From bigxc@prairienet.orgFri Jan 20 07:19:39 1995
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 95 23:44:18 CST
From: Brian Redman <bigxc@prairienet.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <conspire@prairienet.org>
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3 Num. 51


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3  Num. 51
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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THE STRANGE CAREER OF JOHN F. PARKER
Synopsis based on chapter of same title in *Why Was Lincoln 
Murdered?* by Otto Eisenschiml (New York: Halcyon House, 1937)
 
 
[CN --To begin, the connection between Parker and the White House 
seems to have been Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Details as 
to this particular will appear further below.]
 
"Parker was born on May 19, 1830, in Frederick County, Virginia. 
He later became a carpenter in the city of Washington, and 
enlisted in the army shortly after the outbreak of the [civil] 
war. When the Metropolitan Police Force was organized in 
September 1861, he became one of its first patrolmen."
 
"About a year after joining the Force, he was charged with 
conduct unbecoming an officer and with the use of violent, coarse 
and insolent language... Parker took personal offense [at remarks 
made by a superior to a fellow officer,] thinking that the 
remarks had reference to himself. In clearing the case, the 
Police Board found that Parker had shown a disposition to be 
insubordinate. 'The language he used,' says the report, 'was 
exceedingly violent and disrespectful, and, if permitted to be 
continued, must lead to insubordination.'... [Parker] was 
reprimanded and transferred to another precinct."
 
"On March 16, 1863, Parker again found himself before the Police 
Board, charged with willful violation of the rules and 
regulations, and with conduct unbecoming an officer. This time he 
was accused not only of having used highly offensive language... 
but also of having visited a house of prostitution... It was 
stated that he had been intoxicated, that he had been put to bed, 
and that he had fired a pistol through the window."
 
"Parker once more ran afoul of the police regulations only a 
fortnight later. This time he was accused of being found asleep 
on a street car when he should have been walking his rounds..."
 
"Scarcely three months passed before Parker had to appear before 
the Police Board again." He had been charged with using insulting 
language to a lady who had tried to lodge a complaint.
 
Then, strangely enough, in April 1865, a request was made in his 
behalf that he be detailed for duty at the White House.
 
Most other White House guards had "been picked from the ranks of 
the oldest police officers of Washington, and, so far as the 
files show, they were among the best behaved and the most 
respected members of the Force... How then, did a man of John F. 
Parker's character find his way into this select company?"
 
The mystery deepens: "Parker was chosen for his duty as bodyguard 
by none other than President Lincoln's own wife... What prompted 
the wife of the President to make this unusual request in behalf 
of an obscure and mediocre patrolman like Parker will probably 
remain a moot question."
 
[CN -- Moot to an extent. It is doubtful that Mrs. Lincoln would 
have requested Parker on her own initiative. How would she have 
known Parker? Why would she have bothered having him transferred 
to the White House even if she had somehow become acquainted with 
him? From my knowledge of Mrs. Lincoln, she was much more 
interested in the latest fashions and in social occasions.
   I consider it more likely that some "power behind the scenes" 
persuaded Mrs. Lincoln that Parker should be appointed.]
 
"Historians have touched but lightly on the fact that [President 
Lincoln] was accompanied by an armed bodyguard [Parker] on the 
night of his assassination... [Parker's] orders were to stand at 
the entrance of the box [at Ford's Theater] and to permit no 
unauthorized person to enter it..."
 
Parker at first stayed at his assigned post. But then his 
curiosity got the better of him and he wandered away in order to 
catch a glimpse of the play, "Our American Cousin"! [Cf. *The 
Lincoln Conspiracy* by David Balsiger and Charles E. Sellier, 
Jr.] During the intermission, Parker went downstairs to a nearby 
tavern for some drinks. From this point until his being shot, 
Lincoln had no assigned bodyguard. His back was totally 
unprotected when John Wilkes Booth crept up behind him and fired 
the fatal shot.
 
"What Parker did immediately after the assassination has not been 
definitely ascertained." He showed up at police headquarters at 6 
a.m.
 
"Even those only superficially acquainted with the history of the 
Civil War period would probably surmise that this policeman, 
guilty of criminal neglect while on important duty, was promptly 
court-martialed and executed. Stanton was in complete control of 
the situation and, without Lincoln's gentler hands to stay him, 
one would have expected the austere Secretary of War to make sure 
that the delinquent officer was summarily dealt with."
 
"But Stanton did exactly nothing. Parker was not shot; nor was he 
court-martialed. He not only kept his life, he also kept his 
position. He was not reprimanded, not dismissed, not even 
immediately relieved of his White House appointment. This 
inexplicable failure on the part of the authorities to act 
brought forth no burst of indignation from the populace. It 
elicited no diligent research among questioning newspapermen..."
 
"Mrs. Lincoln herself believed that Parker was involved in the 
conspiracy to murder her husband."
 
Parker was transferred back to his regular police beat. On 
November 22, 1865 a complaint was filed against Parker for 
unbecoming conduct.
 
Finally, after being found asleep on his beat he was discharged 
from the Force on August 13, 1868, for "gross neglect of duty."
 
"Parker's last offense was perhaps the least important one among 
his many infringements... Yet the official axe fell promptly and 
relentlessly..."
 
"A few weeks prior to Parker's dismissal, Secretary of War 
Stanton had finally been ousted from his position, and had 
returned to private life."
 
[CN -- So, the Stanton connection: there are two connections 
here.
   1) Why wasn't Parker court-martialed for deserting his post? 
There was a civil war on and Washington, DC was under martial 
law. Stanton, normally very strict, did nothing.
   2) Parker was routinely getting in trouble with his superiors 
yet received no substantive punishment. *Then*, with Stanton (his 
protector? part of the plot, along with Parker?) gone, Parker is 
almost immediately fired for a relatively minor offense.]
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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    Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"        
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