This was called a sacrilege by the leader. He seemed to enjoy the controversial spotlight and encouraged detractors with his eccentric clothes and unfashionably long hair. In spite of his own reverence for the work of William Morris he was sometimes accused of presenting a less than authentic version of the quality of Morris in order to promote his books and himself to the average man. People who follow Hubbard do not stay half-baked. They come out of it.
H makes lovers of books out of people who never knew books before.
On a personal peace mission to Europe, during the early stages of World War I, he and his wife died when the Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine in the Irish Sea, May 7, 1915.