Page 18 THE VILLADOM TIMES III • October 17, 2012 lier shared considerable praise with the junior man placed on administrative leave when they recovered stolen documents 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 court-martial 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 minorleague 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 ear- Character assassination in the National Archives Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: On behalf of the Upper Saddle River Mayor and Council and the USR Recreation Commission, I would like to thank everyone that participated in this year’s USR Day, held on Sept. 9. Even with the date change to Sunday due to the weather, we had over 2,000 in attendance. Evidenced by the children running around, the crowds under the tent, and the amount of food consumed, this year’s picnic was once again a success. We would like to thank and acknowledge Mayor Joanne Minichetti and the council, Borough Administrator Ted Preusch, Borough Clerk Rose Vido, USR Day Chairperson Esau Ali, and all the members of the recreation commission who were responsible for organizing this annual event. Superintendent Bob Fleshman and the DPW worked long and hard, as did the police department, ambulance corps, fire department, and rescue squad. We are also indebted to Martin Shames, and the Boy Scouts, Girls Scouts, Lions Club, Rotary Club, and the board of education. We would also like to thank all the volunteers who worked that day as well as during the weeks leading up to the picnic for their hard work. A very special thank you to our sponsors who helped make this wonderful event possible: Columbia Bank, Inserra ShopRite, Secor Farms, and the SRV Jewish Community Organization. See everyone again next year! Ed Gartner, Recreation Director Upper Saddle River Dear Editor: Ho-Ho-Kus needs smart, hard working, creative public servants, who have working experience with our school, administration, and board of education. Our support this November is with the two board of education candidates who have been spending their time working hard as volunteers at the Ho-Ho-Kus School: Mary Ellen Nye and Cinzia D’Iorio. Those of us who have had the pleasure of working alongside Mary Ellen and Cinzia have seen firsthand their commitment to the school and our children. Mary Ellen is a lifelong Ho-Ho-Kus resident who has served tirelessly over Community Day was a success! the years as a school volunteer, Scout leader, and board of education member since 2010. Cinzia has been an active Ho-Ho-Ku School volunteer since 2001, including a nineyear stint as a board member of the Ho-Ho-Kus Education Foundation, serving both as vice president and president during her tenure. Under Cinzia’s leadership, the foundation raised the funds to put SmartBoards in the classrooms, significantly upgrade technology resources, and establish the HHK TV studio at the school. These two candidates have proven track records. Consider this letter a grassroots campaign to build support for proven leadership at a challenging economic time for our community and school. Please join us in supporting Mary Ellen Nye and Cinzia D’Iorio for Ho-Ho-Kus Board of Education. Furthermore, if you share our support for proven leadership, talk to your friends and neighbors about the importance of this election. In this new world of intrusive “robocalls” for board of education seats, we need instead to be talking about what is truly important for our board of education: experienced and hard-working members who have a successful track record of getting important work done for our school and our children. Janelle and Jay Leonard Ho-Ho-Kus Urges support for Nye and D’Iorio