Religion: Bad Angel

In the city of Winnipeg, in the province of Manitoba last week a tall, ascetic-looking man wandered, but not aimlessly about the city. Here and there he let it be known that Winnipeg suited him. A good town for a breakfast-food factory. No remittance-man he; his accent was not that of an Englishman, but of a U. S. Southerner. His appearance was not that of an Englishman come to make good in the Dominion, but of a U. S. business man, albeit he was less jovial, perhaps a little harder than most U. S. citizens. As suddenly as they had begun, the man’s wanderings ceased. The police had some questions to ask him. The most important question was, “Are you Clinton S. Carnes?” When the man said he was Clinton S. Carnes, the police were proud of their perspicacity. Here was important fish for their creel.

A few hours later Georgians knew about the catch in Canada. Soon Carnes would be in Atlanta, and many a Georgian, many another Southerner waited to hear what Carnes would say about the million dollars or more which represented the shortages in the accounts of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Mission Board. Carnes had been treasurer of the board until he left Atlanta on or about Aug. 15, nor had he resigned.

Almost eleven years ago, when the perfunctory audit of the Home Mission Board was completed, a tall, ascetic-looking auditor made apt suggestions, so impressed the star Boarders that they sent for him a few months later when the treasurer of the Home Mission Board resigned. The job included control of the board’s funds, paid a salary of $4,500 a year.

Some 3,000,000 persons annually contribute $1,000,000 each year to these mission funds. Many a widow’s mite, many a tot’s tithe swells the total. Part of Treasurer Carnes’s job was to lend money to needy wayside churches, and Treasurer Carnes thereby made contacts with wayside bankers, whom he won as he had won the board. His word alone was good at many a Southern bank, and often he borrowed $15,000, $10,000 and like sums “for the board.”

During his more than ten years’ tenure of office Treasurer Carnes prospered, became Realtor Carnes, Millionaire Carnes, Altruist Carnes. The treasurer dabbled in real estate, owned in Atlanta at the end of a decade personal and real estate to the sum of $3,357,193.71. When a church needed $13,000, the altruist gave it; when a ministerial student needed funds to complete his education, the altruist supplied them. An impressive home, four automobiles, educated sons added to the prestige of Treasurer Carnes.

On Aug. 15 last he closed his desk, said was going North on business. A few days later a series of revelations and a contemporaneous series of shocks began. Treasurer Carnes’s accounts were audited—no perfunctory audit, this—and Baptists earned that the accounts were a million, perhaps more, dollars short. The Atlanta Constitution printed on its front page a facsimile of a postal department dossier which showed that Carnes twice had been indicted for using the mails to defraud. Shocked though they were, Atlanta Baptists early thought of the honor and credit of the Home Mission Board, immediately established a restitution fund to make up Carnes’s alleged defalcations.