no standing in the Church. I continued as I had begun. After
the publication of an editorial (January 22, 1905), in which I charged
President Smith with being all that the testimony then before the Senate
committee had proven him to be, Ben Rich advised me that I must either
withdraw from the Church or Smith would proceed against me in the Church
tribunals and make my family suffer. I replied that I would not withdraw
and that I would fight all cases against me on the issue of free speech.
On February 1, 1905, I published, editorially, "An address to the
Earthly King of the Kingdom of God," in which I charged Smith with
having violated the laws (revelations) of his predecessors; with having
made and violated treaties upon which the safety of his "subjects"
depended; with having taken the bodies of the daughters of his subjects
and bestowed them upon his favorites; with having impoverished his
subjects by a system of elaborate exaction's (tithes) in order to enrich
"the crown" and so forth. All of which, burlesquely written as if to a
Czar by a constitutionalist, was accepted by the Mormon people as in no
way absurd in its tone as coming from one American citizen to another!

Because of these two editorials I was charged (February 21, 1905)
before a ward bishop's court in Ogden with "un-Christianlike conduct
and apostasy," after two minor Church officials had called upon me at my
home and received my acknowledgment of the authorship of the editorials,
my refusal to retract them, and my statement that I did not "sustain"
Joseph F. Smith as head of the Church, since he was "leaving the worship
of God for the worship of Mammon and leading the people astray." On the
night of February 24, I appeared in my own defense before the bishop's
court, at the hour appointed, without witnesses or counsel, because I
had been notified that no one would be permitted to attend with me. And,
of course, the defense I made was that the articles were true and that I
was prepared to prove them true.

Such a court usually consists of a bishop and his two councillors, but
in this case the place of the second councillor had been taken by a high
priest named Elder George W. Larkin, a man reputed to be "richly endowed
with the Spirit." I had a peculiar psychological experience with Larkin.
After I had spoken at some length in my own defense, Larkin rose to work
himself up into one of the rhapsodies for which he was noted. "Brother
Frank," he began,