Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1869-10-08
WAS IT FRAUDS

WAS IT A FRAUD?
We have before us an elaborate prin-
ted letter of Judge Ranney's which he
has put forth in vindicaIion OF his course.
In reference to the in which hi
name was brought before the public as
that Of an independent candidate this
makes the following new and
startling statements:
Influenced by the wishes, of very
many good and true Republicans, whn
were dissatisfied with the manner IN
which delegations to u recent Con-
vention had been secured, and the &C
ton of said convention when it met
and urged me to be a candidate ; ana
being called by business to Chicago The
last week in August I hurriedly wrote a
% to n of my Republican friends,
as follows:
oWhiIe I have no ambition or desire
to be q candidate 1 am unwilling in
any way to turn my back upon my
friends, and therefore leave the matter
in your hands, and theirs to act as you
think BEST"
Upon my return from Chicago, the
first notice I had of their action, was
through b paper. containing the an
nouncement of my candidacy. What
is now known as the peoples ticket"
was not, as I am credibIy informed, at
that time contemplated.
Here Judge Ranney states that he was
announced By his friends as an indepen-
dent candidate q0biJe absent at Chicago
and that he kleig nothing Of their action
until appraised OF 1t, after his return.
Through the paper containing the an
nouncement of my (his) candidacy"
And yet that very announcement of b S
candidacy was made in the form of a
letter purporting to be written and
signed by Judge Ranney himself, but
which he now says he knew nothing OF
until, having returned from Chicago,
he saw it in public print Now IL Judge
Ranney wrote that letter he must have
known of it before he saw it in the pa
per ; if he did not know of it (aud he
says he did not) then the letter was
simply a sham and a fraud gotten up
and put forth in his absence to deceive
he people. We cannot believe Judge
Ranney capable of a false state
ment and therefore conclude
that he did not 7vrite the letter announce-
ing himself as a candidate, that he new
er signed it, and thai the whole thing
was a trick gotten up to mislead public
opinion.
This conclusion is fortified still fur
ther by the similar fraud attempted in
the case of A. J. Leonard, where a com
m%unication purporting o withdraw
T---.-5g, ~, hr7t "hioh mos ho-
yond all question a forgery was pub
lished as genuine in the Democratic
paper.
This so-cslIed letter of Judge Ran
ney's was published as a reply to a Pc
,ition or request alleged to have been
signed with $50 names but if the letter
was spurious what are We to think OF
the petition? If the letter vas inven-
ted may not the petition and its sigma
lures have been invented also? We
nave already called attention to the
fact that only six of those signatures
have been published, and that the pub
lie has no means of knowing that there
were $50, or if possibly there were that
many, that nine tenths of them were
not Democrats. This matter could
easily have been solved by the publ
cation of the names, but they have not
been PUBLISHED. The fact that they have
been Withheld though SO loudly and
persistently called for, to say the least
excites suspicion,
It may be said that Judge Ranney
wrote the letter announcing himself
as a candidate) from Chicago, but how
are we to reconcile that with his own
statement that he knew nothing of that
announcement until he saw it in the
paper after his qeta1sn from Chicago p
Besides Judge Ranney himself gives
US a quotation from the note which he
wrote from Chicago and the language
quoted is not contained in the published
letter p%urporting to announce him as a
candidate. In fact the Chicago note
was not an announcement at all, as
appears from the language quoted in
the above extract, and the reader car
readily see that that hots could not by
any possibility have been the letter
which was published, as Judge Ran
ney states, without his knowledge dur
ing his absence. Judge Ranney states
in his Chicago note that he put himself
in the hands of his friends but the dis.
erection he gave them seems to have
been unfortunate. The course Pursu.
ed in putting forth a letter as Judge
Ranney's which he neither wrote, sign.
ed or knew of, was either a studied de,
ception or else it was supremacy ridic-
ulous.
One of the most remarkable features
of this whole transaction is that Judge
Ranney, having discovered the unau.
thorized letter on his return from Chi.
cage left the public unacquainted with
! the fraud. 1t is true the exposure now
made though tardy is not too late, but
it was due both to the public and to
Judge Ranney himself hat it should
have been made on the instant. The
reasons for the delay are in fact not
yet apparent and it is important that
the public should know them.
1t is especially unfortunate that any
such trickery as this sham announce
ment letter should be resorted to in a
movement gotten up i'll the name of
the people. The peoples cause needs
no such tricks or juggleries and those
who resort to them are not the proper
persons to set themselves up as mod
els of morality or to accuse others Of a
want Of honesty or fairness,