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Show i . -J . The 'Case of George A. -Hicks, 'Cot Off for Saying Saints Should Give Up Polygamy . fiditor TJie Tribune: Whether I live, or whether I die, it will be twenty-five years on ."July" 15, 1011, since Bishop George D. iSnell excommunicated me from the Mormon church because T incidentally in-cidentally suggested to him that we should give, up the practice of polygamy. polyg-amy. .The good bishop, who was himself him-self a polygamist, did not let such an offense pass unheeded. "Tho Lord had revealed the doctrine to His servant, and as a matter of course He was able to maintain it against all odds." So thought the good bishop, and many thousands of othcrv devout Mormons thought the same wny. I was cited to appear before, his august au-gust ma.icstj but did not appear. As was the custom in those dark days. I was excommunicated from the' church and my name published in a newspaper as an apostate, Tt should be remembered remem-bered that mv p'arcnts had joined the church in 1S37. when T was but two ,.vears of age. As a matter of fact, we "left our home in Nauvoo and shared in i the Kiiferincs of a misguided people, cominc to Utah by ox teams in the year M852. Now. sir. if yon will allow me a portion por-tion of your vnluablo space, T propose to tell your readers how it feels to a than who was oneo a Mormon to be outside of that-church. After the publication pub-lication of my supposed npostasy. and my excommunication. I had occasion, to visit Jtona, in,xJuab county, where I had been teac-hincr sehool.and-some of those, who formerly had been fast friends would barely speak to me when we met. After my expulsion from amone tho people of-God (7) I .joined tho Liberal party, and when Judges C. C. Goodwin and O. W. Powers and others came to Spanish Fork to advocate advo-cate the political doctrines of that parti, par-ti, it fell to my lot to make the speech of welcome. For ninny years afterwards after-wards certain of my friends (v7) "throw up" to mo statements I had made in favor of tho Liberal party, de- Glaring them to be fabe. These -were mostly women. For man- years I had been ' a worker in 'the cause of temperance. tem-perance. haviur delivered forty-four temperance speeches in as many different dif-ferent parts of the country. Alter T was found to be unworthy to be a citizen citi-zen in "the church' anil kingdom Qf God" (not for violation of any of the ten commandments, but because I had ceased to believa that a man, in order to bo saved, must, be the husband of moTC than one wife, on account of the fact that the "prophet" Joseph Smith had' got tangled up with a lot of female fanatics wh) -we're willing to enter a harem instead' of a home, simply because be-cause the keeper of that harem told them it was the will of the Lord to do so), T was told by ono long-fnccd high priest that T no longer had a right to make temperance speeches. 1 asked, this member of the; "Mal-ehir.zcMick "' -(the "reformed Egyptian M spoiling of the word) priesthood why I had not. ""Wcjll." lie replied, "temperance is a part, of the gospel, nnd inasmuch as you : do not now hold the priesthood, you I have no right to preach the gospel, or any part of it." 7 resnonded thnt speech was. or ought to be. free in Am'erjca. "WoIJ." tho holv mnn continued, con-tinued, "no one hns a right to jircach the gospel except those who belong to our church.and who have been properlv ordained to preach.- ' 1 did not argue,, the matter further. To the avorace American that, means that the Ueechers. the Talmafjcs, the Tyngs and the "Russells should be compelled com-pelled to give up preaching to become listeners to the Smiths, tho "Robertses. the Whitnevs, nnd the Penroses: nnd there is "no doubt if they had the power that is precisely what would hapnen. Tn my humble opinion, there is no such thing as priesthood, excent. in the imagination im-agination of the, nriost. Tf a man were put under chloroform and ordained to the highest priesthood in the Jtformon church, the1 mnn so oporated upon would never know it if he were not told of what hnd been done to him. All priests are man-made, and from their earliest history they have had a habit of getting get-ting n'n easy living out. of the credulity of their confiding followers. There is no doubt in my, mind that when the peoples of the,world become fully en-Hghtoned. en-Hghtoned. belief in an inspired priesthood priest-hood will be utterly ignored. After' the division in Utah on party lines, nf'our first election 1 .was uomi-nated uomi-nated by the Republicans for city justice of the peace, I having joined, the Republican party when the division came. Thero were but fourteen of us who at. first signed tho party roll. During Dur-ing the alleged campaign thu followed, one William Oreer, n pettifogger who was prominent nmong the Mormon priesthood, went out among the people here and told them that J. and-other apostates had written letters to the San Prancisco f!hronicl and other newspapers, news-papers, which letters had been the cause of stirring up the people of Tennessee to killing Klders Berr3' and Gibbs. Thero is no doubt that many of the Danes and Icelanders -.here hclioved that San Francisco was in the heart of Tennessee, Tennes-see, and that it was probably an anti-Mormon anti-Mormon organ. The principal charge that my friend Crenr brought against me was that I had exposed the Mountain Moun-tain Meadows massacre, which at that time was n serious subject of discussion. All these stories wero false, T never wrote the scratch of a pen to the Chronicle Chron-icle or any other paper outside of Ttah. I secured, and still have in my possession, posses-sion, a statement signed by Cliarlcs Do Young that .1 had never written anything any-thing for the-Chronicle. A. falsehood is all right, however, coming from a "saint" .against -a "sinner.'' I applied to one of the best lawyers in the territory terri-tory and was informed that there was no' law that would punish-my . Democratic Demo-cratic "friend. Thero was but ono wny of reaching him, and that was-through was-through the pores .of the skin. The poet Buros said more than a century ago that "The priest and hedgehog in thoir robes are snug;" and so it was then, is now, and over will be so, long as men i are governed by superstition and ignorance, ig-norance, instead of by reason and philosophy. .Our election came off November S, Sfl2. The Democrats polled 22G votes and the Republicans n4." T went behind ten votes on account of Greer's falsehoods. false-hoods. Since thcu I have not sought anv office at the hands of cither party, for they aro .both controlled by, the same priestly influence. Had I been a. church member, Creer would not have dared utter such vicious' falsehoods against my character; or if he had, 1 could ha've had him disciplined in the church. As it was, ho went unpunished and suffered the sting and the injury of. his falsehoods. "Brother" Greer only lived a few' years after that, and it was mv privilege to attend his funeral. I have attended a great many "first-class "first-class funerals," and have heard volumes vol-umes of unmerited praise lavished upon the dead, but the speakers at that funeral funer-al excelled in falsehoods all others that I. have ever heard. Sonic twelvn or fifteen years ago our city was divided into four wards, my house happening to come wjthin the Third ward. Each ward had to build a new meeting house. LJierc were uiree of us in the ward who were ex Liberals, and all three took part in the building-of building-of the meeting house in that ward. After the house was finished and dedicated dedi-cated I was told by ono old high priest that I had po business at. the meetings "with the peoplo of God." I took tho matter to Bishop Larsen. and ho told me thnt I had the right fTTcome to meeting ii I so desired. So I joined the Bible class in the Sabbath school, but I was not long there before I got a rebuff , which gave mo to understand that I was not wanted. So 1 quit tho class and the school several years ago. .1 could bring up a number of other instances to prove that a man who does not believe in polygamy is not wanted in the Sabbath schools of the Mormon church. I will say, though, that Bishop Larsen has always treated me fairly, lie is broad-minded. Ho is a Democrat in politics, has twice been elected to office in our city, and has scrvod one term in the logislature with honor to himself and credit to the state. JIo was the first bishop of the Third ward, but was "honorably released'' (removed) (re-moved) several years ago. Just why this was done f.ho public has never beeu able to find out. It may havo been that he did not collect tithing enough to satisfy those in authority over him; or it may havo been becauso of his political affiliation. George Hales was installed in place of Marinus Larsen. Ho is a radical church Republican, Repub-lican, and a man of small education, often failing to do right for fear of doing do-ing wrong. It is freely stated that ho is by no means the choice of the peoplo of the ward. A few months ago a man died at Mammoth and was brought here for burial. He was once a citizen of this place and had been a member of tho Liberal party. I responded to a request re-quest to say a few words at his fuueral, and incidentally I mentioned his connection con-nection with the old Liberal party, which, 1 said, had for one of its objects ob-jects the abolishment of the pracbice of -1 T ...,. 111 I'OiyK"1" L illuuu l.uin giuii-uicuip the mildest language of. which X was master, but it was altogether too strong for Bishop Hales, and be pulled my cont-tnil, bringing my remarks to a sudden sud-den close. At the close of the meeting Hales stood up before that house full of people, peo-ple, nianv of whom wero from Main-1 moth and Eureka, and not members of the Mormon church, and said he know; polygamy was a revelation from God. nnd that ho (Hales) was ready to dioi for it. i Jn closing, J-will say that nowadays j 1 am not around building any mpro. Mormon meeting houses, or attending an3 more Mormon services. I think! your renders, bv this time, may be able to partially realize how it feels to bo outside tho church in a Mormoa coin-mttnitv coin-mttnitv GEO. A. FUCKS. Spanish Fork, November 23. |
