ARGUMENT BY PISTOL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17133, 8 September 1926, Page 11

ARGUMENT BY PISTOL

MINISTER CHARGED WITH MURDER NEW YO'RK, August 6. The Rev. J. Frank Morris, pastor of the First Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas, a leading fundamentalist and revivalist, widely known as " the Texas cyclone and two-gun sky pilot," reached tbe climax, of a sensational career yesterday, when he shot and killed Elliot CWpps, a prominent lumberman of Texas, when Ohipps went to the minister's study to remonstrate with the preacher for attacks nipon his friend, Mayor Meachem. Mr. Norris quietly surrendered to the police after the shooting, with the explanation that Chipps had invaded bis study and .threatened to kill him for verbal attacks against the mayor, and when Chipps''reiterated the threat- and, as is alleged, placed his hand behind his back, the minister saw nothing else to do but to defend himself, reached out for the night watchman's pistol in a. drawer of his desk and fired four shots. Mr. Norris was released under bond of Jj2!XK), provided by thirty of his parishioners, and a. charge of murder lodged against him. According to a statement by the police, a, search of Chipps' clothing failed to reveal any weapon. Mr. Norris' denunciations of tin; mayor were typically vitriolic, and accused him if graft in civic affairs. In addition, the evangelist, published stories in his magazine, the Searchlight, reflecting itpon tho mayor'g morality, broadcast particularly spicy charges from his private radio station, and used thorn in sermons. Mr. Norris is one of !bo original " hell-fire and brimstone " evangelists of this generation and a bitter foe lo the modernists. In Fort Worth he preiehed to the largest 'Baptist congregation in the country, and his attacks oil sinful practices contained all the elements of oddity that characterised the preaching of Alexander Dowie. tho gymnastic qualities of Billy Sunday, and the fiery denunciatory powers of John Roach Slralou. .Frequently he entered, the pulpit in the attire of a Western plainsman—buckskin suit and sombrero. When he preached in the fashionable Calvary Baptist. Church in New York recently he declared tint all,the large American cities were in hell, and' New York in a little deeper than the others.