Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-04-01
A GREAT SENSATION.
Charges Made that the A. P. A. Lecturer Was Drunk and Took In the Town
 Sunday Night.

There was quite a sensation in the city this morning when rumor be- came current that ex-Priest J. W. Hicks had been fired out of the Arlington Hotel by manager O'Kieff for disorderly conduct.
 MT. O'Kieff declares that the ex- Priest was drunk and that he at- tempted to bribe the waiter girls of the hotel to admit him into their rooms, and that when they refused, he threatened them with death If they told anyone about it. Mir. O'Kieff said that he at once fired the ex-Priest from his establishment.
 A GRAPHIC reporter also heard that the ex-Priest had visited house of ill-fame during the night. He inves- tigated the matter and was told by the inmates of the house that a man who claimed to be J. ". Hicks, the A. r. 4. lecturer, had been an inmate of the house for several hours Sun day night. None of them knew him personally and could not swear that it was him. The man threatened them with death if they told that he had been in the house.
 One of the women had d gold watch which the nan had pawned to her for what lie owed her, and which he promised to redeem at II o'clock tonight.
 The description they gave of the man suited Hicks exactly.
 In Investigating the matter the re- porter saw MT. Jake Sarrason, the merchant, and he affirmed that at Il o'clock Sunday night he saw and was with Mir. Hicks at the Arlington Hotel, that he was not drunk. and that shortly before he left the ex- Priest went to his room for the pur- pose of retiring for the night. The reporter also saw Mr. Hicks at the Hotel Trulock; told him the rumor and asked if they were true, when he wrote the following statement and asked that it be published:
 HICKS STATEMENT.
 II care nothing for these reports. They are only messages from the Pope. McNamara, Slattery. Me- Donald, Fulton and other ex-Priests have been slandered by the hench- men of the Papacy. I have been rocked, egged, shot at, even impris- oned by the Papists, and I am not surprised at this. I lecture tonight on the blackest institution under Heaven, and the Papists knew that when do so, it will tear the mask oil and show Pine Bluff what Popery is. A Roman Catholic priest, as a rule, gives sanction to such reports. and it is the only argument Poperv can furnish in her defense. As eight out of ten of our prostitutes are Catholics in America, as the Clana- gaels and Fenians are temples of Romanish duplicity, I am much astonished at little report like that exciting any notice.
 Jack O'Kieff told a gentleman. whom 1 can produce, that I would be killed if l stayed here. am sure that these are his honest and sincere wishes, and l give him credit for be- ing honest. But let them do their worst. The people of the nation know me, and I will take all these things on the forum, and I feel no uneasiness at the result.
 "l was drinking last evening. Il very little. l was not never was-and if l desired to live n life of disrepute l would have remained a priest and stayed in nunneries. These are not the first slanderous reports that have been circulated concerning me. l have been charged with being an anarchist, an escaped convict. that l was part negro and burglar. etc. care no more for these things than 1 do for the chirp of yellow hammer in North Carolina.
 "So far as the O'Kieff Hotel is con- cerned, l saw nothing wrong with any woman, and common sense would teach a man that some in ducement would be necessary to cause n man in my business to go to a wOman's room. I denounce the whole thing as an echo of Popery." |
 Y. M. c. A. NOtes