New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1876-02-10
TIEN B4Ck IHE HiND.'."

Mr.. James T. IIamblctOn. the Democratic
Clerk of the Committee of Ways and Means of
the lIonse of Representatives., is an incisivc
writer Herewith We publish a communica-
ton from hinI-thc first we have reccived-on
4 subject which has been discussed considcra-
Div of late by the press Of the country.
In TIL, letter Mr. Hambleton says: "ln
"reply TO your first onslaught / au-
d" tborized your chief correspondent Ill this
"cIty to say that ! never had a child or any
ching else named John Wilkes Booth" 10
this he adds 81 now say for the last time
"that the allegation is false and malicious,
"and if The TRIBUNE has or can get any
"proof that !. or any member of my family,
lever named a child John Wilkes Booth. We
say give TO the public rithom de'ay
"who are your witnesses and what are
"they." This is a positive denial, and as we
understand it direct challenge. We enter
upon the work TO which We are invited III the
emphasis of Halic "wihOW deldy,' and offer
this morning the obituary notice of John w.
4. Uambleton as it appeared in The Washington
Patriot of July :, 1872. This ia the usual
death notice, as given by the family of the
decreased. Ii shows that so late rs 1872, when
Il was supposcd the era of reconciliation had
begun, Mr.. Hambleton had not dropped the
Booth from his sons christening, though it
was vailed under an initial The notice, we
believe, was the same in the other papers. We
have abundant testimony, al4o, that the child
was named Wilkes BooH;" that the child
and the child's nurse habitually gave his
name; that Mr.. or DR." IIambcton repeat
cdy called him Wilkes BooH and gave his
name az Wilkes BooM when inquired of, and
that il was a matter of some nOtorlety III
Atlanta and at Washington.
So it appears from this announcement that
in the month of March, 1866, nearly year
after the assassination of Mr.. Lincoln and the
close Of the war, this person pcrpctuatcd his
hatred for the Union, his murdcrous hatred for
the memory of Mr.. Lincoln, his strange adj
miraton for an assassin's deed, and his nm
accountable reverence for an asSassin's infamy,
by giving his child the assassin's name That
is ali there il to it, He has quibbled about
it, evaded the direct issue, prevaricated,
and at last sharply and squarely denied
it and demanded the proofs. We give
him without delay" the first installment
and we take leave to assure him, upon this his
first appearance III formal denial OF the
charge, that this ~ not " II crusade OF the anti
Democratic press" against HIM that it is
not BIPARTISAN and malicious aud that he
himself is of no consequence whatever ex-
cept as great party takes him
up and makes him in some sense
representative of its spirit and purpose. In
reply to his question whether there is any
" thing in either of the new amendments of
"the Constitution, the Reconstruction acts.
"acts of Congress, proclamations, or military
"orders that prohibits man from
"naming a child anything he chooses"
we answer unhcsitatinely there is not. He
may name his child Judas IscariOt OF Simon
Magus, and there is no law to prevent it
nothing but the sense of decency and some
sort of human feeling toward the child. But
we may add that, though there is no law against
it, there is in the heart of the American peo-
pie, South as well AZ North, among the ex-
Confederate as well as the cxFederal
soldiers, such high and holy hatred
for the cowardly act and the detested name Of
an assassin as will not allow the man who
filings in decent peoples faces this shameless
homage to Oh assassus memory to wear the