Out of the Lion's Mouth

"Bishop," cried one Ada Piercy, "I said I'd hug you if you were acquitted!"

"Hug away!" ordered Bishop James Cannon Jr. of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

Thus last week ended the three-week trial of Bishop Cannon and Ada L. Burroughs, on charges of violating the Federal Corrupt Practices Act (TIME, April 23). The Government had claimed that, whereas Bishop Cannon and Secretary Burroughs had reported only $17,300 expenditures in the Bishop's 1928 campaign against Wet Presidential Candidate Al Smith, one contribution alone from Hooverite Edwin C. Jameson had amounted to $65,300. These and other funds, the Government alleged, had been used in Virginia and all over the South. "Bishop Cannon was shooting a double-barreled gun with a single trigger," declared the prosecutor. "Miss Burroughs shut her eyes and put her head in the sand. . . ."

Miss Burroughs admitted making "some errors" in her report, but the 69-year-old Bishop's defense claimed that all campaign funds not reported had been spent only within the State of Virginia, were therefore exempt from the Corrupt Practices Act. Having deliberated three hours, a jury in the District of Columbia's Supreme Court chose to believe the Bishop's story.

Meeting in Jackson, Miss. last week was the quadrennial general conference of his Church which four years ago had acquitted the Bishop on the same charges. Before boarding a Washington train to carry him to that conference Bishop Cannon piously wired ahead:

"For 46 years I have been present at the opening of annual and general conferences. . . . I regret circumstances beyond my control have prevented my attendance at this . . . session. . . . May I say to my brethren and sisters . . . concerning the things which have befallen me that Paul wrote to Timothy from Rome: 'Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me . . . and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.' . . ."

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