Letters - Dear Mother, Administered to & the pain left

                                                                                       Bemidji, Minn., May 21, 1937.

Dear Mother,-
We have lots of work and lots of rain, and the lakes and rivers are at flood tide. We got five cords of bolts ready to haul and then it began to rain, and kept it up for twelve hours, with follow up showers for twelve hours more or so that the roads are not much more than floating bogs.

    We have peas, radishes, lettuce, and beets up and looking fine. Plenty of onions to eat, and the radishes just getting big enough. Sweetcorn is coming up.
But the wind is northwest following the rainy season so we are liable to have a frost. We are due for two more frosts anyhow, one this week, and one June 10, so we have to govern our planting accordingly.

     Winfield and Eugene have jobs, one gets $3.50 per day, and the other $2.50. Winfield comes home nights, but Eugene boards with Ross’s folks.

     Darlene has been working in town for a couple of weeks at housework.

    Any had a bad spell with her appendix Tuesday night, so bad she was groaning (almost screaming) every breath. She was administered to, and the pain left, and she went to sleep right away, and has been all right ever since.

      Stella goes out walking occasionally with a young giant, and it looks as if cupid was hitting the mark with his little arrows.

     Arlo is at home, cutting bolts, and stripping the cow occasionally.

     I got how from Minneapolis the 9th., and got Ethel’s telegram the next afternoon? Wish I could have been there with you all; but am glad I had the visit before hand. I got a letter from Wm. Anderson, one of the apostles, saying, “I have just returned from your father’s funeral service, and thought I would write you a few lines. I am sorry you were not able to be here, though often in our experiences we are unable to do the thing we would wish to do. The service was very nice. Fred A. paid a very fine tribute to your father. I did not have the privilege of knowing him in life, and do not remember of ever meeting him. He looked very nice in death, and did not have the appearance of being as old as he was.”
Ethel wrote, too, of how young he looked, and the particulars of the service.

     We had a mess of sunfish for breakfast. Could have more is any one had time to row out in the lake and drop a line overboard.

                                                                  With love, Leon

Letters - Dying struggles of capitalism

                                                                                        Bemidji, Minn., April 28, 1935


Dear Father and Mother,
I was hoping to come down there for a few days this spring, but just couldn’t make it yet. It seems like where one must work to provide for six or more it takes all their time now-a-days, and then there is none too much; but somehow we have been able to provide for our needs so far, although far from faring sumptuously every day. I wonder why it is that when one has good cornmeal mush, pancakes, and maple sirup for breakfast, he craves bacon and eggs, butter cream, oranges, and lemon pie instead.

    But the rich feel that only the few should have bacon and eggs, cream, butter, and the delicious fruits of the earth, while the many go eat their turnips. Well let them have their good things, and we’ll eat our turnips. But I never could pray for God to bless a system that robs the common people in order to let the rich loll in the lap of luxury. Sixty years old, almost, and I see in the fruit-stands things that I have never tasted, and many others so seldom that they are but shadowy dreams, while carloads are dumped to maintain prices so high that we can’t buy them.

    The new deal has paid the farmer for the acre of wheat he agreed not to raise, but has taxed the acre he did raise to pay it. It has paid the farmer six dollars for the hog he did not raise, but has taxed him six dollars for the one he did raise to pay it. And then they wonder why conditions don’t seem to improve, and why the farmers are not satisfied with the new deal. The whole alphabetical program from start to finish is the craziest deal ever invented by man. It couldn’t work. At a time when the people had nothing to buy with at low prices, they raised the prices of everything they had to buy, and lowered the price of everything they raised to sell. Just how they figured that a man who had to scratch to buy flour at 89 cents a hundred, would be better able to buy it at $4.15 a hundred on a smaller income is a profound mystery. Small wonder that hundreds have been buying feed all winter and sifting it to make their bread, when they can get it at $2.25 a hundred. The wise man of Egypt stored grain during the years of plenty to supply the lean years that followed; but the fools of finance of our day, plowed under the cotton, burned the wheat, slaughtered the hogs, and curtailed production, while millions stood by destitute, unfed, unhoused, and unclothed. The “new deal” will go down in history as the most dastardly crime against humanity since the dawn of nations, either barbarous or semi-civilized like we are.

    The county agent here is warning farmers to liquidate, and get their cattle and chattels clear this summer, for by fall the wave of “Prosperity” will be over, and we’ll see worse times that ever; but it makes the most of them mad. They won’t heed it. However; if this is prosperity, the sooner it comes to an end the better.

   So we stand by and watch the dying struggles of capitalism, and can only say be damned to it, and pray the good Lord to hasten its demise. It has been one long drawn-out curse since its inception.

    And then we looking in the books of the church and see the loving goodness of GOD IN HIS WILLINGNESS TO point the way for the people of the church to avoid the pangs of the present crises and our soul dries up and our heart fails within, and our hopes turn to ashes. How different it would have been if the shepherds of the flock had been as interested in feeding the sheep as they were in feeding themselves, or in other words as interested in establishing the common people in a condition of comfort as outlined in the revelations, as they were in being bedecked in gold braid and flashing swords and ranting up and down the streets on prancing black chargers, firing cannon salutes, or in blossoming out in new automobiles every time someone donates fifty thousand dollars to the treasury for the poor and needy. Surely the prophet’s forecast has been fulfilled by latter-day Israel, when he said:
“And the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, nether have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and cruelty have ye ruled them. And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. . . . Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, than they may not be meat for them.” Ezekiel 34:1-10
Spoken no doubt directly to Israel in his day; but the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and his course one eternal round, and will treat the latter-day Israel as he did former day Israel. His justice remains the same, his mercy endureth forever, and he will reclaim his flock of starvlings, and deliver them from the shepherds who have been fattening themselves, and have failed to make the provision for the flock that would have preserved them in comfort, though all nations be vexed because of the conditions that they brought upon themselves. And when we think of what “might have been”, we sigh, and turn our faces to the wall. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” And surely the hope of Israel has been long deferred. Your dream of starvation pasture is fulfilled already, Pa.

    When I read of that last fourth of July celebration in Nauvoo, I can’t blame the people for driving them out; and when I see the doings of the “Shepherds” of today, I wonder the flock itself doesn’t rise up and drive them out.

    I read your long letter, father, and appreciated it, and would like to comment on it in detail; but I am getting old and slow, and it will probably take me all summer.

    Like you, we have done a lot of reading, and we have found many strange things. And like you, we are often led to exclaim, Wouldn’t it have been better for the church if instructions had been carried out as given, instead of doing something else, how much better it might have been.

    Joseph Smith was designated the first elder, and an apostle, and Oliver Cowdery the second elder, and an apostle, and instructed that there were others who were to be chosen “even unto twelve” as first published, and Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer were instructed to search out these others. If David Whitmer was to be included in the number, it would require nine others to bring the number “unto twelve.” For some reason this was not done, and a small isolated conference in Ohio with no direction so far as the record goes, chose Joseph to be President, and sent their action to Independence to be ratified. Afterward the word “unto” was dropped from the revelation, and so Joseph, Oliver, and David were never in the quorum of twelve. Might the church not have been different, if this direction had been carried out?

    If we accept section 104, the sad thing about it is that there is no division of the Restoration in our day, that has a presidency like the one provided for there. For section 104 creates from four to an indefinite number of quorums and councils equal in authority and power in their decisions with the First Presidency. There is no place to go to find that kind of church government in operations. It must be like “equality” and “all things common”-yet to come.

     We accept the revelations the same as we do the Bible and Book of Mormon, the former, “so far as it is translated correctly”, and the latter: “If there be mistakes, they are the mistakes of men.” And it is quite evident that there are mistakes, and many changes, additions, and subtractions. Section 7 was published three times, once in the Book of Commandments, and twice in the church papers, and yet, when it was published in 1835, after a presidency was selected, it contained two paragraphs that it never contained before, paragraphs 16 and 17, relating to the president of the high priesthood, etc.
Sections 3,5,8,16,17,24,26,42, and 43, there are 1,608 changes, and many other changes in the other revelations.

    In the Book of Commandments chapter 44, which is section 42 in Doctrine and Covenants, it reads, “Thou shalt consecrate all thy properties, that which though hast unto me.”
This seems to be in complete harmony with Acts: “Neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own, but all things common.”
And Joseph understood it in that light according to his letter to Bishop Patridge, Church History, vol.1, page 300: “Every man must be his own judge how much he should receive, and how much he should suffer to remain in the hands of the bishop. I speak of those who consecrate more than they need for the support of themselves and their families…. 

    Therefore, those persons consecrating property to the bishop in Zion, and then receiving an inheritance back, etc. Showing a complete consecration, both that which he needs for his family, and the surplus. Section 42 reads “consecrate of thy properties,” OF instead of ALL. Quite a difference in meaning. One favors the rich, the other puts all on equal footing. One agrees with Acts, and the letter to Partridge, the other is built to order to feed to the flock by shepherds who have discarded the law of equality. In the same verse the words “bishops of my church and his counselors, two of the elders,” have the words “or high priests” added to the original. The same revelation in the Book of Commandments, reads: “Every family shall have a place, that they may live by themselves—and every church shall be organized in as close bodies as they can be: and this for a wise purpose.” This indicates a grouping together of the families of each group, or branch or church, for convenience in laboring together, and for protection. It agrees with Acts: where all “that believed were together, and had all things common.” But that instruction was dropped entirely from Doctrine and Covenants. Why? Had the shepherds decided it was easier to fatten on the flock if they were separated, and scattered, and all things common forgotten?

    The number of presidents seem to have varied at different times, sometimes it was three, sometimes one, (when Joseph said, “Where I am not, there is no presidency), on page 560 of the History, there were seven presidents assembled at a GRAND council (that word GRAND sounds terribly Masonic), besides the bishops and their councils, and the Twelve, and some of the seventy with sic of their presidents named. And on page 572 there are four Presiding Elders named.

    After all, was salvation based upon whether they had one, seven, four, or none?

    The Nephites after Christ’s visit were blessed, prospered, reached the highest state of perfection of any of Christ’s church after his advent, with neither Presidency nor Quorum of Twelve Apostles, but with twelve disciples in charge. Nowhere do we find them told that their salvation hinged upon their belief in Presidency or Apostles. We do find them told plainly upon what their salvation does hinge, however.

   At Jerusalem they had a Quorum of TWELVE Apostles, but nowhere do we find them told that their salvation hinged upon a belief in a Presidency. W.H.Kelley and Gomer T. Griffiths each while he was a member of the Twelve wrote a book on Presidency, one maintaining that James was the President, and the other that Peter was. The Bible evidence of Presidency seems rather elusive. J.W. Peterson took the ground that they had the Twelve Apostles at Jerusalem, a stake high council of twelve disciples in America, and most likely the First Presidency with the ten lost tribes. That would get them far enough apart so they wouldn’t quarrel, anyway. That way the Presidency couldn’t lord it over the Twelve, the Twelve needed complain of being reduced to the roll of errand boys for the Presidency, and the stake council in America could exercise its right of decision without intervention of the Presidency or Twelve Apostles.

    What is necessary for salvation? Christ himself is authority for it to the Nephites, and this is what he said:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, I will declare unto you my doctrine…. Whoso believeth in my, and is baptized, the same shall be saved;…and whoso believeth in me, believeth in the Father also…. Ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in no wise inherit the kingdom of God. Verily, verily I say unto you, that this is my doctrine; and whoso buildeth upon this, buildeth upon my rock; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them. And whoso shall declare MORE or LESS than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock, but he buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell standeth open to receive such.”—Nephi 5:32—42. (Third Nephi)
This statement of his doctrine essential to salvation, by Christ, is simple, straightforward, easy to understand, complete and final.

     I look upon the Restoration Movement as on great pasture in which the sheep were to be fed, but the shepherds of the flock in order to fatten themselves have built division fences, and divided the sheep into flocks, and each shepherd in his particular division has planted obnoxious weeds, in addition to the wholesome food planted by Christ above, essential to salvation, and demanded that his followers shall endorse and feed upon the obnoxious growth in other to remain in his particular division; in other words to accept “MORE than” the “this” mentioned by Christ, or be cast out. That is why the sheep are divided, and scattered, and found in the valleys of the mountains, the forests of the north the sandy plains of the south and southwest, sick and hungry, fleeced and uncared for, and the fleecing goes merrily on.

    Since when have you seen, or heard it advocated even, an effort to raise means by the law given in sections 106 and 42?

    And how many times in the last twenty-five years, when money was to be raised, have they failed to go at it in the good old catholic way, a per capita assessment. The amount to be raised allotted to the districts according to their membership—The districts apportion their allotments to the branches according to their membership, the branches proportion its assessment among its members, which in the final analysis means to each producer according to the number of his dependants. 

    If I am supporting a wife and eight children who belong to the church, I have ten portions to pay, but my neighbor who supports a wife and one child belonging to the church has three portions to pay. And then the shepherds preen themselves, and spread their tail feathers, and strut up and down the stage, and say, Wasn’t that a noble plan? That lets the rich off easy, and socks it to the poor. The rich will still be our friends and bestow upon us toothsome benefits. While the poor may “eat flies, and like it” for all we care.
And to think of the “MORE” that has been added to this Restoration Movement! It is appalling!
Here are some of them:
Rebaptism, to renew their covenant, starts as early as 1842.
Rebaptism for the healing of the body, by the Reorganization.
Sealing.
Spiritual wifery.
Polygamy
Baptism for the dead at five dollars a head.
Proxy baptism for the living.
Secret endowments.
Secret chambers.
Endowments robes decorated with emblems of the square, compass, and level.
Secret others and penalties.
Supreme Directional Control.
Prosecuter court, and judge, all rolled into one.
Adam-god
And dozens of minor things, such as Who is president of the church, and who isn’t.

    The thing that counts, is to be established on the “rock” as Christ said? That saves. These other things do not.

    Joseph Smith begat a large spiritual progeny. They are not all in any on division of the restoration movement. There may be some in each of these divisions, and if they have kept their feet firmly planted on the rock, they will be saved. Their sonship, their membership, and their priesthood are good until they forfeit it by turning away from God.

    The only basis for a union of divided latter day Israel, is upon the “rock” stated by Christ. To do that each division must remove the division fence erected by man, and forsake the obnoxious weeds of man’s planting; and each division has plenty of this to do, including the church of Christ (Temple Lot). But sometime it will be done, and all who desire will have the opportunity to worship God on the platform of Christ’s statement of doctrine, without have the club of man’s departure there from or addition thereto, hanging over his head to beat him into submission.
(To be continued)

                                                                                                                  June27.

      How time does fly, and how crowded our days are with necessary duties! Trying to get a crop in, and at the same time make a living! Sometimes one lags behind, and then the other. One morning, while Alice was taking care of a neighbor woman and her new baby, Stella turned to me and said, “Papa, I’ve got the pancake batter all stirred up, and there isn’t any lard,” just as if she thought I might say a few words and produce the lard. I thought of the widow’s cruse of oil, but felt that I didn’t have the faith to tell her to dip into the lard can and get it. The emergency didn’t seem to warrant it. So I said, “Well sprinkle some cornmeal in the griddle, and put in your batter.” She did, and we had pancakes that way for a few mornings. Not too bad at that. When I think of the train loads of lard, sugar and flour I have bought, I think if there were some way to get along without buying those three articles, I could get rich yet.

    We have had a superabundance of rain this month. Hardly know what to do with it. The river is so full we can’t cross with a car to get to the highway.

    Our crops are doing fairly well, but need sunshine to hurry them up. Tomatoes are beginning to blossom. We have nearly seven hundred of them out, and a thousand cabbage plants. Early potatoes and sweet corn are looking good; peas just in bloom, strawberries beginning to ripen, but the only garden sass we have had so far are radishes, onions, and greens. Cutworms played havoc with our melon patch. Squash are looking fine, more than two hundred hills of them. Beans about ready to blossom. Field corn is slow, too cool and wet.

    Maple sirup was a short crop this spring, for some reason; about a third of our usual run; so that is gone. We have a little contraband game in awhile, when some neighbor kills a fleetfoot and donates a chunk. We see them running around once in awhile. There are plenty of tracks, so we know they are right around us. We had a big turtle stew awhile back. Tastes good enough, if we could only forget what it was while eating. Our timber crop is a continual harvest. Sold about three hundred dollars worth during fall, winter, and spring. The old Model TT hauls a cord and a quarter of green birch, and that brings five dollars, and that is the way we keep off the relief.

    They used to tell us that socialism would destroy “initiative”, and “incentive.” But when I look at the poor folks on relief, and see how many of them have no ambition to ever want to work again, and not enough incentive left to dig a patch of spuds if they were given them already raised, or pull a patch of beans, or cut a field of corn for the whole crop, I can’t help but feel that capitalism has destroyed not only initiative and incentive, but manhood and womanhood also. We hear people on the relief say, “It has got so we just can’t get along without five pounds of butter a week anymore,” and I could name three families that haven’t had that much butter altogether, all winter and spring. I wonder what such people will do when relief peters out.

    Stella is working just now for a neighbor for three dollars a week—may last all summer. She comes home nights, and gets to work at 8:30 in the morning.
Well, I guess that is all the gossip I can think of so will close, with love to all. Leon.

Letter - Prospects look good for a bumper crop now

                                                                                                             Bemidji, Minn., July 9, 1934

Dear Father and Mother,
We are having another of our rains today. It has rained so much since the first of June that we can hardly find the ground dry enough to cultivate, or even play. It was dry enough this morning so that we tried to plant turnips, and cultivate some, but by two o’clock it was raining again.

     A week ago yesterday we had a hail storm in two installments. The first installment was mostly small hailstones, and it hailed till the ground was quite white, plugged holes through the melon and squash leaves, knocked some of the blossoms off the peas and beans, but did no very serious damage. An hour or so later I went down to the yard to take some oats to the horses which were in the pasture, and stopped to watch a funny looking cloud cavorting almost overhead, and wondering whether it would develop into a tornado or not, when I happened to look toward the lake and saw what appeared to be rocks falling into the lake so big that it made the water splash six to eight feet high, then I heard r-i-i-p, r-i-i-p, r-i-i-p, through poplar trees between me and the lake, and I set my bucket of oats down right there and hightailed it for the house? They were the biggest hail I ever saw, but so scattering that no damage was done here. The scattering big hail covered an area of several square miles, from reports, and a mile east some of the neighbors were watching the cloud, and it just seemed to empty itself all at once in a wall of big hail that came up within a few yards of their garden, and extended out into a swamp region where no one lives of two or three miles. If that avalanche of hail had struck any growing crops nothing would have been left.

    Corn, grain, and tame hay crops are the best they have been in years in this country. Our sweet corn is tasseling, potatoes almost big enough to use, we had green peas the 4th, and string beans the 5th, took a bushel of peas to town Saturday, had half a bushel for Sunday dinner, and expect to take two bushel to town Wednesday. We have had early turnips, bagas, radishes, onions, and lettuce for quite a while, and all kinds of greens, including mustard, turnip top, spinach, chard, and beets.

    A ground hog raided out cabbage patch and almost cleaned them out before I raided him with a shotgun.

    So far we have had a most enjoyable summer. No cutworms, no mosquitoes, no potato bugs, though flies are beginning to make their advent the last couple of days. We are living in a tropical forest of birch, poplar, elm, basswood, and balsam, on some of the best soil in the world, where I can sit in the front door and look out across the melon patch and the lake (about twenty rods from the house); and down from the back door, about twice as far, down a winding trail, is a gurgling brook, with sandy shallows for wading, and deeper pools for bathing, with a footbridge across it, to which people come and sit and swing their feet in the water. It is an ideal place for an outing and vacation. Wish the girls could come up and spend their vacation here, and bring you along. It would be easier to make the trip than to endure that blistering heat, wouldn’t it? Bring your woolen underwear along.

    Coming across the footbridge one evening at dusk I saw a husky fish of some sort dash out from under it and head up stream, thought it must be either a big pike or sucker. I set down my forkful of hay, got the spear which was nearby, and by a lucky throw I put three times through his head, when I discovered that I had captured a three and a half pound black bass. It made enough for breakfast for the family. Biggest bass I ever saw. Don’t know how it happened to be in the creek, unless it was to give us something delicious for breakfast.

    We have more than two acres of potatoes on peat land, the land that is claimed to produce from four to eight hundred bushels to the acre. It is an experiment with us, but the prospects certainly look good for a bumper crop now, so we are hoping this will be one winter we won’t have to go without spuds enough to eat all we want. With a good meat, potatoes, and been crop, maybe we can get along.

    Well if Leon goes haying now for a couple of weeks or more he won’t get any time to finish this so I might as well send this on. Some of the girls plan to go and cook for the haymakers so they’ll have sort of an outing as its real near the big lake. There is a house for them to camp in with a cook stove.

     We have hardly seen anybody of the relation around here this spring so we don’t really know whether they are all right or no.

     Phyllis and babies were up to our place Sunday and Monday. They were well. It was the first time they had been up here since we moved up here this spring. Her kids even to the baby surely enjoyed it though, when they went in bathing.

    Well I’m getting so sleepy I can hardly keep my eyes open or hold the pen to write. I’m in the habit of taking an afternoon nap and that spoils me.

We were glad to hear from you so please write whenever you can,
With love to all-Alice

Letters - Dear Hallie, Crooked as a rail fence. Leon.

                                                                                                            Bemidji, Minn., Feb. 13, 1937

Dear Hallie,
Grandpa and Grandpa Whiting joined the church in an early day when it was good and true and lovely, and because it was so good and lovely in their younger says, they couldn’t believe that evil and designing men had gained control and corrupted it, honeycombed it with secretism and secret chamber work until it was no longer the church which they had joined. And so they put in the latter half of their lives grieving because their children couldn’t conscientiously cling to the old wreck.
So Pa and Ma joined the church when it was good and true and lovely, when the new wine was being put into new bottles, which the old bottles could not hold. And now they can’t see that the same corruption of secretism and evil has entered in, and that no one in the ministry can continue in it long without being contaminated.
 
     You girls are clings to the church as it was when we joined it, not I hope and pray, as it is now.
I made my protest against the evils that were entering in, in a right and proper way. I took it up with our branch business meetings, and with unanimous vote of the branch we went to the district conference with our protest. And Lester with his Masonic brethren delayed the opening of the conference meeting for half an hour while they went upstairs and planned how best to prevent our having a chance to present it. There is no avenues open for protest against the iniquities that are increasing—a minister must be under the thumb of someone.

    Look at your Walnut Park pastor (was it Dowker?) who used to speak a little too plain against these evils, and how they framed him and let him down and out. And no one dared to raise a voice in his defense. Let them get away with it. Unless Oakman has plenty of financial backing so that he can fight them in the courts of the land if necessary, that is what will happen to him.

    I have worked right along by the side of three Masons for years, and I know them to be liars and crooks. They will lie like a Catholic (and why shouldn’t they? The father of all lies is the authentic source of both of them.) and are as crooked as a rail fence. And the higher in the social scale they get the crookeder they are. I worker under a Masonic Postmaster for years, and had to fight his crookedness and cussedness clean to Washington and back. I wouldn’t believe a Mason’s oath on a stack of Bibles a mile high, in the church or out. And you church machinery is in charge of Masons from start to finish, from the Presidency down to the outlying branches.

    I well remember when I heard the first suggestion of supreme directional control. It was in Omaha in 1900, and Fred A. Smith was the one that brought it up. Said they must work toward the plan of having the presidents of districts appointed by the Presidency, and the branch presidents also thought the district presidents. And that is the way she is done to-day. It gave me a chill right then, and I wondered if such a castastrophy could possibly occur. It would be nice, if the president were a man like King Mosiah, who would do the right thing himself, and choose only men of like nature. But it is quite a different thing when he is a Mason, and appointing Masons and their sympathizers in districts and branches. I know that a resolution was adopted in 1923 intended to preserve the right of the individual to make nominations; but (unreadable for a bit SSGII) have written the name of those they wanted nominated and given the slips to people in the audience to make the nominations, so that it would appear that the resolution was being honored, when it was in fact being ignored in about the rottenest manner possible.

     But what would you expect? A man who belongs to a secret society is a living lie before the whole community. He appear to be a certain person in his everyday life before his friends, and in secret he is another sort of person living another life. And your church quorums and councils and courts are honeycombed with that sort of people, and they are in control of the machinery of the church, and neither the people who know it, nor God, can have any confidence in them.

    That was what was the matter in 1844 that caused rejection of the quorums (not of the people).
Those leading men could read the Book of Mormon and Bible and Doctrine and Covenants on marriage, and then they could turn right around and interpret it that they were justified in joining the church of the devil, and in marrying ten virgins in order to pass by the angels in glory. To be sure they suspended the practice of polygamy by a manifesto, so if their ten virgin revelation was right, the church is wrong now, and their ministers are under the obligation of going out and presenting a doctrine and covenants that has revelations forbidding plural marriage, a revelation permitting it, and a manifesto suspending it. Would you go out and support that rubbish? Not unless you were seven kinds of fool.

    And the Reorganization is in the same boat so far and the church of the devil is concerned. And after reading the Bible as to how the lords of the Gentile exercise control, “but it shall not be so among you” And “he that is greatest let him be your servant,” and the Book of Mormon that all things should be done by the voice of the people, and the Doctrine and Covenants, “Let all things be done by common consent in the church.” They interpreted that to mean that supreme directional control was permitted to one man over all the affairs of the church, with the right to eliminate and to discipline, and with the quorums and courts arbitrarily reorganized contrary to law, and men put in who upheld that doctrine, would you trust their decisions on any other points of doctrine, or law, or case in court? I wouldn’t. Their minds are so corrupted by Masonic lies that they can not discern the right. Exactly in the same condition that the quorums were in 1844 when they were rejected as quorums; but they went right on, and are still going; reorganized according to man’s ideas, but still going.

    Of course you are woman, and you don’t know all that is going on; but at your last General Conference, solicitors were working among the delegates enticing them to join the Masonic society, and offering cut rates as and enducement.

    Hardly twenty-four hours had elapsed after our conference close, before one of your elders was talking with two of ours and feeling them out on the matter of appointing committees to meet together to find common ground for the union of the factions. And he says, Now that would be a fine thing. There isn’t much between us, and with just a little ironing out we can get together. Take this matter of the Masonic lodge, you people object to that, but really it is a good thing. A mighty good thing. And if your folks would just change your stand on that, then rest would be quite easy. Needless to say he didn’t get an agreement.

    Now just how would you like to go out and present a doctrine and covenants with a revelations saying that all things should be done by common consent, and another one lauding and supporting a document that destroys all common consent, and a conference resolution on record in 1932 that suspends the latter so far as the bishopric is concerned because Curry wouldn’t accept the job until it was suspended? You would be in the same predicament the Brighamite elders are. What good is suspension, if the contradictory revelations are STILL IN THE BOOKS?

    What you have now is not the pure and true and lovely church organization of Father’s day. But a huge Masonic spider in control of the machinery of the church—I should say an octopus, with its tentacles reaching out to and through every district to the farthest branches. And so if a poor little elder dares to say a word against the evils, the president can reach out with a club of silence and tap him on the head, “subject to the adjudication provided for in the law”(See s.d.c. document). And when said little elder wants to take advantage of the adjudication provided for he finds the elders’ courts, the bishops’ court, and the high council loaded with Masons and s.d.c. proponents, the latter council all appointees by the president, who himself presides at the trial, so he is in fact assailant, jury, council, and judge all rolled into one. That is s.d.c.

     The Book of Mormon is now, as it was in 1830, the best means of getting a hearing from the world, and defending the glory of the Restored gospel, but I certainly would die before I would go to the world and tell them what is says about Masonry being the church of the devil, and then tell them that all our church dignitaries are high Masons, belonging to both churches.

     No, Hallie, if you will only be yourself a minute you won’t want me to come back into the church you’re in. It wouldn’t salve your feelings as you think it would at all. The only think I could do would be to say, Quit your hellish business, or get out of the church or I will. And there I would be. I couldn’t work with that bunch of Masons. The Lord has said himself that they could have no part in the building up of Zion. What you want to hang on to their skits for, I don’t know.

     You girls insist that I don’t write on religion, and yet you keep dinging at me. There is nothing else to write about except the snow, so I have had to break your rule again.

                                                                                      With love, Leon