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THE CHRONICLES OF OKLAHOMA
committee's findings and "took all of his accusations to everyone throughout the nation" (almost immediately reduced by the bishop to simply "across the entire area"). On a related matter, said Smith, Stewart had never asked the New Mexico Conference Committee of Investigation to look into his "actions or administrations." One of the other counts against Stewart was that he had led peo- ple to believe that "he had been denied a right. . . ." Scrimshire fleshed out this specification. He discussed an article in which the minister allegedly claimed that he had been denied the opportunity to present the love gifts question before the Council of Bishops be- cause "the Bishops were protecting each other... ." Smith explained that "[o]ne Bishop ha[d] no authority over another Bishop" and that individuals could not take matters to the council. "If we permit all of the cranks and nuts in the world to come before the Council that have got something against some Bishop," he said, "I would have a line 100 miles long waiting to be heard." Smith thus laid a broad foundation for the case against Stewart and began the process of supporting some of the specific accusa- tions. Much of his testimony dealt with his relationship with the ac- cused minister, and the bishop clearly stated that Stewart was hun- gry for publicity and implied that, at the least, he was ungrateful. It could also be argued that he left in the jurors' minds the impression that he viewed the accused minister as something of a "crank" or a "nut." Interpretation of church law was an important aspect of the trial. Although Reverend Reed, the presiding officer, was a lawyer and ruled before the trial and at its beginning on various points related to the proceedings, Bishop Smith functioned during the examina- tion as the primary expert on church law. Apparently, when Bishop Smith and the superintendents of the New Mexico Conference planned for the trial, they saw no need to bring in an outside expert in this field. Three of his legal explanations dealt directly with Stewart's trial, and two referred to the meeting of the Oklahoma Conference Committee of Investigation that heard Stewart's accu- sations against Smith.'0 The key question about Stewart's trial was that of jurisdiction: Should Stewart's case have been handled by the conference's inves- tigating committee at all? After apparently first asking that it be called, the former pastor soon claimed that he should be investi- gated by a district committee. His motion, sent to Reed several days before his trial, avowed that he had been incorrectly charged as a "traveling preacher," rather than as a "local preacher" no longer re-