Sheik's Friend

While traveling in Arabia several years ago Lytle White, a student from Howard College at Birmingham, Ala.,* became chummy with Sheik Farced J. Imam. After his return home White received a letter from his friend, who "in his usual sparkling way suggested that I (White) befriend him by being on the alert for a beautiful and competent girl, who might be purchased to honor the position as chief wife of his harem."

White told this story in the summer of 1935 to Miss Ellen Ansley, Howard College correspondent of the Scripps-Howard Birmingham Post. Another reporter was assigned to interview White and the Post published a story saying, "although Mr. White will not take responsibility of selecting Sheik Imam's wife, he will be glad to make contact with the Arabian for those interested. Mr. White can be reached by telephone at 9-1817 or by mail at Roebuck Springs."

Soft-voiced Mr. White, now an instructor in ethics at Howard, was outraged when he found himself publicized as an intermediary in procuring a harem wife from among Alabama womanhood, promptly sued the Post for $100,000, claiming he had been libeled. The Post filed a demurrer on the grounds that White had suffered no damage and that the suit was nonactionable, was upheld in Circuit Court. White appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court, which reversed the lower court and ordered the case remanded in a resounding opinion by Justice Thomas E. Knight Sr.: "The purchase of a girl from her parents, to be carried to some distant country to complete an Arab's harem of four wives, is abhorrent to our American institutions and to our conception of morality, and to falsely and maliciously publish to the world that one stood ready to aid and abet in the consummation of such a scheme is nothing short of libel per se."

The case went to trial last week in Birmingham. The Post claimed its story was substantially true, introduced evidence to show that White had told the same story to other people. The jury, out 15 minutes, found for the Post. White announced he would file a second appeal.

The only party not heard from last week was White's great, good and sparkling friend, Sheik Fareed J. Imam.

*A Southern Baptist coeducational institution, not to be confused with Howard University at Washington, D. C., whose student body is largely Negro.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.