Oral History Program Ernest Leroy Hatch Interviewed by Unknown 30 November 1970 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Ernest Leroy Hatch Interviewed by Unknown 30 November 1970 Copyright © 2024 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College Oral History Program was created in the early 1970s to “record and document, through personal reminiscences, the history, growth and development of Weber State College.” Through interviews with administrators, faculty and students, the program’s goal was to expand the documentary holdings on Weber State College and its predecessor entities. From 1970 to 1976, the program conducted some fifteen interviews, under the direction of, and generally conducted by Harold C. Bateman, an emeritus professor of history. In 1979, under the direction of archivist John Sillito, the program was reestablished, and six interviews were conducted between 1979 and 1983, with additional interviews being conducted by members of the Weber State community. In 2013 the campus prepared to celebrate the 125th Anniversary of Weber State University in 2014. In order to document the student experience, interviews were conducted with Weber State College Alumni on an ongoing basis. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Hatch, Ernest Leroy, an oral history by Unknown, 30 November 1970, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an interview with Ernest Leroy Hatch, conducted by two unidentified men on November 30, 1970. Hatch discusses his experiences as a doctor in Mexico and speaks about the Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness of Time. Present for the interview are Harris Doone, John Kartchner, Joe Romney, and Gary Shumway. Interviewers’ identities are unspecified and initialed as IN. Hatch’s wife, Marza, is also present. IN: We are meeting at the home of E. Leroy Hatch and his family in Colonial Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, November 30, 1970. Why don't you tell us that story you were just about to get started on, Dr. Hatch? EH: I was just thinking when you mentioned just how rural, that the Paiute babies take a great deal. The other day, a lady came into my office with her little girl with diarrhea and she says, “Doctor, don't you think that the baby's teeth are the cause of this diarrhea?” I didn't pay any attention to it, because you can't explain it to them. We talked for a little while and she says, “I’m sure it's the baby’s teeth causing this diarrhea.” I still ignored her until finally she cornered me and she says, “Are you sure it's not the baby’s teeth that causes the diarrhea here?" I said, "No.” I says, “Diarrhea is not caused by teeth, it's caused by an infection.” She says, “But the people all say.” So I says, “Listen, people all say the moon is made of cheese, but it's not so, because just two days ago, three fellas came back from the moon and said they couldn't even find any cheese up there.” 1 And she says, "Ooh, ¿usted cree que se hayan ido a la luna?” [Laughs] “You think they came down [translation: went] to the moon?” But that is a very common belief in our country. IN: Is it—that the moon is made of cheese? EH: No [laughing], that diarrhea comes from teething. So if I go to the dentist office, it does. IN: Well, I’ve always understood it does. That's what they taught us in USC [laughs]. EH: A woman phoned the other day, a young woman, about 24 years of age, and she had a bad case of diarrhea. I remember her two-year-old girl had diarrhea, and then she had a baby, about a month old, and the baby had diarrhea, and she kept wanting to know if the cause of diarrhea in this little two-year-old was the baby’s teeth. I said, “Yes, I’m sure it is. That's the problem with you, too. You have all your teeth, and this little baby doesn't have any teeth, and all three of you have diarrhea because of your teeth” [laughs]. IN: We understand that you have treated, professionally, the people that have lived out in the Colonia LeBaron, the polygamist colony here in Chihuahua, and we were wondering, Dr. Hatch, if you might relay some of the stories in your dealings with this colony and if you could give us some background of the colony. I believe that you are probably the one in the Church who knows more about this group than any other, and I wonder if you can tell us about it? EH: Well, my association with them dates clear back until they were young boys and I was a young man. They moved into our colony, and I directed the boys in God's work and priesthood work and went to school, although I was an upperclassman 2 when they were just beginning. But, I was still with them. I knew them very intimately at that time. My father was bishop when three of the boys were called to go on missions. While I was in Mexico City studying medicine, they had excommunicated them, of course. Then later on, when I came back here, I was on the high council that considered the case, and a few of them were applying to get back into the Church. For 25 years I have been their doctor, and occasionally have given them my signature to borrow money from the bank. I have also loaned them personal money a time or two in years gone by, not recently. So I feel that very few people have the intimate association that I have had. I’m not a student of psychology, but I am very interested in people like that. I might tell you, like I told the five missionaries who were excommunicated from the French Mission before they went home, after they had been excommunicated in France, they came directly here to the Colony at LeBaron. One evening a knock came at my front door. I went to the door and there was five fellows there, dressed like regular Mormon missionaries and all had their briefcases, and they introduced themselves as missionaries of the Church of the First Mormons of the Fulness of Time. They wanted to come in and talk to me, and I invited them in. They reached down and began to take out their scriptures, and I told them that I didn’t think there wouldn't be any need for them to take them out of the Bible, the Book of Mormon. I couldn't even see a point in us getting in a discussion over some of the scriptures. I said, “How long have you fellas known the LeBarons?” 3 Well, they hadn't expected that question, they had come to discuss the scriptures. Four of them had just met them a day or so before; one had been there two weeks in their calling. I said, “You fellas have to know how many crazy people there are in the LeBaron Family. Insane.” They looked at each other and they were quite frightened. One of them finally admitted that he'd heard one of the older brothers, Ben, was in chains, and that one of the sisters, by the name of Lucinda, was insane. That's all he knew about it. Then I went ahead and told them my personal experiences with them, where I've seen even their present leaders when they were absolute candidates for an insane asylum, a mental institute. I relayed to them some experiences I'd had with their older brother Ben, with the older of the LeBaron boys. It really started then with Ben LeBaron and some of the antics I had seen him pull, and how I had gone to a mental institute in Provo, Utah to visit him, and at the insistence of his mother, go and minister to him and cast the evil spirits she said he had. But when I went to the institute the doctor wouldn't let me in because Ben had a bad case of dementia praecox, and he had been very violent that day and he would rather I didn't see him. I related to them several cases, some idiotic things I had seen him do. I saw him one day with a small pickup, a ton job with a platform built behind, and he had the platform covered with bows and then a canvas atop those bows. I ran across him in the streets of Dublán. I came up and I saw a bunch of towheaded 4 kids sticking their heads out from underneath the canvas. He was parked in the middle of the road, and up on top of the old model dilapidated pick-up he had was a spare tire, up on top of the radiator. So I go up to him and stopped him and said, “How are you, Ben?” He rather ignored my salutation. He let out a squall and it frightened him; he ran over and he jumped up on top of that car, right from the ground, and he got a little momentum springing up and down on that car, and from there he jumped up onto the roof of the cab where he had another car, and I discovered he had those cars to protect the radiator of the hood of his car, and also to protect the cab of his car, and probably give him a little more spring. After he got three or four more springs like that, he tried to jump and clear the back of the platform, but he got tangled his toes and he bent over and toppled to the ground. He came out brushing himself, and I asked him what on earth he was doing, and he said he was just exercising to keep in shape, keep him trim. As I sat there in the car, he kept reaching over and putting his hand on my head, tried to put his hand on me and I'd pull back each time. I sat inside my car. He said, “You don't need to be afraid of me, right? We know each other well.” I says, “Well, I'm not afraid of you, but fussing with me like that.” Finally, he reached over and touched me a time or two and I stopped flinching, and all of a sudden before I was aware of what had taken place, he had both hands on my head and he had set me apart as one of his apostles, before I 5 even… He had said all the necessary things to make me an apostle before I was aware of just what he was doing. So I pulled over there in front of a store, and while I was there, a friend of mine, Leland Martinoe, came out of the store and walked over towards me and Ben came over walking over towards him. Before Leland knew what he was doing, he made him an apostle. At that time, the owner of the store came out, a very dignified man. He was bishop of the Dublán Ward, named Edgar Wagner, and he walked up to Bishop Wagner, and he had him made presiding bishop of the church. Anyway, these are some of the things that I have seen Ben do. Some of the crazy things IN: Did you tell these missionaries? EH: I was telling these missionaries these things about him. I said, “Not only Ben, the present leader…” One time in Mexico City, Ben's wife was expecting her first child, and they were going to have her have that baby by herself out in a little lean-to shack they had on the Popocatépetl Mountain, out away from Ozumba State of Mexico. Ben's father-in-law, a man by the name of Leonard Ogden, had come from Richfield, Utah down there, and he tried to get his daughter to at least go back to El Paso or go to a hospital in Mexico City or something and have her baby there, and he'd pay the expenses. Alma, one of their leaders over here that's been their presiding bishop—he made arrangements for me to go and see Ben and see if I couldn't get Ben to talk to his father-in-law, or at least let me talk to him. He said he would try to do that, and then threatened us. 6 One time, just about a week before, Bishop Call, who had been Bishop in Dublán for 37 years and who had been Bishop to these boys when they were younger, thought he would have some influence with them. So he went down there, and I took him out to see the boys and they came striding across the field. They hadn't shaved or had a haircut for ages. Their clothes were in tatters, and they all had a suspender which consisted of a rope tied on one side of their trousers and then pulled to the opposite shoulder and then back down on the back side. They all dressed alike. They were sandy-complected and their beards were a sandy ugly red and matted. They had been eating these wild chokecherries that grow down there called capulínes, and that chokecherry juice had just gone down through their beards and dripped off down to their clothes and they really looked bad. As they got up to the car where Bishop Call was—he couldn't hear too well— one was leaning down and trying to talk to Bishop Call. Bishop Call couldn't hear and he kept saying, “What was that? What was that?” So I said, “Stop mumbling and lean down here so Bishop Call can hear you. You’re talking like a crazy man.” All they did was let out a squall, a yell, a scream, that it makes cold chills go up my back right now to think of it, the scream that I heard him give. Bishop Call, in later years, he kept talking to me about that. He said, “Can you remember that scream that he gave?” Well, I later found out what they were doing. They read in the Scriptures, in the Old Testament, that during the Last Days, the Prophets of the Lord would 7 roar like lions, and they practiced roaring up there in the wilderness. They actually told me, confessed later on that that’s what they were doing. They were practicing roaring like lions, like the Scriptures said that the Prophets would do in the Last Days. IN: Was there any significance for there being down at Popocatépetl? EH: Yes. Ben and Alma—Alma had married a missionary companion of his, a fine girl from San Marcos, Tula, Hidalgo, a daughter of Berno Del Parra, a very lovely young lady. He was down there helping his father-in-law and was setting up orchards on his father-in-law’s property, and Alma knew a great deal about horticulture. While he was there, Ben sent word for him to come see that horse and meet him there. Alma went out there alone and met his brother Ben, and when he got back into San Marcos Tulidalgo, they had this Church of the Firstborn all cooked up. Ben was the prophet seer and revelator of it. IN: What year was that? EH: That was in the year of… MH: 1944? EH: Before we were married? MH: No, it was after we were married. Christian was a baby. EH: It was probably the year of ‘44. Ben had run this Alma Dayer over to his side, and when they began to preach to the saints and cause a lot of trouble in the ranch at San Marcos, then the father-in-law ran the boys off. The daughter, his own daughter, followed her husband, and they went out on the slopes of Popocatépetl and built this lean-to shack out there. That's where this lady was gonna have a 8 baby. I finally got permission from Ben to let that girl’s father come and talk to her. He wouldn't let him talk to her… He would only let him talk to her only through the tent from the outside. Finally, I said, “Ben, let your father-in-law go in there and talk to his daughter.” He went in there, and pretty soon we heard the most pitiful sobbing taking place, both the father and the daughter crying in there. She was Ogden's youngest daughter and had run away. A girl accustomed to riches and comforts and whatnot, and here she was expecting a baby, out there in the wild, and we couldn't obtain permission from Ben to have his wife to even get to Mexico City where I could deliver. I'd delivered lots of babies by then; I was in the last year of medicine and had delivered lots of babies, and I could have delivered babies there or take her to a hospital and recommend her to a good man, and he wouldn't let me. He said, “My brother Alma has had a lot of experiences with cows when they've calved,” and he said, “I don't think there is much difference.” He says, “I think Alma could take care of.” So Alma did. But anyways, these French Missionaries, they were surprised to hear this. Then I asked them, “Do you know how many times they have changed leaders since they started this church?” “No, I didn't know anything about that.” I says, “This is the fifth prophet they've had in leader. Their present one, this Joel LeBaron; their first one was Ben.” They sent out little leaflets all over the country, likely the testimony of the three witnesses in which he says that an angel 9 had been made known to them, that Ben was the Lord’s anointed, and they were testifying to the world that Ben was the Lord’s anointed and one to lead his Church. But after Ben became more and more violent in his insanity, he was placed in institutes and stayed there most of the time, they had to shift and find a new prophet. They went to Mexico City and they ran across this Joseph Musser, who was the leader of the fundamentalist group here in Salt Lake City. After he came back from Mexico City, they told me and bore testimony to me that they had found the Lord’s anointed, at last, and it was Joseph Musser. But Musser didn't live very long after that. He died in Mexico, as I remember, and they made another pilgrimage back to Mexico City. There they ran across an old renegade that had been excommunicated from the Church by the name of Margarito Bautista, originally from our mad country, but as a young man, had gone to Salt Lake City and had gone all through the Church in Salt Lake City. He was in good standing ‘til he went into Mexico to try to lead all the Mexican Missions away from the Church in what they called the ‘Third Convention.’ I was a young missionary down there at the time, that’s when I was down there alone. I was aware of this, and I sent word to Harold Pratt that this was taking place, and he came down there and this Bautista was excommunicated. But now the LeBarons: their brother Ben was in the insane asylum, Musser had died, and they’re without a leader. So they went down there and accepted this Margarito Bautista as their leader, and this Margarito Bautista came to their colony at their invitation, out here at LeBaron Field, and baptized them all again 10 and gave them all the priesthood, because the priesthoods and the baptisms they had weren't valid. But it was only two or three months after that until they had a falling out with Bautista, and then they excommunicated Bautista and he excommunicated them, and they were without a leader. At this time, Joel LeBaron, who was one of the boys they excommunicated in the Mexican Mission… I was president of the court that had excommunicated him; he had been trying to get back into the Church, and he had put the boys down there on the slopes of Popocatépetl and come up here. The Stake President, which was Claudius Bowman, told him that he would have to prove himself for a year to see if he was worthy to come back into Church, and after a year had transpired and he had continued to attend services and conduct himself properly, he was baptized a member of the Church. He had no work, and at that time, the colonies had a focus project which was an up-and-coming business, and they needed lots of corn. So they gave this Joel LeBaron a commission to go up in the mountain colonies and buy corn during the harvest season, and they gave him money to do it. It wasn't long until he couldn't account for 26,000 pesos. He had probably paid an advance on corn, but he hadn't collected the corn, and he hadn't delivered it, and about this time, he left here and we didn't know just where he'd gone. He was gone probably a month, and all of a sudden, almost everyone in the colonies received this mail on the same day, and it was a statement from him that he was the Lord’s anointed and he that had been commanded to organize the Church of the Firstborn of the 11 Fulness of Time, and that he had had it registered in his name at the State Building in Utah. Only a week or so later, most of us received also a letter from his older brother, Wesley Ross LeBaron—we called him Ross—in which Wesley claimed that Joel had usurped the power, that he was the one mighty and strong and the one chosen of the Lord, and that he had sent Joel to the State Capital to register the church, put in ‘Wesley Ross’ as leader, but Joel had usurped the power and had registered himself as the leader. IN: When was this done? EH: This was probably in about ‘54, maybe ‘52 or ‘54. IN: Did you by chance keep any of these letters that came? EH: No, I haven't kept any of them. IN: Or know if anyone has in the colonies? EH: I doubt it very much. Lots of people think that it's wrong to even talk to them or talk about them or to read the literature or anything like that, and they burned it and destroyed it. I didn't ever have that fear; I was interested in learning from a psychological standpoint, and I had no qualms whatsoever about discussing it with them. I told the French missionaries about this change: from Ben first, to Musser, and then to Bautista, and not all the boys—and I want to make this clear because I've been quoted that ‘all the boys joined this’, they didn't—but Alma, who was their presiding bishop, and a few of the others did join. A cousin of theirs by the name of Owen D. LeBaron—he had come out of Canada; I think he lived a while in Northern Utah, and then he came down here. He had a vision, 12 and in his vision, the world was going to come to an end, and a flying saucer was going to come by and pick up all the faithful. He told the day and the hour and the minute that it was going to come by. They were going to be taken to the City of Enoch, and the clothes that they were going to use up there were going to be different; they were supposed to be in the nude, and be picked up in the nude. For a period of probably two to three weeks, there was a certain group of people that ran around in the nude, out there in LeBaronville, and Alma Dayer was one of them. When I got after him about it, because Alma and I were pretty good friends and I could talk frankly to him, and I says, “Alma, what on earth have you been doing?” He says, “Brother Hatch, I am embarrassed, I am chagrined about this because I knew that my cousin had some kind of a spirit, but I couldn't decipher it. I joined him, and after two or three days I discovered it wasn't the right spirit.” I says, “You are a smart man, Alma.” Taking three or four days running around in the nude to discover your cousin didn't have the right spirit, and then because the cousin insisted on still doing this, the cousin was kicked out by the rest of the LeBaron group, and he went up to Pacheco, and in Pacheco he continued to live this, going around in the nude. His first wife was a woman probably 36 years of age, and a nice looking woman, and she had a 15 or 16year-old daughter and about a 14-year-old son, and then they were just children like a staircase all the way down. His second wife was a beautiful brunette, and she was only about 19 or 20, and all of them in the nude. They’d work in the garden in the nude, and the menfolk in Pacheco couldn't get their work done 13 [laughs]. Gotta get your time to take a bath or to wash your clothes or they’d all pray. The father going first, then the first wife, and the second wife, and then each of the children like that, going down to the creek to take a bath and wash their clothes. The population of Pacheco would gather to watch the performance down there. Well, this Owen D. LeBaron made a lot of excursions away from Pacheco. I don't know just where he went; I think he was going over to Sonora, and for some reason, I think he was usually taking his oldest wife with him and leaving this young wife and this young daughter at home. They began to crowd around, the young men of Pacheco, and one day, when Owen D. came home from his trips, his wife had some news for him. She had had a vision, and she was supposed to have a child from some other man. He said, “Well, we can't go against revelation and vision. If you had that, why, there's nothing to do.” She was already pregnant, but she now had his permission. Then they finally moved away from here, and I have understood that he has been locked up permanently in an insane asylum. I’m not sure about that, but I understand that he has. As I talked to these French missionaries about all of these things, I says, “Now the immorality, even within their group, while there has been immorality...” There's been this exchange of wives that I was speaking to you about, where a wife decides she no longer wants to live with a man, and she goes to their authority and tells them she's not compatible, she doesn't want to live with a 14 man, and then she's granted separation from him. Then she chooses a man from their cult, and before long, she's married to this man. I was telling these French missionaries all about this, and they were shocked, and when I got through I said, “Now I'd like to say to you fellows that every word I’ve told you tonight is true; not only have I told you people the truth, I have discussed all of this with the LeBaron boys. Not one occasion, but on many occasions, we've argued and talked about it.” One of them spoke up and says, “Dr. Hatch, I feel that everything you've told us is true, but what would you do, if the Lord Himself told you that Joel LeBaron was His Prophet?” I says, “The Lord wouldn't tell me that, and He didn't tell you that.” “Yes, He did,” he says. “On the boat when I was coming home from France, the Lord told me that Joel LeBaron was His prophet.” I told the fellas, I said, “You fellas, right now you feel moguled, you feel like martyrs; you've given up family, home, friends, and everything to follow the dictates of your conscious. You feel noble. You are all together on one boat now.” But I says to them, “There is five of you together tonight—and I don't claim to be a Prophet. Your Prophet’s over there—but the five of you here tonight, look into your Helaman with the LeBaron group and their moves. They would be there all their lives.” I’m sure it wasn’t more than two or three months after that that our Stake President received a letter from two of the boys—Jarvis was one of them, and I can't remember the name of the other boy—in which they wrote our Stake 15 President acknowledging their mistake: that they had done wrong and they had been deceived, and they were doing all they could to get back into church. One of the things that was asked of them to get back in the Church was that they might right all the wrongs they had done, and were they born their testimony and whatnot; they should tell these people how mistaken they had been. So this was a letter from these two boys admitting their error, their mistake, and asking our Stake President to notify different people that they had talked to and remembered. They should go to Dr. Hatch and tell them that they had discovered they had been deceived and they were trying to get back into Church. Since that time, one of the other boys—I am quite sure that Silver was one of them that was here, Steve Silver, I believe. He’s quit the group, according to the LeBarons of course; why, he claimed he wasn't worthy to live this higher law, this law of polygamy, and he thought it be wise therefore not to cause him embarrassment or whatnot; he was leaving to not embarrass them. Then Tucker, who was the originator of this move among the French missionaries, before his death of a ruptured appendix in Los Angeles a year or so ago; he had broken away from the LeBarons, and in breaking away, he had taken a lot of the boys that he had brought into the LeBaron group back with him. They became agnostics and were studying oriental mysticism and things of that nature. That’s what he was doing when he died. But he took with him LeBarons, most of those he introduced and several more. LeBaron wasn’t prospering at all, it was on the rocks. They had been trying to practice the United Order, and they had gone broke in all the bills all 16 over, and when the French Missionaries came in, that was a shot in the arm, a transfusion for them, and they really came to the front with the aid of these French missionaries, especially Tucker. They would get a man and convert him to the idea that all of his money should be turned over to the Church, and that's the way they lived for quite a while. They’d find people with money and convert them, and all of their money would be turned over to the Church. Right now, the man that I’ve always felt has been their leader is one of younger LeBaron boys, Ervil. He’s been their presiding patriarch and President of their Mission for years, and he became quite overbearing and rebellious not too long ago and he’s been relieved of that position. He’s in good standing, maybe, but he holds no position at all in their group. IN: Is he the one that came to your home recently and talked to you? EH: No, the Prophet himself came to my office. That’s the Prophet Joel, came and brought his brother Alma and a German fellow. IN: Siegfried? EH: Siegfried Witmore. IN: That’s right. IN: What did they come for? What was the nature? EH: They came to me to put me in my place. They said that I had been trampling on their God-given human rights, that I had been guilty of slander and deceit, and wanted to know if they could talk to me. I says, “Yes,” and I says, “What specifically, what is the some of the things that you…” 17 “What have you been saying about us?” And I said, “I’ve said a lot of things about you fellas, but I never said anything about you that I haven't said to your face, and I'll repeat it again. We've gone over all the things I've said about you many, many times.” Well, they said, “We are here to set you straight on the message.” “I would like to get specific then; tell me specifically one of the things you'd like to discuss with me?” “You know what you've been saying.” I says, “We are not getting anywhere. You’re the men who are making the accusation. Tell me what it is.” They wouldn't say anything. Finally, I said, “Maybe one of the things I says is that you owe money. Joel, you owe money for the poultry association, that 29,000 pesos. [Sound cuts out. A new recording starts.] EH: What were we saying? IN: You said you were in your office and one of the accusations… EH: Oh, I said that, “Probably one of the accusations was that I says you owe money.” He said, “That’s it?” I says, “Well, according to the books of the poultry association, you owe them 29,000 pesos.” He says, “I do not. I don't owe anyone a cent. I've tried to have a settlement with them, and I can't ever get a settlement. I delivered all that corn.” 18 I said, “Do you have any receipts?” “I don't, because I thought I was dealing with honest men.” I says, “According to their books, you owe them 29,000.” He said, “No. Maybe it's 6 or 8,000.” I says, “Regardless of the sum, you've just admitted that you owe them money.” “I don't owe them a penny!” he says, “because they won't give me a settlement.” I says, “You are messing around with being a kid who is embezzling funds. It looks to me that the burden of proof is on you to go prove that you didn't embezzle the funds. Show your receipts or witnesses or something like that.” Although he admitted that he still owed money, but he did not because, they wouldn't give him a settlement, and I could see we aren't getting anywhere there. I says, “All the bails that you have in your craw, what would you like to discuss?” “Well, you know what you did and said.” I still couldn't get him to get specific on anything. I said, “Maybe one of the things that I said was how inconsistent you boys have been; how many times you changed leaders and about how your mother and father were wishy-washy.” “That’s one thing,” he says. “You laid your tongue to my sainted mother.” He says, “I want you to stop doing that.” I says, “What do you mean?” 19 He says, “You've told a lot of lies about my mother.” I said, “The only thing I’ve said about your mother is how wishy-washy she was. When I was studying medicine, and Alma was in the office at that time,” I says, “when Alma was on his mission, my father was Bishop. I had been at the breakfast table two or three times when your mother had come into the office to read letters of Alma here to his mother, asking his mother and father to get straight with the Church, to get back into the Church. Telling them how happy he was down there preaching the Gospel.” I said, “I heard her say one time that she and her husband, your father, was going to spend the rest of their lives to get things set right and get back into the Church. Later on, in Mexico City, when I was president of the Mission, I went completely over the files of you LeBaron boys, each of you excommunicated from the Mexican mission. Your files, all the correspondence, are all in our files down there, and I got letters from your mother one day to President Pierce, telling President Pierce how appreciative she was for all he's done for her sons, and how he had handled them exactly how they should be handled. Other times, just really berating him for the way he handled him, for what he had done. She just wish-washed back and forth all the time.” I said, “Another thing that I am going to tell you is this: I have witnesses. Johnny Talford told me this on several different occasions.” Johnny Talford was the Senior High Councilman in our Stake, had been for years. A venerable old man. He’s the one you saw yesterday at Church, over 100 old now. He told me that one Sunday afternoon, just before High Council was to convene, Dayer LeBaron came into his office and says, “Brother Talford, I am here to ask you a 20 favor. I want you to use your good offices in the High Council to get me back into Church.” He says, “I've done wrong, I think I've paid for it, I think I've repented. I think I’m ready to get back into Church.” Brother Talford says, “Dayer, how on earth can I do that? You were excommunicated for polygamy and you're still living it. How can I plead your cause?” He says, “I haven't lived with Maud LeBaron for five years.” That was the mother to these boys, the LeBaron boys. Well, John Talford talked to himself, said the least he could do is at least tell the brethren what LeBaron had reported to him and investigate the case a little. He said that he had felt inclined to do that, and said Dayer LeBaron hadn't been gone more than 10 or 15 minutes, and Maud LeBaron, his wife, came up the back and says, “John, has Dayer been here?” He says, “Yes.” “What did he want?” “He says he wanted to get back into the church. He said he hadn't been living with you for five years.” She says, “Dayer LeBaron is a big liar. He slept with me last night.” When I got through relating this to Joel, he turned to the men and says, “That is a big lie. See, we proved Dr. Hatch a liar in this.” I says, “Listen, that's not very good logic. You proved me a liar because you say this is a lie, but I can't understand it that way.” 21 They had me, of this debt of 29,000 pesos. He turned to his witnesses, “Now, you brethren are here as my witnesses. We proved Dr. Hatch a liar in this.” I said, “You haven't proven a liar at all. I didn't state how much money you owed, I just said you owed money to the poultry association, and on their books it says 29,000 dollars.” He says, “We proved him a liar here. I don't know any such thing. Now, I want you brethren to remember this, we proved Dr. Hatch a liar.” So when I couldn't get anywhere with him like that, I says, “I’m talking to a crazy man here.” Maybe I was rude or outspoken, but I said it. “I’m talking to a crazy man. I can't talk to this man. I want you fellas that are here as witnesses to witness how illogical he has been in our conversation.” He began to get angry, and he called me some most vulgar names and swore, and then I called his hand his on it. I told him that didn't sound like the language for a Prophet of the Lord, and he claims to be a prophet. He said he could show me in scriptures or in history where Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had used worse language than that. I told him I doubt it if he could, but even should he be able to show me that didn’t justify him using that kind of language. He turned around and said, “Buck team to Satan,” and told me the evil ends that I’d meet and left my office. That's the last conversation I had with him. Since that time, the other Dayer, Alma Dayer, has been to me and told me how embarrassed and ashamed of his brother he was that day. Then this German fellow Siegfried Witmore has become a very close friend of mine, and 22 he’s admitted and says that was one of the first times he had his eyes open to just how crazy Joel was. IN: We met him out there the other afternoon. EH: Siegfried? IN: He seemed to be a very personable, nice fellow. EH: Well, he’s a very fine fellow. IN: Yeah. Now, does he have more than one wife? I guess he does, doesn’t he? EH: Oh, yeah, he does. That's how I’ve become so acquainted with him. Imogen, his second wife, is a granddaughter of the LeBarons, a niece to these boys. They've been terribly ill with malignant endocarditis, and because the Lord has been kind to her and because of the angelic side, she's overcome it. That's how I've become very well acquainted with Siegfried. He and his wife, the one that has been ill or having trouble, he told me that these LeBarons are very overbearing with the rest of the group out there. He says that they feel it's because of the LeBaron tribe, the ones chosen by the Lord, that they are superior to other people in the colony. They make it known to not only the LeBaron brothers and sisters, the original ones, but also their children; lord it over the other children of the colony, the chosen seed. But their movement is entirely on the rocks. IN: Why has it lasted this long? EH: Well, I think that it would have failed years ago if it hadn't have been for these French missionaries. Then when the French missionaries pulled out two years ago, it has actually gone down. 23 IN: The other afternoon when we visited the colony, we talked to an Earl Jensen and we met five of his wives there. I believe that one of his wives lives in El Paso where he works occasionally to support his wives in the colony. I guess he is living in Tucker’s home. Is that Tucker’s home, the big white two-story? EH: The big white two-story building with orchards is not Tucker’s home, that's his. IN: Was that Jensen’s home? EH: Yeah, Jensen's home, he made that. He's a builder, and he had been one of the richest men of their group, or was at one time. IN: Are they still sharing all their funds together in a United Order? EH: Oh no, no, no. That broke up years ago, probably a year before the French missionaries came in. They haven't kept, or lived with, the United Order since the French missionaries came in. But they were living that law where a man, when he joins the group, gives all of his money to the group. IN: And do they still live that? EH: Well, I imagine if they can find enough suckers or get enough people to, if they could find people that would give them that kind of money, they would do it. But they don't have Tucker left anymore. He’s the man that was able to convince the people to do that. IN: Didn't they have some problems with people? EH: Yes, they have been sued by several of the groups. I have known several cases of men trying to get back their money, and they haven't been able to get it back. IN: A couple of times, didn't someone leave with the funds? 24 EH: I haven't known of that. I haven't known of any of them ever. I do know that there are a lot of drones in the group. Ervil LeBaron, for 16, 18 years never turned a hand to make a living; Joel hasn't done very much work. One of the other boys, Floren, hasn't done very much. There's just been a lot of people living off of those funds out there. Joel: the man has had at least ten wives, probably one or two more. I understand he still has eight of them and he has a parcel of children. To support them and never work himself—although, I do admit he’s had a lot of his wives working, and that's the way they've kept body and soul together, the wives have been supported in that. IN: In what way do they work? EH: They work the States. A lot that is pregnant or chosen to selective stay behind and take care of the children; she takes care of the children of all the other wives, and those wives go to the States and get jobs at different places, you know, and send money back to support the family. That's a very common practice for them. The wives have been the breadwinners. IN: What is the role of the wife, in your estimation? Is it a very envious position? EH: Well, for men, they price women so highly they want a lot of them. It seemed to me they are relegated to rather second-class citizens, in a way. They try to make the wives feel they have all the rights and prerogatives, but my personal observation: all it has been is they disregard the woman’s opinions, her wants and wishes, a great deal. Probably more so with the original LeBaron boys than maybe some of the newer men, but in conversations with me, they have told me 25 many times that a woman has no right to offer anything, or to keep them from taking new wives or anything else. They are the lords and masters. IN: Do you feel that the women are really happy out there, or are they trapped in a situation they can't get out of? EH: You know, that's a hard one to answer. I have tried to analyze a great deal. I have seen acts of kindness and love and compliments between those sisterwives—they call two or three women married to one man sister-wives. But it’s very touching. I've seen one of those sister-wives come into the hospital to have a baby, and maybe three, four sister-wives will accompany her. They are just waiting on her hand and foot, just very concerned and considerate and whatnot if they have a baby. But I have seen lots of heartache, lots of sadness. I have had women personally tell me, “What can I do? I have three or four children, where will I go? What can I do? I can't make arrangements for these children. The only thing I can do is stay with him.” Most every one of them, the leaders, have had one or two of their wives leave them, some for one reason and some for another, but all of them had wives leave. IN: The women seem to have some problems in living together, as you know, women. Men can seem to get along better living together than women have at times. How do they get along as a group, with the men gone to the states and then they’re kind of by themselves? EH: In public, they make it appear that they get along real well and they love each other dearly. But, my experiences, then, when they have come in for consultation or whatnot, I've found lots of heartache and problems among them. I might say 26 that it's been more where a man has been married to Anglo wives and Mexican wives, they don't mix at all. They have lots of racial problems. I have treated not one woman, but several of their women, for blows that they have received from their husbands, physical violence from their husbands. One of them showed me welts that she said, and of course I didn't see, it but she told me her husband did it with his belt, and from the look of the welts and the bruises, why it well could have been. I knew a case among them of a young fellow, handsome fellow, marrying a Mexican girl. She was a young, very attractive girl, and when she was about two or three pregnant, he went to the States, and while he was in the States, she had a spontaneous abortion. She lost a great deal of blood, and she was in a weakened condition, and two or three days after this took place, in comes her husband to her home and brings an American wife from the States. She didn't even know that he was going to get married, and here he comes and brings a new wife in, and brings her right into this woman's home. But when she found out what had happened, she flew at this American woman and grabbed her by the hair, and her husband forced them apart. He thought he had established peace and he went outside, and this Mexican girl, in her weakened condition, she flew at this American girl again. The husband came in and he really beat up on her. I saw the black and blue marks all over, and she fainted, supposedly, and he brought her in to see me. At night, I went down to her home to see her, and she was fainted, dead away apparently, as I talked to the husband and tried to get the story from the 27 husband, what had taken place, and he wasn't telling me at all. He just said since the evening before she had been like that, in a state of coma. I was almost convinced that she was listening to everything I was saying, although I was speaking in English and she spoke Spanish, but I was still positive she was listening. I had experience with women supposed hysterical and pulling stunts like that, and so I switched to Spanish, and then I observed her closely, and then I could tell she was listening to everything I said. So I asked the husband and the women of the house to leave and let me talk to her alone. As soon as they left I called her by name and says, “What’s the matter?” She didn't move or answer or anything, and I reached down and got her by the ribs and I pinched her a good one, and I says, “What’s the matter?” She kinda fluttered her eyes and finally opened them and I says, “What’s the matter?” She says, “What do you imagine is the matter? Look at my arms.” She raised her arms just like that, and her arms had big black and blue marks on it. She said, “I have them on my legs and on my back too.” She told me that her husband beat up on her and he had been before, told me why he had beat up on her. Then I called the husband back in and I really got after him. I says, “The idea of you beating up on this woman in her weakened condition.” I says, “It's all your fault bringing a woman into this.” He says, “I told her when I married her that I would leave some day and take a wife.” 28 I said, “You could have told her that the day before yesterday and she wouldn't have believed it. A woman is proud of her abilities to hold her husband.” She thought she had all the charms she needed to keep him, but it was a sad affair. IN: What's happened with that particular couple? EH: I haven't seen them. In just Browman South Old Mission, I haven't seen since then. I don't know. I imagine they are living over in Baja, California; that's where some of his sisters are living, who are married into polygamy, and I just imagine that's where he is. I’ve never been over to that colony, ever. IN: Where is the colony there? EH: It's down below Ensenada, Baja, California. I think they have more people there than they do here. There's several reasons. They’ve about burned themselves out over here, and also the climate is a little better, and they're closer to the States where they can slip in and work and get back to their families. They’ll spend the weekends with their families and work all week out in the States, and so there’s many of them over in this town that they have going. IN: How many would you say there were in the group all together? EH: Oh, I don't know, that would be very difficult, because they couldn't tell you either, because they don't keep records. But they could say, “Well, we have 500,” but they haven't seen 300 of that 500 in the last year or two years, and they don't know if they are still with them or not. IN: Did you ever know a man named Walter Heartlauer? EH: I heard of him, probably. 29 IN: Earl Jensen, going from what you said about their membership: I asked him if there were less than 500, and he said, yes, he thought that there were less than 500, but he had no way of knowing how many there were, because they were scattered out. EH: They’re not unified at all. I have personally known cases where I'm sure the man would come back into the Church if he hadn’t taken upon himself these obligations, these many wives with children. What can they do? I had Earl Jensen himself tell me that he might be breaking with the group, and then he’s back in solid with them again, but he says that the last eight or ten years: “I had taken upon myself obligations that I don't know how I can get out from under them,” referring to his several wives and children. IN: How do we correlate this with the historical polygamy that the Church… EH: I like to mention that, but you know, I was just thinking of something else that I would like to mention. One time I was talking to Alma, who was a presiding Bishop, and he kept referring to the prophet Ben—that was when Ben LeBaron was still their Prophet. I said, “You keep referring to your brother as a prophet.” I said, “You know, a prophet is usually a man that teaches and a man that foretells the future, and what has Ben ever prophesied that came true?” Oh, he said, “Lots of things.” I said, “Well, I'd like to know one.” 30 He stopped to think it over, he says, “Well, he told Ervil and me that if we joined him, we'd be excommunicated from the Church and we'd become a hiss, and by word among our friends and acquaintances.” I says, “Heavenly day, man, it didn’t take a prophet to tell you that. You’re guilty of apostasy. You’ve got come up with better one than that.” He thought a minute and he says, “Well, Ben told us that before this thing was over, innocent blood would run.” I says, “If that's come true, maybe you could call that a prophecy, but I have known you pretty well, and I haven't known of innocent blood running.” He says, “Oh, it did.” I says, “Well, how was that?” And he says, “My wife Luz was about two or three months pregnant. All this trouble and turmoil and whatnot caused her to abort, and she had a terrible hemorrhage.” “I see those prophecies fulfilled every day in the world in my office.” But those are two of the prophecies of their brother Ben. When you ask about how this ties in with polygamy and the church: they claim that their great-grandfather, Benjamin F. Johnson was made not only the heir to Joseph Smith’s properties—that's one of the things they claim, that the Nauvoo house and the Nauvoo mansion was deeded over to them. Brother Richards made a very thorough study of this—but also that Benjamin F. Johnson was the ecclesiastical heir to Joseph Smith; that Joseph Smith conferred upon him the keys of the Presidency of the priesthood, which is the highest office of 31 priesthood, and that's one of the things they are trying to tell you over there. They just kept talking about these self-perpetuating offices. But, anyway, they claim that Benjamin F. Johnson was made the ecclesiastical heir to Joseph Smith. Well, Benjamin F. Johnson was never excommunicated from the Church, he remained faithful. He became a Patriarch in his last years. This Benjamin F. Johnson was sent to different parts of the country by Brigham Young to do different things. If he had more authority than Brigham Young, why, you wouldn't think he would take orders from Brigham Young? He never made any claim to any power or authority. He never made any claim to any power of authority other than just a Patriarch in the Church. He had a large posterity, and of all of his posterity, this small group of LeBarons is the only one that claim that he had this authority and this power. This Brother Richards has statements from other members of this family descending from Benjamin F. Johnson where they deny all of this. Their claims are that Benjamin F. Johnson chose Alma Dayer LeBaron Sr., who was his grandson, as the only man eligible to confer these keys, this priesthood and this power that he had received from Joseph Smith, upon his favorite grandson Alma Dayer LeBaron. Of course, this is like waving this red flag to the rest of his posterity. They don't believe for one minute that Alma Dayer LeBaron was his favorite grandson. They claim that he gave the authority to Alma Dayer LeBaron, before Paul LeBaron died. Then here we find that Alma Dayer LeBaron is a young man in the colonies, he left prior to the exodus. He married a cousin of my father’s, a girl by 32 the name of Barbara Bailey, and he was married in the temple to her. But after they’d lived in the States for a while, she discovered that he was secretly married to the mother of these LeBaron boys, to Maude LeBaron. Then she was granted a temple divorce from Dayer LeBaron, the father to all these boys. Dayer LeBaron, after a certain period of time officially, divorced Maude LeBaron and then officially, legally, married Onie LeBaron—I think she’s from Hurricane, Utah. He legally married her, and then after he was legally married to her, then he went back to living with Maude again. So before the law, he was only married to Onie, but now he’s living again with Maude. They don't recognize the government’s authority to marry or to divorce, but at the same time, they go through the steps to further their cause. Then he came down here, after he was excommunicated with Maude and Onie, he moved into Colonia Juárez with his family and these boys were raised in our colony. He never made any claims that he was one right and strong, but they said he was supposed to keep that secret, and they sacrificed the scripture where this will be kept secret from the world. Then all the boys were against him; I've heard them say some very slanderous and mean things against their father, especially when Ben was the one mighty and strong, leading the Lord’s work here upon the earth. He’s the oldest son, and they really said slanderous things about their father. And their father was a very wishy-washy man; one day he would say one thing, one day he'd say another thing. In the files of the Mexican Mission, there are copies of letters that he wrote to Heber J. Grant in which he said that he acknowledged the 33 big mistake he had made, that he wanted to get back in the Church. What could he do? What did he have to do to get back into church? Then all of a sudden, before his death—according to Joel LeBaron, and Joel's mother, I point that out in my novel a different way—but he brings out that the father, just prior to death, being of sound mind, called in several people as witnesses and whatnot, and then he had them leave the room, and just in the presence of Joel and Joel's mother, he conferred this power and authority that he received from Benjamin F. Johnson, his grandfather, who in turn received it from Joseph Smith, and their claim for the Prophet. IN: They talked about a right of the firstborn, to prove that they had this authority. They made this very specific, that this was important, but if this is true this wouldn't be... EH: Dayer LeBaron—Alma Dayer LeBaron Sr., wasn’t a son, he was a grandson of Benjamin F. Johnson. IN: Right. EH: Then the oldest boy was Ben, but Ben didn’t claim to get it from his father. He got his calling from the Lord himself, and he completely ignored his father and all the boys followed him. Every one of the boys were following Ben and were against the father, although the father couldn’t make no plans to move or anything on them, any special move or organization or anything. They were all against him and Ben was their leader. Then Ben went completely crazy. And if they’re going to talk about the firstborn, then it should have fallen on Alma Dayer Jr.'s shoulders, but instead of that, it drops clear down to Joel 34 LeBaron, one of the most colorless of all the boys. He has less on the ball than most of the boys, and I know them all. I might tell you one other thing about Joel LeBaron, and this Ervil, who to me has been the neck that has moved the head all the years, until just now when they kicked him out completely. They were in the mission field and again, my father had been bishop. The Church had made them sign statements in those days. When children of polygamists go on missions, they used to baptize them or whatnot, if they wanted to be, but they had to sign statements when going on a mission to say that they were not in sympathy with their parents and these polygamists’ moves, but that they are with the Church. They signed these statements when my father was bishop, and here they are in the mission field, and down comes Ben and Alma from the United States, starting to move down there. When President Pierson of the Mexico Mission discovered that they were over in San Marcos in the State of Hidalgo, starting up the movement, President Pierce wrote the boys a letter. The boys were working together in Puebla with Joel, who is now their prophet and leader, and Ervil… [Recording ends abruptly.] Part 2: November 30, 1970 IN: This is tape number two of an interview with Dr. Ernest Hatch? EH: Ernest Leroy. IN: Ernest Leroy Hatch on November 30, 1970. Present in the interview are Dr. Hatch and Harris Doone, John Kartchner, Joe Romney, and Gary Shumway. 35 EH: These boys were laboring in Puebla at the time and President Pierce, who was President of the Mission, wrote them a letter and point-blankly asked them if they were in sympathy with their brother Ben or if they were with the Church. We have on file in the Mexican Mission the letter of President Pierce Wilson and the answer to his letter, in which they answered categorically they were against their brothers. They made statement almost like this: “My brother Ben has made a hard bed and he'll have to lie in it. We won’t help him in any way, shape, or form.” And the next day both of them abandoned their field of labor and went to Saint Marcos to join Ben and Alma in San Marcos, the day after they sent this letter. IN: What was it that was so appealing about Ben? If he’s crazy, if he’s not very colorful, if he’s lazy? EH: Ben never had any influence on anyone but his brothers. He had no following, no other peoples. It was only his brothers, and they all limp on the same foot. They all have dementia praecox, and part of this is these illusions of grandeur and the delusions of grandeur that they get where they project themselves into some big role, you know? It's gone clear down through the whole family; it's dropping out now among the younger sisters. Esther has always been a very sane person. Of late, I have had some very interesting things take place with her where she's projecting herself into great things. She claims now that she is married to a fellow that has between a 14 and 20-million-dollar gross business. Maybe you fellows know him, I'm trying to get some data on him—his name is Melvin C. Orchard, and Melvin C. Orchard is supposed to have gone into Aurora, Utah recently, and set up a big factory and really put the saints on the map down in Aurora. Now 36 he’s selling out there and he's been called [inaudible] now in California, somewhere in Southern California. He wants to come down here and set up a big beef-processing plant big enough to handle this pig business we are going into down here. She tells me she's married to him as a polygamist wife, but I can't see what a lone millionaire would want to do with her. It’s just part of the same pattern, delusions. She lay a very serious accusation against a member of our ward—and as bishop, I had to investigate it—in which she claims that he had made some very indecent advances to her. All it has turned out to be that he greeted her in a friendly way, and in her delusions of grandeur, she is a beautiful, inciting widow that men can't just leave alone and he made proposals. That's just all it turned out to be. IN: Is she pretty? EH: No. She is not pretty. She's not entertaining. She’s a brilliant person in some ways; all these LeBarons are. They have a good mentality in lots of things. In school, they were good students. This girl was an outstanding student. IN: Did they go to the academy here? EH: Academy here. This girl I’m speaking of, she’s a woman now, 45 years of age. She has had, I think, fourteen children in this polygamist set-up. She married a fellow named of Spencer; her name is Esther LeBaron Spencer, and she tells the story that she went to Gila College in Thatcher, Arizona. While there, the son of the Stake President fell in love with her. It was true they were going to get married, but her own folks broke it up, because they wanted her to marry into 37 polygamy. She was quite broken up at the time, but now she tells me that she discovered then that she could have any boy she wanted. She had Hollywood stars after her, and she just decided that what she would do was scour the length and breadth of Arizona and California, at the stakes and wards and choose the boy she wanted to marry and then go to the temple with him. That's what she decided to do because she discovered this great power she had over men and how attracted to her they were. But before she got around to finding the one she wanted, she says the Lord was preserving her for this old man she married. She married a man more than 30 years her senior, and she said when she saw this man, she knew what the Lord had been saving her for. This was it. But it all follows the same pattern. I’ve seen all of them, just absolutely insane. IN: Do any of the children from the LeBaron colony come to the academy, this school? EH: No, we don’t let them in. The Church won't allow them to do this. Steve Silver has been trying to get his children into a school in Mexico City and [inaudible]. IN: Do the LeBarons have any family in Canada? EH: Yes, the LeBarons. This one Joel D. LeBaron, who started the nudist cult, was originally from Canada. IN: I know several of the family in Canada, and several individuals of that family live in Southern California now. IN: Are they members of the group? EH: No, they're members of the Church, and apparently good members. They don't have any problems. 38 IN: You may have talked about this before I arrived, but there is some concern, evidently, for members of the Church to spend very much time trying to understand the doctrine groups of this type. What would your suggestion be if one had a friend who perhaps came attracted to this, or had to get advice as to how to approach this particular group or some other particular group that had some notion based on Mormonism, as they understood it? EH: Well, referring particularly to the LeBaron group, my constant advice has been, I just relate the stories of LeBarons themselves to them and they sense in me a great deal apart. This Siegfried Witmore said to me, “Dr. Hatch, why don't you talk about principles instead of about personality?” He said, “You just talk about the attitudes among these people, but you won’t discuss the principle.” I told him that I never knew of a principle that had not to be administered by a personality. Any principle or ordinance had to be administered by a personality, and no matter how much I believe in baptism does that hold that I should let a LeBaron baptize me. I believe in the principle, but I couldn't believe in the individual that wanted to administer that principle to me. That's why I have met people who have asked me about the LeBarons, and then they have so many little secret things, like this little old sermon that has come out. The quotations of Hebert C. Kimball, and they take things out of context and they deceive the people that are their way. Generally speaking—now, not always, but generally speaking—they find a person that is disgruntled. Here is a person that has a chip on his shoulder, that some bishop or some stake president did this to him or said this to them, and he's got his foot over his back, and these are the 39 kind of people they work with. They take a man who has a word of wisdom problem, and to them that's no problem and they work with him. IN: Can you see a danger in attempting to understand their theological basis, apart from personalities? EH: Well, frankly, they fall off and get too deep for me. They are very learned in their particular interpretation of the Scriptures and they are persuasive—especially men like Tucker and Jensen, they're persuasive. Yet, the things of the Lord are understood by the spirit of the Lord. I mean, it’s how learned a man might be that doesn't necessarily hold, but his learning in the scriptures doesn't hold without the spirit of the Lord to properly interpret it. I think Peter made a mistake at one time, said, “Ever-learning, but not capable of coming to an understanding of the truth,” and that's the way I thought of them. This Evril LeBaron, he is a scriptorian. He can quote you the Doctrine and Covenants especially, and the Book of Mormon and the Bible. I have never been around a person that can quote the Scriptures like he can. But, believe me, when they hear me talk about these self-perpetuating offices and start back and try to trace the authority—from what power and authority did Moses have that he could hold all the offices? Those LeBarons see the priesthood in the patriarchal order and whatnot, and Moses had something given to him that very few in history had in the way of authority. That, in turn, was wrested from the Jews—in his time, Moses wrested it from the Jews; I mean, John the Baptist wrested these things from the Jews at the time when he was living among them and compounded, and I can't follow them, really. I get lost. 40 IN: Well, it's very, very late at night. I think we've had one lovely tape, and I hope that we can look forward to many more in the future. EH: You wanted to hear about this? That seems to me that the Mormons… IN: You bet. I really think that at another time, one good tape would be made of talking about the odd experiences you've had at dealing with rural people, even the superstitious people, as a medical doctor. You might be thinking about some of these for another time. 41