Socialist Agitator Tarred and Feathered

Elk City, Okla., April 9. - William Madison Hicks, erstwhile minister and socialist lecturer, whose most recent bid for notoriety, the promotion of "World Peace League," propaganda, won for him an indictment in the United States district court, is hurrying along the road east of Elk City tonight carrying upon his bare back and legs a generous coat of tar and feathers, unless he has braved the dangers of a bath in an open brook or scratched off a part of his burden upon some friendly fence post. His midnight journey of doubtful destination afoot, was undertaken upon the advice of 100 members of the Elk City council of defense who applied the coat of tar and feathers. "Any place outside Beckham County," was the counsel the council members gave him. He didn't wait for further instructions.

Hicks' latest trouble arose from the fact that for the past several days he has been working and talking against the purchase of Third Liberty loan bonds in the Ural neighborhood, a socialist stronghold, ten miles southwest of Elk City. At the instance of members of the council of defense, Hicks was: arrested by local officers and lodged in jail. Rumors of some impending difficulty at 10 o'clock tonight induced the officers to take Hicks from the jail and start with him for Clinton. They had not got far from town when they were overtaken by one-hundred citizens, most of them, it is understood, members of the local council of defense. The officers were gently separated from their prisoner and marched down the road a few rods, while the coat of tar and feathers was being applied. Hicks was released and told to leave the county. The last seen of him he was rapidly walking eastward.

--The Ada Weekly News, Ada, Oklahoma, April 11, 1918, page 1