Takes Cash Subscriptions for a Book Not Yet Written.
“Rev.” S. D. Rogers, who was in Chanute last week soliciting
subscriptions to a religious book, which he clams he is writing, unexpectedly
reappeared here yesterday, says the Chanute Blade. He was in a state of high
Indignation and declared that the newspapers would have to be forthcoming with
retractions of stores printed about him or he would do all kinds of things to
the publishers.
Rogers was fresh from the Humboldt calaboose [ie jail] but he kept
this fact carefully guarded as a secret in his own breast. About the middle of
the afternoon colonel O. H. Fisher, landlord of the Oriental hotel, and Rogers
met by accident in Boschert & Williams' drug store. Rogers made some remark
to Colonel Fisher, when the colonel told him something which must have sounded
unpleasantly on his ears. “It is my candid opinion,” said Colonel Fisher, “that
you never occupied a pulpit in your life. If you are indeed a minister of the
gospel you fall far short of my standard of the clergy.”
Colonel Fisher had entertained Rogers at his 'hotel a day or
two last week, and while there Rogers addressed an insulting remark to one of
the waitresses. Upon leaving Chanute Rogers went to Humboldt, and up to supper
time Monday had collected $14 in subscriptions to his forthcoming book. After
supper, and when he was in the parlor talking to a couple of ladles, an officer
arrested him on the suspicion that he was “grafting” the people of' Humboldt. Rogers
was locked up but was released yesterday morning.
It was not 'ascertained whether he paid a fine or was
permitted to go scot-free. Rogers, as was told by The Blade yesterday morning,
claims that he is writing a book which is explanatory of the spiritual meaning
of the Scriptures and which will bear the title, “The Opening of the Books.” He
is traveling over the country getting cash subscriptions in advance for the
volume. Some say that he got as much as a hundred dollars from Chanute parties.
January 11, 1904
The Hutchinson News from Hutchinson, Kansas · Page 7
4 comments:
I love it. Move over Albert Delmont Jones - you have a rival on the downward spiral road.
Jones, and now Rogers, strange people......
Do we have his picture, or one of the other three "conspirators" (Otto von Zech, Elmer Bryan, J.B. Adamson)?
Also does volume 2 cover this episode in 1894? Is the detractors' pamphlet available?
No, since our cutoff date is about 1887, we save all the 1894 agony for the next book. We have a photo of Bryant and his family. Bryant married a Zech daughter. We don't have their circular letter, but a Zech granddaughter sent us family papers that will stand in its place. The Bryant photo is in Bruce's stuff. So I can't immediately post it.
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