New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-10-20
LETTRR To A POLITICIAN

anu btIuRBlCu W oiuO Ava ~N
years. We have participated ardently in many
political struggles, always on different Sues
You were the pupil and protege OF van buren
and Silas Wright; 1 a disciple and follower OIL
Henry Clay. But this l will say for you, that
am confident you have never sought 10 enrlch
yourself by politics, or at the expense or the
public-that whatever of wealth you may nave
acquired or enjoyed was earned in your pro-
fession as a lawyer-and that your instincts
and your influence, partisanship apart nave
generally been felt on the side OF economy III
public expenditure and uprightness IN the con-
duct of public affairs. OF my course In these
respects, you are welcome to say whatever you
think true.
On one very important point however, your
bitterness as a partisan has impelled you
to ignore and come short of your duty as
a citizen and professed upholder of govern
ment by the People, and for this dereliction l
here arraign you. l allude to the preservation
of the purity of the Balot-bOx.
You and grew up in the country, and are
familiar with elections as there conducted.
We both know that, except in few districts
where the voters are all on one side. it is
| morally impossible that any considerable proper
JlOn OF I1dUuU1cUJ NOlcb buClC NC ppiNh'
For those who attend poll are nearly all well
known to each other and hardly ever is one
entitled to vote who is not known to be so to
men of each party. If one should offer vote
who is not so known, he is challenged and
questioned of course, and his answers will
convict him if n bogus voter. | do not believe
that the illegal vote in the rural districts was
ever one per cent. of the whole number polled,
even when there was no registration of legal
voters.
How different is the case in cities, and es-
pecally in this Babel, you very well know.
Long 40 you have lived on Gramercy Park.
and eminent in social position and fortune as
are the inhabitants of that favored locality,
you could not tell within twenty which of the
residents in sight of your front door are
and which are not entitled to vote; you
could not make a list Of the legal voters
residing on that square which would even APP
proach accuracy How it must be, then, with
the nomadic denizens of our "back slums"
and of our great tenement houses-how utterly
impossible il is that any one should know
which among them are and which are not le
gal voters, and whether the man who offers to
vote at II A. NJ at one poll has or has not
already voted several times at different polls,
and whether he is or is not on his way to vote
still oftener at other polls, you cannot help
knowing if you would. | can imagine how a
man may shut his eyes to many things which
he deems it convenient not to know; but ]
speak of what you must know, however you
may wish or seek to be ignorant of it.
The matter to which call your attention is !
vital TO the very existence of free, popular gov
eminent Whenever it shall be generally un-
derstood that the results of elections are not |
determined by the ballots of legal voters, but |
by frauds in voting or frauds in counting, then |
the advent of avOwed, unequiyocal despotism |
must be near at hand. Between the rule of an |
emperor and the rule of a clique of ballot-box- |
suffers, every intelligent man must prefer the |
former as less rapaciOus and more responsible. |
When honest citizens shall avoid the polls, |
asking "What is the use of voting7 The result !
is already fixed" the days of the Republic |
will be numbered. Between a ruler who pro- !
hibits voting altogether and the gang who make |
it q sham by filling the ballot-boxes with illegal |
votes, or mscounting those actually cast, the |
sway of the former is every way preferable.
Mr.. Tilden, / have been voting here for |
thrty-seven years, and an active politician for
more than thirty of them; and appeal to God |
for my sincerity and to my public record for
a witness that in all those years l have earn
estly sought and labored to have our elections
decided by legal votes and none other. Seeing |
how great are the temptations and the facilities,
under a Right of Suffrage so general as ours,
to poll illegal votes, | have openly and ac-
lively favored every effort to shut them out
and keep the suffrage pure and legal. That
every legal voter should have a full and fair
opportunity to vote once at each electiOn-that |
no one should be enabled to vote more than |
once-and that none but legal voters should /
be allowed or empowered to vote at all-such /
has been my constant aim. / have not con-
fined myself to barren professions, but have |
shown my faith by My works
How is it with you? You hold most re-
sponsible and influential position in the coun-
ellis of great party. You could make that |
party content itself with polling legal votes II
YOU only would. In our late Constitutional |
Convention, tried to erect some fresh barriers |
against election frauds; did you? The very |
little that was enabled to effect in this direc-
ton / shall try to have ratified by the People |
at our ensuing Election. Will you?
Mr.. Tilden, you cannot escape responsibility |
by saying, with the guilty Macbeth
Thou canst not say did it; never shake
Those CORY locks at mel
for you were at least passive accompllce Ill
the giant frauds of last November. Your name
was used, without public protest on your part
in circulars sowed broadcast over the State,
whereof the manifest intent was to make as
"surance doubly sure" that the frauds here
perpetrated should not be overborne by the
honest vote of the rural districts. And you,
not marelv nv silence but by positive assump-