Recently, the United States Historical Society announced its intention to place a statue of Lincoln in Richmond, VA., as a remembrance for his visit to the city late in the Civil War. Unsurprisingly, this got the usual suspects - in particular the neo-confederate bigots over at the Sons of Confederate Veterans (a one-time somewhat respectable organization which has been taken over by a gaggle of white supremacists. See this post for a variety of links about this).
Attempts to prevent the statue from being placed there haven't been too successful. Opponents have used rhetoric such as "A statue to this politician is no more appropriate in Richmond than one celebrating Sherman who burned Atlanta to the ground or one glorifying the evil Third Reich to Hitler in Tel Aviv."
So, they took the next step and decided to go after the organizers. A campaign to impugn the integrity of the organization running it was began. Calls to investigate the non-profit status were made, whipped up in part by an investigative piece by the Washington Times, and encouraged by Virginia Republican Congressman Virgil Goode:
The findings confirm suspicions articulated by Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., Virginia Republican, who sent a letter to Fran Mainella, director of the National Park Service, asking her to investigate the matter. Mr. Goode said he was concerned that the similarly named U.S. Historical Society — a true nonprofit organization that markets historical replicas — is directing payment to its for-profit sister, the United States Historical Society, which exists only in name, which is owned by the for-profit corporation, FKAO Inc.
The latest development is that a website "dedicated to airing allegations of fraud against the underwriters of a statue of Abraham Lincoln was shut down Wednesday after the statue's sponsors complained."
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According to the anonymous Web site, U.S. Historical Society also calls itself United States Historical Society. However, state corporation records list the latter as a "fictitious name"--that is, a trade name used legally by a business registered under another name--belonging to FKAO Inc., which is registered as a for-profit company. FKAO, in turn, was known at one time as Omnia Corp.
Malone said that Robert Kline had been associated with Omnia but sold all of his interest in it in 1994. At present, he said, there is no relationship between the society or its officers and FKAO. He stressed that the society is not misleading anyone about how the money it raises through the sale of replicas is to be accounted for and spent--it will go to fund the statue.
Note that the Bragdon Bowling mentioned at the end of the last article linked is a member of the "John Wilkes Booth camp [chapter]" of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
To be continued...
(thanks to Mac Diva for some of this information)