New-York tribune., 1871-09-22
SHODDY as a MEANS OF MAKING REPUB-
LICAE LEADERS.

LICAE LEADERS.
Can a criminal, guilty of frauds on the Gov
ernment which should have sent him to Fort
Lafayette, make himself, through Government
patronage, the dictator of the Republican party
of NewYorki That is the question we propose
to-day to all pure Republicans Of whatever
wing-Grant or anti-Grant, Fenton or anti
Fenton, Conkling or anti-Conkling-who value
Republicansm, honesty, and honor more than
they do the success of any faction.
We have shown that the Republican disor-
ganization in this city is the work of Thomas
Murphy. He accepted last years consolidation,
under the orders of the State Convention, as
fair compromise and fnality. He bolted
| from it the moment he was outvOted, and
marched out of the hall at the head
of his adherents. He assaled the ears of
the President and the State Committee
with clamors that the men who had
been his welcome associates till they outvOted
him, were Tammany agents-he, whose own
partnership with Peter B. Sweeny, Wm NJ.
Tweed, and Richard b. Connolly, was officially
recorded, in ink hardly yet dry, at the City
Hall. He deceived some and bullied others,
till an unprecedented and wholly unauthorized
| attempt has been made, under his alternate
wheedlings and threats, to disband the
Regular Republican organization OF this City,
and substitute therefor his CustOm-HOuse
bantling. He proposes now to attempt, at
Syracuse, to rule out the Republican delegates
| regularly elected. The war is of his making
| not ours Let him take its consequences /;
| and let Republicans see who it is that wages
it. We have charged him with treachery to
| his party, and he has, over his signature,
admitted it. We have charged him with
voting for John T. Hoffman and j. V.
| Pruyn, and he has admitted it. We
have charged him with contributing money
| and labor to aid in their campaign, and while
elaborately denying all he could deny, in q long
and carefully prepared card, he has not denied
this. We have charged him with defying the
State Convention, in formal terms. by specific
resolution, and he admits it. We have
charged him with receiving for his treachery
Tammany appointments, which he continued
to hold until after his designation as Col
lectOr of tho Port, and he admits it. We have
charged him with having thus secured such
further interest with the inner members of the
Tammany Ring that he was received, and
remains to this hour, joint partner in some
of the most gigantic of their Infamous real
estate specuations, and he admits it. We
have charged him with guilt in fraudulent
Government contracts which should have
sent him to Fort Lafayette. We now
repeat the charge, and proceed to prove it..
Other columns contain our first irstallment.
When Mr.. Murphy's name came before the
Senate for confirmation as Collector of the
Port, the same charge was current, but, in the
absence of specific proof, most men found it
| 30 oholt md zv1n ha
hearing all Gov. FentOn was able to pre-
sent in positive form, then united, Demo-
crab and all, in an almost unani-
nous vote for his confirmation, we
naturally acquiesced in it's apparent judgment.
We did not then know that the affidavits had
mystcriously disappeared, which could alone,
in the time then given, make out the case
against him in the eyes of fair-minded Repub-
lican Senators; and we did not allow for the
interest of his partners VIM. NJ Tweed, Peter
b. Sweeny, and Richard B. Connolly,
the omnipotent Tammany Ring, with
whom it was then a light thing to
secure the votes of their party friends in the
Senate for New-York appointment they had
reasons for liking We knew nothing of the
| high-handed mutilation of records in the War
Department.; we had not listened to the
piquant story of one of Mr. Murphys accom-
piices about the way in which he bribed wit
nesses and caused the disappearance of others;
we I'd not received the description of the
scene when Mr.. Murphy himself paid wit
ness to seek foreign country; we had not
heard the enthusiastic E. D. Webster's decla-
ration that of all the tough jobs of his life
the one in which he worked the hardest was
that of saving Thomas Murphy from going to
Fort Lafayette. But it is not to any of these
that we to-day invite special attention. Mr..
Webster and the others cannot be objected to
as not qualified witnesses. If they do not
know Murphy, his ways and works, nobody
does. But we prefer to put on the stand to-
day witnesses having an even closer relation
to the case.
Col. Henry s. Olcott of this city is not
politician, is a gentleman of unsullied record,
widely known, and amply responsible. Chosen
by Edwin NJ. Stanton, receiving the confidence
of that incorruptble patriot at the outset and
maintaining it through the most trying
responsibilities to the very end, gain
ing such reputation in the discharge of
his duties that the Navy Department
sought his transfer to their work, main
tanned once by Secretary Stanton against
the united appeal of a Governor and whole
Congressional delegation for prominent and
influential contractor he had found guilty,
warmly commended by the Committee on the
Conduct Of the War, and when at last he in
sisted on returning to his profession, sent
out with the highest concentrations from all
bis superiOrs, Col. Olcott is a witness whose
word nobody will question, whose familiarity
with the whole case came in the course Of
! official dutv who has often refuspd tn ha