THE SUPPRESSED TRUTH ABOUT THE ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINC

"Science," the Greek word for knowledge, when appended to the word "political," creates what seems like an oxymoron. For who could claim to know politics? More complicated than any game, most people who play it become addicts and die without understanding what they were addicted to. The rest of us suffer under their malpractice as our "leaders." A truer case of the blind leading the blind could not be found. Plumb the depths of confusion here.

Re: THE SUPPRESSED TRUTH ABOUT THE ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM

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Chapter 10: The Trail of the Arch Conspirator John H. Surratt

Now, we will take up the trail of the arch-conspirator and assassin, John Harrison Surratt, the man who called the time in front of Ford's Theatre the night of the murder of President Lincoln, and track him, step by step, to the very shadow of the Vatican, whose protection he sought and received, until a formal demand was made by the United States government for his return to this country for trial for the murder of Abraham Lincoln.

In order to nail the Roman church to the cross in this great treason plot, the writer asks your patience and careful reading of this subject which has lain for over a half century buried in the oblivion where the Jesuits placed it and from which we have resurrected it and pieced it together, in what we hope may prove a readable shape, to be understood and the information passed on.

It is safe to say that the escape of this tool of the Roman priesthood was one of the most spectacular in all history. It began the very night after the tragic scene in Ford's Theatre.

It will probably never be known positively by what means Surratt made good his escape from Washington that night, or early the next morning, for he has passed to his eternal accounting and did so, so far as is known, without having revealed it. But this is certain; he succeeded in making his escape safely to Montreal, Canada, and was lodged securely in the house of the parents of the Roman priest, La Pierre, who was waiting and ready to receive him, close by the papal palace of the Archbishop to whom he was secretary.

Then began in the United States what was one of the most extraordinary man hunts for Surratt that ever occurred, before or since, in the history of this country. The rewards by the government amounted to twenty-five thousand dollars, and every detective in the government secret service, every detective of the private agencies, and every amateur sleuth engaged in this drive to recover this nineteen year old boy, leader of the gang of laymen who were instigated, aided, urged and abetted by the priests of the church of Rome, to complete the destruction of this Republic, which had recently been recovered from the awful cataclysm which our foreign enemies had precipitated four years previous.

The government secret service, under the direction of the War Department, sent out the following letter:

"Headquarters Department of Washington,
Washington, D.C., April 16th, 1865.

Special Orders, No. 68.

Special officers, James A. McDevitt, George Holohan, and Louis J. Weichmann, are hereby ordered to New York on important government business, and, after executing their private orders, to return to this city and report at these headquarters. The Quartermaster's Department will furnish the necessary transportation.

By command of Major-General Augur, T. Ingraham
Colonel and Provost-Marshall-General.
Defenses North of Potomac."

These officers, after leaving Washington, arrived in Montreal on April 20th, and registered at the St. James Hotel. They searched the registers of the hotels in that city, and found that Surratt had arrived at the St. Lawrence Hall Hotel on April 6th, and checked out on the 12th of that month; that he had returned on the 18th and left a few hours later. They learned on investigation that he had stayed at the home of a man by the name of Porterfield, a Secessionist from Tennessee, who was one of the agents for the Confederacy in that city, and that Surratt had left that house with another man dressed exactly like himself, each taking a carriage and being driven in different directions. At this point the trail ended until the government learned of his sailing on the Peruvian, an English steamer, plying between Quebec and Liverpool, according to the Congressional Record of that year, see Ames' Report.

The Secretary of State received the following code telegram from our Consul in Montreal, J. F. Potter:

"No. 236.

(Mr. Potter to Mr. Seward)
U.S. Consul, B. N. A. F.
Montreal, October 27, 1865.

Sir: Have just had a personal interview with Dr. L. J. McMillan. He informs me that just before the Steamer Peruvian sailed, a person with whom he was acquainted, asked him if he was willing that a gentleman who had been somewhat compromised by the recent troubles in the United States, should pass as his friend on board on the passage out. The Doctor refused to acknowledge the person as his friend, until he should know who he was. Subsequently, the same person, accompanied by a party came on board before the ship left port, whom he introduced to the surgeon as Mr. McCarthy. During the voyage McCarthy made himself known to the Doctor as John H. Surratt, and related to him many of the particulars of the conspiracy. He said he had been secreted in Montreal most of the time, with the exception of a few weeks, when he was with a Catholic priest down the river. He also states that Porterfield of this city, formerly of Tennessee, assisted in secreting him. The Doctor also informed same that Surratt had dyed his hair, eyebrows and mustache, blackstained his face, and wore glasses. He landed in Londonberry, Ireland, fearing he might be watched and detected in Liverpool.

He told him he was obliged to remain until he could receive money from Montreal. He requested the Doctor to see his friend in this city, and bring him funds. After the return of the Peruvian, the Doctor was transferred to the Nova Scotian. When I saw him he had just had an interview with his friend who had introduced him to Surratt, as McCarthy, who told him he was expecting funds from Washington, D.C., but that they had not come yet.

The Doctor says that Surratt manifests no signs of penitence, but justifies his action, and was bold and defiant, when he speaks of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. To illustrate this: He told me that Surratt remarked repeatedly, that he only desired to live two years longer, in which time he would serve President Johnson as Booth served Lincoln. The Doctor said he felt it his duty to give me this information for he regarded Surratt a desperate wretch, and an enemy to society, who should be apprehended and brought to justice."

(Signed) John F. Potter."

To this important information, our Consul received no reply from the War Department, as he had expected and the next day he followed it with a telegram, also in code, printed below:

"No. 236.

(Mr. Potter to Mr. Seward)
U.S. Consul General,
Montreal, Can., October 25th, 1865.

Sir:—I send you a telegram in cipher with information to the Department that John H. Surratt left Three Rivers, in September, for Liverpool, where he now is, awaiting the arrival of the Nova Scotian, which sails on Saturday, next, by which he expects to receive money from parties in this city by hand of Ship Surgeon—I have information from Dr. McMillan, Surratt intends to go to Rome. He was secreted at Three Rivers by a Catholic priest, with whom he lived. I have requested instruction in my telegram, but hearing nothing yet, I scarcely know what course to take.

If an officer could proceed to England on this ship, no doubt, Surratt's arrest might be effected, and this, the last of the conspirators against the lives of the President and Secretary of State be brought to justice. If I hear nothing from Washington tomorrow, I shall go to Quebec to see further on the subject.

Respectfully, etc.
(Signed) Potter."

And now a most peculiar phase of this remarkable case presents itself to us. The U.S. War Department with the full knowledge of the exact whereabouts of that arch-criminal, who not only assisted, but led in, and actually directed the murder of the President of the United States and Secretary of State, William H. Seward, refused to make the least attempt to arrest the said John H. Surratt, which the following cable to our Consul in Liverpool shows:

"(Mr. Hunter to Mr. Wilding)
Dept. of State, October 13th, 1865.

Sir: Your dispatches 541-43 inclusive have been received.

In reply to your No. 538. I have to inform you, that upon consultation with the Secretary of War and Judge Advocate General, it is thought advisable that no action be taken in regard to the arrest of the supposed John H. Surratt, at present.

W. H. Hunter.
Acting Secretary."

Then in only a few weeks from that date, the following order was sent to the War Department from Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, and successor to Abraham Lincoln:

"(General Order No. 164)

War Department,
Adj. General's Office,
Washington, November 24, 1865.

All persons claiming reward in the apprehension of John Wilkes Booth, Lewis Payne, G. A. Atzerodt, David E. Herold, and Jefferson Davis, or either of them, are notified to file their claims and their proofs with the Adj. General for final adjudication by the special commission appointed, to award and determine upon the validity of such claims before the first day of January next, after which no claims will be received.

The reward for the arrest of Jacob Thompson, Beverly Tucker, George W. Sander, Wm. G. Cleary, and John H. Surratt, are hereby revoked.

By order of the President of the United States.

E. D. Townsend,
Asst. Adj. General."

Naturally, with the revoking of the reward for the arrest of Surratt, his chances for his safety from expiating his crime were multiplied many fold.

On September 30th, 1865, our Consulate at Liverpool, sent the following cable in Code to the Secretary of State at Washington:

No. 539

"(Mr. Wilding to Mr. Seward)
U.S. Consulate, Liverpool,
September 30, 1865.

Sir: Since my dispatch No. 538, the supposed Surratt has arrived in Liverpool and is now staying at the Oratory of the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Cross. His appearance indicates him to be about 21 years of age, rather tall and tolerably good looking. According to the reports Mrs. Surratt was a very devout Roman Catholic, and I know clergymen of that persuasion on their way to and from America, have frequently lodged, while in Liverpool at the same Oratory, so that the fact of this young man going there, somewhat favors the belief, that he is the real Surratt. I cannot, of course, do anything further in the matter without Mr. Adams' instructions, and a warrant. If it be Surratt, such a wretch ought not to escape.

Yours respectfully, Your obedient servant.
H. Wilding."

The Oratory of the Holy Cross was the Roman Catholic Clearing House through which the ecclesiastical agents passed between this country and the Vatican, during their activities through the Civil war.

And now, with the official correspondence to show us Surratt's moves let me chink up the open spaces.

When Surratt left the home of Porterfield, he was taken under the wings of the French priests from under which he never departed until they had seen the ship surgeon on the Peruvian and arranged for his safe passage as we have seen. The facts brought out at the two trials of Surratt, after he had finally been returned to the United States, showed that the fugitive had gone to the little village of St. Liboire, some sixty miles out of Montreal, skirting the pine woods, and an ideal place for the purpose. The parish priest's name was Boucher. Here he secreted Surratt for several weeks, when the hunt got too hot in Montreal which was being combed thoroughly for him. St. Liboire was out of the way of the general traffic, and the inhabitants, French Catholics, who worked for the most part in the lumber camps, and were by their location, as well as their lack of education, cut off from the rest of the world and its doings, as if they were people of another planet. They were subservient to their priest, so much so, that they would no more have thought of criticizing his acts, than they would of God Himself. Consequently, when a strange young man appeared at the parish house nothing was thought of it, or if, perchance, some one with just a drop of rebellious blood in him, might have asked himself, "Is this another mouth to feed?" he would whisper it so softly that even his guardian angel could not hear it, and would quickly bless himself, for daring to criticize or find fault with what his Bon Pere should take it into his head to do.

After several weeks of this life in the Canadian village, Surratt became restless, no doubt, and anxious to hear from the States, for we must remember that all his mail and the newspapers were censored by his priestly guardians, as he afterwards told in his Rockville lecture. Each time the Holy Mother Church would step in and allay his anxiety and he received almost weekly visits from the other Valued and trusted friend, Priest La Pierre of Montreal. Once when he insisted, Priest La Pierre took him back to Montreal, himself, in citizen's clothes, and Surratt disguised as a hunter.

You will note the solicitude of these French priests concerning this American youth who had a price of Twenty-five Thousand Dollars on his head, dead or alive. It is not an eloquent fact of, not only their personal guilt, but the guilt of their church, that they never thought of surrendering him and receiving the reward, notwithstanding the inordinate love of money which characterizes Rome's priests?

Do you think for one moment that these priests in Canada, or the priests in Washington, would have dared to have become parties in this conspiracy, thereby involving their church, without the full knowledge of the Roman hierarchy? Priests receive all their orders from the pope through their Bishops.

Would this obscure, native born American boy have been so carefully protected and cared for as he was by these priests, without the command of the Vatican?

You must remember that this government had sent broadcast the warning that anyone who would be found aiding, abetting, protecting, comforting, or in any way assisting any of the conspirators, would be held as co-partners in the crime with them, and dealt with accordingly.

There is not a record that I have been able to find, wherein there is one word of criticism, one word of disapproval, one word of regret officially, or otherwise, on the part of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy for the participation of the Romanists connected with this conspiracy, which consummated in the murder of Abraham Lincoln!

THERE IS NOT IN THE LARGE COLLECTION OF OFFICIAL CONDOLENCES RECEIVED BY THIS GOVERNMENT UPON THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, COMING FROM EVERY CIVILIZED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, ONE WORD FROM THE POPE OF ROME, AND THIS IN VIEW, MARK YOU, OF THE FACT THAT THE POPE WAS KING OF THE PAPAL STATES AND HAD MORE SUBJECTS IN THIS COUNTRY THAN ANY OTHER RULER IN EUROPE!

Pius IXth by his silence at this time, made a confession of his guilt written in letters of fire—unquenchable fire—which brands him and his Jesuits with the brand of Cain in the heart and minds of the AMERICAN PEOPLE, when they shall have been given a full knowledge of their (the Jesuits) responsibility in the CONSPIRACY OF DESTRUCTION OF THIS POPULAR GOVERNMENT ON THAT GOOD FRIDAY NIGHT IN FORD'S THEATRE, APRIL 14th, 1865:

Who among the government detectives from this country would have thought to search the houses of the priests for their fugitive? How much chance would they have had to secure a search warrant for such search in French Canada if they had? The Roman Catholic SYSTEM operates in safety through its institutions in this country and Canada. It is only in Catholic Mexico where the people who have been burdened by the Papal yoke, have been progressive enough to make laws and operate them that a search warrant can be obtained with which these hell-holes of the Pope of Rome in their country can be reached.

Do you realize that in Mexico, a Roman priest or nun has not the right of suffrage? That they cannot vote or enjoy any of the rights or privileges which accompanies the ballot box? And yet we supposedly intelligent Americans, not only permit them to vote, but they are today the dominating force in politics of every large city in the United States. THINK OF IT!

All the powerful machinery of the Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church was set in motion from the moment after the murder of Mr. Lincoln to shield Surratt and defeat justice for his awful crime, and we have public documents with which to brand these ecclesiastical plotters. Notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. War Department knew exactly every step taken by the young fugitive, from the day he sailed for Europe, no effort was made to arrest him. The startling knowledge, however, came to the attention of certain members of Congress, and the matter was brought up in that body, and a committee appointed to investigate same. I herewith give the report of this committee in full:

OFFICIAL REPORT ON JOHN H. SURRATT ISSUED BY SECRETARY OF STATE FOR CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
39th Congress, House of Representatives. Report 33, 2nd Session, March 2, 1867.
REPORT OF JUDICIARY COMMITTEE


That John H. Surratt, sailed from Canada about September 15th, 1865, for Liverpool; that information was received by Secretary of State, Wm. H. Seward, from Mr. Wilding, Vice-Consul at Liverpool, by communication, dated September 27th, 1865; that Surratt was at that time in Liverpool, or expected in a day or two.

By dispatch, from Wilding September 30th, 1865, the supposed Surratt had arrived and was staying at the Oratory of the Roman Catholic church of the Holy Cross, and that he, Wilding, could do nothing in the matter without instructions from our Minister in England, Mr. Adams, and a warrant.

The Secretary of State, received a dispatch from Mr. Potter, our Consul General at Montreal, Canada, October 25th, 1865, informing him that Surratt left Canada for Liverpool, the September previous, and was there waiting the arrival of a steamer by which he expected money, which steamer had not yet left Canada, and that he was intending to go to Rome.

Upon November 11th, 1865, Mr. Potter received a dispatch from the Department of State, that the information in his dispatch had been properly availed of, and that on the 13th day of November, the Secretary of State requested the Attorney General of the United States to procure indictment against Surratt, as soon as convenient, with a view to demand his surrender.

Our Minister, Mr. Rufus King, at Rome, commenced as early as April 23rd, 1866, stated in his dispatch, that information of Surratt, under the name of Watson had enlisted in the Papal Zouaves, then stationed at Sezzes.

In a dispatch, August 8th, 1865, said he repeated information communicated to him, to Cardinal Antonelli, in regard to Surratt; that his Eminence was greatly interested by it and intimated that if the American government desired the surrender of the criminal, there would probably be no difficulty in the way.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE

1st. That the Executive did not send any detective or agent to Liverpool to identify Surratt, or trace his movements, notwithstanding there was ample opportunity, for doing so, as appears in the communication from Potter.

2nd. That the Executive did not cause notice to be given to our Minister at Rome; that Surratt intended going there, when the government had every reason to believe, such was his intention.

3rd. That on November 24th, 1865, an order was issued from the War Department, revoking the reward offered for the arrest of John H. Surratt.

4th. That from the reception of the communications of Mr. King, August 8th, 1866, to October 16th, 1866, no steps were taken, either to identify or procure the arrest of Surratt, then known to be in the Military service of the Pope.

The testimony of the Secretary of State, Secretary of War, and others which is herewith submitted, tending to justify acts of the government in the premises, does not, in the opinion of your committee, excuse the great delay in arresting a person charged with complicity in the assassination of the late President Abraham Lincoln.

They are constrained from testimony to report that, in their opinion, due diligence in the arrest of John H. Surratt, was not exercised by the Executive Department of the government.

Respectfully submitted,
(Signed) F. E. Woodbridge,
For Committee."

So ends the report of that splendid, fearless group of men, chosen by the House of Representatives to look into the matter.

It seems almost incredible that the memory of Abraham Lincoln, could have been so soon forgotten. That the virus of which he had such a clear knowledge should have been making its deadly inroads in the veins of his successor and the Secretary of State, William H. Seward, whose life hung in the balance for days, caused by the hand of one of the assassins under the personal direction of this same Surratt!

I now call attention to the communication from our American Consul at Rome, at the time, General Rufus King:

No. 33
Ames
2nd Session

Regarding Sainte-Marie
(Gen. Rufus King to Mr. Seward)
Legation U.S. Rome
April 23rd, 1866

Sir,

On Saturday last, the 21st, Henry de Sainte-Marie, called upon me for the purpose, as he said, of communicating the information that John H. Surratt, who is charged with complicity in the murder of President Lincoln, but made his escape at the time, from the United States, had recently enlisted in the Papal Zouaves, under the name of "John Watson." and is now stationed with his company at Sezze.

My informant said that he had known Surratt in America; that he recognized him as soon as he saw him at Sezzes; that he called him by his proper name, and that Surratt acknowledged that he participated in the plot against Lincoln's life . . . . He further said that Surratt seemed to be well supplied with money, and appealed to him, Sainte Marie, not to reveal his secret. Sainte Marie expressed an earnest desire, that if any steps were taken toward reclaiming Surratt as a criminal, that he (Sainte Marie) should not be known in the matter.

He spoke positively, in answer to my questions as to his acquaintance with Surratt, and he certainly thinks this was the man, and there seemed such an entire absence of motive for any false statements on the subject, that I could not very well doubt the truth of what he said.

I deemed it my duty, therefore, to present the circumstances to the Department and ask instructions.

Respectfully,
(Signed) RUFUS KING"

SURRATT ENTERED ENGLISH PAPAL COLLEGE AT ROME

An affidavit from an Irish Romanist, Edward O'Connor, a book dealer there, gives this illumination upon that young criminal's movement:

"About twelve months ago Mr. Surratt came to Rome under the name of Watson. In Canada he procured letters from several priests to friends in England. Having left England for Rome, he got letters for some people here, among others for the Reverend Dr. Neane, Rector of the English College. Being detained some days in Cevita Vecchia, and having no money to pay his expenses, he wrote the Reverend Dr. Neane, from whom he received fifty francs. On his arrival here, he went to the English College, where he lived for some time; after that he entered the papal service.

Rome, November 26th, 1866."

O'Connor also turned over to our Minister, which is included in the other official papers in the archives of this government, a letter received by him from Surratt as follows:

"Edw. O'Connor, Esq.,
Rome, Italy.

Dear Sir:

Will you be so kind as to send me a French and English grammar, the best method you have. I think Ollendorf's is the most in use. When I come to Rome I will settle with you. Shall be in, in the course of two or three weeks. If you should have time time to reply to me, please give me all the news you can. By so doing, you will greatly oblige,

Your friend,
John Watson, Co. 3."

Surratt's handwriting was identified in this letter. It is perceptible that O'Connor knew the nature of the "news" wanted by his friend Watson. The statement of O'Connor shows that Surratt had evidently related to him about his letters of reference, and his pecuniary embarrassment would indicate some confidence in that gentleman.

I wonder if the non-Romanist reader gets the full import of a Roman priest in the City of Rome, at that, advancing a sum of money to a foreign youth, as the Reverend Dr. Neane did? This, itself, without any of the other tremendous facts showing the aid that this young traitor received from the priests in Washington, Canada, England and Italy, was sufficient to have held them as the actual conspirators and to have brought them to justice by hanging them on the same scaffold with their dupes. Had this been done, it might have saved the assassination of the other Presidents of this Republic, Garfield and McKinley!

To those of us who know the coldness of the charity of the priests of Rome, the conduct of the Reverend Dr. Neane speaks volumes.

I now produce another communication in this government correspondence, which speaks for itself:

No. 43

Mr. Seward to Mr. King
(Extracts—Confidential)
Department of State.
Washington, October 16, 1866

Sir:

Mr. King's private letter written from Hamburg has just been received. It is accompanied by a letter from Sainte Marie of the 12th of September, to Mr. Hooker. I think it expedient that you do the following things:

1st. Employ a confidential person to visit Velletri, and ascertain by comparison with the photo sent whether the person indicated by Sainte Marie, is really John Surratt.

2nd. Pay Sainte Marie to get his release in consideration of the information he has already communicated on the subject.

3rd. Seek an interview with Cardinal Antonelli and referring to an intimation made by him to Mr. King's letter No. 62 . . . . Ask Cardinal whether his Holiness would now be willing in an absence of an extradition treaty, to deliver John H. Surratt upon an authentic indictment, and at the request of the Department, for complicity in the assassination of the late President Lincoln, or whether, in the event of this request being declined, his Holiness would enter into an extradition treaty with us, which would enable us to reach the surrender of Surratt.

4th. Ask as a favor of this government, that neither Sainte Marie nor Surratt be discharged from the papal army, until we have had time to communicate concerning them, after receiving a prompt reply from you to this communication.

Sainte Marie should be told confidentially, that the subject of his communication to Mr. Hooker is under consideration here.

Yours respectfully,
(Signed) W.H. Seward."

The following from General King gives further light:

"No. 59.

(Mr. King to Mr. Seward)
Legation U.S., Rome
July 14, 1866.

Dear Sir:

Henri de Sainte Marie's deposition. In compliance with instructions heretofore received, I have obtained and herewith transmit, an additional statement, sworn and subscribed to, by Sainte Marie, touching John H. Surratt's acknowledged complicity in the assassination of the late President Lincoln.

Sainte Marie again expressed to me his great desire to return to America and give his evidence in person. He thinks his life would be in danger here, if it would be known . . . that he betrayed Surratt's secret

I have the honor to be with great respect.

Rufus King."

Again we hear from General King after a visit to Cardinal Antonelli. That cunning old fox, who was the real pope, saw that to attempt to refuse to surrender their protégé would have been a dangerous move. There was, for instance, more than a billion dollars worth of church property in the United States, and the temper of the great masses of red-blooded American people was not to be trifled with. There were thousands of priests and nuns here, and a refusal, or further protection to this young monster might precipitate such a revulsion of feeling, if the inner facts were to become known, as to jeopardize not only the property, but start a religious war, to which there was no question as to the outcome.

I deem this a proper place to quote again from that valuable little book, The Roman Question. the description of Antonelli's personal appearance:

"In this year of grace, 1859, he is fifty-three years of age. He presents the appearance of a well preserved man; his frame is slight but robust; his constitution that of a mountaineer. The breadth of his forehead, the brilliance of his eyes, his beak-like nose, and all the upper part of his face, inspire a certain awe. His countenance, of almost Moorish hue, is at times lit up by flashes of intellect. But his heavy jaw, his long fang-like teeth, and his thick lips express the grossest appetites. He gives you the idea of a minister grafted on a savage. When he assists the Pope in the ceremonies of Holy Week, he is magnificently disdainful and impertinent. He turns from time to time in the direction of the diplomatic tribune, and looks without a smile at the poor ambassadors, whom he cajoles from morning to night. You admire the actor who bullies his public. But when at an evening party he engages in close conversation with a handsome woman, the play of his countenance shows the direction of his thoughts, and those of the imaginative observer are imperceptibly carried to a roadside in a lonely forest, in which the principal objects are prostrate postilions, an overturned carriage, trembling females, and a select party of the inhabitants of Sonnino!

"He lives in the Vatican, immediately over the Pope. The Romans ask punningly, which is the uppermost, the Pope or Antonelli? All the classes of society hate him equally. He is the only living man concerning whom an entire people is agreed . . . He wishes to restore the absolute power of the Pope, in order that he may dispose of it at his ease . . . He returns to Rome and for ten years continues to reign over a timid old man and an enslaved people, opposing a passive resistance to all the counsels of diplomacy, and all the demands of Europe.

"Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, Secretary of the Papal States was the mouthpiece of the Black Pope—the General of the Society of Jesus. On death of Cardinal Antonelli his two attractive daughters, by a court decision, were awarded his vast fortune to the amazement and scandal of Europe."

"No. 62.

Mr. King to Mr. Seward,
Legation U.S. Rome,
August 8th, 1866.

Sir:

I availed myself of the opportunity to repeat to the Cardinal the information communicated by Henri Sainte Marie in regard to Surratt. His Eminence was greatly interested and intimated that if the American government desired the surrender of the criminal, there would probably be no difficulty in the way.

Rufus King."

(Mr. King to Mr. Seward)
(Extracts)

Sir:

". . . He added, that there was indeed no extradition treaty between the two countries, and that to surrender a criminal, where capital punishment was likely to ensue, was not exactly in accordance with the spirit of the papal government, but, that in so grave and so exceptional a case, and with the understanding that the United States under parallel conditions would do as they desired to be done by, and that he thought that the request of the United States department for Surratt's surrender would be granted."

Do you get the entering wedge there to make Surratt's surrender on condition that would save his neck? Since when did the spirit of the papal government become so compassionate? The massacre of St. Bartholemew, the burning at the stake of Bruno, Savanarola, John Huss, Joan D'Arc, and thousands of others who dared to oppose the papacy, still cries to Heaven for vengeance, but with this young criminal who was perinde ac cadaver in the hands of Pius IXth and his Jesuits, how very solicitious they are, going just as far as they dare, to save him!

What cowardly and reprehensible conduct the men at the head of the United States government were guilty of in the case of Henri de Sainte Marie, who took his life in his hands when he informed General King of John Surratt's identity. They dilly-dallied along for months and kept him sweating while he awaited some action, and then it took a Congressional investigation and a stinging rebuke and order from Congress before the proper steps were taken to bring this young scoundrel, Surratt, to time.

We have here the sequel of the communication from Mr. King from Hamburg, which the Secretary of War, Seward, referred to in the letter above:

"(Private)
Hamburg, September 23rd, 1866.

My dear Governor:

I enclose a letter forwarded from Rome a few days since, in which Sainte Marie related his griefs to Mr. Hooker. He thinks, of course, that too little notice has been taken to his statements about Surratt; but would be satisfied, I have no doubt, if his discharge from the Pontifical Zouaves were procured, and the means furnished him to pay his passage home to Canada, where his old mother is still living. His discharge, I could obtain without difficulty, if desirable.

Faithfully yours.

(Signed) Rufus King."

The telegraph lines and mail service in the pontifical states, were of course, entirely in the hands of the prelates of the Pope, and under the strictest censorship.

It goes without saying that no state papers passed through the mails in the pontifical states from our consuls to their government, that were not read by the priestly spies and reported to His Eminence, copied and filed away for future reference, if they so desired. The following letter gives us an interesting high light on the Jesuit system, and the credulity of a Protestant American's psychology.

"Legation U.S., Rome, July 14, 1866.

My dear Governor:

As you will learn from the accompanying dispatch, the missing documents from the State Department arrived all right today. I cannot imagine how, or where they have been delayed.

I will act forthwith upon the instructions in regard to Sainte Marie. He is willing and anxious to return to the United States, and can get his release from the Pope's army, by paying fifty dollars, or so. I should judge his parole evidence would be much more desirable than any certified statement. He would expect to have his expenses paid and some compensation for his time.

Faithfully yours,
Rufus King."

The reader will recall that Sainte Marie was cut off from any reward which the government had offered by a revocation which President Johnson ordered.

Sainte Marie, however was voted a gift of ten thousand dollars for his services, by Congress.

President Johnson was a drunkard. He came from a disloyal State. His revocation of a reward for the arrest of John H. Surratt is conclusive proof to the mind of the writer, to say the least he was playing politics, which under the gravity of the circumstances would make his conduct criminal. Andrew Johnson, the drunkard, had nothing in common with Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's pure, sober, honorable life was a rebuke to such a man as Johnson. At the first opportunity, the latter dared to take advantage of, to show his dislike, which amounted to downright disrespect to the memory of Lincoln. It was President Johnson that paralyzed the arm of the Department of State in regard to Surratt's arrest. The whole official inertness amounting to treason it would seem, should be laid at Johnson's door.

That the Roman Catholic spirit may be truly demonstrated in the pontifical army, a perusal of the following document will be enlightening:

"No. 72.

Mr. King to Mr. Seward, Legation U.S., Rome. December 17, 1866.

Sir:

I hasten to acknowledge receipt of the dispatches Nos. 44-45-46-47, of the State Department . . . relative to the affair of John H. Surratt . . . . It will give me pleasure to convey to Cardinal Antonelli, the assurance of the President's sincere satisfaction with the prompt and friendly actions of the papal court . . . . Sainte Marie, who first informed me of Surratt being in the corps of Zouaves, has been discharged from the papal service, at my request.

Threats had been made against him by some of his comrades, and thinking that his life might not be altogether safe, and that he might be wanted at Alexandria as a witness to identify Surratt, I put him in charge of Captain Jeffers, and he sailed on the Swatara on Friday last. His great desire seems to be to return to America, and aid in bringing Surratt to justice. I have seen, as yet, no reason to doubt his good faith, or question the truth of his statements.

Rufus King."

Surratt, one of the murderers of our great Lincoln, was the hero and Sainte Marie, the traitor! The difference in sentiment of the papal troops and the PEOPLE of Italy, the Revolutionists, who were struggling for a free and united Italy, under Geribaldi, and Victor Emmanuel, can be appreciated if the reader will peruse the letters of condolence which were received by the government after they learned of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. Every workingmen's organization of Italy sent the most beautiful messages, and their intimate knowledge of the life of Lincoln astonished the writer. The bold frankness in many of them in placing the blame on the Jesuits was most edifying. I know of nothing that will give the reader the mental attitude of the difference of sentiment, and show up the venom of the Pope's silence on President Lincoln's murder, than a perusal of these messages.

After an extended diplomatic dickering which covered several months after its initiation, the order for Surratt's arrest was given by the Secretary of State, Cardinal Antonelli. The official papers are exceedingly interesting and educational. We give them in full. They are all official translations of the originals, in Italian. The Lieutenant Colonel in charge at the time was an Austrian, whom the patriotic Italians greatly hated.

"Enclosure 'C' (Translation) Kausler to Lieut. Col. Allet
November 6, 1866.

Colonel:—Cause the Zouave Watson to be arrested and to be conveyed under safe military escort to the military prison at Rome. It is of much importance that this order be scrupulously fulfilled.

The Gen. Pro-Minister, Kausler.
To Lieut. Col. Allet, Com. Battalion of Zouaves, Velleteri."

The French Lieut. Allet acknowledges the order as follows:

"Allet to Kausler (Enclosure D' Translation)
Velletri, November 7, 1866.

No. 463

General:—I have the honor to inform you that the Zouave Watson (John) has been arrested at Veroli, and will be conducted tomorrow morning under a good escort to Rome.

I have the honor to be General, your most humble subordinate,

Leiut. Col. Allet,
Pontifical Zouave Commander of Battalion."

And now comes the surprise, by the way of:

"(Enclosure 'E' Translation)
Presented at Velletri. November 8. 1866, 8:35 A.M.
Arrived at Rome, November 8. 1866. 8:50 A.M.

His Excellency, Minister of Arma, Rome.

I received the following telegram, dated 4:30 A.M. from Zambilly:

At the moment he left the prison and while surrounded by six men as a guard, Watson threw himself into a ravine, about a hundred feet, perpendicular in depth, which defends the prison. Fifty Zouaves in pursuit of him.

Zambilly.

I will transmit your Excellency the intelligence I may receive by telegram.

Allet., Lieut. Col."

It was now up to the Austrian commander to flimflam the American Consuls and State Department by giving this opera buffet the semblance of genuineness to cover the investigation which they knew was sure to follow.

"Kausler to Cardinal Antonelli.

Ministry of Arms, Cabinet of the Pro-Minister
November 8, 1866.

Most Reverend Eminence:

I have the honor to transmit to your most reverend Eminence, the accompanying documents on the arrest and escape of the Zouave Watson, of the 3rd Co., and I shall not fail to communicate such further information as I may receive, as the result of the pursuit of this individual.

Bowing to kiss the sacred purple, I am proud to subscribe myself with profound devotion, your most Reverend Eminence's most humble and obedient servant.

His most Reverend Eminence Kausler

The Cardinal Antonelli, Secretary of State."

There you are, my dear reader, how do you like the picture? That is a glimpse of what will happen in this country if we allow the Jesuits to "Make America Catholic!"

SURRATT GIVEN WARNING BY HIS ECCLESIASTICAL PROTECTORS

"Lieut., Col. Allet to Kausler.

My General:—Following out your Excellency's orders, I sent this morning to Veroli, Lieut. De Farnel, to make an examination of the escape of Zouave Watson. I have learned some other details of this unfortunate business. Watson, at the moment he was arrested, must have been on his guard, having obtained knowledge of a letter addressed . . . which concerned him probably. This letter was sent by mistake to a trumpeter named . . . was opened by him and shown to Watson, because it was written in English. I have sent it to your Eminence, with a report from Captain Zambilly.

I am assured that the escape of Watson savors of a prodigy. He leaped from a height of 23 feet on a narrow rock, beyond which is a precipice. The filth from the barracks accumulated on the rocks, and in this manner the fall of Watson was broken. Had he leaped a little further he would have fallen in an abyss.

I am, etc., etc."

We have below a description of the arrest of Surratt given in the report from Lieut. Col. Allet.

" . . . Then, the prisoner was awakened, who arose and put on his gaiters and took his coffee with the calmness and phlegm quite English. The gate of the prison opens on a platform which overlooks the country, situated at least thirty feet below the windows of the prison.

Beside the gate of the prison are the privies of the barracks. Watson asked permission to halt there. Corp. Warrin who had six men with him as guards, allowed him to stop, very naturally, not doubting, neither he, nor the Zouaves, present, that the prisoner was going to try to escape at a place which seemed quite impossible to us, is quite clear. In fact, Watson who seemed quiet, seized the balustrade, made a leap, and cast himself into the void, falling on the uneven rocks where he might have broken his bones a thousand times, and gained the depth of the valley below.

Patrols were immediately organized, but in vain! We saw a peasant who told us he had seen an unarmed Zouave going towards Commari which is the way to Piedmont . . . Lieut. Mosley and I have been to examine the localities and we asked ourselves how one could make such a leap without breaking arms and legs?

DeZambilly, Com: of Detachment."

That Surratt was given his warning by some emissary of the Pope's government is beyond a doubt. Do you think for one moment if Surratt's crime, for instance, had been the murder of a priest, he would have escaped?

This government, through General King, demanded a report of the affair, and his request was complied with by Cardinal Antonelli and the above translations were made and sent to Washington where they are now with the data pertaining to the affairs of Surratt. Mr. King sent the following letter to Mr. Marsh, our Consul at Florence, Italy, by courier:

"Mr. King to Mr. Marsh.

(Enclosure 'A' Confidential)

Dear Sir:—I send to you under very peculiar circumstances and as bearer of these dispatches, my friend, Mr. Robert McPherson. He will tell you the story which the accompanying dispatches will help to illustrate.

Rufus King.
On November 13th."

The dispatches referred to above are the ones given here, pertaining to the arrest and "escape" of Surratt. We see now the pontifical government maneuvered to permit Surratt to be taken on condition that he be not condemned to death; we see by some friendly advance information he was prepared for his arrest and took it with perfect calmness and nonchalance, notwithstanding the fact he was aroused from his sleep and that "he put on his gaiters and took his coffee, with a calmness that was quite English." We see that his arrest was a farce and that he was permitted to Escape. We see Antonelli assuring our Consul that he had undoubtedly "made good his escape" and was in Italian territory.

After the order of Cardinal Antonelli for the arrest of Surratt from the Papal Guard had been given the official wires of this country were busy. The following orders were telegraphed to the officers of our Fleet in the Mediterranean.

"Rome, November 16, 1866, I 1:50 A.M.

His Excellency, Mr. Harvey American Minister, Lisbon

Inform Adm. Goldsborough that very important matters renders the immediate presence of one of our ships-of-war necessary at Vecchia.

Rufus King."

Mr. Harvey's reply was:

"As Rear Adm. Goldsborough is not now in port, I sent immediately for Commodore Steedman, who arrived here some days ago, and who is now the superior officer present, in order to consult as to the proper measures to be adopted.

The U.S. Steamer Swatara, left here yesterday for Tangier, Gibraltar, and other ports in the Mediterranean, and if the Rear Admiral who is believed to have left Cherbourg for Lisbon, within the last few days, does not appear as soon as expected, Commodore Steedman will intercept and order the Swatara by telegram to proceed to Civiti Vecchia.

Harvey."

On November 17, 1866, a telegram from Minister Harvey announced that the Swatara had been ordered to Civiti Vecchia, which arrived in due time, but Surratt had made his escape on a steamer which left Naples for Egypt and Henri de Sainte Marie was placed on board the Swatara, and held awaiting word from our Consul at Alexandria. The vessel upon which Surratt sailed put in at Malta. Our American Minister there who had been notified to be on the alert for that young fugitive, found that he was on board and cabled our Consul at Rome. This message was sent on to our Minister at Alexandria, Egypt, so that when the ship arrived at that port, it found Mr. Hale, the U.S. Consul General, waiting for him. I will let the official wire to the United States War Department describe his arrival.

"(Extract)

It was easy to distinguish him, (Surratt) from among the seventy-eight third-class passengers by his Zouave uniform and scarcely less easy, by his almost unmistakable American type of countenance. I said at once to him: "You are the man I want; you are an American?' He said. 'Yes Sir.' I said, 'You doubtless know why I want you? What is your name?' He said, promptly, 'Walters.' I said, 'I believe your name is Surratt,' and in arresting him I mentioned my official position as United States Consul-General.

The Director of Quarantine speedily arranged sufficient escort of soldiers, by whom the prisoner was conducted to a safe place within the Quarantine walls. Although the walk occupied several minutes, the prisoner close at my side, made no remark whatever, displaying neither surprise nor irritation.

Arrived at the place prepared, I gave him the usual magisterial caution, that he was not obliged to say anything, and that anything he did say would be taken down in writing. He said 'I have nothing to say. I want nothing but what is right.' He declared he had neither transportation nor luggage, nor money, except six francs. His companions confirmed his statement. They said he came to Naples, a deserter from the Papal army at Rome. I find he has no papers, no clothes but those he is wearing. The appearance of the prisoner answers very well the description given by witness Weichmann on page 116 of Pitman's Report, sent me by the government.

Hale."

Here, again, we see Surratt, under the most trying circumstances under which an innocent man would have broken, taking his arrest with amazing coolness, the same, in fact, which he displayed previously, when he was taken at Velletri, although, so far as is known, that was the first time that he had ever been arrested. He was beyond doubt, fortified by the assurance that he was under the protection of the Vatican, and he had, like all Jesuits, a clear understanding of all that fact guaranteed. He was clever enough to realize that with his inner knowledge of this whole sordid, treasonable transaction, his "holy church" would be compelled to continue its protection as their interests were inseparable. His confidence must have been further intensified by the fact that he would not have to face a military tribunal, as had his mother, and the rest of his co-conspirators, who were executed, and that the political influence of the Jesuit machine already had reached the presidential chair, so recently occupied by his victim, Abraham Lincoln.

Taking stock of the above facts, the young monster had good and sufficient reason to be philosophical about his present condition. He was probably rather relieved when he found himself a manacled prisoner, with his face turned homeward to the country of his nativity, to the country he had so miserably and wickedly betrayed. He knew many staunch friends awaited him—friends, who, like himself, hated the government.

Before going further we present another official communication of this matter which throws added light upon the situation in Italy when the POPE WAS KING.

"Mr. March to Mr. Seward.

Legation of U.S. Florence, Italy, Nov. 18, 1866.

Sir:—On my arrival from Venice on Tuesday morning, found the papers, copies and translations, of which mark respectively, A B C D and E, are hereto annexed. Mr. McPherson introduced by a letter marked A, had gone to Leghorn, and I had no other information on the subject of his mission, than such the papers referred to above have fumished.

I lost no time in seeing the Secretary of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I stated to him such facts as I was possessed of, and inquired whether he thought his government would surrender Surratt to the United States for trial, if he should be found in Italian territory. He replied, he thought the accused man would be surrendered on proper demand and proof, but probably only on stipulation on our part, that the punishment of death, should not be inflicted on him.

Having no instruction on the subject, and knowing nothing of those Mr. King might have received, and at that time having no reason to suppose that Surratt had escaped into the territory of the King, I did not pursue the discussion farther . . . I doubt whether in case of surrender of Surratt, a formal stipulation to exempt him from punishment by death, will be insisted upon.

In the famous LaGala escape, Mr. Viscount Venosto, then, as now, Minster of Foreign Affairs, refused to enter into such a stipulation, on the extradition of the offenders, but nevertheless, the government yielded to the intercession of the Emperor of France, and the sentences of those atrocious criminals, though convicted of numerous murders, robberies and even cannibalism, were commuted, and I suppose the government of Italy, would strongly oppose capital punishment and recommend Surratt to mercy, if he surrendered to us.

The public sentiment of all classes in Italy, is decidedly averse to the infliction of capital punishment, and I shall not go too far, if I add, to any severe or adequate punishment for grave offenses.

Marsh."

There is a psychological reason for the innate enmity in the hearts of Romanists for severe punishment. It is traceable to the long dark centuries of unjust, atrocious cruelties of the misrule which the Italians endured, under the reigns of the popes of Rome. Suppression of any peoples continued for ages, will react and have a strong tendency to make government of any sort resented and distasteful to them.

Surratt did not overestimate the protection of his church, for from the moment he landed in this country, he was greeted and sustained by the priests of that church. When his trial began in Washington on June 10th, 1867, the presence of Roman priests and the students from the Jesuit University at Georgetown and the Sulpician Monastery where he had studied three years for the priesthood, were the most noticeable features of the sessions. Although he declared himself a bankrupt, he was furnished the services of the best lawyers. When it became necessary to furnish bail for his final release, it was immediately presented by an Irish woman he did not even know, to the amount of thirty thousand dollars. According to press reports this stood there until his death in 1916. That is some friendship, is it not?

AFFIDAVIT OF HENRI DE SAINTE MARIE

Aims (note: Ames?) Report, House of Representatives, 39th Session Congress, page 15, Ex. Document No. 9. Rome, July 10, 1866.

"I, Henri de St. Marie, a native of Canada, British American, age 33, do swear and declare under oath, that about six months previous to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, I was living in Maryland, at a small village called Ellangowan, or Little Texas, about 25 or 30 miles from Baltimore, where I was engaged as a teacher for a period of about 5 months. I there and then got acquainted with Louis J. Weichmann and John H. Surratt, who came to that locality to pay a visit to the parish priest. At that first interview a great deal was said about the war and slavery, the sentiment expressed by the two individuals being more than strongly secessionist. In the course of the conversation I remember Surratt to have said that President Lincoln would certainly pay for the men that were slain during the war. About a month afterward I removed to Washington at the instigation of Weichmann and got a situation as tutor at Gonzaga College where he was himself engaged. Surratt visited us weekly, and once he offered to send me South, but I declined.

"I did not remain more than a month at Washington, not being able to agree with Weichmann and enlisted in the army the of North as stated in my first statement in writing to General King.

"I have met Surratt here in Italy at a small town called Velletri. He is now known under the name of 'John Watson.' I recognized him before he made himself known to me and told him privately, 'You are John Surratt, the person I have known in Maryland.' He acknowledged he was and begged me to keep the thing secret. After some conversation we spoke of the unfortunate affair, of the assassination of President Lincoln, and these were his words: 'Damn the Yankees, they have killed my mother; but I have done them as much harm as I could. We have killed Lincoln the nigger's friend.' He then said, speaking of his mother. 'Had it not been for me and that coward Weichmann, my mother would be living yet. It was fear made him speak. Had he kept his tongue, there was no danger for him; but if I ever return to America or meet him elsewhere I shall kill him.'

"He then said he was in the secret service of the South. And Weichmann, who was in some department there, used to steal copies of the dispatches and forward them to him and thence to Richmond. Speaking of the murder he said, they had acted under the orders of men who were not yet known, some of whom are still in New York and others in London.

"I am aware that money is sent to him yet—from London.

"'When I left Canada,' he said. 'I had but little money, but I had a letter from a party in London. I was in disguise, with dyed hair and false beard; that party sent me to a hotel, where he told me to remain until I heard from him. After a few weeks he came to me and proposed to me to go to Spain, but I declined, and he asked me to go to Paris. He gave me seventy pounds with a letter of introduction to a party there who sent me here to Rome where I joined the Zouaves.'

"He says he can get money in Rome any time. I believe he is protected by the clergy and that the murder is the result of a deep laid plot, not only against the life of President Lincoln but against the existence of the republic, as we are aware that priesthood and royalty are and always have been opposed to liberty.

"That such men as Surratt, Booth, Weichmann and others of their own accord planned and executed the infernal plot which resulted in the death of President Lincoln is impossible. There are others behind the curtain who have pulled the strings to make these scoundrels act . . . .

"He says he does not regret what has taken place and he will visit New York in a year or two, as there is a heavy shipping firm there that had much to do with the South, and he is surprised that they have not been suspected.

"This is the exact truth of what I know about Surratt. More I could not learn, being afraid to awaken his suspicion and further I do not say."

Sworn and subscribed before me at the American Legation in Rome, this tenth day of July, 1866, as witness my hand and seal.

Signed: Henri de St. Marie

Rufus King, Minister Resident.
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Chapter 11: The Trial of John H. Surratt

From the very moment the Swatara, the especially chartered warship, reached this country with John H. Surratt, bound hand and foot on board, all the wheels of the Roman Catholic political machine were set in motion for his certain release. The intense excitement which had enveloped the trials of the conspirators two years previous had naturally subsided perceptibly, this, of course, being an advantage to the prisoner, and the smallest details were looked after by the array of high-priced lawyers who fought the two legal battles for this penniless young traitor and assassin.

His attorneys, Messrs. Merrick, Bradley and Bradley were Romanized, the former a professed Catholic, and the other two, by strong sympathy, left no stone unturned in the building of his defense, although his alibi, so carefully planned and presented, was soon shattered by a number of reputable witnesses who could not be shaken by the unprofessional tactics which these lawyers resorted to.

The first step in the proceedings was a motion filed by the States' lawyers from which we quote in part:

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
UNITED STATES AGAINST JOHN H. SURRATT,
INDICTMENT: MURDER.


"And now, at this day, to-wit, on the 10th day of June, A.D., 1867 come the United States and the said John H. Surratt, by their respective attorneys and the jurors of the jury, impaneled and summoned also come; and hereupon the said United States by their attorney challenge the array of the said panel, because he saith, that the said jurors comprising the said panel, were not drawn according to the law, and that the names from which said jurors were drawn, were not selected according to law, wherefore, he prays judgment, and that the said panel may be quashed.

This motion, if your Honor please, is sustained by an affidavit which I hold in my hand, and which, with the permission of your Honor I will now proceed to read. We think after this affidavit shall have been read it will not be found necessary to introduce any oral testimony."

The reader will note that the two charges made were that the names were not drawn according to law; and that they were not selected according to law.

The law required that the registrar of the City of Washington should make out a list of four hundred names on or before the first day of February; the City Clerk of Georgetown was to make out a list of eighty names to be selected; and the Clerk of the Levy Court of the County of Washington was to make out a list of forty names to be selected; and that such lists should be preserved, and any names that had not been drawn for the service during the year, might be transferred to the lists made up for the subsequent year. After this had been done the officers should meet and jointly select their respective lists of the number specified; the names being written by each officer on a separate paper, folded or rolled up, so that no one could see the name, and then deposited in a box provided for that purpose. The box was then to be thoroughly shaken and officially sealed, and then by these three officers, given into the custody of the clerk of the County Court of Washington City for safekeeping.

These same officers were to meet in the City Hall, Washington City at least ten days before the commencement of each term of the Circuit Court, or Criminal Court, and there the Clerk of the Circuit Court was to publicly, and in their presence, break the seal of the box and proceed to draw out the number of names required. If it were a Grand Jury Court, the first twentythree names drawn were to constitute the grand jury for the term. This having been done, the box was to be sealed and returned to the clerk for safekeeping.

The clerk of the Circuit Court at that time was a Samuel E. Douglas, registrar of the City of Washington. His examination showed that no such lists had been made out as required; that no joint action had been had by these three officials, but that each one had written his own required list and deposited it in the box independently of the others.

It was also brought to the attention of the Court that these officers had not sealed the box as required, but had delivered it to the clerk to be sealed by him. It was also shown that the names had been drawn, not by the clerk of Circuit Court, but by the clerk of the City of Georgetown.

There was nothing to prevent the Georgetown clerk from carrying any of the names of the jurors whom he might have seen fit, and who might have been "fixed," in his hand, and when he put his hand into the box, which was a perfectly illegal act, to have withdrawn the very names he held in his hand.

The whole procedure was so infamously bold and irregular that the Court said: "My order is that the marshal summon twenty-six talesmen. This occupied several days. After the jury had been selected, Surratt's attorneys filed the following to be made the basis of carrying the case up on a writ of error:

"IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
THE UNITED STATES VS. JOHN H. SURRATT,
IN THE CRIMINAL COURT MARCH TERM, 1867.

And the said Marshal of the District of Columbia, in obedience to the order of the Court, made in this case on the 12th of June, this day makes return that he hath summoned, and now hath in court here, twenty-six jurors, talesmen, as a panel, from which to form a jury to try the said cause, and the names of the twenty-six jurors, so returned being called by the clerk of said E court, and they having answered to their names as they were called, the said John H. Surratt, by his attorneys, doth challenge the array of the said panel, because he saith, it doth plainly appear by the records and the proceedings of the court in this cause, that no jurors have ever been summoned according to law, to serve during the present term of this court, and no names of jurors, duly and lawfully summoned, have been placed in the box, provided for in the fourth section of the Act of Congress, entitled: 'An act providing for the selection of jurors to serve in the several courts of the District' approved, sixteenth day of June, 1862, on or before the first day of February, 1867, to serve for the ensuing year; wherefore, he prays judgment, that the panel now returned by the said Marshall, and now in the court here, be quashed.

Merrick, Bradley & Bradley,
Attorneys for Surratt."

It is a notable fact that there were sixteen Romanists out of the twenty-six in the first panel drawn in that irregular manner.

The answer filed in the motion of Surratt's attorneys was the first step in this bitterly contested case and while the prisoner was, according to his own statement, absolutely penniless, he was represented by an expensive array of legal talent and where the money came from reimbursing them remains a mystery today.

Georgetown—Jesuitized Georgetown—was constantly in evidence at the trial. The priests from the Jesuit college were there, and the students who were just dismissed for their vacations, were on hand and would always make it a particular point to greet Surratt who had been a student of that institution for two years, most cordially, and he was scarcely ever without a priest at his side. It is small wonder that the priests of Rome gave every assistance to the prisoner at the bar. Their interests were inseparable. The interest of the Roman church in this country was deeply involved and no one appreciated this more than Surratt. He was confident and defiant all through the weeks, of what would have been to most young men an unendurable ordeal, stimulated by the knowledge that all of the powerful machinery of his church was being used in his defense and that his liberty was guaranteed.

John Surratt was a bold, cold-blooded, unscrupulous, unrepentant criminal, who had been steeped in the immoral teachings of the Doctrines of the Jesuits from his earliest childhood when his misguided mother had placed him under the guidance of priest Wiget at the Boys' Preparatory School at Gonzaga College, a fact which was testified to by that gentleman at Surratt's trial.

Surratt's lawyers presented the following petition at the beginning of the trial:

"To the Honorable, the Justices of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, holding the Criminal Court in March Term, 1867.

The petition of John H. Surratt shows that he has been put upon his trial in a capital case in this court; that he has exhausted all his means, and such further means as have been furnished him by the liberality of his friends, in preparing for his defense, and he is now unable to procure the attendance of his witnesses. He therefore prays your Honor for an order that process may issue to summon his witnesses, and to compel their attendance at the cost of the government of the United States according to the statute in such cases made and provided."

This petition was granted by the court.

From the very beginning, duplicity and innuendoes were used, and unprofessional conduct of the most flagrant character was resorted to. The States' witnesses were badgered, abused and bulldozed, so much so that the Judge had to interfere more than once. Especially was this the fact in the case of Dr. McMillen, the ship surgeon of the Peruvian, to whom priest La Pierre introduced Surratt under the name of "McCarthy." The physician made a splendid witness and refused to be confused, but the attorney for the defendant was so abusive that the witness gave an angry response in pure self-defense.

The papal venom showed itself all through the trials of Surratt in the never-ceasing effort of his attorneys to stab the memory of Lincoln and through their contention that the Military Court which had convicted Surratt's mother, had been an usurpation of power by President Johnson, and the act of a tyrant. When one reads the records of those trials, one marvels that in so short a time after the passing out of that great man, these tools of the ecclesiastical murderers would dare to venture so far out in the open, with their treasonable utterances.

When court was called to order in the John H. Surratt trial, Judge Fisher, presiding, said: "Gentlemen, this is the day assigned for the trial of John H. Surratt, indicted for the murder of Abraham Lincoln, late president of the United States, Are you ready to proceed?" Surratt's lawyer, Mr. Bradley, answered: "The prisoner is ready, sir, and has been from the first." This unnecessary falsehood was a beginning quite in keeping with the life and action of the prisoner, and his Jesuit attorney brazenly tried to implant in the minds of the jury the innocence of his client who had fled to Canada, then put the Atlantic ocean between him and his pursuers and when arrested at Velletri, Italy, dashed himself down an unscalable precipice to evade being returned to his native land! Nothing less than Roman effrontery could have proffered such an answer to that question, "Are you ready?" DESPERATE FLIGHT HAS NEVER BEEN USED AS AN ARGUMENT FOR READINESS BEFORE, I will wager, and it gives the keynote of the conduct of the defense. This is just a sample of one of those little Jesuit jokes. No doubt his attorney had a mental reservation when he assured the court that his client had "been ready from the first"—to skip again, if the slightest opportunity offered itself. Mental reservation is one of the ethics of the Jesuit theology.

The Roman Catholic religion was first dragged in by Surratt's own lawyer, R.T. Merrick, when they called attention to a telegraph dispatch to the New York Herald, in which the fact that the State had demanded a new jury impaneled because there were sixteen Romanists out of the twenty-six jurors called in the first panel.

The district attorney interrupted by showing that the news came from Washington and as afterwards proved that it was but one of many press dispatches, which were instigated by the defense to prejudice the public in Surratt's favor. If there were no other signs to indicate that the hand of Rome was the guiding one in the trials of Surratt, this alone would be sufficient to the esoteric.

A most convincing presentation of the charges against the prisoner was made by Assistant District Attorney Nathaniel Wilson who made the opening address on June 18th. It ran in part as follows:

"May it please your Honor, and gentlemen of the jury, you are doubtless aware that it is customary in criminal cases, for the prosecution at the beginning of the trial, to inform the jury of the nature of the offense to be inquired into, and of the proof that will be offered in support of the charge of the indictment . . . .

"The Grand Jury of the District of Columbia has indicted the prisoner at the bar, John H. Surratt, as one of the murderers of Abraham Lincoln. It has become your duty to judge whether he is guilty or innocent of that charge—a duty, than which more solemn or momentous, was never committed to human intelligence. You are to turn back the leaves of history, to that red page, on which is recorded in letters of blood the awful incidents of that April night on which the assassins' work was done on the body of the chief Magistrate of the American Republic—a night, on which for the first time in our existence as a nation. a blow was struck with the fell purpose, not only to destroy a human life, but the life of the nation, the life of LIBERTY itself.

"Though more than two years have passed by since then, you scarcely need witnesses to describe to you the scene in Ford's Theatre, as it was visible in the last hour of the President's conscious life . . . . Persons who were present will tell you that about twenty minutes past ten o'clock, the 14th of April, 1865, on that night, John Wilkes Booth, armed with pistol and knife, passed rapidly from the front door of the theatre, ascended to the dress circle, and entered the President's box. By the discharge of a pistol he inflicted a death wound, then leaped upon the stage, and passing rapidly across it, disappeared into the darkness of the night.

"We shall prove to your entire satisfaction, by competent and credible witnesses, that at that time, the prisoner at the bar was then present, aiding and abetting that murder; and that at ten minutes past ten o'clock that night, he was in front of that theatre in the company of Booth. You shall hear what he then said and did. You shall know that his cool and calculating malice was the director of the bullet that pierced the brain of the President, and the knife that fell upon the venerable Secretary of State. You shall know that the prisoner at the bar was the contriver of that villainy, and that from the presence of the prisoner, Booth, drunk with theatric passion and traitorous hate, rushed directly to the execution of their mutual will. We shall further prove to you, that their companionship upon that occasion was not an accidental or unexpected one, but that the butchery that ensued was the ripe result of a long premeditated plot, in which the prisoner was the chief conspirator.

"It will be proved to you that he is a traitor to the government that protected him; a spy in the employ of the enemies of his country in the years 1864-65; he passed repeatedly from Richmond to Washington, from Washington to Canada, weaving the web of his nefarious scheme, plotting the overthrow of this government, the defeat of its armies, and the slaughter of his countrymen; and as showing the venom of his intent, as showing a mind insensible to every moral obligation and fatally bent on mischief—we shall prove his gleeful boasts, that during these journeys he had shot down in cold blood, weak, unarmed soldiers, fleeing from rebel prisons.

"It will be proved to you that he made his home in this city, the rendezvous for the tools and agents in what he called his 'bloody work' and that his hand deposited at Surrattville, in a convenient place, the very weapons obtained by Booth while escaping, one of which fell, or was wrenched from Booth's death grip, at the moment of his capture.

"While in Montreal, Canada, where he had gone from Richmond on the 10th day of April, on the Monday before the assassination, Surratt received a summons from his coconspirator, Booth, requiring his immediate presence in this city. In obedience to that pre-concerted signal, he at once left Canada and arrived here on the 14th. By numerous, I had almost said a multitude of witnesses, we shall make the proof to be clear as the noonday sun that he was here during the day of that fatal Friday, as well as present at the threatre that night. We shall show him to you on Pennsylvania Avenue, booted and spurred, awaiting the arrival of the fatal moment.

"We shall show him in conference with Herold in the evening; we shall show him purchasing a contrivance for disguise an hour or two before the murder. When the last blow had been struck, when he had done his utmost to bring anarchy and desolation upon his native land, he turned his back upon the abomination he had wrought, he turned his back upon his home and kindred and commenced a shuddering flight. We shall trace that flight, because in law, flight is the criminal's inarticulate confession, and because it happened in this case, as it always happens that in some moment of fear or elation, or of fancied security, he too, to others confessed his guilty deeds. He fled to Canada. We will prove to you the hour of his arrival there and the route he took . . . He found there safe concealment and remained there several months. In the following September, he took his flight . . . Still in the disguise and with painted face, painted hair, painted hand, he took ship to cross the Atlantic. In mid-ocean he revealed himself and related his exploits, and spoke freely of his connection with Booth in the conspiracy relating to the President. He rejoiced in the death of the President, he lifted his impious hands to heaven, and expressed a wish that he might live to return to America and serve Andrew Johnson as Abraham Lincoln had been served. He was hidden for a time in England, and found there sympathy and hospitality. From England he went to Rome and hid himself in the ranks of the papal army in the guise of a private soldier. Having placed almost the diameter of the globe between himself and the dead body of his victim, he might well fancy that pursuit was baffled, but he was discovered by an acquaintance of his boyhood. When denial would not avail, he admitted his identity and avowed his guilt in these memorable words: 'I have done the Yankees as much harm as I could. We have killed Lincoln, the niggers' friend!'

"The man to whom Surratt made this statement did as was his high duty to do—he made known his discovery to the American Minister. Having him arrested, he escaped from his guards by a leap down a precipice . . . He made his way to Naples and then took passage on a steamer that carried him across the Mediterranean Sea to Alexandria. Egypt. The inexorable lightning thrilled along the wires that stretch through the wasted waters which roll between the shores of Italy and Egypt and spake in his ear its word of terrible command; from Alexandria, manacled, he was made to turn his face towards the land he had polluted by the curse of murder. He is here at last to be tried for his crime."

In his closing argument attorney Carrington for the Prosecution referring to Surratt's mother in connection with him said:

"Now, gentlemen of the jury, let us view the connection of Mrs. Surratt with this assassination. I feel the delicacy of the ground upon which I stand. I know the situation. I know that you dislike to consider this question which has been forced upon you. I do not want to do it. My duty is to prosecute the prisoner, but one of the counsel has said she was murdered, and another that she was butchered, and it becomes my duty to trace her connection with this crime, and then leave it to you, to say whether she was guilty of the crime for which she suffered.

"First, I call your attention to the fact to which we have already adverted; that her house, 541 H street, was the rendezvous for these conspirators. Now, gentlemen, will you pause for a moment and let me ask you how you can reconcile that with innocence? You remember the law, that it is not how much a party did, but whether she had anything to do with it. Can you, I say, reconcile it with innocence that this woman's house should have been the rendezvous of Booth, Lewis, Payne, Atzerodt, Herold and John Surratt? Would you not know by intuition? Would you not know by their conversation? Would not your judgment and your hearts tell you who they were and what they contemplated?

"Secondly, who furnished the arms with which this bloody deed was done? According to the testimony of John M. Lloyd, this is shown. Do you believe him, or disbelieve him? My friend, Mr. Bradley, said he was a common drunkard; but, mark you, he was an attendant and friend of Mrs. Surratt."

(Mr. Bradley) "Who says so?"

(District Attorney) "I will prove it. When I was examining that witness and proposed to ask him certain questions in reference to Mrs. Mary E. Surratt, he said, 'Mr. Carrington,' for he knew me personally, 'I do not wish to talk about Mrs. Surratt, for she is not on trial.' I said, 'Go on, Mr. Lloyd.' I applied to the court and the court said it was his duty to answer. He saw her continually. He lived in her house; he drank her liquor. Why, this evidence shows that John H. Surratt, Herold and John M. Lloyd played cards and drank together. But, says the friend and companion (Lloyd) of the prisoner at the bar, (Surratt) unwilling to testify against her, when put on solemn oath . . . he says certain arms were furnished him by the prisoner at the bar who showed him where they could be safely concealed . . . he (Lloyd) protesting that it might get him into personal difficulty. The mother knew about the transaction, for on the 11th of April we have Lloyd's own testimony that she asked him where those shooting arms were, and said that they might be needed soon. I say, first her house is the rendezvous; secondly, she furnished arms or knows of their being furnished.

"On the night of the 14th of April, Booth and Herold are leaving Washington in flight for their lives. At Surrattville they call for whiskey from the agent (Lloyd) and friend of the prisoner and his mother. She gives them a home, gives them arms, gives them whiskey, not to nerve them, but to refresh them after the commission of their horrid crime.

"Both Booth, in making his escape, needs something more than whiskey and arms . . . He needs a field glass, and has it delivered for him by his friend and agent, Mrs. Surratt. With the defense, no witness told the truth whose testimony went to convict their client, whilst the stories of the most infamous men, self-confessed scoundrels and accomplices, after the fact, if not before the fact, such as Fathers Boucher and Cameron, must be taken as Gospel truth! (See testimony of Father Boucher, Trial of Surratt, page 859. Also Rev. Stephen Cameron, page 793.)"

There were some eight or nine reputable witnesses who testified to having seen John Surratt in Washington on the day of the murder. Sergt. Dye positively identified him as the young man who called the time before Ford's Theatre on the evening of the murder. A colored cook who had been engaged by Mrs. Surratt during John's absence testified that Mrs. Surratt had ordered her on the day of the assassination to bring a pot of tea and some toast into the dining room for John. While serving it to him, Mrs. Surratt said, "This is my son John; don't you think he looks like his sister Anna?"

I am herewith giving the testimony of David C. Reed, a tailor, who had known John Surratt since he was fourteen years old, whose evidence could not be questioned. His professional critical eye was naturally more attracted to the up-to-date cut of Surratt's clothing.

Testimony of David C. Reed, June 3rd, 1867:

"The last time I saw John H. Surratt was about half past two o'clock on the day of the assassination, April 14th last. I was standing on the stoop of Hunt and Goodwin's military store. Mr. Surratt was going past the National Hotel. I noticed his hair was cut very singularly, rounding away down on his coat collar. I did not notice whether he had whiskers or a mustache as I was more attracted by the clothing he had on. His appearance was very genteel, remarkably so. He did not look like a person from a long journey. I cannot say I ever had any connection with Mr. Surratt since he was quite a child; I knew him by sight and we had just bowing acquaintance." (Surratt Trial.)

TESTIMONY OF SHIP SURGEON
DR. L. J. McMILLEN,
THE PERUVIAN


Washington, D.C., Tuesday, June, 1867.

Question: Did you know John H. Surratt? If so, state where and under what circumstances.

Answer: "I became acquainted with John H. Surratt in the month of September, 1865. I did not know him under the name of Surratt. He was introduced to me under the name of "McCarthy" by a gentleman in Montreal who kept him in secrecy after the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. I was then ship surgeon of the Steamship Peruvian plying between Quebec and Liverpool. He came on board on September 11, 1865. I never suspected who he was until after we left. One day he inquired of me, 'Who is that gentleman?' pointing to a passenger. He said he believed he was an American detective and that he was after himself 'But,' said he, 'if he is (he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a revolver) that will settle him.' Then I began to suspect—not that he was Surratt but that he had been connected with the Rebellion here in some way. After that he would be continually with me every day, because I was the only person on board he knew, having been introduced to him by my friend. and he seemed not to care for being in the company of any one else. He used to come to me when I was alone and ask me to walk with him on deck; and he would always talk about what happened here during the war. He told me that he had been from the beginning in the Confederate States' service, carrying dispatches between here and Richmond, and also as far as Montreal; that he and Booth had planned at first the abduction of President Lincoln; that, however, they could not succeed in that way and they thought it necessary to change their plan. After this, before the assassination, Surratt was in Montreal when he received a letter from Booth ordering him immediately to Washington; that it was necessary to act and act promptly and he was to leave Montreal immediately for Washington. He did not tell me he came here, but he told me he came as far as Elmira, N.Y., and from that place telegraphed to New York to find out whether Booth had already left for Washington and was answered that he had. He did not tell me that he had gone any farther than Elmira. The next place he spoke to me was St. Albans, Vermont, where he said he arrived early one morning about breakfast time and went to a hotel there for breakfast. When he was sitting at the table he heard several talking about the assassination and he inquired, 'What was up?' They asked if he did not know President Lincoln had been assassinated. He said, 'I do not believe it, because the story is too good to be true.' On that a gentleman pulled out a newspaper and handed it to him. He opened it and saw his own name as one of the assassins. He said this unnerved him so much that the paper fell out of his hands and he immediately left the room. As he was going out through the house he heard another party say that Surratt must have been or was at the time in St. Albans, because such a person (mentioning that person's name) had found a handkerchief on the street with Surratt's name on it. He told me he actually looked in his pocket and found that he had lost his handkerchief. From that place he went to Canada and was concealed there from April to September.

"There were a great many things he told me that I had forgotten, or at least are not fresh in my memory. At the time I paid particular attention to what he said, and when I first made a deposition in Liverpool, everything was fresh in my memory.

"The first time I was sure he was Surratt was on the day he was talking about his mother having been hung. He did not call her Mrs. Surratt or by any other name, but just spoke about his mother having been hung; of course I knew well enough that there was only one woman that had been hung in connection with the assassination so I was pretty certain he was her son. He also asked me who did I believe he was. I was not sure who were the parties that escaped . . . so I answered that I believed he was either Surratt or Payne. He gave me no reply but only laughed.

"But the last day he was on board he called me aside and began to talk of the assassination. It was in the evening and we were alone together and he took out his revolver which was always kept in his pocket, pointed it at the heavens and said, 'I hope and wish to live just a few years more—two will do me—and then I shall go back to the United States and I shall serve Andy Johnson as Abraham Lincoln has been served.' I asked him why? 'Because he has been the cause of my mother being hung.' I then said, 'Now who are you?' I was pretty sure then who he was but still he had not given me his name himself. He looked around to see whether any one was near us and said: 'I am Surratt.'

"I made this affidavit September 25th in Liverpool. Next day would be Wednesday the 26th. I told Mr. Wilding, United States Consul, he would be in Liverpool in a day or two. On Wednesday the 26th, Surratt came to my boarding house but I was absent.

"He returned in the evening and wanted me to go with him to a place he had been recommended to go, but he could not find the place, so I went with him. Mr. Wilding, I think had sent a detective to watch us for I saw a man follow us from the time we left my house until I left Surratt and he went to that house to which he had been recommended. (Oratory of the Holy Cross Church.) He promised to see me next day but didn't. I got a short note stating he intended to go to London but when he got to the station there were several Americans there and he was afraid of being recognized, and did not go any farther. In a few days again I saw him and he gave me a letter to bring back to the party who had taken care of him in Montreal. He expected some money because when he got to Liverpool he had very little money . . . . He told me he expected a remittance from Washington but it would come through his friend in Montreal, and that I would very likely be charged with it when I returned."

Testimony of F.L. Smoot, June 2nd.

(Conversation with Mr. Jos. T. Nott occurred in the barroom of the Surratt Tavern, at Surrattsville on April 15th.)

"Mr. Nott said: 'He reckoned John was in New York by this time.' I asked him why he thought so and he said, 'My God! John knows all about this murder. Do you suppose he is going to stay in Washington and let them catch him?' I pretended to be much surprised and said, 'is that so?' He replied, 'It is, by God! I could have told you that this thing was coming to pass six months ago.' Then, putting his hand on my shoulder, 'Keep that in your own skin, my boy. Don't mention it; if you do, it will ruin me forever.'"

(See Surratt trial)

Joseph T. Nott was Lloyd's bartender at the Surratt Tavern.

General Harris in his Assassination of Lincoln on page 280 says:

"Mr. Merrick then went on to meet the argument that Surratt had confessed his guilt by flight, by declaring that the mad passions of the hour and tyrannical usurpations of the government in its methods of dealing with those charged with this crime, by sending them before a military commission instead of a civil court for trial, justified him in his flight. He (Merrick) then went on to vindicate the Catholic church which he claimed had been assailed in this matter. The only reference to the Catholic church in connection with this trial had been made in the public press. The prosecution had carefully abstained from any assault on that church, and had tried to exclude religious prejudices from the minds of the jurors. Mr. Merrick, however, seized the occasion to pass an eulogium on that church, in which he showed as much disregard for facts of history, as he did for the proven facts in this case. Perhaps, he felt this vindication to be called for from the fact, that most of the conspirators were Catholics in religion, and the further fact that the friends who waited and watched for the return of his client, to Montreal, after the assassination, and who on his return, spirited him away (priests La Pierre and Boucher) and kept him secreted five months, and then helped him off to Italy, where he was found in the ranks of the Pope's army, and who voluntarily came before the court on his trial to testify, and to procure testimony in his behalf, were priests of that church."

Continuing, General Harris comments:

"In his eulogies on that church he forgot to mention the fact that the pope, during the progress of the war, acknowledged the Southern Confederacy, and wrote a sympathizing letter to Jefferson Davis, in which he called him his dear son, and by implication denounced President Lincoln as a tyrant.

"He could have scarcely forgotten that the pope of Rome had sought to take advantage of the arduous struggle in which our government was engaged for the preservation of its life, to established a Catholic empire in Mexico, and had sent Maximilian, a Catholic prince, to reign over, at the time, unhappy people, under the protection of the arms of France, lent to the furtherance of his un-holy purpose, by the last loyal son of the church, that ever occupied a throne in Europe.

"Perhaps, he did not realize that it was God who frustrated the last grasp of the drowning man at a straw that eluded his grasp, by preparing for his holiness, the pope, and for Louis Napoleon, just at that moment, the Franco-Prussian War, which resulted in the final loss of the temporal power to the pope, and with it, his grip on the world and his empire and crown, to the last servile supporter of his temporal pretensions—Napoleon IIIrd!

"To claim for that church, as Mr. Merrick did, friendship to civil liberty, respect for the rights of conscience and of private judgment, and love for our republican institutions, is to ignore or set at naught, all the dogmas of that church on the above questions and all the claims of the papacy. Mr. Merrick manifestly thought that the attitude of the Catholic clergy toward the assassination of the President could be hidden from public view, by his fulsome eulogy.

"The appeals made by the eminent counsel for the prisoner, to the political and religion prejudices of jurors, was ably seconded, all through the trial by the Jesuit priesthood of Washington City and the vicinity. It will be recalled by scores of people who attended the trial, that not a day passed, but that some of these were in the court room as the most interested spectators. That they were not idle spectators, may be inferred from the fact, that whenever it seemed necessary to the prisoner's counsel to find witnesses to contradict any testimony, that was particularly damaging to their cause, they were always promptly found, and were almost always uniformly Catholics in religion, as shown by their own testimony upon cross-examination.

"It was a remarkable fact also, that these witnesses were scarcely ever able to come from under the fire of Judge Pierrepont's searching cross-examination, uncrippled, and also, that when they took the risk of bringing two witnesses in rebuttal of the same testimony, their witnesses uniformly killed each other off, before they got through the ordeal. That tests the truthfulness of witnesses—cross-examination.

"Other outside influences were brought to bear on the jurors, such as these: Father J.B. Menu, from St. Charles College, (Sulpician Monastery) spent the day in the courtroom, sitting beside the prisoner all day, thus saying to the jury: You see which side I am on. A great many of the students from the same college also visited the trial, it being vacation, and they uniformly took great pains to show their sympathy with the prisoner by shaking hands with him.

"The press also was prostituted almost daily by publishing cunningly devised paragraphs impugning the motives of the government in the prosecution and management of the case. Thus were the prejudices of the jurors appealed to and efforts also made to pervert public opinion."

The above from General Harris who was present at the trials of Surratt, and who was also one of the Military Commission which tried and convicted Mrs. Surratt and the other three conspirators, recommending the death penalty, and sentences to the Dry Tortugas to four others, gives the reader a concise picture which correctly photographs the fine Italian hand which directed Surratt's attorneys in their line of action. Nothing could be clearer.

And now, permit us to quote from the closing address of Judge Pierrepont, which is a masterpiece from a legal standpoint and a classic in pure English, superb in its logic, impregnable in its TRUTH:

"May it please your honor, and gentlemen of the jury, I have not in the progress of this long and tedious case, had the opportunity as yet of addressing to you one word. My time has now arrived. Yea, all that a man hath, will he give for his life! When the book of Job was written, this was true, and it is just as true today. A man, in order to save his life, will give his property, will give his liberty, will sacrifice his good name, and will desert his father, his mother, his sister. He will lift up his hand before Almighty God, and swear that he is innocent of the crime with which he is charged.

"He will bring perjury upon his soul, giving all that he hath in the world, and be ready to take the chances and jump the life to come and so far as counsel place themselves in the situation of their client, and just to the degree that they absorb his feelings, his terror and his purposes, just so far will counsel do the same.

"I am well aware, gentlemen, of the difficulties under which I labor in addressing you. The other counsel have all told you, that they know you, and that you know them. They know you in social life, and they know you in political affairs. They know your sympathies, your habits, your modes of thought, your prejudices, even. They know how to address you, and how to awaken your sympathies, whilst I come before you a total stranger. There is not a face in those seats that I have ever beheld until this trial commenced, and yet, I have a kind feeling pervading me, that we are not strangers.

"I feel as though we had a common origin, a common country, and a common religion, and that on many grounds we must have a common sympathy. I feel as though, if hereafter, I should meet you in my native city, or a foreign land, I should meet you not as strangers, but as friends. It was not a pleasant thing for me to come into this case. They had, perhaps, the right to ask, and so asking, I give you the answer. I was called into it, at a time ill-suited in every respect. I had just taken my seat in the convention called for the purpose of forming a new constitution for my State, and I was a member of the judiciary committee. The convention is now sitting, and I am absent, where I ought to be present. I feel, however, that I had no right to shirk this duty.

"The counsel asked whether I represented the Attomey General in this case . . . and so asking, I will give my answer. There is no mystery about the matter. The District Attorney feeling the magnitude of this case, felt that he ought to apply to the Attorney General for assistance in the prosecution of it, and he according made the application. I have known the Attorney General for more than twenty years. Our relations have been most friendly; both in social and professional point of view. The Attorney General conferred with the Secretary of State, who is, as you know, from my own State, and they determined to ask me to assist in the prosecution of this cause . . . . This is the way I happened to be engaged in this case . . . .

"When the President of the United States was assassinated, I was one of the committee sent on by the citizens of New York, to attend his funeral. When standing, as I did stand, in the East room by the side of that coffin, if some citizen sympathizing with the enemies of my country had, because my tears were falling in sorrow over the murder of the President, there insulted me, and I had at that time repelled the insult with insult, I think my fellow citizens would have said to me, that my act was deserving of condemnation; that I had no right in that solemn, holy hour, to let my petty passions or my personal resentments disturb the sanctity of the scene. To my mind, the sanctity of this trial is far above that funeral occasion, solemn and holy as it was, and I should forever deem myself disgraced, if I should ever allow any passion of mine, or personal resentment of any kind, to bring me here into any petty quarrel over the murder of the President of the United States. I have tried to refrain from anything like that, and God helping me, I shall so endeavor to the end.

"To me, gentlemen, this prisoner at the bar is a pure abstraction. I have no feeling toward him whatever. I never saw him until I saw him in this room, and then it was under circumstances calculated to awaken only my sympathy . . . . To me he is a stranger. Toward him I have no hostility, and I shall not utter one word of vituperation against him. I came to try one of the assassins of the President of the United States, indicted before you . . . so far as I am concerned, gentlemen, I believe that what you wish to know in this case is the truth . . . . My duty is to aid you in coming to a just conclusion. I believe that it is your honest desire to find out whether the accused was engaged in this plot to overthrow this government, and assassinate the President of the United States. When this evidence is reviewed, and when it is honestly and fairly presented, when passions are laid aside, and when other people who have nothing whatever to do with the trial are kept out of this case, you will discover that in the whole history of jurisprudence, no murder was ever proved with the demonstration with which this has been proven before you. The facts, the proofs, the circumstances, all tend to one point, and all prove the case, not only beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond any doubt.

"This has been, as I have already stated, a very protracted case. The evidence is scattered. It has come in, link by link, and as we could not have witnesses here in their order when you might have seen it in its logical bearings, we were obliged to take it as it came. I shall not attempt, gentlemen, to convince you by bold assertions of my own. I fancy I could make them as loudly and as confidently as the counsel for the other side, but I am not here for that purpose. The counsel are not witnesses in the case. We have come here for the purpose of ascertaining whether, under the law, and on the evidence presented, this man arraigned before you, is guilty as charged . . . . My business is to prove to you from the evidence that this prisoner is guilty. If I do that, I shall ask your verdict. If I do not do that, I shall neither expect nor hope for it.

"I listened to the two counsels who have addressed you for several days without one word of interruption. I listened to them respectfully and attentively. I know their earnestness, and I know the poetry that was brought into the case, and the feeling and the passion, that was attempted to be excited in your breasts, by bringing before you the ghost trailing her calico dress and making it rustle against these chairs. I have none of these powers which the gentlemen seem to possess, nor shall I attempt to invoke them. I have come to you for the purpose of proving that this party accused here, was engaged in this conspiracy to overthrow this government, which conspiracy result in the death of Abraham Lincoln, by a shot from a pistol in the hand of John Wilkes Booth. That is all there is to be proven in this case.

"I have not come here for the purpose of proving that Mrs. Surratt was guilty, or that she was innocent, and I do not understand why that subject was lugged into this case in the mode that it has been; nor do I understand why the counsel denounced the Military Commission which tried her, and thus indirectly censured in the severest manner, the President of the United States. The counsel certainly knew, when they were talking about that tribunal, and when they were thus denouncing it, that President Johnson, President of the United States, signed the warrant that directed the execution; that President Johnson, President of the United States, when that record was presented to him, laid it before his Cabinet, and that every single member voted to confirm the sentence, and that the President with his own hand, wrote his confirmation of it, and with his own hand signed the warrant. I hold in my hand the original record, and no other man, as it appears from that paper, ordered it. No other one has touched this paper; and when it was suggested by some of the members of the Commission, that in consequence of the age, and the sex, of Mrs. Surratt, it might possibly be well to change her sentence to imprisonment for life, he signed the warrant for her death with the paper right before his eyes—and there it is (handing it to Mr. Merrick). My friend can read it for himself.

"My friends on the other side have undertaken to arraign the government of the United States against the prisoner. They have talked very loudly and eloquently, about this great government of twenty-five or thirty millions of people, being engaged in trying to bring to conviction, one poor young man, and have treated it as though it was a hostile act, as though two parties were litigants before you, the one trying to beat the other.

"Is it possible that is has come to this, that, in the City of Washington, where the President has been murdered, that when under the form of law, and before a court and jury of twelve men, an investigation is made, to ascertain whether the prisoner is guilty of this great crime, that the government is to be charged as seeking his blood, and its officers as lapping their tongues in the blood of the innocent? I quote the language exactly. It is a shocking thing to hear. What is the purpose of a government? What is the business of a government?

"According to the gentlemen's notion, when a murder is committed the government should not do anything towards ascertaining who perpetrated the murder, and if the government did undertake to investigate the matter and endeavor to find out whether the man charged with the crime if guilty, or not . . . the government and all connected with it, must be expected to be assailed as 'bloodhounds of the law,' and as seeking to 'lap their tongues in the blood of the innocent.' Is that the business of the government, and is it the business of the counsel, under any circumstances, thus to charge the government? What is government for? It is instituted for your protection and my protection, for the protection of us all. What could we do without it? Tell me, my learned and eloquent counsel on the other side, what would you do without government? What would you do in this city?"

Have you ever heard, my dear reader, a more direct, explicit analysis of Roman Catholic anarchy portrayed than the above presentation of Judge Pierrepont?

There were eighty-five witnesses and ninety-six in rebuttal, called by the government and Surratt called ninety-eight witnesses in chief and twenty-three in rebuttal.

The hearing began June 17th, 1867, and closed July 26th 1867. The arguments of the attorneys covered twelve days. The case went to the jury August 7th. The jury brought in a report that they stood about even for conviction and acquittal, with no prospect of reaching an agreement. Surratt was remanded to jail.

His attorneys asked that he be released on bail which was refused by the court. The following September the case was nolle prosequi. He was then indicted on the charge of engaging in rebellion. He was admitted to bail on this charge in the amount of $20,000, which still stands.

A second indictment was found against him, but the district attorney entered a nolle prosequi on this. The prisoner was finally released and permitted to go free on a technicality—an omission of the three words in the indictment, viz.: "Was a fugitive."

All of the above proceedings in the face of the burning facts brought out by his two trials, and that every charge of his guilt of the murder of Abraham Lincoln was proven beyond the peradventure of a doubt.
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Re: THE SUPPRESSED TRUTH ABOUT THE ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM

Postby admin » Fri Dec 25, 2015 9:50 am

Chapter 12: Summing It All up: Two and Two

The aim of the Jesuits in this country is to ultimately extricate the Roman Church from its responsibility in the murder of Lincoln by exonerating Mary E. Surratt and her son John by placing the whole blame on John Wilkes Booth—the Protestant.

The recent activity in this direction of these Leopolines—the Knights of Columbus—is most significant and interesting to observe. Wide publicity was recently given through the official press of the Knights of Columbus of an offer of five thousand dollars to "any one who can prove that John Wilkes Booth was a Roman Catholic" is one move in the plan.

The Surratts must be white-washed before the Catholic Church can clear its skirts. The documentary evidence pertaining to this tragedy has been so carefully and completely removed from the public eye that they feel it safe now to openly refer to the death of Lincoln. But for years his name never passed the lips of either the priests or the press of Rome!

With a desire to get at the truth we have made a study of these two characters.

There is much to convince the fair-minded investigator that John Wilkes Booth had been a pervert to the Roman Church. The evidence in both the trials of the conspirators and John H. Surratt shows that Booth was frequently at Mass in various Roman Churches. The fact that he wore an Agnus Dei bronze medal at the time of his death which was taken from his neck by Surgeon General Barnes as his body lay on the Montauk, which had become corroded from the moisture of his body showed long wear. Only three weeks prior to the murder as Rear Admiral Baird tells us, he met Booth coming out of a Vesper Service at a Roman Church in Washington. This alone of course would not be conclusive, but taken together with other evidence strengthens the conclusion, that he was not only a professed Romanist, but that he was a devout one.

The close associates of Booth from his arrival in Washington from Montreal the middle of November 1864, until his flight after the murder, were fanatical Romanists. His first visit the next day after he registered at the National Hotel was to the little Roman Church at St. Mary's near Bryantown. He had attended Mass and presented his credentials to the Roman Catholics, Drs. Queen and Mudd; was entertained by them and inquired for the whereabouts of John Surratt on that occasion, whom he met shortly afterwards in Washington and became a constant, almost daily, visitor at the Surratt home on H street which was the meeting place of the Romish priests of Washington and vicinity.

The complete confidence which existed between Booth and the Surratts, in the mind of the writer, is sufficient evidence that these schemers were taking no chances on any heretic. The fact that every member of this household was a Romanist and undoubtedly a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle further confirms this belief. Having absorbed the Jesuit psychology during my early girlhood training, and understanding the peculiar tie that binds all devout Romanists together, there is not the slightest doubt in my mind but that John Booth was not a full-fledged pape.

Add to this the fact that Booth himself had taken the Jesuitized oath of the Order of the Knights of the Gold Circle, given in full in this book, which no honorable or sincere Protestant's conscience would permit him to blacken his soul with, and we have another link in the chain of circumstantial evidence. He was under the influence of the small group of Confederate leaders in Montreal, who in turn were the most abject tools and associates of the French priests in that city. Considering these and other things we will be justified in concluding that if John Wilkes Booth was not a professed Romanist, he might as well have been and most certainly he was nothing else.

There is no professed Catholic assassin in all history, within the writer's knowledge who was a more effectual dupe of the priests of Rome and their lay agents than this once brilliant, care free, talented young man whose most distinguishing characteristic, barring his kindly courtesy, was his reverence and devotion to his mother.

Without wishing to excuse or condone the cruel, cowardly act which snatched Abraham Lincoln away from us at the moment when his great wisdom, kindliness, and broad charity would have guided the re-construction as no other could, but the aim is to call attention to the instigators, higher up—the priests of Rome who were accessories both before and after the fact, and who have always escaped without even censor or suspicion, leaving their tools to pay the price!

Booth was chosen for this bloody deed with keen discernment and fine discrimination by these ecclesiastical plotters against this government. That he was a young man without much depth of character is to be conceded, for they do not seek strong characters to execute these wicked and dangerous deeds. No doubt the Jesuits followed Booth for months, studying him, finding his most vulnerable point, delving into his very soul, before they decided to cast on him the leading role. There were many advantages in his selection. His profession and the well-known loyalty of the Booth family to the Government placed him almost above suspicion. His knowledge of changing his appearance, his expertness in the use of firearms, horsemanship, fencing, etc., his pronounced personal magnetism and easy, graceful manner and above all his childlike vanity without egotism, all tended to, from their standpoint make him an ideal victim of their subtle influence. One other point: Booth, even if he had no previous idea of the responsibility or knowledge of the oath he was to take when he entered the Golden Circle, must have fully realized after, that had he failed to carry out instructions after he had drawn the fatal blank, it meant his own certain death.

Geniuses are usually so absorbed in the line of work in which their gift inclines them, that they are often easy victims of stronger designing or unscrupulous minds, and the dramatic instinct in this unfortunate young man would tend to make him particularly susceptible to the weird ceremonies, garbs, etc., of the Roman Church and its psychology.

Booth, by several authors, is charged with entertaining this conspiracy of murder and destruction from a monetary object. The value of a dollar does not go hand in hand with talent or genius. If so, it is the exception to the rule and John Wilkes Booth was not an exception. Actors make their money easily and quickly and the rule is that they let it go as easily; their improvidence is proverbial. I believe it is unjust to attribute Booth's part in this affair to a mercenary motive and am inclined to think that he very probably used much of his own money during his operations. The several genuine oil speculations in which he was the loser, shows him to have been short on business qualifications and the E Z mark in that respect which characterized the members of the profession in his day.

That John H. Surratt on the contrary, was mercenary and that money held a high place in his estimation is plentifully evidenced. He talked about the large sums of money he expected to get and repeatedly boasted to Weichmann and displayed the large bills and twenty-dollar gold pieces in his possession while carrying on the Secret Service work in his trips between Richmond, Washington and Canada . . . . He began to dress expensively and it was because of his ultra-fashionable appearance that the attention of the tailor, Reed, was attracted to him on the fatal Good Friday as he walked down Pennsylvania Avenue from the National Hotel.

It was his habit to show his money and talk of it to his friends in a boastful way. The testimony of St. Marie shows that he was still given to this while a member of the Pope's Army.

The difference in the filial devotion and the lack of it is very pronounced between these two young men. Surratt's immediate flight to Canada the morning after the tragedy at Ford's Theatre, where he had directed and "called the time," where he remained in safety under the care of the Roman priests La Pierre and Boucher, during his mother's arrest, trial, conviction and execution; his heartless desertion of his mother and only sister, is unparalleled as the most concentrated selfishness and base ingratitude and the only charitable thing to be said, is that it was due greatly to his theological training—or it might have been owing to the espionage of his priestly protectors.

GEN. T.M. HARRIS "NAILS" PRIEST WALTERS' ATTEMPT TO WHITEWASH MRS. SURRATT.

The review of the Trial of John H. Surratt made by Gen. T.M. Harris who was a member of the Military Court Martial which tried and convicted the four conspirators and sentenced four others to the Dry Tortugas, was written in response to the charges of Mrs. Surratt's confessor, the pastor of St. Patrick's Roman Church, Washington, D.C., who had dared to raise his voice in defense of this woman twenty-seven years after her execution. General Harris' book, the only one of its kind, has so effectually and completely nailed the ecclesiastical liar that it has been removed from most of the Public Libraries throughout the country on account of its contents. Because it has gone out of print and because it is not accessible to the readers, I am incorporating the whole chapter on "FATHER WALTER" page 204, for the benefit of my readers, below. And now I quote from the General's book:

"From the time of the trial of the conspirators by a military commission, and of the execution of Mrs. Surratt by the order of President Johnson, Father Walter, a secular priest of Washington City, has made himself conspicuous by his efforts to pervert public opinion on the result of the trial of the conspirators by the Commission. Whilst rebel lawyers, editors and politicians have bodily assailed the lawfulness of the Commission and have denounced it as an unconstitutional tribunal, and have characterized the trial as a star chamber trial, as a contrivance for taking human life under a mockery of a judicial procedure, with no purpose of securing the ends of justice, Father Walter and other priests whose sympathies were with the Southern Confederacy have earnestly seconded their efforts by the invention and circulation of cunningly devised falsehoods.

"Father Walter has every now and then bobbed up with the assertion of Mrs. Surratt's entire innocence. Knowing that not one in a thousand of our people have ever read the testimony on which she was convicted, he feels that he can boldly assert, 'There was not enough evidence against her to hang a cat.' He has also become bold enough to state as facts what the evidence shows to be falsehoods. As an example of this: In an article in the Catholic Review he asserts in regard to Mrs. Surratt's trip to Surrattville on the afternoon of the day of the assassination that he had ordered her carriage for the trip, which was purely on private business, on the forenoon of that day, and before it was known that the President would go to the theatre. Why, if this was true was it not proven in her defense? There was no such testimony produced. The testimony on this point against her was that shortly after two o'clock on that afternoon she went upstairs to Weichmann's room, tapped at the door, and when it was opened she said to Mr. Weichmann, 'I have just received a letter from Mr. Calvert that makes it necessary for me to go to Surrattville today and see Mr. Nothey. Would you be so good as to get a conveyance and drive me down? Upon Weichmann's consenting to do so, she handed him a ten dollar bill with which to procure a conveyance. Surely, there is no evidence here that a carriage had been ordered already, as Weichmann was left free to procure a conveyance where he might see fit.

"Weichmann went downstairs, and as he opened the front door, he saw John Wilkes Booth, who was in the act, as it were, of pulling the front door bell. Booth entered the house.

"When young Weichmann returned, after having procured the buggy, he went up to his own room after some necessary articles of clothing, and as he again descended the stairs and passed by the parlor doors he observed that Booth was in the parlor conversing with Mrs. Surratt. In a little while Booth came down to the front door steps and waved his hand in token of adieu to Weichmann, who was standing at the curb.

"When Mrs. Surratt came and was in the act of getting into the buggy, she remembered she had forgotten something, and said, 'Wait a moment, until I go and get those things of Mr. Booth's.' She returned from the parlor with a package which was done up in brown paper, the contents of which the witness did not see, but which was afterwards shown to have been the field glass which Booth carried with him in his flight. This glass Booth sent to Lloyd by Mrs. Surratt, with a message to have it, with the two carbines and two bottles of whiskey, where they would be handy, as they would be called for that night. Lloyd swore that this was the message delivered to him by Mrs. Surratt in the private interview she sought with him in his backyard on his return home that evening, and that in accordance with these instructions he delivered them to Booth and Herold about midnight that night.

"Now, let us see about the private business on which she professed to be going, and on which she claimed at her trial that she went. The letter from Mr. Calvert was a demand for money that she owed him, and was written at Blandensburg on the 12th of April. On the afternoon of the fourteenth she presented herself to Weichmann and claimed that she had just received it. It would seem very strange that it took this letter two days to reach her at a distance of only six miles. She claimed that she must go and see Mr. Nothey who owed her and get money from him to pay her debt to Mr. Calvert. Mr. Nothey lived five miles below Surrattsville, and as she claimed that she had just received Mr. Calvert's letter, it was impossible that she could have made any arrangement with Nothey to meet her at Surrattsville that day. She did not meet him there, neither did she go to his house to see him. When she arrived at Surrattsville she took Weichmann into the parlor at the hotel and asked him to write a letter for her to Nothey, which he did at her dictation; and this she sent to Mr. Nothey by Mr. Bennett Gwinn, a neighbor of his who happened to be passing down.

"Now, in view of all these facts, can any one see how her private business was in any way subserved by her trip to Surrattsville on that afternoon? She could as easily have written to Mr. Nothey from Washington as from Surrattsville. A postage stamp, a sheet of paper and an envelope would have saved her six dollars, the cost of her trip, and would have served her business just as well. The truth is that this talk of going on private business of her own was all a fabrication, first to deceive Mr. Weichmann as to the object of her trip, and then to be used, should it become necessary, in her defense. We have already seen what her real business was.

"Father Walter falsifies again in the article referred to saying that she did not see Lloyd on that afternoon, but delivered the things to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Offutt. Both Lloyd and his sister-in-law testified to her interview with him in his backyard, and Lloyd testified as to what passed between them on that occasion.

"It would seem that Father Walter is going on the theory that we have gotten so far past the time, and that the testimony has been so far forgotten that he can foist upon the public any statement that he may please to fabricate. We would kindly remind the reverend Father that no ultimate gain can be derived from an effort to suppress the truth. Neither can it be obliterated by our prejudices. We may misconstrue facts, but we cannot wipe them out by a mere stroke of a pen; and a fact once made can never be recalled. But I am not done yet with this Father. He prefaces his article in the Review with the statement that he heard Mrs. Surratt's last confession and that whilst his priestly vows do not permit him to reveal the secrets of the confessional, yet from knowledge in his possession he is prepared to assert her entire innocence of this most atrocious crime. He means that we shall understand that were he at liberty to give her last confession to the world, he would say that she then and there asserted her entire innocence.

"Will Father Walter deny that under the teachings of the Roman Catholic church he had an absolute right, with her consent, to make her confession public on this point? Nay, more, could not Mrs. Surratt have compelled him to do so in vindication of her good name, and of the honor of the church of which she was a member? And having this consent, was it not his most solemn duty to proclaim her confessed innocence in every public way through the press and even from the very steps of the gallows?

"Why was not that confession made public?

"Why was it not reduced to writing and signed with her own hand?

"Why has it not, in its entirety, been given to the world?

"Why must the public wait twenty-seven years, and instead of having the full confession, be required to content itself, in so great a case, with a mere assertion from the reverend Father, based on his alleged knowledge? Aye, just there's the rub!

"That confession of Mrs. Surratt's would have proved very interesting reading, and might have let in a flood of light on some of the places that are now very dark; it would, indeed, have shown how far Mrs. Surratt was involved in the abduction and assassination plots and to what degree she was the willing or unwilling tool of her son, and of John Wilkes Booth. That confession would have shown the object of Booth's visit to her on the very day and eve of the murder. It would have explained what she had in her mind when she carried Booth's field glass into the country and told Lloyd to have the 'shooting-irons' and two bottles of whiskey ready on that fatal night of the fourteenth of April. And if she did not explain satisfactorily every item of testimony, which bore so heavily against her, then her last confession was worth nothing.

"Father Walter never had at any time Mrs. Surratt's consent to make her confession public, and he dare not do so now after twenty-seven years have elapsed since he shrove his unfortunate penitent.

"Why did Father Walter not do this? He was interesting himself very much in her behalf in trying to get her a reprieve; why did he hot use this as an argument with the President in her behalf, that in her final confession she asserted her innocence? Why did he wait until the sentence had been confirmed by the President and a full Cabinet without a dissenting voice, and then had been carried into execution, before he put into circulation the story of her confessed innocence? And why does he refer to his priestly vows as his excuse for this conduct, when he knows full well that having gained Mrs. Surratt's consent to make her confession public as an entirety, these vows imposed upon him no such restrictions? In vindication of the Commission and also the Court Review—the President and his Cabinet—we submit that the evidence shows her to have been guilty, no matter what she might have said, in her final confession. "Perhaps she had been led to believe that President Lincoln was an execrable tyrant, and that his death was no more than that of the 'meanest nigger in the army.' Her remarks to her daughter the night her house was searched indicate the views she took of the subject. 'Anna, come what will, I am resigned. I think that Booth was only an instrument in the hands of the Almighty to punish this wicked and licentious people.'

"To one who could have taken this view of the case, Booth's act could not have been regarded as a crime; and she who rendered him all the aid she could would feel no guilt. They were only co-operating with the Almighty in the execution of vengeance. On the trial of John H. Surratt, Mr. Merrick brought Father Walter on the stand and asked him if he heard the last confession of Mrs. Surratt, to which the Father answered. 'I did, I gave her communion on Friday and prepared her for death.'

"Mr. Merrick in his argument before the jury said: 'I asked him 'Did she tell you as she was marching to the scaffold that she was an innocent woman?' I told him not to answer that question before I desired him to. He nodded his head, but did not answer that question, because he had no right, as the other side objected.'

"Now, what was the object of all this? Mr. Merrick brought the Father on to the stand and asked him a question that had not the slightest relevancy to any issue before that jury. He knew, of course, that the prosecution would object, and that the question could not be answered. It was a direct question and could have been answered by 'She did,' or 'She did not.' Why does not the Father answer at once? He had been cautioned not to do so until desired, and so he waits for the prosecution to object and stop him from answering the question. Mr. Merrick, however, in his argument, assumes that the Father stood ready to say that:

"'She solemnly declared her innocence to me in her last confession,'

"and throws the responsibility on the other side for not getting this answer. The argument was this:

"'You see that Father Walter stood ready to testify to this fact, but the prosecution objected, and so he could not do it.'

"Now, what has become of the Father's priestly vows, behind which he has always been hiding? Or was all this a mere piece of acting, to give the counsel a point from which to denounce the government, the Commission, and all who were concerned in visiting justice upon the assassins?

"We believe it to be true that the laws of his church do not forbid him to make public, with her consent or command, her last confession on this point, and that the Father in making the statements he does at this late day is simply practicing sleight of hand upon the public. It is a very strange circumstance, too, that whilst Payne, Arnold, O'Laughlin, Atzerodt, and even John H. Surratt, admitted their connection with one or the other of the conspiracy plots, Mrs. Surratt has not left one word or line after her to explain away the incriminating evidence brought against her. The reason is plain; she could not have explained anything without involving herself and her son and giving away the whole case.

"For twenty-six years Father Walter and his rebel coadjutors have kept a paragraph going the rounds of the papers, stating as a fact that all the members of the Commission, but one, are dead, and that they died miserable deaths, which marked them as the subjects of heavens vengeance and that some of them perished from the violence of their own hands, being crazed with remorse.

"The truth is that at this writing, April, 1892, all the members of the Commission are alive except General Hunter and General Ekin. General Hunter lived to over four score years and General Ekin to seventy-three. The present writer is nearly seventy-nine and is still able to vindicate the truth in the interest of a true history of his period. Is it not high time that the American people should be fully informed as to this most important episode in their history, in order that they may not be misled by men who were not the friends, but the enemies, of our government in its struggle for its preservation and perpetuation."

The above statement of facts is sufficient to refute the lying priest Walter and block the Roman Church's mad efforts to subvert this damning evidence of its own participation in Lincoln's murder.

OTHER TESTIMONY OF THE SURRATTS' CATHOLIC FRIENDS

Testimony of Miss Anna Ward, for the Defense, June 3rd.

"I reside at the Catholic Female Seminary on Tenth Street, Washington. I have been acquainted with Mrs. Surratt six or eight years. I have not been very intimate with Mrs. Surratt. She always bore the character of a perfect lady and a Christian, as far as my acquaintance with her extends.

"I received two letters from John H. Surratt postmarked Montreal, Canada, for his mother. I received the second the day of the assassination . . . . I answered his letters to me, and left them with his mother as I supposed that she would be glad to hear from him. I have not seen him since."

This Miss Ward, by the way, was twice brought into the trial, sufficient participation, it might seem, to involve her in conspiracy. Mr. Weichmann testified that in March, 1865, Surratt invited him to accompany him to the Herndon Hotel to see about securing a room. When they arrived Surratt called for the housekeeper, a Mrs. May Murray, and asked her to have the room in readiness for the man, not mentioning the name, whom Miss Ward a few days previous, had spoken to her about. The housekeeper seemed not to remember until Surratt further reminded her that it was "For a delicate gentleman" who was to have his meals served in his room. With this refreshing she remembered. Surratt then told her that the gentleman would occupy the room on the following Monday. Later on, Weichmann met Atzerodt coming along Seventh Street, who told him to answer to his question as to where he was going, that he was going to the Herndon House. Weichmann then said, "Is that Payne that is at the Herndon House?" Atzerodt answered, "Yes."

Then Miss Ward, this Catholic school teacher, was the one who prior to the crime, had been delegated, to establish an alibi for John H. Surratt by calling at the Surratt house on the day of the assassination with a letter which she had purported to have received that day from John Surratt in Canada. She proffered this information to Louis Weichmann, who happened to be at home. Weichmann did not read the letter, which disappeared and was never introduced into the evidence.

Surely, it was a fact worth noting from the amount of evidence, that Mrs. Surratt, a woman impoverished by the war with no special social standing should have had the privilege of intimate acquaintance with so many priests. I give below the verbatim testimony of these reverend gentlemen as the records show:

REV. B. F. WIGET FOR DEFENSE, MAY 25th.

"I am president of Gonzago College, F Street between Tenth and Eleventh.

"It is about ten or eleven years since I became acquainted with Mrs. Mary E. Surratt. I know her very well, and I have always heard everyone speak very highly of her character as a lady and as a Christian. During all this acquaintance nothing has come to my knowledge respecting her character that could be called un-Christian.

"I have a personal knowledge of her character as a Christian, but not as to her character for loyalty. My visits were all short and political affairs were never discussed; I was not her pastor. I first became acquainted with Mrs. Surratt from having her two sons with me. I have seen her perhaps once in six weeks. I cannot say that I remember hearing her utter a disloyal sentiment, nor do I remember hearing anyone talk about her being notoriously disloyal before her arrest."

REV. FRANCES E. BOYLE FOR THE DEFENSE, MAY 25th.

"I am a Catholic priest. My residence is St. Peter's Church. I made the acquaintance of Mrs. Mary E. Surratt eight or ten years ago . . . . Have always heard her well spoken of as an estimable lady. I do not undertake to say what her reputation for loyalty is."

REV. CHAS. H. STONESTREET, FOR THE DEFENSE, MAY 26th.

"I am pastor of Aloysius Church in this city. I first became acquainted with Mrs. Mary E. Surratt twenty years ago. I have only seen her occasionally since. At the time of his (sic, this?) acquaintance there was no question of her loyalty."

By the bye, on a recent trip which the author took through the Jesuit University at Georgetown in the cloister of one of the buildings there are a number of paintings of Jesuit priests connected with the institution, among whom I noted one labeled. Rev. Chas. H. Stonestreet. The reverend gentleman testified that at the time of his acquaintance there was no question about the lady's loyalty. Certainly not. The question of loyalty had not arisen twenty years before the war—evidently this is an example of Mental reservation of a Jesuit priest. All of them could have said: I never questioned her loyalty. Mental reservation—(To the Holy Mother Church.)

REV. PETER LANIHAN, DEFENSE, MAY 26th.

"I am a Catholic priest. I reside near Beantown, Charles County, Md. I have been acquainted with Mrs. Surratt, prisoner at the bar, for about thirteen years; intimately so, for about nine years. In my estimation she is a good Christian woman and highly honorable. Have never on any occasion heard her express disloyal sentiments. I have been very familiar with her, staying at her house."

In The Doctrine of the Jesuits by Gury, in The Eighth Precept of the Decalogue, page 156, 442-1:

"Is it not permitted to make use of the purely and properly mental restriction? 443-2. It is sometimes permitted to make use of the restriction largely; that is to say, improperly mental, and also of equivocal words, when the meaning of the speaker can be understood . . . . Besides, the good of society demands that there should be a means to lawfully hide a secret; now there is no other way than by equivocation or restriction . . . . One is permitted to use this restriction even under oath . . . . A culprit interrogated judicially, or not lawfully, by the judge, may answer that he has done nothing, meaning: 'About which you have the right to question me.'"

The canon law of the Roman church does not concede the right of any civil authority to question or cross-question a priest. Not only so, but the canon law of the Roman church automatically excommunicates any Catholic layman who would bring a priest into a civil court. Consequently none of these priests' testimony was worth the paper it was written on in the matter of truth, and they were at perfect liberty to swear to anything they chose, or to whatever would seem best for the interest of the prisoner and their church.

Gury in a footnote quotes Bessius, a Jesuit authority, as follows:

"If a judge interrogates on an action, which must have been committed without sin, at least a mortal one, the witness and the culprit are not obliged to answer according to the judge's intention."

REV. N.D. YOUNG, DEFENSE, MAY 26th.

"I am a Catholic priest. I reside at the pastoral home of St. Dominick's church on the Island and Sixth Street, Washington City. I became acquainted with Mrs. Mary E. Surratt eight or ten yeas ago. My acquaintance has not been very intimate. I have occasionally seen her and visited with her. I had to pass her house about once a month, and I generally called there—sometimes stayed an hour. I have heard her spoken of with great praise. She never uttered any disloyal sentiments to me."

Certainly the above testimony makes the position of Mrs. Surratt and her church beyond question, but to say that any one of these priests did not know that she was DISLOYAL TO THE UNION and entertained a deep hatred for President Lincoln, to whom she, like many others, attributed the loss of her wealth, might be acceptable to non-Romanists who do not understand the relation of such a woman to her priest, but certainly no ex-Romanist could be deceived by it.

TESTIMONY OF THE REV. B.F. WIGET.

Washington, February 28, 1867.

Question: "State your residence and profession."

Answer: "I am connected with the Gonzaga College on F Street, Washington, between Ninth and Tenth."

Question: "How long have you resided in Washington?"

Answer: "With an interruption of four months I have resided here four years."

Question: "Look at this photo (marked exhibit G) and state whether you have known this person from whom it was taken."

Answer: "John H. Surratt, I should think."

Question: Have you known Surratt many years?

Answer: "Many, many years, yes, sir. I knew him when he was about 12 years old. He was one or two years under my tuition."

EXTRACTS FROM THE TESTIMONY OF LOUIS J. WEICHMANN.

"Mrs. Surratt and her family are Catholics. John H. Surratt is a Catholic and was a student of divinity at the same college as myself. I met the prisoner, David E. Herold at Mrs. Surratt's house on one occasion. I also met him when we visited the theatre when Booth played Pescara; I met him at Mrs. Surratt's in the country in the spring of 1863 when I first made his acquaintance.

"I met him (Herold) in the summer of 1864 at the Piscataway (Roman Catholic) church. These are the only times to my recollection I ever met him . . . . I generally accompanied Mrs. Surratt to church on Sunday. Surratt never intimated to me nor to anyone else to my knowledge that there was a purpose to assassinate the President. He stated to me in the presence of his sister shortly after he made the acquaintance of Booth that he was going to Europe on a cotton speculation. That three thousand dollars had been advanced to him by an elderly gentleman whose name he did not mention, residing somewhere in the neighborhood, that he would go to Liverpool and remain there probably two weeks to transact his business; then he would go to Nassau and from Nassau to Matamoras, Mexico, and find his brother Isaac . . . . His character at St. Charles College, Maryland, was excellent. On leaving college he shed tears and the president approaching him told him not to weep, that his conduct had been excellent during the three years he had been there, and that he would always be remembered by those in charge of the institution . . . . I had been a companion of John H. Surratt for seven years (in answer to a question). No, I did not consider that I forfeited my friendship to him in mentioning my suspicions to Capt. Gleason. He forfeited his friendship to me by placing me in the position in which I now stand, testifying against him. I think I was more of a friend to him than he was to me. He knew I had permitted the blockade runner at the house without informing upon him, because I was his friend, but I hesitated for three days; still when my suspicions of danger to the government were aroused, I preferred the government to John Surratt. My remark to Captain Gleason about the possibility of the capture of the President was merely a casual remark. He laughed at the idea that such a thing could happen in a city guarded as Washington was."

Mr. Weichmann also testified that on the night of the arrest he answered the doorbell when the detectives rang it for the purpose of demanding admittance so that they might search the house. He rapped at Mrs. Surratt's door and informed her who was at the door and what they had come for. Her answer was: "For God's sake, let them come in; I have been expecting them." (See page 394, Trial of Surratt; also supplemental affidavit of L.J. Weichmann.)

Other comments by Gen. T. H. Harris are as follows:

"When they inquired for her son, she said. 'He is not here: I have not seen him for two weeks.' This was a sufficient answer, but her guilty conscience would not let her stop here, she had to add, 'There are a great many mothers who do not know where their sons are.' Let us ask ourselves at this point, how many mothers in Washington City at that hour of that eventful night were lying awake expecting their house to be searched by detectives? Our inner consciousness will unerringly dictate the answer, 'Not one who was innocent of crime.' It is only necessary to say further, in regard to this defense set up of an alibi that although there is no more common defense resorted to by criminals, because there is none more easy of establishment, there was never perhaps in all the history of jurisprudence a weaker and more unsuccessful effort made to establish it, than in this defense.

"Probably no witness had ever been subjected to the severe grilling which Louis Weichmann received during these trials, his testimony at John H. Surratt's trial being precisely the same, and he could not be shaken by the badgering which the defense's lawyer resorted to. A lifelong persecution followed in consequence."

During a recent interview the writer had with a relative of his who was with him during his last illness she said: "No one will ever know the sadness of Lou's life nor dream of how he was persecuted for simply telling the truth. The day before he died he motioned for a pencil and paper and before a witness wrote: 'To All Lovers of Truth, I, Louis J. Weichmann, being of sound mind and memory, do declare that everything that I testified to at the trials of Mary E. Surratt and John H. Surratt, was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. (Signed) Louis J. Weichmann.' He died the next day."

The "persecution" was that they accused him of swearing away the life of an innocent woman who had been a kind friend to him. For many years Mr. Weichmann was under the protection of the government where he held a public position in Philadelphia. He was practically excommunicated from the church although he in later years attended. On the other hand John H. Surratt, conspirator and assassin, was protected and helped by the priests up until his death April 22, 1916.

After Surratt's release from prison on a technicality he went to Rockville, Md., where he delivered a lecture which he prepared with the ostensible purpose of going on the lecture platform. He only delivered it once. The public sentiment, even in the South, was strong against him. He then secured a position in the public school at Montrose, near Rockville, where he taught several years. The writer, in making the picture of the Surratt house produced here, had a talk with the present tenant, a Mrs. Wm. Penn, whose stepmother was a pupil of John Surratt's while he taught at Montrose. Mrs. Penn has a linen pocket handkerchief, hemstitched, with the name Surratt embroidered in large script letters across the comer of it, which her step-mother, a Mrs. A.M. Higgins, was given by the owner, John H. Surratt. Some years later he secured a lucrative position with a Baltimore steamship company where he remained until just a short time before his death. He left a widow and several grown children, one of whom, William, is an attorney in the "Monumental" city.

On looking up the death notices some months ago when the writer was in Baltimore for that purpose, the protection of the Catholic church was shown by the information that a High Requiem Mass was to be said for the deceased and that the funeral would be private, interment would be at Bonnie Brae. As a matter of fact, the body was brought quietly to Washington and buried in the family lot at the left side of his mother.

The significance of this probably is that some day in the future the Roman Catholic church plans to erect a memorial to John Surratt and his Martyred mother. In a talk with the superintendent of Mt. Olivet cemetery as we stood by the graves, he proffered this information, he being himself a Catholic. "The hanging of this woman was one of the greatest crimes ever, committed. We would erect a monument to her in a minute, if we could." I asked him why they did not do it. He said: "We wouldn't dare now. The feeling for Lincoln is too strong." On pressing the matter further with him, I found that he had no personal knowledge of the case and knew nothing but what he had been told by his church.

Before closing this chapter I cannot but call your attention to God's Wondrous ways of just retribution. Contemplate the small lonely headstone, labeled merely "Mrs. Surratt" on the outskirts of the Roman Catholic Cemetery in Washington, the scene of her wicked work and within a gun shot of the magnificent white marble Lincoln Memorial as it stands overlooking the Potomac River, erected to the memory of the great American whom she and her priestly sponsors had tried so energetically to destroy because he was the living type of the triumph of Popular Government and every act of his beautiful, clean, upright public life was a stinging rebuke to the tyrannical, corrupt System, of which Mary E. Surratt, her son and the other papal assassins were legitimate products!

EXECUTING THE SECRET TREATY OF VERONA

Reverting to the Secret Treaty of Verona, we recall that the "high contracting parties," on being convinced that the system of representative government is incompatible with monarchial principles . . . engage mutually in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the system of representative government and to prevent it from being introduced in those countries where it is not yet known.

"Article 2. As it cannot be doubted that the liberty of the press is the most powerful means used by the pretended supporters of the rights of nations . . . the high contracting parties promise reciprocally to adopt all the proper measures to suppress it . . . ."

The process of destruction has gone on steadily from the assassination of the five presidents in the United States which begun in 1841, and has continued at intervals, and which finds us without a semblance of a free press.

After sixty years of activity by these foreign enemies within our borders what do we find?

We find a subversion of free speech; a subversion of a free press; we find a denial of the right of the American people to peaceable assemblage; we find the complete separation of Church and State, the very basis of our form of government being a dead letter; we find the freedom of conscience being attacked; we find our great IDEA of public education being viciously undermined and sapped by a great system of parochial schools wherein are taught the principles of the old concept of monarchial institutions.

And by whom is this concerted plan of destruction being carried on. principally?

By the priests and lay members of the Roman Catholic Church. Upon what authority is this work of subversion being operated? By the ex-cathedra mandates of the Popes of Rome, conveyed to their subjects in this country through Encyclical Letters. We find that the Roman Catholics who comprise less than one-sixth of the population, have been the dominating power in our political affairs and of late years have headed almost every national, state and municipal office from the President down to the dog catcher.

During the Wilson administrations the Army, the Navy, the Treasury, the Secret Service, the Post Office, the Emergency Fleet, Transports, Printing, Aircraft and dozens of others were presided over by Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus

The PLUNDERS of Hog Island and the Emergency Fleet under E. N. Hurley are matters of Congressional Record which mounted up into the millions.

Mr. Hurley is a Roman Catholic and Knight of Columbus.

The Aircraft Scandal under the supervision of John M. Ryan, ardent Roman Catholic and Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus, ran into the billions and was also subject of investigation.

Admiral Benson who was advanced in a most unusual and peculiar way by his sponsor Woodrow Wilson, is a Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus and violated the spirit and the letter of this Republican Government by accepting a foreign title from the Pope of Rome. Admiral Benson is a member of the Household of this alien ruler, who never has ceased to claim his right to temporal power for one moment since he was forced to relinquish it by the Italian People, Sept. 20, 1570.

This disloyal act has never been rebuked by the American people whom Admiral Benson is supposed to represent. Knighthood is not a spiritual acquisition, nor was it bestowed as such. It is a foreign title given in recognition of his service to the Pope of Rome who claims temporal sovereignty and allegiance from his subjects in every country. One of the aims of the Knights of Columbus is to restore the temporal power of the Pope.

The presence of these laymen of the Romish Church in our public offices is not accidental or incidental. They are there by the express command of their Pope, whom they are obliged to Obey "as God Himself." (See Leo XIIIth's Great Encyclicals, page 192.)

Roman Catholics are serving under a Citizenship diametrically opposed to American citizenship.

American Citizenship is based upon the contention that the only authority to rule must come from the consent of the governed.

Roman Catholic citizenship is based upon the negation of this. Leo XIII has this to say:

"The sovereignty of the people, however . . . is held to reside in the multitude; which is doubtless a doctrine exceedingly well calculated to flatter and inflame the many passions, but which lacks all reasonable proof, and all power of insuring public safety and preserving order." (page 123)
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Re: THE SUPPRESSED TRUTH ABOUT THE ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM

Postby admin » Fri Dec 25, 2015 9:50 am

LIBERTY OF SPEECH AND PRESS

"So too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing whatsoever each one likes, without hindrance . . . is the fountain head and origin of many evils." (page 123)

"The unrestrained freedom of thinking and openly making known one's thoughts is not inherent in the rights of citizens, and is by no means reckoned worthy of favor or support." (page 126)

"We must now consider briefly liberty of speech, and liberty of the press. It is hardly necessary to say that there can be no such right as this . . . ." (page 151)

"If unbridled license of speech and writing be granted to all, nothing will remain sacred and inviolate." (page 152)

So you see the Pope denies today the right to think. The Romanists of this country are obliged to obey and inculcate these treasonable principles. It is because of this citizenship that the Roman Church has established its gigantic parochial school system.

ATTEMPTING TO DESTROY THE FREE PRESS FITZGERALD BILL (H.R. 6468)

On December 17, 1915, Roman Catholic Representative John J. Fitzgerald. Knight of Columbus, of Greater New York introduced the following Bill:

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, that whenever it shall be established to the satisfaction of the Postmaster General that any person is engaged, or represents himself as engaged in the business of publishing any obscene or immoral books, pamphlets, pictures, prints, engravings, lithographs, photographs, or other publications, matter, or thing of an indecent, immoral, or scurrilous character, and if such person shall, in opinion of the Postmaster General, endeavor to use the Post Office for the promotion of such business, it is hereby declared that no letter, packet, parcel, newspaper, book, or other things sent or sought to be sent through the Post Office, or by or on behalf, of or to, or on behalf of such person, shall be deemed mailable matter, and the Postmaster General shall make the necessary rules and regulations to exclude such non-mailable matter from the mails."

The Record shows that Holy Names Societies of the Roman Catholic Church immediately became active and sent to their Representatives many petitions urging the enactment of these measures into laws.

"Liberty, then, as we have said, belongs only to those who have the gift of reason or intelligence." (Leo XIII the Great Encyclicals, page 137.)

And the priests claim the right to be the judge of those who would have the "Gift of reason or intelligence."

Roman Catholic citizenship is inimical to American citizenship. Roman Catholic citizenship is represented by the confessional box. American citizenship is represented by the BALLOT BOX.

ATTEMPTING TO DESTROY THE FREE PRESS
GALLIVAN BILL (H. R. 13778)

On March 27, 1916, Roman Catholic Representative James A. Gallivan of Boston, introduced the following:

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, that the Postmaster General shall make the necessary rules and regulations to exclude from the mails those publications, the avowed and deliberate purpose of which is to attack a recognized religion, held by the citizens of the United States or any religious order to which citizens of the United States belong."

In January, 1915, Representatives Fitzgerald and Gallivan had each introduced a Bill substantially identical with the Fitzgerald Bill herein before set out. At the hearing on those Bills before the House Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, Roman Catholic Representative James P. Maher, of Greater New York, stated frankly that the Bills had been introduced to shield sixteen million Roman Catholics and twenty thousand Roman Catholic priests from public criticism, by excluding, The Menace, the Yellow Jacket, and similar publications from the mails.

The above un-American citizens sponsored these Bills on the explicit instructions of their Church. Leo XIIIth commands them thus:

Furthermore, it is in general fitting and salutary that Catholics should extend their efforts beyond this restricted sphere (Municipal politics) and give their attention to national politics . . . . While if they hold aloof this would tend to the injury of the Catholic religion, forasmuch, as those would come into power who are badly disposed towards the Church, and those who are willing to befriend her would be deprived of all influence. (page 131)

These laymen, tools of the Romish Church would strangle our Press to prevent criticism of their religion and 20,000 bachelor fathers!

LEO XIII ON LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE

"Another liberty is widely advocated, namely the liberty of conscience. If by this is meant that every one may, as he chooses, worship God or not, it is sufficiently refuted by the arguments already adduced." (page 155)

"Hence follows the fatal theory of the need of separation of Church and State." (page 155)

"From this teaching, as from its source and principle flows that fatal principle of the separation of Church and State." (page 159)

"From what has been said, it follows that it is quite unlawful to demand, to defend or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, of speech, of writing, or of worship." (page 161)

And now let us see how well the Roman Catholic Church requires its members to observe and accept the above concentrated treason to our POPULAR GOVERNMENT.

The strangulation of a Free Press in this country is to be completed through legislation. We call your attention to the three Bills which the Knights of Columbus have been trying to engineer through for the past seven years under the photographs of the Pope's Catholic Citizens, Messrs. Fitzgerald and Gallivan and the papalized Hebrew, one, Isaac Siegal.

PEACEABLE ASSEMBLAGES DENIED IN THE UNITED STATES
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC MOB RULE

That the right of peaceable assemblage is almost a thing of the past in this country is proven by the numerous mobs instigated and led by the priests and Knights of Columbus and their hoodlums in the various cities from coast to coast.

The reader has seen from the foregoing quotations from the Great Encyclicals of Leo XIIIth that the right to think and to speak and liberty of conscience is absolutely prohibitive in CATHOLIC citizenship. In order to prove to you the existence of this divine right citizenship; and in order to prove to you that the members of the Roman Catholic church especially cannot and do not grant liberty of conscience to Romanists who have left the church, I call your attention to the following table of mobs and riots carried on by them:

June 12th, 1913, the Protestant people of Oelwein, Iowa, invited Jeremiah J. Crowley, ex-priest and author of The Parochial School: A Curse to the Church and a Menace to the Nation, to address them in the theatre of that town on the subject of the public school question. At the instigation of the Roman Catholic priest of that city who delivered his sermon the Sunday before the Crowley lecture, some two thousand Romanists led by the Knights of Columbus and their hoodlums, mobbed Mr. Crowley as he was leaving the theatre with some of his friends, and beat him severely.

April 14th, 1914, the Rev. Otis Spurgeon of Iowa, who had been called to deliver a course of lectures by Protestant Americans at Denver, Colorado, was kidnapped from the Pierce Hotel in that city at eight o'clock in the evening, bound hand and foot, gagged and a strap placed around his neck, and was thrown into an automobile parked in front of the hotel, whisked out into the country and beaten into unconsciousness. En route his captors told him they were Knights of Columbus and repeatedly during the trip when he refused to answer or did not answer as they wished, he was choked by the strap. (Strangulation cord.)

The Rev. Spurgeon was finally rescued, taken to a hospital where he was found to have sustained internal injuries and lay very ill for three weeks. The Rev. Spurgeon was a heretic and a Mason.

On Feb. 4th, 1915, Rev. Wm. Black, ex-priest, at that time a Congregational minister, was delivering a course of lectures, enroute to the California Coast, where he was to have testified that while he was a Roman priest and a Knight of Columbus he had taken the Jesuit oath on the Congressional Record cited heretofore. The Reverend Black had reached Marshall, Texas, where he was to deliver two lectures. He gave his first lecture on the public school question in the auditorium of the City Hall at Marshall, Feb. 3rd. About five o'clock in the evening on Feb. 4th, Mr. Black and his body guard, a Mr. J.A. Hall, ex-soldier and expert shot whom he took with him on his trip, were returning from a walk about the city. On reaching his door four men standing at the end of the corridor nearby approached him. They asked if he was Mr. Black and permission to come in and speak with him a few minutes. The Rev. Black opened the door and invited them in. The visitors first of all informed him that they were members of the Knights of Columbus Council of Marshall; that they understood that he intended to deliver another lecture "against their church" that night. Mr. Black assured them that they were correct. Then the spokesman, a prominent attorney, Ryan by name, said, "No you won't. We will give you just fifteen minutes to pack your suitcase and get out of town." Mr. Black coolly informed them that he intended to deliver his lecture; that he would relinquish his American constitutional rights for no man. On rising from a shoeblacking case where he had been sitting, John Rogers, a leading architect of that vicinity who had drawn up plans of the hotel in which they now were, sprang toward him, pinioned his arms and in shorter time than it takes to tell it, Black's body was riddled with bullets, and in the melee John Roberts' body fell across that of Blacks', being also instantly killed. Copeland, a leading banker the third Knight of Columbus—Catholic citizen—received a wound from which he will never fully recover and promptly received the consolations of his church in the corridor, outside the room where they carried him. It may be of interest to know that the priest was in the lobby of the hotel when Black and Hall entered to go to their room. Through political influence, these surviving K.C. participants in this cowardly assassination went free.

April 6th, 1915, the Rev. Dr. Joseph and Mary Slattery, ex-priest and ex-nun, of Boston, Mass., were called by Protestant Americans to deliver some lectures in Chicago, Ill. They were lecturing in a Masonic hall on the south side of the city. In the early part of Dr. Slattery's talk a mob of Roman Catholic hoodlums and members of the Knights of Columbus left their hall which was just across the street, entered the Slattery meeting and proceeded to start a riot in true Roman style, by calling Dr. Slattery "a liar." At a signal from a man wearing a Roman collar from which he drew a handkerchief which had concealed it, the riot started in earnest. Chairs and furniture were smashed, men and women were beaten indiscriminately and disfigured by the use of brass knuckles and black jacks. The telephone wires in the hall and even the nearby drugstores had been cut and it was fully three-quarters of an hour before they had any response from the Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus policeman. The speaker and his wife made a miraculous escape. The windows of the automobile in which they were driven were shattered by bullets. These Roman thugs entered street cars, attacked the passengers who had not been at the lecture and knew nothing about a riot. They pulled the trolleys off the wires and derailed and demolished several cars. So much for Roman Catholic citizenship in the great city of Chicago.

In Haverhill, Mass., April 4th, 1916, these Knights of Columbus and their hoodlums being summoned for the occasion from neighboring cities and towns, forced their way into the City Hall where a meeting was being held by Thos. E. Leyden, who was speaking upon the political activities of the Roman church in American politics. I will quote the headlines from some of the Massachusetts papers:

Boston Post:

BIG RIOT RAGES IN HAVERHILL
____________________

MANY BEATEN
MILITIA IS CALLED
_____________________

CITY HALL STORMED BY ANGRY MOBS
_____________________

WHILE REV. THOS. E. LEYDEN WAS HIDDEN
IN THE ALDERMAN'S CHAMBER
_____________________

10,000 IN WILD HAVERHILL RIOTS--MILITIA
CALLED OUT TO SUPPRESS MOB THAT
GETS BEYOND POLICE
______________________

City Hall and Police Station Attacked With Missiles Torn from Streets,
National Club Wrecked and Officer and Civilian Badly Beaten
______________________

EDITORIAL FROM THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JOURNAL,
BOSTON, APRIL 21, 1916
______________________

MOB LAW
______________________

The question of free speech is one of such fundamental importance to humanity that it is easy to understand the commotion which has been caused in the State of Massachusetts, by the recent riots in Haverhill. The contention that a mob with or without cause, is at liberty to usurp the prerogatives of the courts, and to substitute lynch law for official justice, constitutes, indeed, a precedent destructive of all popular liberty. The history of liberty is very largely the effort of authority to restrain license. When the human passions are roused license is always apt to come to the top.

There is no rhyme or reason in the attack of a mob. It is just as willing to smash a great invention like the spinning-jenny, for fear of the displacement of labor, as it is to stuff the mouth of a Foulon with straw. It is just this that makes the case of the mob in Haverhill so important. If its action is overlooked, if it is connived at, worse still if it is justified today, there is no length to which it may not go tomorrow, and the example set, in Haverhill, may be repeated elsewhere at the expense of the very views which the Haverhill exhibition was intended to support.

The simple fact is that the Haverhill mob outraged in the frankest and most indefensible way the common right of free speech. It is not of the slightest importance who Mr. Leyden was, what he was going to say, or what the effect of his words might be. He was entitled to speak, or he was not entitled to speak. If he was entitled to speak, no mob had any right to prevent him. If he was not entitled to speak, no mob had any right to decide the question and to enforce its own decision. In each event it outraged entirely the rights of free speech, the only difference is that in one case it outraged it rather worse than in the other.

RESOLUTIONS OF BAPTIST MINISTRY

The Protestant clergy of greater Boston have registered their protest against the outrage in no uncertain tones. Perhaps the most notable of these was the resolutions adopted by the Baptist ministers of greater Boston on April 10th. They were read by Professor F. L. Anderson of Newton Theological Seminary and were, in part, as follows:

"The plain, significant and undisputed fact is that an American citizen was denied the right of free speech, guaranteed by the constitution of Massachusetts, and that the authorities failed to protect him. That the mob was the result of a premeditated plan appears clear from the fact that the lecturer was not permitted even to begin.

"We want to know whether this sort of thing is to continue, whether it is possible that we are entering upon an era of Catholic tyranny in this state, whether henceforth in this state criticism of one church, and only one, is to be indulged in only at the risk of life and limb. We demand of the cardinal that he publicly state his attitude and enforce his authority in such a manner as shall make Catholic mobs impossible in this state. If the cardinal fails to accede to our demand, we shall know how to interpret his continued silence and shall act accordingly.

"We demand that the public authorities bring to justice the leaders of the mob and that the courts impose suitable punishment. A failure here will prove the constitution and laws of Massachusetts mere scraps of paper, and will forever debar our state, the nursery of liberty, from criticizing those Commonwealths where lynching goes unavenged. We say this advisedly, for, according to the beliefs of both our fathers and ourselves, liberty of speech is more precious than life.

"But more than this is required. The only adequate reparation which can be made for this public outrage is a public atonement. This, to our mind, should take the form of an arrangement with Mr. Leyden by the citizens of Haverhill, by which he shall speak in Haverhill on the topic already advertised, and shall be protected in his rights by the city and state at any cost. If he then transgresses the laws against slander or incendiary speech, let him be proceeded against by due process of law."

PROTESTANT MINISTERS SPEAK

The entire body of the Protestant clergy of Haverhill, thirteen in number, appeared before Mayor Bartlett and Commissioner Hoyt, on April 7, to protest against the outrage, the inefficiency of the police and the equally disgraceful failure of the department of justice to ferret out, arrest and punish the ring leaders of the mob.

The Rev. Nicholas Van der Pyl acted as spokesman for the ministerial body. In the course of his address he thus voiced the sentiments of the united Protestant ministry of Haverhill:

"I speak in behalf and by the authority of the entire Protestant clergy of the city of Haverhill.

"We deplore, and we feel indignant about the lawlessness which overran this city last Monday night. Our city has been disgraced before the country, and only the people of this city can remove the disgrace which is ours today.

"We are not bigots. We have the highest charity for all who worship God in their own way and according to the dictates of their own conscience.

"But we are also American citizens, and we are the accredited representatives of the morals and religious interests of this city. We hold inviolable the great principles of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, subject to the laws of libel and incendiarism, after the fact, which have been established by all the people, and which only the people can abrogate.

"A mob has overrun our city. Churches have been broken into and desecrated by that mob. The homes of unoffending and innocent citizens have been stoned. In some cases lives have been threatened and placed in jeopardy. We cannot forget so long as the mob is permitted to be victorious, and its leaders glowing in the fact that they have trampled under their feet the most sacred rights of all our people. We will not forget until the principle of free speech has been impressively vindicated by the law-abiding element of this community itself"

In point of fact the condition is this, that no ex-Romanist now in the field in this conflict in this country is granted his or her constitutional rights by the priests and prelates of the Roman Catholic church. There is not an ex-Catholic lecturer in the field today who does not take his or her life in their own hands every time they appear before an audience. Speaking from personal experience the writer has had several mobs, one of which was in the Pioneer Congregational church in Chicago, Illinois, where the following subjects were advertised:

"The Enemy within our borders."

"The Public vs. parochial schools."

"The Suppressed Truth about the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln."

The church early in the evening was surrounded by a mob of about 2,000 Catholics some of whom forced their way in and filled up the auditorium. After listening for about three quarters of an hour, at a whistle from the leader of the mob which was the signal to begin, windows were broken, chairs were smashed, literature torn and scattered all over the hall. In response to a riot call from the downtown station (police at that precinct there would not respond) two wagon loads of officers stepped out, all of whom but one were Knights of Columbus. I know this because they admitted it to me. Such wide publicity of my meetings has been given by the local and anti-Roman press of K. of C. mobs in San Francisco, Sept. 22nd and Sept. 26th, 1921, that it is not necessary to dwell on them.

Only a few weeks ago we read of the mobs of the meetings of the Baptist minister, ex-Monk Eli M. Erickson in Chicago, Ill., who speaks upon his conversion from Romanism to Protestantism. But again the priests of Rome denied Rev. Erickson his American rights. This mobbing is not confined to ex-Romanists. That splendid patriotic worker and eloquent lecturer, Wm. Lloyd Clark, of Milan, Illinois, has, in spite of Rome's vicious mobs, time without number, held the torch of American patriotism up for the last thirty-five years. For the most part he was almost single handed and alone. Mr. Clark has been rotten-egged, shot at, arrested and jailed, dozens of times, but he has never ceased to batter at these assassins of Liberty.

In closing, I will leave it to my reader to decide whether I have proven my contention in the beginning of this book that the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and four other presidents is but a part of the great conspiracy which was outlined in the Secret Treaty of Verona to destroy this the most formidable Republic.

That the execution of this conspiracy in Lincoln's case, was delegated by the Pope of Rome to the Jesuits aided and abetted by the priests of Canada and Washington, D.C., in the United States and their lay agents, the Leopoldines.

That instead of the use of bullets and bayonets, their method has been and is still, to destroy from within by the subversion of all of the free institutions upon which this Republic is based.

That the church of Rome has established a separate citizenship to promote its teachings and by its enormous wealth a large proportion of which has been obtained by unconstitutional and illegal appropriations from public funds; that with this wealth (over two and a half billion dollars worth of church and other religious property, for the most part exempt from taxation) it has by a system of intimidation and bribery corrupted our free press and is in control of every avenue of publicity, so that the American people remain in almost total ignorance of its pernicious activities, which, if not curbed, will succeed in accomplishing its object in these United States.

For the further information of the reader, allow me to impress it upon you, that the present Pope Pius Xlth is the Cardinal Ratti, whom the late Pope sent to Poland on the express mission of inducing the makers of the new constitution to restore the Roman church as the State church, a feat which the gentleman covered himself with papal glory, by accomplishing, an act no doubt, which earned him the Pontifical throne. Also remember that Pius XIth stands for just what all popes have stood for. That he stands against everything Freemasonry and Americanism represents. Solution—"Put only Americans on guard."
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