ing the course of the preliminary hearing, Aimee
Py lees used the Temple radio station, Be al nightly to tell a million or more listeners in California e paucity of radio stations then extended the coverage) re accounts of the court proceedings. These differed materially from many of the press reports, but you need only to compare her stenographer's transcripts with the preliminary Pag transcript to see which media proved more ioe ie press also distorted the ao. glans in these i rm Bulletins” as they were called.
ios evangelist’s attorneys may not have been too happy with their client’s reports in each evening service. Anote from Roland Rich Wooley, relative to the bulletin for Sunday evening, October 3, cautioned, “Do not refer to onde personally tonight, and make your bulletin brief ay (Wooley underlined the two words). The attorney instructed, “Announce exact time you will give bulletin give it on time," so he was making no attempt to gag the evangelist's recitals of details of the court case.
On one night Sister took the time to rea clipping which someone had sent her from aie il The press outside of Los Angeles and California was kinder to the evangelist and many newspapers protested editorally her treatment, Whoever sent the clipping did not write the name of the newspaper or the date or Page, and have been unable to ascertain this documentation. Apparently the newspaper was a bilingual publication, because on the back side of the clipping the articles appear in some Oriental characters. The top of the English side identifies the issue as Volume |, Number 290, The name of the newspaper Spe “THE BEE SE-” and from there is cut off. The PERSEOGIOME editorial captioned, “IT LOOKS LIKE The editorial commences b disclaimin i i defend the evangelist’s Wiiahhocs and eaiccern. author Says “are open to criticism.” He proceeds, however ‘But when a woman stands alone and faces a snarling pack of human hyenas bent on her destruction - faces them ey bh Sad ld lies back into their venomous teeth 's time for decent pe i ticeman, one to stand up in her defense,
“Mrs. McPherson has been practically alone in her crusade against the vice that is rampant in Los Angeles and in Hollywood, and in her attack upon the rottenness and corruption in the ‘City of Angels’ she has incurred the undying hatred of many of the rich and powerful. They had sworn to ‘get her’. hie i ita fate ae Mrs. McPherson disappeared.
she was kidnapped by i of the organized vice (ia ve alc
This is not quite accurate, She Sus| i n ‘i pected this, but never announced it as a fact because she could not prove it.
There were some apparent flaws in her story, according to the press accounts; but no one knows how much those accounts were distorted for a number of purposes, and how much evidence was manufactured by those who had every reason to hate the woman vice crusader and to do her injury.
“The most shocking stories have been published, and more shocking things hinted at in the slimy press of California, and all the machinery of a hostile city administration has been brought into play to discredit the story told by this woman to account for her strange disappearance. Witnesses have been pro-duced who said they had been paid large sums of money by Mrs. McPherson to corroborate her story and to explain away some of the damaging circum-stances which the prosecuting attorney is alleged to have discovered.
“A person with little regard for the truth will swear to almost anything for $5,000. They will even swear that someone else offered them that amount to swear to something else. Even here in Hawaii we know how easy it has been to bribe witnesses to swear away the reputation and the liberty of innocent people!
“The whole story put forth by her enemies to ruin Mrs. McPherson’s reputation sounds fishy. Under the circumstances that existed at Angelus Temple there was apparently no reason or necessity for the alleged sojourn at Carmel with Ormiston. Aimee McPherson is not a romantic girl, but a mature woman, the mother of children old enough to be companions to her. If she had wanted a liason with her radio operator, surely she was old enough and experienced enough in the ways of the world to have found natural opportunities right at home, without faking up a crazy kidnapping story to cover a wild party at a popular seaside resort, where she was well known! The suggestion is so wildly improbable that it will take more than the story of a once bribed witness, an $18.00 a week seamstress, to make intelligent people swallow it.
“The entire attack upon Mrs. McPherson is shameful and disgusting. The Los Angeles scandal-hounds deserve to be horse-whipped from their offices and the newspaper editors who lend their columns to these carrion vultures should be ostracized from decent society.
“If Aimee Semple McPherson were all that these defamers would have the public believe, still she would not be half as guilty of offending the principles of decency as those who hold her up to scorn and contempt. Even if she were a woman of the streets her sin would be less than that of those who Place the brand of shame upon her! Surely no one with a spark of manhood in his breast would openly and publicly defame a woman's character, even though he knew the facts that were compromising to her. For such a man we have a word that expresses the greatest degree of contempt that can be crowded into spoken or written language. Such a man we call a ‘CAD’!"
During the interval between Judge Blake's binding over of the defendants for trial and the District Attorney's eventual admission that he had no case which could hold water before a jury where a defendant was presumed innocent until Proven guilty, the famed journalist H. L. Mencken sampled public opinion about the evangelist in the Los Angeles area. Mencken telegraphed his Baltimore, Maryland Sunpapers that “the more civilized Angelenos all sympathize with her and wish her well” - this in spite of the newspaper attacks upon her. Mencken conceded that the prosecution had the press on his side, but on the other hand Mrs. McPherson had the radio. The reporter expected the radio to prevail. “Unless err grievously,” he stated, “our heavenly Father is with her.” Mencken enjoyed the meeting he attended at Angelus Temple.
As developments unfolded it seemed that the prose-cutors - Keyes and Company - could more accurately be dubbed “press-ecutors,” for they worked hand and glove with the newspapers to keep the drivel they dredged from the sewer publicized.
“The little blue trunk” caper is a case in point. In no way could the prosecution legitimately have entered this circum-stance into its court case. So the matter wasn't leaked to the press until after the defense rested its case and Judge Blake prepared to take his decision under advisement. Some of Sister's supporters - and apparently counsel too - believed this was a deliberate attempt to influence the judge's decision.
The odyssey of the “little blue trunk” - if it was the same trunk throughout - reads like a legend. On May 1, 1926 Ormiston supposedly purchased a blue steamer trunk in Pasadena. Two days later it was delivered to H. C. Cornell at the Maryland Hotel there. “Cornell” checked out of this hotel on May 6, after leaving instructions for the trunk to be shipped to Jacksonville, Florida where it would be held until “Ralph Stringer” called for it.
The trunk remained in storage until September, when it was shipped from Jacksonville, Florida to the Cumberland Hotel in New York City where Ormiston had registered as “Ralph Stringer” on August 29. He checked out of the hotel, where the trunk arrived September 12, on September 17, leaving the trunk behind. New York District Attorney Blanton somehow got wind of the trunk and seized it on September 27, the very day the preliminary hearing commenced in Los Angeles.
All this period a frantic search by press and peace officers was proceeding to apprehend Ormiston. But he always managed to keep a jump ahead of the law and the reporters - until he surrendered to the latter in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on December 8.
The Los Angeles District Attorney's office knew about the trunk from late September. They did not release the news until the defense rested its case. On October 28 the press blatted that the trunk was en route to Los Angeles from New York. On November 1 the trunk arrived under seal. Each item in it was listed and photographed.
Then a mystery concerning the contents erupted. The New York listing included a sports blouse supposedly marked by a Carmel dry cleaner. Keyes brought the cleaner to Los Angeles to identify the blouse, and - would you believe - had vanished? Either it was omitted deliberately from the Los Angeles list or it disappeared sometime before that list was made, perhaps in New York or en route.
According to the prosecution's theory the bizarre ward-robe contained in the trunk had belonged to Ormiston's paramour in Carmel. But how did it get into the trunk which was in storage in Jacksonville, Florida - out of Ormiston’s reach - from early May to early September? Ormiston and his mistress split up on May 29. Did the radio man Carry that wild wardrobe about with him during his movements between May 29 and the time the trunk reached him in New York on September 12 - the first opportunity he would have to packits contents - if those contents were not already in the trunk when it was shipped to Florida on May 6?
And who removed the sports blouse?
In all probability, this “little blue trunk,” which triggered sensational headlines, was just another instance of manufactured evidence of the sort the Honolulu editorial suspected. When interviewed Mae Waldron in the summer of 1969 - forty three years after the incident, Sister's stenographer of the 20's and 30's told me, “A Chicago reporter fixed up the blue trunk.” She added that if she remembered correctly, “His name was Blake.” At the same time Mae quoted reporter Alva Rockland of the Hearst Papers as having said, “Aimee a good little girl will never get any headlines, and we're selling headlines.” Miss Waldron reflected upon how Mrs. McPherson treated reporters kindly even when they knifed her. She recalled occasions when newsmen arrived about dinner time and were invited to eat with the family, after which they wrote stories completely distorting what the evangelist said. And Mae almost bristled as she related how reporters made themselves at home in the parsonage. She recalled times when late duties kept her overnight. When she and the family would come downstairs from the bedrooms they several times found reporters asleep on the living room sofas or helping themselves to food out in the kitchen!
Emma Schaeffer scrutinized every item in the “little blue trunk; and said she failed to recognize anything that belonged to the evangelist. Moreover, W. C. Farley from Carmel could not identify any of the items in the trunk as among the clothes Ormiston had brought to his establish-ment. Lately Thomas makes an issue of a certain dress inthe trunk which he suspects was the same dress the evangelist was pictured wearing on her departure for the Holy Land in January 1926, but all the picture shows under Sister's cape is the right sleeve, and Mrs. McPherson did not buy exclusive or original costumes. Many dresses of that style, if these two were identical, as cannot be demonstrated conclusively, were manufactured.
Sister scoffed at the bizarre wardrobe, “There probably wasn't a woman in Los Angeles who would have bought, worn, or owned such a conglomeration of garments, makes, trimmings, and colorings as were assembled and described to a long-suffering public. Note the ridiculous, gaudy outfits which would immediately brand their wearer as a freak, circus woman, or an escaped lunatic!” (p. 219, “The Story of My Life,” Word Books, Waco, Texas).
Two pairs of shoes (pumps) in the trunk were marked “Wetherby Keyser,” a respected Southland brand. According to the Los Angeles Times of November 2, 1926 (part Il, page 1), Mr. H. B. Wetherby stated that the shoes definitely were not Mrs. McPherson's size and expressed his judgment that she could not comfortably have worn them..
To make the “mystery” of the trunk more bizarre, the Los
Angeles Times of October 31, 1926 divulged that one of Paul Rader’s handkerchiefs was reportedly found in the trunk by New York officials (part |, page 3). But it, too, disappeared before Los Angeles authorities inventoried the contents!
After the prosecution dismissed the case, the trunk was shipped under bond back to New York where it could be claimed by anyone who could establish ownership. Lately Thomas reported, “There is no record of its final disposition” (p. 325, op. cit.). If it had really belonged to Ormiston, wouldn't it and its contents have been turned over to him when he retrieved his other impounded possessions?
About the time he exposed the “tittle blue trunk,” Asa Keyes also came up with a crazy cryptographic letter he claimed Mrs. McPherson mailed to “Ralph Stringer” on September 27. Keyes interpreted the salutation, “D D M” as meaning “Dear Darling Man.” The letters followed, "TIFAG WLYWAHHIWUF FT?’ Keyes’ decoders translated, “This is from a girl who loves you with all her heart! Wuff!” Another string of initials, "O|L YDOMILY WA M Ht!" was interpreted, “Oh, love you, dear, darling man! love you with all my heart.” The letter included “A O WE T H” which baffled the decoders. Surely if they had worked harder they could have come up with something! The missive ended with the name, "J AC E.” Keyes pontificated, “The letter was positively written by Aimee Semple McPherson.”
Sister laughed the accusation and decoding to scorn. She wasn't accustomed to writing in code and wouldn't have needed to. But she complained bitterly about the Los Angeles Examiner's tactics in breaking the story about the trunk and letter. Two of her friends came and told her that this newspaper had offered them a million dollars to betray her. Lately Thomas wrote, almost in awe, about Sister's reactions and that of her congregation on the day she chided the Examiner. One of its reporters wrote, after attending the session at the Temple, “She was cheered as no football hero ever was cheered. The enthusiasm was never more frenzied.
She radiated confidence, courage, defiance, and stood before her people like a triumphant empress.” Lately Thomas followed this quotation with the reflection, “These were the words of the newspaper that had just fired its heaviest broadside against her, and found her indestructible” (p. 302, op. cit.).
Another mystery erupted that very night. At the Los Angeles Times building a sudden fire burst out in the photographic room, but the only items burned were a large number of negatives pertaining to the kidnapping case!
The hanky panky which can be documented appears entirely under the control - or at least involving the province -of Mrs. McPherson's detractors!
Throughout November, Asa Keyes released almost daily reports about new evidence he was collecting to use against the evangelist in the impending jury trial. Apparently the District Attorney was bluffing, for in January he dismissed the case against the defendants.
Perhaps the clues Keyes hailed were planted like the trunk. When authorities found Ormiston’s Chrysler in Oakland on December 6, they called the radio man’s father to be present when they broke open its trunk. The senior Ormiston related developments, “Yesterday, when they opened the rear compartment of Kenneth’s car, was watching them. But afterward, when wasn't watching, they said they found some hair and a pendant from a necklace. While was looking they didn’t find anything like that!” (quoted on page 312, “The Vanishing Evangelist”).
Meanwhile, Asa Keyes was publicizing - “trying his case in the newspapers”? - his intricate theory as to Sister's alleged movements between Carme! and Douglas. Even Lately Thomas couldn't swallow that guesswork which had no basis whatever in evidence, “Against the theory was the indisputable fact that no one ever, at any time during the case or in the years thereafter, came forward claiming to know where the evangelist had been for the twenty-four days between May 29 and June 23” (p. 308, op cit.). Where was she during those weeks? She said she was in captivity. No other witness says otherwise. It's no wonder that the dust jacket of the “Vanishing Evangelist” concedes, “Aimee’s story was never shaken.” Lately Thomas should have put that conclusion in the text of his book.
The presumption of innocent unless proven guilty virtually demands that Mrs. McPherson be exonerated by public opinion. She was never proved guilty. No jury could convict her on the basis of the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing. The testimony of prosecution witnesses McMichaels, Williams, Benedict, and Moore alone was such that a Superior Court Judge might very well have accepteda motion to throw the case out of court at the end of the prosecution's presentation, without the defense needing to put on a single witness.
The Temple leaders proceeded with preparations for the trial. Sister hired the Examiner’sRalph Jordan and also a reporter from the Times to help coordinate efforts to get her a better press, if not in Los Angeles, at least in the rest of the country. Mother and Wooley took a dim view of the newsmen’s interference in the case, but Sister was asserting some authority now. She was fed up with the press smears. Wooley withdrew from the case, presenting what the Temple leaders - who despite reports to the contrary were not accustomed to high salaries - regarded as an exorbitant bill. They refused to pay it in full. Litigation eventually established an amount.
The Temple leaders replaced Wooley with Jerry Giesler - the lawyer who later inspired Erle Stanley Gardner to create Perry Mason. Gilbert remained chief counsel, but probably would have used Giesler in court trial work. He did not use Wooley or Veitch in the preliminary hearing. Gilbert there handled all the questioning himself. Giesler would have made mincemeat of Ralph Hersey and the other Carmel witnesses in cross-examination had the case gone to jury trial, and
Wiseman, Murchison, Ryan, and Morris probably would have fared even worse.
Rumors began circulating in December that the case might be dismissed. By the first of January the public expected the prosecution to collapse. Keyes was reversing himself, one day promising prosecution, the next day doubting a trial.
Then the press of the nation carried Kenneth G. Ormiston’s identification of his Carmel companion. Throughout the case he'd denied emphatically that she was the Temple pastor. Now he named her as “Elizabeth Tovey, a nurse from Seattle” (New York Times, January 2, 1928, p. 3). Ormiston told investigators that he brought Elizabeth Tovey to the Virginia Hotel in Santa Barbara, California on the night of May 29, 1926, when he and she separated.
The fact was ascertained that an Elizabeth Tovey had in fact registered at that hotel following the encounter of Ormiston and “Miss X” with reporter Wallace Moore. Charles Maas, proprietor of the hotel, came to Los Angeles on January 3 to testify about the woman's identity before the grand jury. He told reporters that the woman Ormiston brought to his hotel was not Aimee Semple McPherson, as the Los Angeles Times stated (January 3, 1927, partll, p. 18). An International News Service dispatch of the same date carried Maas’ emphatic quotation, ‘| have seen Mrs. McPherson, the evangelist, hundreds of times, and saw Elizabeth Tovey come into the hotel and register that night. am positive that Mrs. McPherson is not the woman who came to my hotel at Santa Barbara.”
Meanwhile, authorities confiscated the hotel register for handwriting comparison. Evidently Elizabeth Tovey’s did not resemble Mrs. McPherson's, otherwise there would have erupted another hullabaloo of publicity. The New York Times of January 2, in which Ormiston divulged the Tovey name, reported that he and she quarreled in Santa Barbara and that he returned to the north after separating from her there. His affidavit from Chicago the previous July 31 had stated that he had not seen Miss X since May 29.
Rumors surfaced that a Temple pay-off was prompting Keyes to dismiss the case. The sum of $30,000 was bandied about. Later investigations of Keyes’ office turned up irregularities which imprisoned the District Attorney (Sister would later visit him at San Quentin Penitentiary and wish him well), but these indiscretions or crimes were connected with other cases than the McPherson prosecution.
Keyes dismissed the case on January 10, the last day he could have entered information for prosecution in Superior Court. In his statement Keyes conceded that it was the hoax woman’s confession that got the case into court in the first place. He said, “Without her tesimony, proof of the alleged conspiracy is impossible. Since the preliminary hearing, Mrs. Wiseman has changed her story almost daily, until it now contains so many contradictions and incon-sistencies to the one given in court that she has become a witness for whose truth and credibility no prosecutor could vouch.”
Sister likened the District Attorney's dilemma with false witnesses to the confounding of tongues at the tower of Babel.
If Asa Keyes had been a gallant gentleman, he would have dismissed the case against the evangelist and made no derogatory remarks against her. But his prejudices prompted him to reassert his belief in her guilt. His only regret was that he couldn't prove it. But if he couldn't prove it, doesn't American justice afford the presumption of her innocence?
Asa Keyes also answered public outcries about the expenditure of massive sums of public monies to get evidence against the evangelist and take her to court with the revelation that the hundreds of thousands of dollars rumored spent on the case was sheer fiction. Only about $5,000 of public funds had been invested. The newspapers had put up the rest of the cost! “Press-ecutor’” Keyes, shouldn't we call him?
The scene which greeted Aimee Semple McPherson upon her appearance in Angelus Temple that night of January 10, 1927 defies description. For the only time in her career she failed to control an audience. Her gestures for silence were completely ignored in the boisterous demon-stration which shook the church. People hollered at the tops of their voices. The thunderous applause was almost deafening. Some tooted horns, showered confetti from the balconies, and unleashed serpentine as on New Year's eves. The band members blew their horns. The jubilee was indescribable. Such a scene probably never took place in any church in the world as unfolded that night of the pastor’s vindication. Judge Hardy was ecstatic. Judge Jacob Denney submitted an article published in the February “Bridal Call” (the evangelist's magazine), entitled, “Collapse of the Conspiracy.” The retired jurist from Indiana commenced, “Peace once more reigns. The poisonous gases from the last bursting shell have lifted. The scattered horde of character assasins are slinking back to their foul caverns where the bats of envy, spite, and malevolence foregather, there to vent their spleen at being baffled of a prey that they had thought to lay helpless within their polluted grasp." Judge Denney hailed the dismissal of the case by the District Attorney as a far more telting vindication even than an acquittal by a jury would have been. A prosecutor might have disagreed with a jury's verdict, but Asa Keyes admitted he didn't have the evidence to convict the Temple leaders!