New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-08-05
A SOBER TALK FIFTH THE DEMOCRACY
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or OUR STATE.
For some years past, the Democratic party
of this State has been run rs an appendage TO
Tammany Hall. Do not vince at the abrupt
ness of this statement, but consider the re-
corded facts What did the rural Democracy
know of John II. Hoffman when he was first
made candidate for Governor, but that he
was the favorite of Tammany Hall Would
not Church, or Parker or Ganson, or Herman,
have been more acceptable to nlne-tenths OF the
Democrats above Kingsbridge than heY But
Tammany said Hoffman, and Tammany fur
nished the sinews of war for the State canvass,
beside rolling up the fraudulent majorlties
whereby the State was at length 0YerDOrne:
so Hoffman it was.
From that hour, "the hay-loft and cheese
"prcss Democracy has been simply con-
vonence to Tammany-its fifty to seventy
members of the Legislature have been employed
from year to year in registering the edcts OF
Tweed & Co. Among those members have
been men of historic family and eminent per-
sOnal distinction, who must have Dlusheu 10
find themselves put to such ignoble uses. 10
90 no further back than last Winter: the
Democratic party had no need to steal Mr..
Twombly's seat in the Assembly; but Tammany
needed it, and such men as Henry S. Randall
and George w. Nicholas were made for Its
sake to sustain that impudent, disgusting fraud.
The rural Democracy could not but su1ler
from any complication with the gigantic,
persistent robbery of the Erie stockholders,
whereby the Judiciary as well as the leglsla-
ton Of our State has for years been shamed
but Tweed was in the Erie direction, so that
crime had to be shouldered by the rural
Democracy. The Winans scandal originated
in the misbehavior of one of the Rings AS
semblymen from the. City, compelling his
resignation and the purchase of a substitute.
And so from first to last, three-fourths of the
time of our last Legislature was expended on
the jobs of the Tammany Ring, and ninety
nine hundredths of its wrong-doing and i'll
repute had a similar origin.
Mcssicurs of the rural Democracy! are yOu
not paying too dear for your whistler How
ever agreeable it may be TO have $4,000 of
stolen money slipped into the hands Of this
and 5000 into the hands of that Democratic
candidate for Senator, with kindred sops to
Assembly aspirants, do you think that your
Illicit commerce with Tammany, regarded as
whole, pays? Suppose you could by stealing
seat or two outright, carry another Legislature
as you carried the last, mourning similar obi
cations and responsibilities, could you really
afford it
We ask none but practical questions. You
cannot fail to give them practical answers,
one way or the other.
In this City, elections are no more. Save in
few known localities, fraud and rascality re-
| fun hot hpv pl a the verdict
ballot boxes. We have men in high places who
have risen from stable-keepers to be Senator's
solely by reason of their efficiency as repeat
GERS that is, in polling Cor cOunting) bush
els of votes which were never cast by legal
voters. Every one who can be cOrruptly inilu-
enced to do so is made to east at least one
Tammany vote at each election. Some are
bought With stalls in markets; others by lib
erty to sell liquor without license, or to sell it
when the laws forbid them to do so; thou
sands buy with their votes immunity from de-
| served punishment or impunity in career of
crime. There is no vice, no fraud, no wicked
ness, known to our City (and all that are known
anywhere are known here) that is not made
to bring grist to the Tammany mill.
All this may have suited you well enough
while that mill was in good order and doing
its prescribed work. No doubt, thousands of
you chuckled when it ground out the Sixty
Thousand majority for Seymour Cat least half
of it bogus by which the Fifty Thousand ma
jority for Grant in all the rest of the State
brooklyn included) was OyerbOrne, and the
thirty-three electoral votes of New-York cast
in the teeth of a large majority of her legal
voters. "Thoa canst not say ! did it," was
their comforting reflection as they divided and
enjoyed the unrighteous spoil. But now.
Messrs of the rural Democracy! do not hope
to "hold with the hare and run with the
"hounds" any longer. If you, in the face of
all that has recently come to light, accept the
wages Of iniquity and strike hands with their
dispensers, you cannot escape their infamy
nor their humiliation. The People of our
State are about to pronounce judgment upon
the plunderers of their treasures, the corrupt
ers of their ballot-boxes, the betrayers of eX-
allied public trusts. If you do not choose to
share their condemnation, separate yourselves
Enthusiastically from those workers of iniquty
Stand from under!