I have two thoughts after reading Monday morning’s historical essay concerning the Know Nothing Party, nativism and prejudice against Maine’s Irish Catholics in the 1850s:

• Thank you to Joseph Owen for this especially informative historical article. I read these consistently and have better perspective and knowledge because of them.

• I usually cringe at Owen’s use of the present tense for his essays. But that column is different, for what has really changed since the 1850s? And the present tense is, sadly, too appropriate to current circumstances.

Gregory Bianconi, Lisbon Falls