It to no one nor did bo make such admission until February 1st when Bishop Atwood accompanied by 1 hU counselors John M Whitaker former awcrelary of the Board of Public Pub-lic Works and George Arbuckle called at Ills home and asked him It It were true that he had written i He confessed con-fessed lht he wns responsible for the publlcatVm The bishop and his advisors then told Mr Hoot that his criticism of an apostle apos-tle and especially the Implied criticism of the president was subversive of the discipline of the church and could not be permitted to pass unnoticed and that he had boon suspended from all his religious re-ligious functions until further notIce DISOBEYED BISHOP 1 I appears however that Superintendent Superin-tendent Murphy has ideas of his owi concerninG the place where religion stops and politics begins Ills sympathies sympa-thies were all with Mr Hood and in defiance of the bishops orders he lei le-i a med the teacher in hlu Sunday school I MAY GO NO FURTHER Although he IH still exercising that function Mr Hood could not take ad I I vantage of the more solemn ordinances of the church such as baptism for the dead or marriage If I he happened to be a single man without a ccrlillcnte from the Bishop The more serious ecclesiastical ecclesias-tical penalties being disfellowshlppcd and cut off from the church have not been suggested and the general opinion In the war Is that the matter will go no further I the proceedings are abandoned aban-doned It will leave the Bishop and his councilor In the awkward position of having their Instructions set at naught Sllll this will be better than to go on In the face of the strong opposition that has developed among the Influential Mormons of the ward Mr Hood expressed no resentment toward to-ward the Bishop or his counsellors HOODS STATEMENT They tool the position he said last night that criticism of the authorities was In violation of the rules of the church I wns more a breach of etl queUe in the church than the remarks of Smoots candidacy that they objected to Much stronger expressions have been used on the stump by Mormons during political campaigns and nothing came of i but the party to which I belong happens in this case to be against the church official who was a candidate for ofllce He Is not so lenient however In speaking ot some of his felo Democrats Demo-crats and charges thac oner oC them a former county ollicial who is a member mem-ber of the high council was instrumental instrumen-tal in bringing about the action of the Bishop SMOOTS LETTER Bishop Smoot makcH no secret of the letter from his brother and says I did not preserve the letler but I can remember every hint I It said He asked me if I had written the article Inclosed and I said if I had he know I would admit It He did not nay anything any-thing about finding out who did write It Knowing him as I do I am conll dent thai lIe dld not Instigate the proceedings pro-ceedings against Mr Hood The officers of the Ministerial association asso-ciation have come Into possession of the facts and will undoubtedly make all the use of them they can In the campaign cam-paign against the seating of Smoot In the UnIted Stales Senate Bishop AtwoodH statement of the affair af-fair cannot now ho obtained as he Is hy JIme California and will be absent for EOn |