"What brought this commonplace and transparent mountebank to her present high estate...? The answer, it seems to me, is as plain as mud. For years she had been wandering about the West, first as a side-show barker, then as a faith healer, and finally as a cow-town evangelist. One day, inspired by God, she decided to try her fortune in Los Angeles. Instantly she was a roaring success. And why? For the plain reason that there were more morons collected in Los Angeles than in any other town on earth..., and she was the first to give it anything low enough for its taste and comprehension....

[It] must be manifest to any fair observer that there is very little merit in the case against her. What she is charged with, in essence, is perjury, and the chief specification is that ,when asked if she had been guilty of unchastity, she said no. I suggest that no self-respecting judge in the Maryland Free State, drunk or sober, would entertain such a charge against a woman, and that no Maryland grand jury would indict her. It is unheard of, indeed, in any civilized community for a woman to be tried for perjury uttered in defense of her honor. But in California,... the process of justice is full of unpleasant novelties....

...It will be a hard job, indeed, to find twelve men and true to send her to the hoosegow. Unless I err grievously, God is with her." -- H. L. Mencken (1926)