accept. But even as I left his office I wasrndetermined to quit the paper as soon asrnpossible.rnLater in the day I got to see the wizardrnhimself and had a little chat with Wes. Arnstolid man by habit, Wes tried to musterrnsome anger with me. He asked me if Irndidn’t know that we live in a city with arnmajority black population, told me that Irnwas “just too insensitive” to black concerns,rnthat I “just went too far,” and thatrnmy column about the Baptists “couldrnonly be read as a defense of slavery” (itrnwas not). I hadn’t realized grown menrnreally talked seriously in this way, but Irntold him that neither he nor Tod had everrnexpressed any displeasure with my column,rnthat no one had objected to therncolumn before it was published, and thatrnit had been published without alterationsrnand in a prominent place abovernthe fold of the page. If Tod had a problemrnwith it, why hadn’t I heard about itrnbefore it was published, and if it was sornoffensive why was it published at all? I alsorntold him that the 50 percent reductionrnof my salary threatened to leave mernfinanciallv strapped, that I had had onlyrnone annual assessment from Tod sincernstarting work under him four years before,rnand that he had not expressed anyrndissatisfaction with my column or anyrnother aspect of my work and conduct.rnWes grumbled that he would lookrninto the salary matter. The next day I gotrna note from Tod telling me they werernwilling to raise my salary to 75 percent ofrnwhat it had been if I agreed to write threerneditorials a week instead of two. I had nornchoice but to accept this increased workloadrnat a lower salary, but even thernincrease still left me at a pay level lessrnthan my starting salary in 1986. By nowrnit was Thursday afternoon, and my Fridayrncolumn, ordinarily published onrnTod’s op-ed page, did not appear. Forrnthe first time in four years the paper carriedrnno column by me on the day of itsrnregular publication.rnMany of my readers sniffed troublernand started calling to ask why my columnrnhadn’t appeared on June 30. In thernweeks that followed, when the columnrninexplicably moved to the Commentaryrnsection and my tagline dropped the descriptionrnof me as a staff columnist, wordrnthat something bad had happened beganrnto seep out. Various conservativernnewsletters, activist groups, and talkrnshow hosts began muttering about it. Irnstarted receiving copies of letters fromrnreaders to Wes expressing support for mernand the column and often copies of hisrnreplies to them. There began to be talkrnof boycotts, demonstrations in front ofrnthe paper, and letter writing campaigns.rnI actively discouraged talk of any actionrnagainst the paper, and I never asked anyonernto write a letter to Wes or anyonernelse, but they did anyway. As of this date,rnI have copies of more than 50 suchrnletters, and Wes later told me he hadrnreceived “more than a hundred letters”rnexpressing support for me. Apparentlyrnthis made no difference to him.rnAt the end of August, Wes dispatchedrna blunt memorandum to me, snortingrnthat Whoever is running the letter campaignrnshould get his facts straight. “Thernmessages to my office are all over thernballpark. Each correspondent is getting arnreply considerably more polite than mostrndeserve, and I make the point that ifrnthese correspondents actually admirernyou and your work, as they insist they do,rnthey should not spread lies about you.rnYou have told me that you are not a partyrnto this, and I am glad to hear it.”rnWhy he sent this memo other than tornsuggest that I was somehow orchestratingrna letter writing campaign I don’t understand,rnand I wrote him back to reiteraternthat I had never asked anyone to writernor call him on my behalf. I also told himrnthat in the copies of the letters I had received,rn”I have not seen anything thatrncould be called a lie…. Why would I bernparty to a campaign to spread lies aboutrnmyself? If lies are being spread, I wouldrnlike to know what they are and who isrntelling them.”rnIt soon became apparent who wasrntelling lies. When one reader wrote Wesrnwith the precise facts, that I was nornlonger described as a staff columnist andrnthat the location of my column in thernpaper had changed, Wes replied by sayingrn”I don’t know where you are gettingrnyour nutty misinformation” and assuredrnhim that I continued as “an editorialrnwriter for the Times, which is a positionrnof highest prestige withm our organization.”rnThis was the general line he followedrnin responding to the letters, virtuallyrndenying that my status at the paperrnhad changed and insisting in a form letterrnthat “the voice of Sam Francis is as vibrantrnas ever, his column appears prominentlyrnin the Washington Times, as it hasrnfrom the beginning, and he continues torncontribute editorials as a valued memberrnof the editorial page staff.” Those repliesrnof his that I have seen are almost invariablyrncurt to the point of rudeness, disingenuousrnif not outright dishonest, andrnoften misspelled or ungrammatical.rnThey almost never answer the writers’rnquestions and often wind up tellingrnthem it’s none of their business anyway.rnIn at least one letter (to Jared Taylor) hernexplicitly said that the change of my column’srnplacement within the newspaperrn”was not a result of his column on thernSouthern Baptists’ apology for slavery”rnand wrote that “to describe this [my dismissalrnas a staff columnist and the drasticrnreduction of my salary] as ‘firing’ arncolumnist is truly bizarre.” He also emittedrndark hints of a conspiracy. “Someone,”rnhe wrote ominously, “is trying torndo a job on Sam.” Some readers wererntaken in by this, and they wrote me askingrnwhat the real truth was.rnBy the end of the summer, I was stillrnon the payroll, though I figured my daysrnwere numbered, and I had lost any desirernto stay anyway. After nine years of professionalrnsuccess at the paper, I had beenrnsmacked in the face and was only a fewrnsteps away from financial distress. As forrnthe “job on Sam,” it seemed to proceedrnbriskly. I undertook writing three editorialsrna week plus my two syndicatedrncolumns and developed my plans to getrnthe hell out of Dodge. But unknown tornme at the time, others were also developingrnsimilar plans for me, though not forrnquite the same reason.rnSamuel Francis is a nationally syndicatedrncolumnist and a contributing editor tornChronicles.rnR E L I G I O NrnPoliticizedrnChristianityrnby Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Ji.rnOn a recent Sunday, my church bulletinrnran this edifying announcement:rn”Is cutting health, income assistance,rnnutrition and safety guarantees ofrnmillions of children and shredding thernnational safety net for children the kindrnof reform we support? Call PresidentrnClinton to let him know what you arernfor. ‘I was hungry, thirsty, homeless, sickrnAPRIL 1996/37rnrnrn