New-York tribune., 1870-09-27
TyF TRdUDS IN OUR CITY.


The World winces at our exposures of the
frauds whereby our last three State Elections
were especially and enormously vitiated, and
is alarmed at the prospect that honest men OF
all parties may unite to hurl their authors
from power 1t says:
"The question of fraudulent voting in NewYork city
(upposng the charge to be wcfounde) is taken quite
out OF the province Of State politics by the recent Fed
era legislation relating to that subject. Congress has
interposed its authority so told and undertaken
to prevent all fraudulent voting. IL its legislation Ia
effective for the accomplishment OF its professed Objects
there will be Illegal voting in the approaching or any
subsequent elections BY the theory OF the new law,
this subject taken out Of State politics Tho laws OF
Congress, it Is assumed, will insure pure
elections in spite of all attempts by State
politicians to corrupt the purity OF tho ballot
box II this So with what consistency Republican
journals say that honest voting is TO be the chief issue
in the approaching electonl BY their theory, that
is no longer issue OF State politics. They assure us
that under the Federal regulations fraudulent yo
ing will he impossible Why, then. do they give them
selves any further trouble about t Why do they pre-
tend that matter is to be decided by this election
which, according to their own allegations has been am
ply provided for by Federal aws II the laws arc
such as they describe them he II they give the
iy which they profess to give against fraudulent voting
that is not question in issue, but question decided
The pretense that the election is to turn upon 1t is u
dicrous If the alleged frauds fictitious the issue b
of course foolish; but assuming that they real
the remedy has already been applied and honest voting
| is secured by act OF Congress-"
Comments by The Tribune.
| Honesty in elections has been secured by the
recent acts of Congress precisely to the ex
! tent that honesty in business has been secured
by our laws against forgery, passing counter
felt money, swndling, &C., &c. No intelligent
person has ever supposed or asserted that the
mere passage of good laws afforded ample
security against wrOng-dOing. Good penal
laws are important and useful but many
crimes are committed, many wrongs inflicted,
in spite of them.
We do strongly hope to prevent the polling
of at least Twenty-Five Thousand illegal
Democratic votes at our next election by
means of the laws in question but there will
still be some thousands polled after we have
done our best to prevent them. For the
Democratic managers control the entire Judi
cial as well as Political administration of our
State and City. They won that control by
fraud, and they mean to retain it at all haz-
ards. But for the acts of Congress, every
criminal, blackleg and loafer in the City
would have been registered under divers
names in ten to twenty election districts
and would have voted accordingly
knowing that the benefciaries of his
crimes would shield him from the
legal penalties thereby incurred. But with
Federal law, Federal judges, and Federal
marshals on their track, many of them will
fail to register illegally, and many who regis
ter will be estoppcd from voting. In spite of
the immense and lavishly- abused patronage of
Tweed g. Co., whereby not less than Twenty
five Thousand voters are subsidized in one
way or another, we hope TO keep their aggre-
gate majority in this City and Brooklyn below
Thirty Thousand, where Seymour had Seventy
Thousand and Hoffman nearly Ninety Thousand
two years ago.
But we shall do this by steady, rcsolute,
systematic work. If we could be fully insured
against Illegal Voting in these two cities for
One Hundred Thousand Dollars, We would
undertake to raise the money. AS it is, our
two main objects in this canvass will be- 1.
To reduce Illegal Voting to a minimum; Q To
arouse and intensity a righteous public indig-
nation against the authors and meters of the
shameless and cunning frauds" which the
Editor of The World witnessed at the poll of
his district in 1868, and knew to be the work
of VIM. NJ. Tweed and A. Oakley Hall.