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Show IT GUILTY IS THE VERDICT Jury in JVlenace Case Exoner- ates the Staff of the Paper. Joplin, Mo., Jan. 14. No verdict had been reached today by the jury that heard the evidence In tho trial of the Menace Publishing company of Aurora, Mo., and its alleged obsceue literature through the mails and the court proceeded with other cases. The case went to tho jury soon after aft-er six o'clock last night after Judge Arba S. Van Valkenburg delivered to the jurors a lengthy charge in which he expressed regret that matters relating re-lating to religious affairs had come up for discussion in the trial and called call-ed upon the jurors to keep their minds free from religious bias in reaching a verdict. Rev. Walker Eliminated. Charges against Rev. Theodore C. Walker, one of the defendants, practically prac-tically were eliminated by the court, recommendation being made to tho jury that it find him not guilty because, be-cause, the court said, the evidence failed to sufficiently connect him with the publishing company. The charges of tho government were based upon portions of articles published In 1914 in the Menace, a weeklv newspaper, and upon passages In a book bearing the title, "the pope, chief of white slavers, high priest of intrigue." Strong denial and objection was made in the trial by the government to the charges of the defense that prosecution of the defendants had been undertaken because of activities of alleged "Catholic politicians." Joplin, Mo., Jan. 14. A verdict of not guilty was returned today by the jury in the case of the Menace Publishing Pub-lishing company of Aurora, Mo., and four of its officials who were charged in federal court here with misuse of the mails. nn |