Fort Mill times. [volume] (Fort Mill, S.C.) 1892-current, 1905-04-12
Col. A. B. Williams Takes Bishop
Potter Severely to Task
SOME VERY BRILLIANT ARGUMENTS
The Editor Challenges the Sanderous
New York Bishop to Show of
Hands as to Moral Condition of His
Diocese and the South Generally.

the pet SuperStitionS of this country
He is part of the general New York
superstition. Because New York is
big. most OF us assume that any man
who becomes prominent there must be
4 very large and great man indeed
We persistently forget that as many
fakirs, humbugs and lightweights rat
tie and swell around in large places
TN New York as anywhere else in the
world. AS for Bishop Potter. he has
said and done as many silly things as
any other old gentleman We know Of
recent experience Of his indicates
that his manners are as bad as his
morals in some respects are defective.
his Judgment is bad and his arragence
extreme. Some time ago he undertook
TO discuss the divorce question in a
New York newspaper. AS we recollect.
he tloundered around the subject
good deal and failed absolutely to
make any definite suggestion or TO in
ulcate any coherent policy for his
church or legislation. In the course
Of his somewhat flabby and charotic
remarks. however he said that the alb
Solute abolition of divorce would not
do. He added. I'VE have an example
Of what would result from such
measure in South Carolina. where the
laws do not recognize it. Prohibiting
divorce is merely putting concubinage
at premium This does not i'm
press us as a high or a churchman-
like view. Certainly concubinage is
not at a premium anywhere in South
Carolina
The editor OF the Columbia Is. CO
State wrote Bishop Potter very re-
spectful letter. pointing out to him
that he had done the homes and peo-
pie of the State serious injustice. re-
fcrring him - the bishop and clergy
of his own church in that State for
evidence and asking him to make care
tul inquiry into the facts and then
take such steps as equity ana Justice
may dictate"
In reply the editor received q most
inSolent letter from Bishop Potter, in
directly denying that he had used the
language attributed to him and de-
Scribing the editors letter and article
on the subject by Judge Benet. en-
closed with it as equally unwarranted
and impertin ent"
The editor Of the State replied with
another respectful letter. in a perfect
ly proper and deferential way. taking
off the bishops hide. He pointed out
that the offensive paragraph had been
published prominently. that Bishop
Potter did not seem fit to make any
denial or correction of an outrageous
and shameful slander against the peo-
pie Of whole State and that his de-
NAL suggested in his own letter was
as evasive as disccurteous. A few days
later BishoA Potter printed in the New
York Globe brief statement on the
subject, in which he sal he had no
apology TO make TO South Carolina
and extended his SANDER TO the people
of the whole South. He is quoted as
saying:
He hal simply remarked that in
view OF the prevalence of miscegena-
tion in tho South the pose of lofty
and superior virtue on the part Of its
people anywhere had in it an element
equally comic and pathetic"
An accusation like this cannot be
sustained or disproved by statistics or
aflidavits. 1t can be considered only
in the light Of general and obvious
facts. Nirtcc is not a things of sections
or Of countries. The good are good
and the bad are bad everywhere and
wherever humani nature is, the 2ffeC-
tionS and passions OF men and women
stray in forbidden paths. One thing.
however. is certain and plain That
is that the moral tone is indefinitely
cleaner and the social standards are
indefinitely higher in South Carolina
than in Bishop PCttcrs diocese. Ger
tainly Il woman divorced from her
husband end married to another man
inside of twcnty-four hours would not
be received in respectable society any
where in the South. Yet woman who
did that very thing is a leader of New
York $ most exalted society. Nobody
knows the secret annals of vice but
every observer who has met and
known the people OF New York and
any Southern State knows that in the
South vastly less filth is talked and
written than in New York. The natu-
raj and inevitable presumption is that
lives in Tho South are very much
cleaner. The women whose conduct
and conversation are so distinctly
loud and bad as to justify definite
criticism is tabooed in every Southern
State. Bishop Potter cannot say that
that is the case even in the highest
and theoretically most exclusive so.
cicty of his own community.
Il would be interesting to know
where Bishop Potter got his impress
siOns Of the morals of the people OF
The South and how he would go about
justifying himself for circulating such
cruel and injurious charge as that
concubinaSe and miscegenation are
general in this part OF the country
The truth is that miscegenation in its
legal sense is impossible anywhere in
the South because it is forbidden and
severely punished by law. We do
not hesitate to say that the charge
that these vices are general or even
widespread in the South is false, and
in making that assertion we will do