166

211

• There is no mention at all of well-known anti-Mormon Thomas Sharp, owner of the Warsaw Signal, and how the paper played a major role leading up to Joseph's death. The author simply mentions Sharp's articles. Sharp wrote the following on 11 June 1844:

War and extermination is inevitable! Citizens ARISE, ONE and ALL!!!—Can you stand by, and suffer such INFERNAL DEVILS! to ROB men of their property and RIGHTS, without avenging them. We have no time for comment, every man will make his own. LET IT BE MADE WITH POWDER AND BALL!!!

On July 10, Sharp wrote:

Joe and Hiram [sic] Smith, at the time their lives were taken, were in the custody of the officers of the law; and it is asked by those who condemn the act, why the law was not first allowed to take its course before violence was resorted to? We answer that the course of law in the case of these wretches would have been a mere mockery; and such was the conviction of every sensible man.

• Sharp would also say that the murder of the Smiths was "a summary execution," and that "the anti-Mormons had agreed in early June to exterminate the Mormon leaders."^[1]

How likely is it that the Nauvoo Signal will offer accurate information about the Saints? Would Abanes appeal to articles in Der Sturmer about the Jews?

531

The book fails to mention:

• The High Council court was to "investigate the charges of 'A want of benevolence to the poor, and charity to the Church,' which [Joseph] had previously preferred against Brother Preserved Harris and Elder Isaac McWithy.

• Note that Joseph said "We offered him..."—this was not a personal transaction with Joseph.

• History of the Church states: "In the pleas of the Councilors, in the case of Elder McWithy, they decided that the charges had been fully sustained; after which, I spoke in my turn as accuser, and stated that I called on the accused, in company with President Oliver Cowdery, for money to send up to Zion, but could get none; afterwards saw him, and asked him if he would sell his farm. He at first seemed willing, and wished to build up Zion. He pleaded excuse in consequence of his liberality to the poor. We offered him three thousand dollars for his farm, would give him four or five hundred dollars to take him to Zion, and settle him there, and an obligation for the remainder, with good security and interest. He went and told Father Lyon that we demanded all his property, and so we lost four or five hundred dollars; because the accused told him [Lyon] such a story, [that] he calculated to keep it [the aforesaid four or five hundred dollars] himself."