New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-10-30
REGLSrRLRS IND RIGHTS.

We have been working and voting at cleo
tons in this City and vicinity for the last
thirty seven years-having failed to vote at no
State Election from that of 1882 inclusive; and
we never heard working politician suggest u
doubt that a great many illegal votes are polled
at every sharply contested election and con-
siderable number at any and every election.
Men who have been behind the scenes IN
Tammany Hall, but who have seeded from
the Democratic party, are uniformly most ear
nest and emphatic in insisting that Fraud
IS the most effective weapon in the Tammany
arsenal-that to watch for, expose, arrest, and
defeat, Illegal Voting is the most important
work to be done in opposing the 1ammany
Ring. These men know whereof they affirm.
They know not only that great frauds are
habitually committed, but by WhOm, and to
what end. So the Editor of The World,
being accused by The Leader of not voting
last Fall, promptly responded that he did vote,
and, while doing so, was a witness to the
perpetration of shameless and cunning frauds"
whereby the popular verdict was vitated. He
named William M. Tweed and A. Oakley
Hall as the responsible authors of those
frauds. Hov did he knOw OF course, those
magnates were not in sight when he saw those
frauds perpetrated. Why did he not attribute
them to the Republicans ? Why not suggest
that both parties were implicated therein Be
cause he knew better. He might as plausibly
haze accused our Roman Catholic Archbishop
of founding Protestant churches. lie sac the
frauds committed; he did not see their inst-
gators; but he knew them just rs well as
though he had seen them. 1t was like the
experienced detective, who, having examined
a fresh job OF burglary, quietly turns to his
associate and says, " This is Bill Sykes's work"
He infers the doer from the thing done and
the fashion of doing.
There has been no hour since we first voted
when we would not have gladly made the
Democratic wire-workers a liberal allowance
in the count if we could thereby have induced
them not to cheat. And on the other hand, we
never met an active, Jealous Democrat who
even professed to desire that an eitectual stop
be put to illegal voting, whether by aliens,
minors, or "repeaters." And never yet has
bill been submitted by a Democrat to New
York Legislature which even seemed to con-
template the suppression of illegal voting. You
might as well expect the Pope to prohibit say
ing mass.
On the other hand no bill has ever been
submitted to d New York Legislature whereof
the object was the erection of barriers against
illegal voting which was not fercely and yio-
lently denounced by Democratic journals
and speakers. No matter what were its pro-
visions, such bill was stigmatzed as AN attempt
to embarrass and prevent the exercise of the
Right of Suffrage by the humble and poor.
We are tired of fighting the tools by which
this gigantic iniquity is committed. We de-
nounce the respectable bankers, mer-
chants, lawyers &C., who vote the Democratic
ticket, as the responsible authors OF
this persistent crime against Human
Liberty and Popular Government That the
receiver is as bad as the thief" is legal
maxim whose justice none but the guilty
has ever questioned and, so long as these
brOadclOth Democrats persist in sharing the
unholy gains of their less circumspect c0nfed-
crates, we shall regard them as the law regards
the silent partners in a burglary. For, IL they
desired to have elections honestly conducted
and their results fairly decided by legal votes
alone. they would unite in devising and enact
ing measures calculated TO secure those ends.
Wholesale cheating al. elections viii 10 stoRRed