But last week, the 67-year-old Mr. Prescott took the stand in a Federal trial in Las Vegas and accused the United States of negligence.

He admonished us at all times that we must be searching, and be in a state of quest, because the Promised One was living amongst the people, was associating with them; but unfortunately the people were veiled and lived in a state of negligence.

Toll quotes the disgusted report of Britain's first resident ambassador to the United States, Anthony Merry, after being received at the White House in 1803 by a "slovenly" President Thomas Jefferson, "standing in slippers down at the heels ... in a state of negligence actually studied."