 James Cardinal Gibbons, perhaps the most prominent American prelate at that time, was sympathetic to the labor.A copy of a letter Gibbons sent to the Propaganda in February 1887 opposing condemnation of the Knights of Labor wound up published the following month in the New York "Herald".This increased the tension between Gibbons and Corrigan, although the influential Cardinal Manning of Westminster expressed support for Gibbons's views.