Crimes of Preachers in the United States and Canada

by M. E. Billings

It cannot be inappropriate to quote the following comment on an excuse offered for the two delegates to the Methodist conference of 1912, who were caught with the broken fragments of the seventh commandment on their person, or rather almost in the act of breaking them:

“The fact that two of the ministers who attended the late Methodist conference in Indianapolis committed the statutory offense before they went home led Pastor Dinsmore of the Baptist church of Anderson, Ind., to which state one of the delinquents belonged, to deliver a discourse on the theme, ‘How Preachers Go Wrong.’ Viewing the matter historically, as was his duty, the Rev. Mr. Dinsmore found that the going wrong of a preacher is by no means a modern innovation; for did not Micah, David, Eli, and Abiathar prove false to the trust imposed in them? The preacher blamed society for protecting the preacher in his sin, and for not giving him away. But the first cause, he says, why a preacher falls is that he is ‘human,’ and the devil works for mastery over him as over other souls. And the second cause of the preacher’s fall, we are told, is the woman (nothing said about her being also ‘human’). The religious woman who has missed her man finds him in Jesus and takes the parson as his deputy. The women tempt the preacher also by the cut of their clothes, says the Rev. Mr. Dinsmore. They wear and let their daughters wear gowns so low in the neck and so short in the skirt that when a man looks at them ‘hell is stirred up’ in his breast. And so on. Of course some of it is true; the minister is exposed to temptation, but if he cannot resist what the Infidel has to, what is his religion for?”

The light sentences, if any, imposed upon clergymen in many instances having been alluded to, we may allege a concrete case. It occurred at the time when a nation-wide attempt was being made to fasten the crime of white slavery, with its penalties, on two laymen who had taken two women with their consent into an adjoining state and there cohabited with them. The clerical case was as follows (we quote an editorial paragraph in “The Truth Seeker” for July 19, 1913):

“In the state of Michigan, town of St. Johns, in the middle of last month, a Baptist clergyman, the Rev. J. T. Gregory, being arraigned for the crime of rape committed upon a girl 11 years old, pleaded guilty and was ‘sentenced to serve from one to ten years at the Ionia reformatory with a recommendation of two years by Judge Searl.’ What extreme penalty the law of Michigan imposes for outraging an infant we do not know; the terms of the sentence named in this case show it is at least ten years, and here is a man of God getting off with a sentence of from one up, and recommended by the court to be let loose again upon the community in two years! The report of the case, printed in the Grand Rapids ‘Press,’ is exasperating to any one who believes that the law should be administered without favor. Every courtesy was shown the clerical violator of childhood. ‘The sentence,’ we read, ‘was dealt out by a special arrangement with the judge,’ as court would not convene for a week, and the minister ‘was desirous of pleading guilty and beginning his term in prison as soon as possible.’ The judge carried his consideration for the clerical rapist so far as to grant the latter’s request ‘for a day to clear up his personal affairs.’ All this favoritism, as the reporter innocently puts it, because the Rev. Mr. Gregory is ‘highly respected as the pastor of the Baptist church.’ That is benefit of the clergy with the lid off! Now we would like to inquire why there is no public excitement about this miscarriage of justice. The man is married and has three daughters, two of them school teachers, and one a high school graduate, and is hence a middle-aged man who has not the excuse of youthful ardor for his crime. The girls in the California case were old enough to marry or to consent without marriage. The minister’s victim is eleven years old. If the laymen had money and political influence, which they haven’t, to protect them from prosecution on a charge of which on the face of it they are not guilty, it still would not be as base for them to avail themselves of that advantage as it is for a court to consider the alleged ‘holy calling’ of a minister and withhold adequate punishment for an atrocious crime he confesses that he committed. Men possessed of a nature that permits them to attack female children are among the most dangerous persons in any community, because they only want the opportunity to repeat the offense. The motive is always with them. The are like the Chicago priest who saw a ‘stimulation to lust’ in Chabas’ picture, ‘September Morn.’ No young girl is safe in the power or presence of that kind of degenerates; and hence when one of them gets into the clutches of the law he should be kept there as long as the statute will permit. Had the Rev. Gregory been anything but a priest and the court anything but a boneheaded truckler to hypocritical piety, he would have got a determinate sentence of at least ten years.”

In one year, recently, seventeen Chicago ministers were criminally or civilly prosecuted. It is difficult to believe that this number of offenses does not raise the percentage of criminal preachers above the average of all Chicago citizens. In six months of the same year (1912) Kokomo, Indiana, had four clerical scandals. We again quote:

“Is there some sinister element in the atmosphere of Kokomo, Indiana, inimical to clerical morals? After relating under the heading ‘Parson and Widow Out on a Little Lark,’ how ‘the Rev. G. W. Alley, pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal church at Royal Center and an active member in the North Indiana conference, was arrested at a boarding house at Kokomo shortly before midnight Tuesday night in company with Mrs. Wendling, a widow of Walton, and both were hustled off to jail where they still remain,’ the Hartford City (Ind.) ‘Times-Gazette’ of August 6 remarks: ‘This is the fourth scandal in Kokomo within the past six months in which a preacher has been involved.’ Surely there must be something unfavorable to ministerial morals in the Kokomo atmosphere—some such element as that affirmed by one of the infallible popes who, finding himself and many of his priests disabled by a mysterious malady, laid it to ‘a certain malignity in the constitution of the air.’ The constitution of the air in Kokomo, Indiana, is obviously malign and contraindicated for ministers.”

Four delinquents in six months is eight a year in a community of 12,000 souls, the church-going portion of which could be adequately served by a dozen ministers.

It would be interesting, if practicable, to compare the morality of the American clergy with that of other countries, but the data are meager. Here, however, is an informing paragraph retained from a previous edition of this book:

“In England, from October, 1891, to October, 1892, 12 ministers committed suicide, 14 broke the marriage promise, 17 committed various crimes, 18 misused animals, 109 violated women, 121 were indicted for drunkenness (habitual), 254 cheated their creditors, and 18 committed minor offenses. That is 2.75 per cent. of the English ministry, says the ‘Pall Mall Gazette,’ who were in one year in trouble with the law.”

Since the revision of this work was undertaken, late in the fall of 1914, the clergy have not ceased to furnish fresh material for its pages, but as each additional name must cause a revision of totals, the later cases, which perhaps number two dozen, must await the next round-up. The following table condenses the crimes, offenses, etc., with which the ministers have been charged: