A Letter To F. L. Rowe
Dear Brother Rowe:
I have this morning received a copy Aug. 5 issue of the Christian Ledger, and note your article on page 10, under the heading: "Misplaced Confidence." I presume you sent me the paper because of your suggested desire that every preacher in the brotherhood receive a copy of this issue.
I had already seen the Bible Banner that published the "Confidential Letter" you wrote your editors. The matter of "confidence betrayed" by its publication, or by someone giving it to Foy Wallace, did not strike me so forcibly as did the moral turpitude revealed by its publication. Maybe I am not skilled in the niceties of journalistic confidences. But I can see the wickedness and ungodliness that is behind plots, such as that revealed by the publication of the letter that has so upset you. Why are you so "stunned"? Was Clinton Davidson also "stunned" by the publication of your "Confidential Letter" because you had "in confidence" betrayed him? And did you fear that Claud Witty might be "stunned" by its publication, because you had in "confidence" betrayed Witty too? You did just that. At least, it is presumed that Davidson's telephone talk was in confidence, from the fact that you wrote about it in a "confidential letter" to your editors. And there is the same evidence to show that you regarded Witty's conversation in your office as confidential. Yet, you betrayed that confidence to your editors. What will Witty and Davidson think about you? Is it a great sin in Ben Taylor to do the very same thing that you do yourself? Instead of playing the "baby" and whining about Taylor's betraying your confidence, you should have exposed those plots of Davidson and Witty. You will listen to plots and schemes by conscienceless gangsters to injure or destroy a brother in the Lord; you write "confidential letters" to editors about such. But you refuse to expose such notorious schemes. When Ben Taylor is confronted with the seemingly conflicting duties of "being loyal to a friend" on the one hand, and "warning a brother" of the efforts of character assassins against him on the other hand, he chooses the higher duty and warns his brother. That plot is exposed, and the writer of "confidential letters" is shown to have knowledge of such plots; he has had conferences with the plotters.
I have never met Ben Taylor. But I thank God for such a man. If people want secrets kept they should keep such secrets as involve matters of that kind away from men like Brother Taylor. Brother Rowe, don't you feel guilty because of your conferences with Davidson and Witty? Didn't you give Davidson a wee bit of ground for hoping they might use you in their scheme? If not, why did Witty make a trip to see you and have his conference with you? You know they were plotting together, did you not? One good solid no would have ended the matter, had there been no equivocation in connection with that no. But you listened; and you wrote a "confidential letter," but you did not expose the gangsters. The exposure is made, but the exposure involves you in an unfavorable connection with the plot. Taylor betrayed you, and you betrayed Davidson and Witty. If Taylor is bad, you are twice as bad; he betrayed one man and you betrayed two. I don't feel sorry for you, Brother Rowe. I am sorry you had the weakness to be mixed up in such a matter.
Faithfully yours,
C. D. Crouch, Christopher, Illinois.