A meeting of the Society was held on the 7th of March in reference to this vandalism, and it was resolved to offer a reward to discover the perpetrators. Accordingly, the following advertisement appeared in the "Daily National Intelligencer" on March 8th:
"$100 REWARD. The Board of Managers of the Washington National Monument Society will pay the above reward of $100 for the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who, on the night of the 5th instant, stole and destroyed a block of marble contributed to said Monument."
This advertisement availed nothing as to the discovery of the guilty persons. It was understood to have been the work of persons belonging to the party styled "Know-Nothings;" one of their professions being opposition to the Roman Catholic Church and any political preference of its members. It was not thought the persons were generally depraved characters, but, on the contrary, were supposed to be identified with the respectable part of the community. From the time of the reception of this stone from Rome by the Society until its destruction, there had been frequent expressions in a portion of the daily press in opposition to its being placed in the Monument, and the Society had received many protesting letters and, in some instances, long petitions from various parts of the country, numerously signed, urging that the stone be not used by the Society, as it was representative of the Roman Church, &c.
"We, the undersigned, citizens of ----, in the State of New Jersey, believing the proffer of a block of marble recently made by the Pope of Rome to this country for the Washington Monument to be totally inconsistent with the known principles of that despotic system of government of which he is the head; that the inscription, 'Rome to America,' engraved upon it, bears a significance beyond its natural meaning; that the construction is an artful stratagem, calculated to divert the attention of the American people for the present from his animosity to republican institutions by an outward profession of regard; that the gift of a despot, if placed within those walls, can never be looked upon by true Americans but with feelings of mortification and disgust; and believing that the original design of the structure was to perpetuate the memory of Washington as the champion of American liberty, its national character should be preserved, do therefore most earnestly protest against the placing of said stone within the Monument, or any other stone from any other than a republican government."