Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1905-04-12
A RED HOT I]Il(j|'l / ANSWER
Col A. y Williams Takes Bishop
Potter Severely to Task
SOME VERY BRILLIANT ARGUMENTS
The Editor Challenges the sl>nderou.
New York Bishop to a Show Of
Hands as to Moral Condition of[-is
Diocese and the South Generally.

S'SnOp HOCLer OIL NGW york is one OF
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
a very large and great man indeed.
We persistently forget that as many
fakirs, humbugs and li%ghtweigEts rat
tie and swell around in large places
In 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.
A 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 f1oundered around the subject a
good deal and failed absolutely to
make any definite suggestion or to in
dictate 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: 1--WE have an example
of what would result from such a
measure in South Carolina, where the
laws do not recognize it. Prohibiting
divorce is merely putting concubinage
at a 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. c.
State wrote Bishop Potter a very re-
spectful letter, pointing out to him
that he had done the homes and peo-
pie of the State serious injustice, re-
ferring him to the bishop and clergy
of his own church in that State for
evidence and asking him to make care
full inquiry into the facts and then
take such steps as equity and justice
may dictate"
In reply the editor received a most
lnSolent letter from Bishop Potter, in
directly denying that he had used the
language attributed to him and de-
scribing the editors letter n article
on the subject by Judge Benet, en-
closed with it as Equally unwarranted
and Impairment"
~ SolCo1 VI Liz oIdIt ISp1l0u Will
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 Eany
denial o correction of an outrageous
n shameful SANDER against the peo-
pie of a whole State and that his de-
NAL suggested in his own letter was
as evasive as discOurteous. A few days
later Bishop Potter printed in the New
York Globe a brief statement on the
subject, in which he said 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 had simply remarked that in
view of the prevalence Of miscegena-
ton in the South, the pose of lofty
and superior virtue on the part of its
people, anywhere had in it IN element
equally comic and pathetic"
An accusation like this cannot be
sustained or disproved by statistics or
a%fidavits. It can be considered only
in the light of general n obvious
facts. Virtue is not a things of sections
or of countries. The good are good
and the bad are bad everywhere and
wherever human nature is, the affec-
tons and passions of men and ONE
stray in forbidden paths. One thing,
however, is certain and plain. That
is that the moral one is Indefinitely
cleaner and the social standards are
Indefinitely higher in South Carolina
than in Bishop Potter's diocese. Ger
tainly a woman divorced from her
husband and married to another man
inside of twenty-four hours would not
be received in respectable society any
where in the South. Yet a woman who
did that very thing is a leader of New
York's 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 the South are very much
cleaner. The ONE 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
ciety OF his wi community.
1t 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
a cruel and injurious charge as that
concubinage and miscegenation are
general in this part of the country.
The truth is that m~iscegenation 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 ever
widespread in the South is false, and
In making that assertion we will do
better than Bishop Potter. We will
offer good evidence to convict him of
falsehood if he is willing 10 dare the
issue. We will put on the stand the
Protestant Episcopal clergy of the
whole South, from bishops to deacons.
They live among the people and know
them and have ample opportunity for
knowing their life. We may assume
that some of them, at least. are men
who are not afraid to tell tho trrfh