Birmingham state herald., 1896-04-07
.DR LANAHAN'S SENSATION
  He Charges That Methodist Church Funds Are Used FOR SPECULATIVE PURPOSES
The Church Appealed to For an Honest Exam
 ination of the Charges.
AGENTS OF THE BOOK CONCERN BLAMED
pr. Lanahan Has Secured Copies of the Rec- ords and Stands Ready to Prove His Charges Before Any Ecclesiasti-
 cal or Civil Tribunal.

 ahan sprung a sensation in the Metho- dist preachers meeting this morning when he announced that in few days he will publish, in pamphlet form, the Era of Frauds" in the Methodist book concern at New York, of which he was at one time an agent. He stated that the publication Is made necessary by re- peated denials of fraud by persons in of ficial positions. At the last general con ference of the Methodist Episcopal church Dr. c. c. McCabe, in speech on the floor of that body, declared that "the church never lost a dollar by one of its agents" Dr. Lanahan, who has for many years been presiding elder of the Baltimore conference, took the statement as a denial of the charges he had hereto fore made against the New York Meth odist book concern and he determined to secure thorough investigation of the matter, for, as he puts 1t, No funds are so sacred as those contributed in the name of Christian charity, contributed in some instances by poor people who can i'll afford to give of their substance"
 After the astonishment created by Dr. Lanahan had somewhat subsided there was an almost unanimous sentiment ex- pressed among the members of the preachers meeting that the general con- ference to meet in Cleveland next month will be compelled to give serious atten- ton to the case. Dr. Lanahan will be a member of that body and his standing in the church is such that his statements can no longer be ignored.
 Dr. Lanahan will, he says, furnish un- denia ble proof that for more than twelve years every financial report made to the church by the New York management r fa ca fo b&a reports were false as to the amount of cash in the Shoe and Leather bank, where the official account was kept, be- cause the senior agent kept a large amount of the concerns money in his personal account and used to speculate fin stocks in Wall street; that large sums of money sent to the concern for church benevolences were used in the same way.
 The speaker further stated that frauds were perpetrated in the manufacturing department In the printing branch the purchase of $700, ,000 worth of paper was fraudulently availed of, he said, by the superintendent, who used a man having no connection with the concern as a go- between, and that no matter from whom the paper was purchased, that man was allowed to levy a tax and realize hand some benefit; that more than $20,000 worth of leather was paid for in less than two years of which no account was or could be given; that the book commit tee, whose business 1t was to examine, assumed that the exposure of the frauds would injure the church and endeavored to conceal all and whitewash the de- frauders; that the committee induced one of the defrauders (S. J. Godenough) to sue him (Dr. Lanahan) for islander, but that the plaintiff evaded trial of the case and it was finally dropped.
 In addition to these serious charges Dr. Lanahan stated that three large oil companies were secretly organized and carried on by the senior agent at New York, with the cooperation of other employees of the concern without the knowledge of the Methodist church. The capital stock of the three companies ag gregated more than $1,000,000.
 Dr. Lanahan, in concluding, stated that he had recently been able to secure copies of a large part of the records of the book committee and is therefore in position to prove his case before any ecclesiastical or civil tribunal. He ap- peals to the church for an honest exam ination of the charges, and adds: If the approaching general conference shall order an examination, I care not by whom shall claim but one thing-mere- ly to be represented in person and by one accountant of my own choosing. If this is granted and do not demonstrate the truth of my charges, the church will be Justified in doing what the majority of the book committee and a part of the official press planned and labored to do: Make my name the synonym of infamy and hang my character on the gibbet of Methodist history"