THE MONEYCHANGERS

The Christ Temple Pentecostal Church of the World, Inc., which has blithely engaged in swelling its coffers through the soiled rentals of the Cotton Club, occupant of its premises, now insists that Mr. Solomon's organization has "damnified" its temple. The Christ Temple Pentecostal Church gently but firmly suggests that the indemnifying process will cost the Cotton Club just twenty thousand dollars. This sum is calculated to soothe the "outraged confidence" of its communicants, and to bolster up the "lost morale" of the Church.

There are only two conclusions to be drawn, and the Church's legal counsel, albeit unwittingly, draws them both in his voluble indignation. First an incredulous gallery is asked to believe that the Church authorities, through the period of Mr. Solomon's most brazen publicity, were solemnly unaware that the Cotton Club was aught but "an athletic and social organization." Amelia Sedley would have crossed her fingers at this, but when the counsel brightly interpolates that the Church, although a Boston incorporation, did not even know who was occupying their property, one suddenly feels that all bounds have been passed.

It is no very cynical asperity to state that the Christ Temple Pentecostal Church, Inc., protests too much. Its property, from which the missionary voice has not echoed of late, was, through the good offices of Mr. Solomon, an extremely profitable investment. Scarcely captions either is the suggestion that Christ Temple, Inc., has made good use of its tax exemption privilege. The posthumous reports of Mr. Solomon's wit may be exaggerated, but he surely told no one he was conducting an athletic organization." If the Pentecostal brethren chose to believe that he was somnolence or mendacity must be their alternatives. And Rip van Winkle must yield to Mr. Pecksniff in the fine art of spinning law suits.