Dayton daily empire. [volume] (Dayton [Ohio]) 1850-1865, 1865-03-16
Administration viIIaIny.
from the QoyAD cincinhatl Gaze ts
rnE BAEER CONSPIRACY.

N
The mission ol Coll Baker. the War De.
partments oniei detective officer, TO New
York to break up the enlistment frauds, seem
ed like large application Of the rule which
bohooses the most expert rogues for detective
purposes and it appears that he has carried
it out 10y opening u false recruiting office,
aud paying iul bounties TO all comers, with
uulimiled opportunities to desert, aud by call
ing the bounty brokers about his pretended
recruiting office, and showing them how loose
ly il was carried on, and how there we're no
questions asked, and no gnard kept, and how
the recruiting officers we're wholly corrupt
aud would share in any manner OF fraud.
Alter the trap bad been thus bated lor sew.
eral days, it was sprung, and the catch is re-
ported as 500 or GOO bounty recruits, who are
set down as bountyjumpers, and twenty seven
bounty-brokers, 1t is heralded as great
stroke of geuius in Colonel Baker. 1t appears
to us great stroke Of rascality, carried out
at nm enormous cost to the Government
Law does not justify conspiracy to make
men commit crime, by surrounding them with
peculiar temptations, in order TO convict
them. The person who does this is the prin.
cipal in the crime, and should be treated as
such
The business of bounty broker is not
crime, and the fact that persons are known as.
bounty.brokers, is no reason for seizing them
in body and sending them to a military
prison. The recruits whom Baker seized had
not deserted from that enlistment, therefore
he has no evidence against them except the
fact that they enlisted (it may be honestly,
and that he enlisted them for a trick The
affair disgraces the Government II has
committed crime instead of detecting aud
correcting it.
The greater part of the enlistment frauds
all over The country exist by the rascslity of
the recruiting officers II was known to be
the case, especially in New York before Blkor
went there Yet his energies have all been
directed to trapping outside parties ltis the
general observation that there is some inau-
ence which protects Provost Marshals in the
most notorious corruption.
What hes Baker accomplished by this trck2
Does be hope TO abolish the race Of bounty
jumpers or deserters by batting them with
bounties and abilities to desertP He has not
caught any Of the deserters, They are at
large with their bait in their pockets, while he
has caught only those who enlisted, and who,
so far as he knows, enlisted honestly. He en-
listed them dishonesty, and therefore treats
them as criminals Is the rule to be set up
that any one who enlists for the hounty is TO
bCseeated ~ criminal2 .t.
Y He has expended, it is said, about mil
lion dollars in these sham boupties, a large
part of which is in the pockets Of men who
we're furnished facilities to desert lie has
made parade Of nabbing several hundred
enlisted men against whom he has no evi.
denoe ofau intention to desert, and whom he
has seized twenty-seven bounty y.broksrs whom
he can accuse of no crime that he WAS not
principal in .H.l
1t is said that he will send these recruits to
General Grant as deserters to be placed in
the front rank in the FIRST battle. This con
spiracv will not be likely to help recruiting in
New York. Il is stated that all the bounty
Jumpers hus baited aud encouraged to es-
cape and all who enlisted and are held will
be credited on the quota of New York Thus
the Government expeuds million in CON
spiracy to make men commit crime, encour-
ages hundreds of bountied recruits 10 desert,
treats the recruits that did not desert as Grim
iDRls, and counts them all on New York's
quota tits the most rascally brilliant opera
ton Of this age.