The third reaction against immigration was primarily anti-Catholic in trend. This was the A. P. A., or American Protective Association, another secret society, organized in 1887, which reached its greatest popularity in 1894 and 1895. At this same period there were several other societies with the same purpose, notably the National League for the Protection of American Institutions, which had a number of extremely prominent men among its members. At this time the so-called “new immigration” was growing strong, with its large numbers of Italian and Austrian Catholics, added to those of German and Irish origin already on the ground. The old fear of political domination by the Papacy, expressed at the time of the adoption of the first amendment to the Constitution, and then refuted, was again revived. There was an orgy of purported “confessions” of nuns and priests; there was circulated a forged oath of the Knights of Columbus, in which the members agreed to place the papal authority above their national allegiance; and a false encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. Thousands of patriotic Americans believed all this obvious nonsense, stirred up by the fear of a dominant Church; the A. P. A. had as many as two million members and threatened to drive out of public life the twelve million Catholics then in the country, without regard to their race, nation, service to America, or the number of generations they had lived in the United States. The mob spirit, once aroused, crystalized in the breaking of the Northern group mind of Civil War days into various sub-groups, Catholic, anti-Catholic and indifferent. But the financial panic of the 1890’s resulted in a sudden drop in immigration; the older settlers learned English and were absorbed into the American cultural group; the A. P. A. had no reason for existence, and again substantial unity was achieved by the mind of the American people.