From FAIR's inbred cousin in Mormon cult crime, FARMS:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1529309,1529309#msg-1529309But back to those bogus money boxes. Here are some sources:
-"[Webb said] 't]he effect of those boxes was like magic. They created general confidence in the solidity of the bank and that beautiful paper money went like hot cakes. For about a month it was the best money in the country.'”
(Interview by W. Wyl. See "Mormon Portraits," p. 36; also Oliver Olney: "Absurdities of Mormonism Portrayed," p. 4; the letter of Cyrus Smalling in E. G. Lee, "The Mormons";
http://blog.mrm.org/2010/04/church-announces-new-theological-project/)
-"According to several individuals that left the church, the bank was established on fraudulent claims of capital security. They related that the bank vault was lined with many boxes, each marked $1,000. These boxes were actually filled with 'sand, lead, old iron, stone, and combustibles,' but each had a top layer of bright fifty-cent silver coins. Anyone suspicious of the bank's stability was permitted to lift and count the boxes. . . . '"
(Interview by W. Wyl. See "Mormon Portraits," p. 36; the letter of Cyrus Smalling in E. G. Lee, @The Mormons," p. 14; and Fawn Brodie, "No Man Knows My History," pp. 194-98;
http://wonderwitch.blogspot.com/2007/05/kirtland-bank.html?m=1).
-"For some casual observers wanting to see the Mormon bank's assets, inside of the vault were boxes "filled" with gold and silver coin. However, the boxes were first filled with sand, and then a thin layer of coin laid on top. This shows fraud, not just mismanagement."
(
http://nomormoninwhitehouse.blogspot.com/2012/05/joseph-smiths-mormon-banking-scam.html?m=1 )
-"In order to convince people KSS (Kirtland Safety Society) had money to loan Smith set up a room for people to come and see the boxes of money for themselves. What they didn’t know is that he was conning them before their very eyes. Dr. Wyl wrote the following in 'Mormon Portraits,' p. 36;
“'Lining the shelves of the [Kirtland Safety Society] bank vault… were many boxes, each marked $1,000. Actually these boxes were filled with @sand, lead, old iron, stone, and combustibles" but each had a top layer of bright fifty‑cent silver coins. Anyone suspicious of the bank’s stability was allowed to lift and count the boxes. ‘The effect of those boxes was like magic;’ said C.G. Webb. ‘They created general confidence in the solidity of the bank and that beautiful paper money went like hot cakes. For about a month, it was the best money in the country.'"
(
http://lifeafter.org/kirtland-safety-society/ )
-The Kirtland Bank Scandal Proves that Joseph Smith’s Supposed “Piety” was Nothing but a Counterfeit
How much evidence does it take to dispense with the Smith myth that he was supposedly possessed with a pure and pious heart (meaning he was truly trying to do right) while knowingly lying, cheating and defrauding people for the higher godly good?
Smith’s unholy piousness is clearly evident in the Kirtland banking scandal. Let’s look at the clumsy scam—along Cowdery’s infatuation with a local Kirtland "seeress" while Smith was fleeing from fleeced Mormons. After Smith temporarily fled Kirtland, Ohio, to avoid rising discontent over his notorious banking Cowdery’s loyalties were tested--and found wanting (as he stayed behind in Kirtland and decided to follow someone else).
**Background on Smith's Kirtland Bank Heist
Smith's criminal conspiracy in setting up a bank swindle was aimed not only at the general public, but at his own flock.
In 1837, Smith faced the wrath of his local Kirtland following due to of his clumsy financial scheming, otherwise known as the “Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company.” The Ohio state legislature had refused Smith's request to incorporate this trash-cash creation of his but a determined Smith chose to illegally run it anyway. It soon went under and Smith, along with co-criminal Sidney Rigdon, were eventually found guilty of violating state banking laws, fined and ordered to pay court costs.
Author Richard Abanes explains why the scam failed:
“Smith actually believed that his debts, along with those of his followers, could be wiped out by merely printing . . . notes [i.e., paper currency] and using them to pay creditors. The bills, however, were practically worthless because Smith had virtually no silver/gold coinage to back up the paper he issued. His entire capital stock consisted of nothing but land valued at inflated prices. . . . He pleaded with followers to support the financial association, leading them to believe that God have given him the idea and that it would 'become the greatest of all institutions on Earth.'
"To augment their confidence in the organization, Smith resorted to a rather ingenious deception: 'Lining the shelves of the bank vault . . . were many boxes, each marked $1,000. Actually these boxes were filled with 'sand, lead, old iron, stone ad combustibles,' but each had a top layer of bright 50-cent silver coins. Anyone suspicious of the bank's stability was allowed to lift and count the boxes. 'The effect of those boxes was like magic,' said C.G. Webb. 'They created general confidence in the solidity of the bank and that beautiful paper money went like hot cakes, For about a month it was the best money in the country.'”
Smith's financial shenanigans led to him being sued by several non-Mormon creditors, while some of his LDS followers saw their invested monies evaporate before their eyes.
Historian Fawn Brodie reports in "No Man Knows My History" that Kirtland Saints began attacking Smith, whose “prophesy” (so described by the local LDS newspaper the “Latter-day Saint Messenger and Advocate,” which had declared that those who contracted with him on speculative land deals would get rich) was proven by events to be an uninspired flop. Half the Quorum of the Twelve went into open revolt, with Apostle Parley P. Pratt labeling Smith as “wicked,” accusing him of taking “[him]self and the Church . . . down to hell,” and threatening to sue Smith if he didn't pay Pratt what he was owed. Smith responded by counter-threatening to excommunicate any Mormon who filed suit against a fellow Church member and tried unsuccessfully to have Pratt stand trial before a divided High Council.
Writer Arza Evans, in his "The Keystone of Mormonism" under the subheading, "An Illegal Bank," observes:
"In November of 1836, Smith decided to start his own bank and print his own currency. This new bank was to be called the Kirtland Safety Society. When the Ohio legislature denied Smith's petition for an act of incorporation, he didn't let this stop him from organizing his bank and printing money. He simply ignored the laws of Ohio and went ahead with his bank.
"Smith even had a convenient revelation from God advising Church members to buy stock in his illegal enterprise:
"'It is wisdom and according to the mind of the Holy Spirt, that you should . . . call on us and take stock in our Safety Society.' [see "The History of the Church of Jesus Ch+rist of Latter-day Saints," vol. 2, pp. 467-73].
"About one year later Smith's bank went broke, costing some of his gullible followers their life's savings. Smith blamed this failure on the state of Ohio, his enemies and almost everyone else. He took no responsibility and made no apologies. Apparently, he couldn't even seem to understand why many of those who lost all of their money were angry at him. Ironically, Smith's Saftey Society proved to be anything but safe.
"When Ohio authorities finally realized what Smith had done, they sent a sheriff and a deputy to arrest Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon and other Church leaders who had violated Ohio state laws. Smith and Rigdon escaped arrest by secretly leaving for Missouri in the middle of he night of January 12, 1838. Other officials in the bank were not so lucky. Josiah Butterfield, Jonathan Dunham and Jonathan Hale were arrested and thrown into jail for circulating illegal currency and for other unlawful banking activities."
The hounded, debt-ridden Smith's ultimate solution to this mounting mayhem was to make himself scarce, opting to leave on a five-week proselytizing mission to Canada--a ploy which historian Brodie described as Smith's hope “that in his absence the enmity against him would be still[ed].”
**Cowdery Compounds Smith's Criminal Kirtland Mess by Hooking Up with a Kirtland "Seeress" After Smith Bolts Kirtland
Smith's hopes that things would cool down over his Kirtland-cooked banking scam were in is absence were not exactly realized.
Brodie reports that upon returning, he discovered that while he was gone the magic-minded Cowdery had (along with fellow Book of Mormon witnesses David Whitmer and Martin Harris) become enamored with “a young girl who claimed to be a seeress by virtue of a black stone in which she read the future. . . . [Cowdery], whose faith in seer stones had not diminished when Joseph stopped using them, pledged her their loyalty, and F. G. Williams, formerly Joseph's First Counselor, became her scribe. Patterning herself after the Shakers, the new prophetess would dance herself into a state of exhaustion before her followers, fall upon the floor and burst forth with revelations.“ Brodie writes that “before long Smith effectively silenced the dancing seeress” and managed to bring Cowdery's wandering eye back into line. But Cowdery wasn't exactly the model of repentance. He (along with Whitmer) “came back into the fold half-contrite, half-suspicious and shortly thereafter went off to Missouri.
In short, for Joseph Smith and his band of bumbling connivers, Kirtland served as:
-first, a place for Smith to fleece his flock; and
-second, a hot spot from which Smith was forced to flee, whereupon it became The Land of Happy-Dance for his Book of Mormon witness friends who, in Smith's fugitive absence, decided to team up with a young prophesying "seeress."
(Richard Abanes, “One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church”[New York, New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002]; Fawn Brodie, “No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet,” 2nd ed. [New York, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983]; and Arza Evans, "The Keystone of Mormonism" (St. George, Utah: Keystone Books, Inc., 2003:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1657891,1657900#msg-1657900)
Edited 18 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2017 06:41AM by steve benson.