seclusion of the home instead of telephoning for a reporter and a
chalk artist and exploiting their intumescence in the public
prints.

. . .

Thomas M. Harris, who claims to be 84 years old, has writ a
little yellow pamphlet entitled, "Rome's Responsibility for the
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln." I have expended almost 5
minutes glancing over Mr. Harris labored lucubations, and must
confess that I have in that time acquired more information--of
its kind--than I ever did in 5 hours before. Of the reliability
of his statements there can be no question, as most of them are
grounded on the testimony of "Father" Chiniquy--conceded to be
the most accomplished liar since Ananias gave up the ghost. It
was Chiniquy who first started the story that the Pope was
responsible for the assassination of President Lincoln, and I am
expecting him to prove that Guiteau who gave the death-wound to
Garfield, was a Jesuit in disguise and acted on orders received
from Rome. Harris says that agents of the Confederacy in
Canada--whom he admits were not Catholics--employed Booth and his
accomplices to do the bloody business; that John Wilkes Booth was
a Catholic; that the priests were all Southern sympathizers; that
but 144,000 Irishmen enlisted in the Federal army, of whom
104,000 deserted; that the cellars of Catholic cathedrals are
filled with munitions of war to be used against the government,
that Catholics hold the bulk of the offices and dominate the
American press. Harris says other things equally awful and
interesting. I much fear that he got to thinking how many of his
A. P. Apes have broken into the penitentiary, and dreamed a bad