By PAUL WACHTER
  Staff Writer

  Past the large bowl of communion wafers in the foyer and into the pews and aisles, hundreds came to St. Peter's Catholic Church on Sunday to hear an old
  tale of wrath and murder.

  A familiar setting, but with a twist: This was no sermon on Cain and Abel, but rather a journey, 100 years back, into South Carolina history and the murder
  of Narciso Gener Gonzales, The State newspaper's co-founder and first editor.

  Originally scheduled for the Richland County Public Library's auditorium, Sunday's forum, entitled "The Gonzales Shooting: What Happened?," migrated
  down Assembly Street to St. Peter's Church to accommodate the swelling audience.

  According to St. Peter's Monsignor Leigh Lehockey, around 800 people showed up to hear local historians, journalists and other luminaries revisit Gonzales'
  slaying at the hands of Lt. Gov. James Tillman in downtown Columbia on Jan. 15, 1903.

  University of South Carolina history professor Walter Edgar, author of "South Carolina: A History," moderated the discussion, joining three other USC
  professors and two State journalists.

  But the star of the afternoon was Alex Sanders, whose self-effacing yet searing wit seems to have survived his failed campaign for the U.S. Senate.

  "I noticed one omission of something from that resume," said Sanders, after Edgar's introduction, which made no mention of Sanders' defeat to Republican
  Sen. Lindsey Graham. Then, after receiving warm applause, Sanders took in his audience -- almost entirely white and seasoned in years -- with a sweeping
  gaze. "Well, I guess there's some consolation here: I didn't get this many white votes in the election."

  The former College of Charleston president quickly summed up the century-old events: Tillman, stewing from his failed bid for the governorship, wanted to
  kill Gonzales for his editorials against him. He shot the editor, who was unarmed, in cold blood before witnesses. Yet thanks to a crafty defense team and a
  sympathetic jury, Tillman was acquitted of murder.

  Then Sanders did what he does best, producing choice anecdotes from contemporary S.C. history and poking fun at the protagonists.

  Of Lexington County -- a famously conservative bastion then and now -- where the trial was relocated, Sanders said, "They didn't read The State in
  Lexington, and they didn't read anything else for that matter."

  Appraising the paper that survived Gonzales, Sanders borrowed from Baltimore polemicist H.L. Mencken, who visited South Carolina in 1920 and reportedly
  said of its largest paper, "Gonzales was the last editor there worth shooting."

  Lacey Ford and John Hammond Moore, both USC history professors, placed the shooting in its historical context: the country was a dangerous place 100
  years ago.

  "Guns were sold openly and people carried pistols," Moore said. "In fact, until the first World War, men had their jackets tailored to carry pistols."

  "Most crime," he continued, "was white-on-white and black-on-black," though blacks were found guilty of murder about twice as often as whites. Many
  murders were committed against family members, especially, Moore said, brother-in-laws, "a role which was a dangerous, often fatal relationship."

  "But South Carolina only ranked 10th in the nation in number of lynchings -- Mississippi and Alabama had far more," Ford said.

  USC journalism professor Patricia McNeely said that feuds between Gonzales and Tillman, who once wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, were
  common in the newspaper business. Most editors carried guns and were no strangers to the back-alley brawl.

  John Monk, a State columnist, wrote a 2,600-word piece on the Tillman-Gonzales affair, which he saw largely as a "Shakespearean" drama of "great
  passions."

  "Above all, I wanted to give this story a human edge," said Monk, who began his piece noting that on that fateful January day, Gonzales was in good
  spirits, but hungry.

  "Gonzales was a fine journalist, but he lacked the temperance and the moderation that an editor needs," which got him into trouble.

  The State's editorial page editor Brad Warthen told the audience that he doesn't worry about sharing Gonzales' fate.

  "I remember one time I wrote a column saying that (former Gov.) Carroll Campbell had no chance of becoming president," he recalled. Not long after, he
  had to shake Campbell's hand at an awards ceremony, but Warthen wasn't worried.

  "It was fine," he said. "There is a great civility here in the South, both in its citizens and public officials."

  Warthen is probably right -- in this day and age it's extremely rare for journalists to be killed in America. Yet, perhaps the specter of Gonzales still haunts
  the paper.

  On each door into The State's Shop Road offices there are signs bearing the declaration, "No firearms allowed on this property."

  You never can be too sure.