Quick Excerpt #9

Letters from an Atheist Nation




From the Lexington Standard, a non-partisan newspaper for African-Americans, soon after Moore’s incarceration:

...To show that we are earnest in the matter, we start a petition for the pardon of Editor Moore, beginning the list with our signature, and we ask every Negro in Kentucky to sign it. We have no doubt that we will get more than a thousand names. To insure bona fide signatures we shall canvass the State in person while traveling in the interest of the Standard, and by correspondence through the medium of friends, giving the movement our unqualified editorial endorsement until success is attained, and our white brother of the press breathes the pure air of freedom again. The following is the form of the petition we shall circulate:

To William McKinley, President of the United States:

Your Excellency—Charles Chilton Moore, of Lexington, Kentucky, editor of the Blue Grass Blade, formerly published in Cincinnati, having been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury, charged with sending obscene matter through the mails, upon which charge that said Charles Chilton Moore was tried in the said city of Cincinnati and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in the Ohio penitentiary; now, therefore,

We, the undersigned, Negro citizens of Kentucky, petition Your Excellency to pardon Charles Chilton Moore for these reasons: We are of the opinion that the offense was of a technical character and not sufficient to warrant the punishment inflicted; that the person, or persons, who brought said charge and prosecuted the same did so on account of prejudice to said Moore. His long service in the cause of temperance, the exposure of shams and frauds, and the unmasking of charlatans, by his trenchant pen, should entitle him to clemency. Mr. Moore is an old man, and incarceration in the penitentiary will not only impair his already precarious health, but it is liable to cause his premature death.

We desire, further, to call your attention to the fact that Mr. Moore has a family dependent upon him for support, and his absence from home is not only liable to cause domestic suffering but serious anguish, which in all probability will shorten the life of his aged wife.

We hope, after a careful reading of this petition and accompanying letters, you will not hesitate to grant the pardon sought.

R.C.O. Benjamin, Editor Standard, Lexington, Ky.

Former Governor of Ohio, President William McKinley, would go on to commute Moore’s sentence to six months, with one month off for good behavior. Moore would return to Lexington five months from his sentencing. Newspaper accounts list the awaiting crowds at the train station to have numbered around five-hundred. Moore’s train would be delayed a few hours, but the five-hundred or so people loitered about until his train rolled in. Moore shook hundreds of hands before gathering into a carriage and heading for the Phoenix Hotel. The streets to the hotel were lined with onlookers, both black and white, and the “shouts echoed for half a block at a time” as his coach's horses ambled along Main Street.