I know Aimee Semple McPherson to be incapable of any wrong such as suspicion has intimated. Jealousy, avarice and graft have done all they can to ruin her reputation, but they have not succeeded. Her story still stands and has not been disproved in any particular. -Elsie Lincoln Benedict, 19261
Nothing I could have done could have built up this marvelous work. All I had to offer was a yielded life. For everything that has been accomplished, we give God all the glory. -Aimee2
The term hadn’t been coined in 1926, but that year witnessed a “media event” which would pale all subsequent media events almost into oblivion—the coverage and exploitation by the nation’s press of the kidnapping case of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, pastor of Angelus Temple in Los Angeles.
For almost ninety consecutive days in the fall of that year newspapers across America blazoned stories on their front pages. Accusations and innuendoes unfavorable to the evangelist appeared in headlines, captions, and opening paragraphs of the dispatches, while what facts favorable to her the press presented usually were buried in fine print on inside pages.
Los Angeles at the time had at least six daily newspapers engaged in heated competition for circulation and advertising dollars. These seized upon the opportunity to wage a war to eclipse each other and brazenly bragged of scoops they achieved over their rivals. These periodicals virtually bankrolled the district attorney’s and police department’s investigative costs against the evangelist, as District Attorney Asa Keyes confirmed in defending his office against an outcry over the use of public funds for the purpose.
To this day when journalism rehashes the event, coverage is almost always confined to regurgitating exploded and discredited charges and rumors while ignoring the strong case which eventually vindicated the evangelist in 1927.
This book sets the record straight, documenting material, much of which never before got into print. Author Raymond Cox’s research spanned more than 25 years and included examination of documents gathered by Mrs. McPherson’s attorneys for the Superior Court trial which never proceeded because the district attorney on Jan. 10, 1927 admitted he did not have a case.
Corruption was rampant in the police department and district attorney’s office in Los Angeles in the mid-’20s. Dope peddlers and bootleggers bought protection and openly operated speak-easies. Mrs. McPherson infuriated the underworld by publicizing hitherto secrets which her converts confessed, reading names and addresses over radio station KFSG. In the glare of that corruption and the press competition the story unfolds in “THE VERDICT IS IN!” The author vouches for his facts. It’s high time truth prevails over falsehood.3
1"Elsie Lincoln Benedict Defends Aimee Semple McPherson," Montrose Daily Press, August 17, 1926.
2Story of My Life, p. 255.
3Raymond L. Cox, The Verdict Is In, rear cover.
4Black and white photo credit: Echo Park Evangelistic Association.