The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-09-18
THE PROTECTION OF THE CLOTH

T by mendacious attacks on the good name of The Advertiser. provoked e vigorous reply. no preacher was in sight and no pulpit could be seen. to which he could flee, for aid and pro- lection. His first wound was yet fresh, when Rev. E. L. Crawford rush. ed from his pulpit and threw about the Illinois suppliant the protection of the cloth. Nor did MT. Crawford's zeal stop with an entry that far into the political arena. He called for help from The Alabama Christian Advocate. the organ of his church. and in every way invoked the power of that church to protect the man who Alabama newspaper. which values its good name as high as any minister could value his.
 Tn France. when church and State were firmly united. and when the State was the vassal of the church, Cardinal Richelieu in his red robes. stepped forward. drew a circle on the floor about a woman in danger saying, T draw about her the sacred circle of the church. Let him who dares. cross the line"
 MT. Crawford wraps the cloth about a political disputant. and charge that The Advertiser "suppressed' impor- tant news of the Greensboro Confer ence held last December. This Is a grave charge and one not to be made lightly. It Is as grave as direct charge against the honor of a man or the virtue of a woman. MT. Crawford charges that The Advertiser "sup- pressed" the resolutions adopted by the conference upon the death of Senator K. w. Carmack. of Tennessee
 In making this statement Mir. Craw- ford comes near to violating the 9th commandment.
 The Carmack resolutions in all their essentials were printed in The Adver- tiser in the issue of December 12. 1908. the day following their adoption by the Greensboro Conference. Now The Advertiser could not suppress them and publish them too Mir. Crawford says the correspondent was instructed to suppress them. But the resolutions were published and published more fully than in any other paper Of the State. They were published more fully in The Advertiser, and in bet ter form than they were published in the minutes of the conference.
 Mir. Crawford as Secretary of the conference quotes the entry on the minutes which is as follows;
 "A resolution offered by J. s. Frazer and E. L. Crawford. expressing ad- miration for the character of Senator ly death, and declaring the sympathy Of the conference for his widow and son. was unanimously adopted by a rising vote'
 According to MT. Crawford this Is all that the minutes of the conference contain. slender record 1t Is, com pared with the space given the reso- lutions in The Advertiser of December l2 The Advertiser even played up" the carmack resolutions In the head lines, for the head lines over the &C., count of the previous days proceed- ings read:
 Ine me . Body Passes Earnest Resolution
 on Lne Tragic Death of Senator
 Carmaek. Who Is Praised
 warmly by Bishop Hoss"
 We may venture the opinion for a suppressed" article that the news of the Carmack resolution, had about the most imposing headlines on record.
 Here follows. exactly as printed in The Advertiser of December 12 and which can be verified by any file of the paper. the full account of the resolutions and their adoption:
 PRAISE FOR cARMACK.
 Resolutions were introduced by Rev.
 
 bile district. laudlng the late Senator Carmack of Tennessee. declaring him to be one of the greatest and most | fearless men of the land. and deplor- ing his death.
 In its preamble the resolution touch ed upon Carmacks work in the Ala bama prohibition campaign. It de- clared that his murder grew out of his open condemnation of those who were trying to defeat prohibition, and to continue the sale of whiskey in Tennessee. His death was mourned. and the resolutions de nounced, as un-American, the embargo which some men who have not yet would put on free speech. They en- dorsed the suggestion to aid in erect ing a monument.
 The resolutions, read for MT. Frazer by Rev. l.. L. Crawford, were en- dorsed by the Conference in rising vote.
 Personally endorsing the resolutions. Bishop Hoss paid tribute to Carmack. From his laudations of Carmack, the Bishop turned to the cause of the dead Senator, stating that the work will never be finished until the liquor traffic is stopped.
 "Theyre going to shut every saloon and keep them shut" he declared. The entire day was given over to prohibition talk with the Carmack tribute, and with an address by Rev. Brooks Lawrence in the afternoon. On the day of December 12. the neonle of Alabama had to look to The Advertiser to see what the conference had done-and looking they read a fun account of the Carmack resolu- tions And in after years, should any