Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1871-10-11

} 4 the wrong remedy; Wen abolish this
and establish better rone-something
: more efficient than this" but they
; simply swept it out of existence, and
] opened the ballot-bOx so that anybody
, could go in and vote.
: Fellow citizens, in township where
: you may say, everybody knows every
body, where no man can come up to
, vote without several persons of each
7 party knowing whether he is a voter
, or not. it may be safe, though don't
think it is, to allow men to vote with
J out any kind of registration; but in q
, great city like ours, where very few
. men know those who have lived on
either side of them for ten years-I
have lived without knowing who was
: my neighbor for ten years-I could
not tell at the polls any one man in
twenty of those who were entitled
to vote, and one hundred might vote
illegally without bringing the fraud
home to them. And / say that the
men who insist that all safeguards
. shall be intermitted, all barriers
thrown down, they are the men that
are responsible before God and man
for the polling Of illegal votes.
For forty years have known the
! Democratic party to resist steadily
and constantly every effort to deter
mine who are entitled to vote before
hand. was in the last Constitution
al Convention of the State OF New
York, and was their chairman on
Elections and the right Of Suffrage
I drew up the article as it exists in the
present Constitution; made a new
one, without the least thought Of bene-
fitting or injuring any party whatev-
er, my whole object was to establish a
sytem under which every legal voter
should surely vote, and no illegal vo-
ter could possibly vote. One of the
provisions whereon was most tena-
cious, was that the registration should
be completed and published, list
made out, so that every one could see
it, six days before the election. But
every Democrat in that Convention,
including the present Chief Justice of
the State, half dozen ex-GOvernors,
the candidate for Governor, all the
leaders Of the party were there, and
they all voted against any and every
effort could make to prevent illegal
voting. They would have no barrier
that they could possibly avoid or defeat
and when at last had carried thro'
the article giving six days between
the closing of the registry and the
opening of the polls, after I had left
they succeeded in cut ting 1t down to
four days; they could not get it quite
out. In every respect we had the
whole strength of the Democratic
party doing every thing in its power
to prevent and obstruct any barrier
being set up against voting Illegally.
Now then, when at the next year
we came to the polls and found them
polling in the city alone not less than
thirty thousand illegal votes, could I
blame only these men, or the men
who engineered the fraud? Could
| fail to see that the men who left the
door open to the fraud were as eulpa- !
bic as they who voted? The men |
who through years steadily and every |
where; in the Conventions and the |
Legislature, had done their utmost to /
leave the gate wide open through /
which illigal voters marched in bri- !
gade front, could doubt that they |
were responsible?
When we commenced to prepare /
for the election Of 1868, in the first |
place, men were rushed through and /
naturalized by the hundred together,
three hundred or four hundred in one
evening, in a room like this; men
swore, forty at time, that they came /
here five years ago they were rushed
through faster than a Chicago pork
merchant can stick hogs, they put
these men through. They are very
dexterous in Cincinnati and Chicago,
in the pork business, but they can't
kill hogs as fast as the New York
people made votes Then they got
out forty or fifty thousand fraudulent,
Illegal naturalization papers, leaving
place for the name, all the signatures
and seals perfectly correct, and these
were peddled cut at the rate of two
dollars per hundred. The State was
flooded with them. A good faithful
Irishman, who worked for me, and
his son, who had not been long
enough in the country to be citizens,
were supPgied with papers proving
that they were naturalized. and that
they were entitled to vote, but they
did net.
To begin with, it was certain they
would cheat; they were prepared to
cheat. William NJ. Tweed, the mas
ter-spirit now, as then, sent out to all
his confidential fellows in the coun-
try: "The instant the polls close,
send US an estimate by telegraph,
showing how the votes stand at your
poll" so that before our votes were
counted they could tell pretty well
how many were needed to beat Cen
eral Grant. And they did beat him !
for President; they were sixty thoUs- ;
and majority against him, whereas
there were not thirty thousand and
the proportion in Brooklyn was about
the same, some Of it made by fraudu-
lend naturalization, and, the rest ;
by fraudulent counting-largely =;
where they could control. They
would get two men of their own par !
ty, and another whom they could !
buy, and make the result Just what !
they pleased. OF that sixty thousand I.
majority in the city for Seymour over :
Grant, not over thirty thousand was !
honest. They had planned, and con- !
trived, and prepared for months to !
be ready to make that vote just what :
ever should be necessary to beat
Grant in the State. Our State was
clearly for him, and the result was !
only perfected by this fraud, whole :
sale, deliberate, prepared, conspired, :
intended from the first to be.
The instruments were few compare. )
lively; five thousand men will poll
fifty thousand votes in New York if :
well led. They have their names \
And we proved that the 7
leading Democratic politicians Of the :
city had fifteen or twenty men set :
down as lodging in their houses when
there were no such men there-nOt y
merely at the grog shops, where they :
would put fifteen. twenty or thirty in :.
q place where they did not live, but :
at the houses of the leading Demo !
cratic politicians men were put down. \
Then a man goes round and gives =
them the names they are voting on :,
each one gets his name and residence; =
they go and vote, and tAen on to the =
next poll, at which they hveanOther !
and so they are sent round :
from poll to poll until they vote per- =
haps twenty times. And suppose we :
arrest them and take them before :
Judge, they are not away twenty min 4
ltes before they are released by writ y
'f hGbeas corpus, and at the polls 9
again. =,
Now L complain not that individ- \
lals have done this great wrong to g