October 17, 2012 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 15 ments in a case that had nothing to do with Lowry. Now they would seem to be feuding. I trust Lowry because he is a friend of mine, and provided one of the three handwriting analyses in my book, “Custer Survivor.” Lowry independently came to the same conclusion as former Wyckoff Police Chief John Ydo and former Ridgewood Chief of Detectives Keith Killion: The handwriting of a 27-year-old soldier who enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1872 was extremely similar to the handwriting of a 66-year-old farmer who claimed to have ridden away from Custer’s Last Stand and had two gunshot wounds to prove it. Height, hair color, eye color, and bilingual abilities in English and German strongly suggested Frank Finckle was a Custer survivor. Screams of outrage burst forth from people who had studied Custer’s Last Stand for decades and never bothered to check the handwriting samples from 1872 and 1921. The fact that I understood research and they did not made me the villain of the hour. People attached one-star reviews to the website to drag down the excellent professional reviews. One cited Lowry as a reason to dismiss the handwriting analysis. One man who works sporadically for the National Park service claimed to have spoken with a relative of the “real” Sergeant Finckle from Germany who was indignant about the whole thing and said his dead ancestor was a hero who died killing Indians for America. I asked for the indignant German’s address or telephone number. He lost them. I asked for his first name. He forgot it. As it happens, the German Wikipedia site, which I discovered after the book was in print, tells the same story my book does: Finckle was born in Ohio of German ancestry and was not a “German.” The same guy got back through a surrogate a year later and claimed he had a photograph of the “real” Sergeant Finckle, who was not the same person as the farmer in my book. What happened to Lowry was far worse. With his name on a confession, he was treated to the sort of scorn usually reserved for war criminals. He submitted to a polygraph test, which confirmed he had not forged the signature. Nobody listened. They should listen now. I will not judge any man before the court does, but it sounds like the two people behind Lowry’s self-imposed conviction needed a culprit and pursued a conviction without regard to actual guilt or innocence. Sometimes, doing injustice becomes the primary goal. In Norfolk, a police detective already notorious for bullying suspects coerced four sailors into confessing to the murder of a sailor’s wife. The detective promised to spare them the death penalty if they admitted to the crime, which they did not commit. The detective knew this because, among other things, their DNA was all wrong, though he never told them. Some retired FBI agents and lawyers took an interest after the guilty party wrote in from prison and confessed, and his DNA and description matched. The four bullied sailors are now trying to put their lives back together, and the crooked detective is facing time in prison. Such is the state of justice in some parts of America. Why would any man turn on Lowry when his whole life has revolved around patriotism, scholarship, and generosity with his time and advice? Envy -- sheer envy by those who cannot get published. I took a few slap shots myself when I urged that Lowry’s self-defense be taken seriously, especially after the polygraph test came down on his side. One hero of research banned me from his blog. I cannot say what terror coursed through my veins when I heard this, but it was only a momentary Elba, not the final arsenic. I’m still out there taking my five-star reviews from honest people who know the subject and one-star reviews from people who wish they were General Custer but lack his charisma and courage. I cannot say that Lowry was not guilty of the Lincoln forgery. I can only say that the weight of evidence increasingly makes it look as if he were framed. If he is proven innocent, the National Archives should give the Lowrys a couple of comfy chairs with good natural light and let them get back to work. The people who framed them, if such people are shown to exist, should also be given some federal accommodations. Maybe they can work in the library. The sun never sets on our national fascination with Abraham Lincoln, which has taken some sharp turns, but none wilder than what just appeared in The New York Times. Last year, two federal officials accused Dr. Thomas Lowry, author of many Civil War books, of forging the date on a Lincoln pardon to make it look as if the pardon were the last official document Lincoln ever signed before his assassination at Ford’s Theatre. Lincoln had spared Private Patrick Murphy from the firing squad after Murphy’s courtmartial for desertion, but Lincoln did this in April of 1864 -- a full year before his own murder. Dr. Lowry featured this later-war pardon in his book, “Don’t Shoot That Boy!” Years later, someone noticed that when the date on the pardon was magnified, an obvious but simple forgery was apparent. The date had been charged from 1864 to 1865. The National Archives defense team subsequently produced a signed confession. Dr. Lowry -- a retired MD and former U.S. Air Force psychiatrist whose father and son both served as U.S. officers -- claimed almost immediately that the confession, which he admitted signing, was produced by mental and emotional coercion. Dr. Lowry said he was told that everybody knew he did it, but if he admitted doing it, there would be no repercussions whatsoever. Dr. Lowry’s wife, Bev, whom he adores and depends on for research, was experiencing medical problems under the same roof as the interrogation. In order to get the government men out of the house, Lowry says, he signed the confession that he had forged the date, adding perhaps dryly that he had done it with a special brown pen. Pens are not allowed in the National Archives, where all notes must be taken in pencil. Lowry obviously knew that. The National Archives then went public with the fact that they had finally caught the now-notorious Lincoln pardon forger. Lowry was banned from the National Archives for life -- a great way to prevent research that might disrupt people’s delusions of the Lost Cause and the Halcyon Heroes of the North and the South. The Lowrys had moved from the San Francisco Bay area a decade before at considerable expense and inconvenience so they could spend the remainder of their lives researching the Civil War and writing books about America’s bloodiest conflict. The ban from the National Archives hit them hard, but what hit them harder was that so many minor-league Civil War bloggers attacked Lowry as if he had just been caught selling information to the Taliban. Last week, The New York Times reported that the second of the two federal officials most responsible for producing the Lowry “confession” had been placed on administrative leave with pay after multiple allegations of misconduct and an investigation. The first man on leave charged his supervisor, who reportedly masterminded the effort to find the forger, with altered audits, providing law enforcement information to news personnel without the approval of the law enforcement agencies, and making vulgar comments. The top guy to be placed on administrative leave had earlier shared considerable praise with the junior man placed on administrative leave when they recovered stolen docu- Character assassination in the National Archives Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: My purpose in writing today is to ask all who read this to please elect Eileen Avia to the Wyckoff Township Committee as she is well-prepared to serve. A resident for more than 30 years, Eileen is very familiar with the importance of volunteer organizations in our town as she has served on the ambulance corps, co-president of the Economy Shop, president of Partners in Pride, and as a leader in Scouting. Eileen believes that serving our town is a privilege, and that is why she is pushing for the final elimination of the township committee stipend to further save tax dollars. To improve transparency, she will work to have our township committee and land-use board meetings televised on our public access channel. Eileen is a proven, independent decision maker who will serve with integrity. Free of ties to special interest groups, Eileen will encourage the appointment of residents with diverse views to our land-use boards, and work to deter over-building. Because of her work with young families and seniors in our community, Eileen understands very well the impact of property taxes on our ability to stay in our homes and will work to keep taxes as low as possible. On Nov. 6, I’ll be casting my vote for Eileen Avia for Wyckoff Township Committee in Column 2. Sandra Spizzeri Wyckoff Urges support for Avia are before consideration of health insurance and retirement benefits. They have allowed a “Princeton Plan” study that would replace neighborhood schools to divide our community. The Record quoted one of them as calling Governor Christie a bully for demanding fiscal responsibility. They attempted to circumvent fiscally prudent salary caps and allowed spending increases without taxpayer input. In February, sensing that their leadership would result in their removal from office, in a divisive 5-4 vote they extended their own terms in office while eliminating the taxpayers’ ability to vote on our school budget. Over the last three years, they have allowed excellent teachers and administrators to depart for other districts and teacher morale to wane while parents have continued in large numbers to remove their children from our public schools. On Nov. 6, I urge you to vote for Michael Ben-David, Shirley Hermansen-O’Reilly and Evros Vassiliou. To learn more about them, visit www.k8boe.org. Jacque Cipolla Franklin Lakes Dear Editor: The incumbent candidates for the Franklin Lakes K-8 Board of Education have demonstrated that they should not be reelected. They professed to be fiscally responsible, yet this year, Franklin Lakes taxpayers are on the hook for well over $300,000 for the principal’s position at Woodside School, $200,000 for a superintendent with little track record of success, $157,000 for a director of curriculum with no background in math or language arts, $1,000 per day for a math specialist to help the curriculum director, and over $60,000 for a teacher to help the curriculum director with language arts. And these compensation amounts Supporting Ben-Davis, Hermansen-O’Reilly, & Vassilou Dear Editor: My name is John Carolan, and I am seeking your support in the election for the Wyckoff Board of Education. I am well-positioned to balance our very strong academic standards with the current realities faced by all taxpayers. We are fortunate in Wyckoff to have an outstanding and award-winning program that makes our community a highly desirable place to raise a family. In fact, the school system was the main reason my wife and I chose Wyckoff as our home, and we have two children in the school system. I’m also a taxpayer, however, and I understand that we all have budgets we must work within. Our recent economic challenges have been stressful on many of our residents, especially our seniors who live on fixed incomes. Wyckoff is a community that has always valued spending its tax dollars wisely, and part of that fiscal responsibility lies with the board of education since the school tax is the largest part of our tax bill. (continued on page 21) Seeking support for school board race