Medicine: Jubilee

Prejudice! Graft! My tactics a bombshell! Prosecution frightened! My case is over! These were the jubilant cries last week of Rev. J. Frank (“Killer”) Norris, 49, unofficial Baptist Fundamentalist, of Fort Worth, Tex., who on July 17 decreed death to Dexter E. Chipps, lumber dealer, and acted as agent himself (TIME, July 26 et seq.). The now deceased had ventured to expostulate with the parson for maligning D. E. Chipps’ friend, the Mayor of Fort Worth. Pastor Norris, who has since been at liberty on bail, preaching weekly to vast throngs, has now secured a change of venue in his trial, from Fort Worth to Austin, state capital; and a postponement of date to Jan. 10. Mayor H. C. Meacham, bespectacled, cautious-eyed friend of the unfortunate Chipps, had admitted expending $15,000 in hiring prosecutors for the Norris trial, upon which discovery Judge George Hosey changed the location of court. Here was difficulty. San Antonio missed the honor by having too many resident Catholics, who, it is felt, might have some ground of annoyance against one who has never spared them with his tongue. Dallas and Houston were debarred, as the judge had heard that Mr. Norris had “experienced trouble” there. Austin was said to be too small, but was finally elected, faute de mieux.

The Pastor’s story is self-defense. L. H. Nutt, elder in his church, says he heard Chipps threaten bodily harm to the Pastor. One Carl Glaze, 14, only witness of the tragedy, has signed a statement declaring he saw Chipps shot to death in an anteroom to the pastor’s study.

The Pastor’s career has been stormy. A Ku Klux Klan member, he has been tried (and acquitted) for arson, was an aide of William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes Evolution trial, has vigorously denounced race tracks, Catholics, other things and persons.

The Texas laws for homicide are lenient, providing only that in a plea of self-defense the defendant shall prove that his decision to “get there first” was reasonable. “… it makes no difference whether, in fact, real danger exists. . . .” Commenting upon the Pastor’s successful charge of prejudice, Texan expatriates drawled: “Texas must sure have changed, if people down there now entertain prejudice against murder.”