Fiddled

All but one of the senators of the U. S. last week received the following invitation: "My dear Senator: Having recently received a famous fiddle, you are most cordially invited to attend my first public recital, to be given from the top of the Washington Monument, this city, on the evening of St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1928, at 8 o'clock. I desire to show the world that having out-Neroed Nero in persecuting and denouncing that hated sect of Roman Catholics, I can also equal if not surpass him as a fiddler. Very truly yours, J. Thomas Heflin."

The ninety-sixth senator had, at the same time, received a package and a document from "The Kleagles of the Hooded Knight, Central Falls, R. I." The package looked very much like an encased violin, which the document said it was. But the ninety-sixth senator--Senator James Thomas ("Tom Tom") Heflin, of Alabama, who mortally hates and fears the Roman Pope--was not deceived. Speedily he notified his colleagues that he had issued no invitation of any sort. Pointing at the package, with fearful, hoarse solemnity he said: "It may be a bomb, or worse! Some of my friends warned me that it might be a deadly germ carrier. I will not be picked up by any of the tricks of the Jesuits."

The Post Office, the Department of Justice and chemists of the Naval Laboratory were asked to trace out the dark roots of a dastard, sinister conspiracy. To marveling callers, Senator Heflin showed how, had he tucked the fiendish violin under his massive chin, he might have inhaled microbes. He then answered a question that had puzzled many people--why he is allowed to live.

"The day that I am murdered," he said, "100 priests in the South will be marked for death. Al Smith will be dead within 24 hours of my death. The Catholics know this. That is why they hesitate to murder me."