{
  "id": "a_ldko5mwq",
  "oid": 165014,
  "revision": 1,
  "revision_oid": 165015,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "title": "Opposing persecution without accepting freethought's promise",
  "anchors": [
    {
      "unit": "CH03.P019",
      "oid": 57,
      "role": null,
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "paragraph": "CH03.P019",
      "exact": "Militant atheists are still unjustly persecuted",
      "start": 1307,
      "end": 1354,
      "prefix": " reached the bankruptcy anyhow. ",
      "suffix": "; but rather because they are an",
      "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH03.P019#char=1307,1354"
    }
  ],
  "body_markdown": "A concrete earlier example is G. W. Foote's prosecution over the *Freethinker*. In *Prisoner for Blasphemy* (1886; inspected in Project Gutenberg's electronic transcription of the Progressive Publishing Company text), Foote describes the Christmas 1882 number as the publication for which he received twelve months' imprisonment. Chapter IX records shorter sentences for his co-defendants Ramsey and Kemp. This is an interested participant's testimony, not a neutral court transcript, but it makes the paragraph's concession concrete. Chesterton can regard religious punishment as unjust while denying the persecuted movement's claim to intellectual novelty or future promise. The distinction matters: the paragraph's asserted philosophical bankruptcy is not offered as a justification for censorship. [Foote, chapters V and IX](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7076/7076-h/7076-h.htm).",
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7076/7076-h/7076-h.htm",
      "title": "G. W. Foote, Prisoner for Blasphemy",
      "locator": "Title page (London: Progressive Publishing Company, 1886); chapter V, opening; chapter IX, verdict and sentencing conclusion",
      "exact": null
    }
  ],
  "citations": [],
  "external_references": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7076/7076-h/7076-h.htm",
      "title": "Foote, chapters V and IX"
    }
  ],
  "limits": [
    "Foote is a contextual example; Chesterton does not name him here, and the passage has not been shown to target this particular prosecution.",
    "No claim is made that this earlier case exhausts prosecutions current in 1908."
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "run": "chapter-03-restart-2026-11-07",
    "paragraph_investigator": "P019",
    "task": [
      {
        "approach": "Quotations and attributions",
        "question": "What happens in Twain's sunrise scene, and how accurately does Chesterton compress it?"
      },
      {
        "approach": "Interlocutors and historical debates",
        "question": "What concrete contemporary experience gives force to the concession that militant atheists were unjustly persecuted?"
      },
      {
        "approach": "Quotations and attributions",
        "question": "Can the Belloc quotation be located, and does the available witness agree with Chesterton's wording?"
      }
    ],
    "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
  },
  "content_sha256": "sha256:a9f4f851cbdccea063a4e0791d3f0ef84a4791db1db6451f0d5bac6333d8f0de",
  "created_at": "2026-11-07T16:33:54Z",
  "is_current": true,
  "url": "/a/a_ldko5mwq",
  "revision_path": "/a/a_ldko5mwq/r/1",
  "cited_by": []
}