Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1873-06-08
CAUSE AND HODGES.
Alleged Facts Attending the Defeat of
Cause in the Third Congressional
District of Arkansas.
Tricks that are Dark and Ways, that are
Vain-NeW York Tactics in
Arkansas SWamps.
Statement from the Cause Side Of the
HOuse-An Exhibit that Snstains
General Radical Tactics.

EDlIORS APPEAL - lnere mas
been quite q cry concerning
''fraudn in each of the late elections
held in our sister State of Arkansas
since reconstruction; and to show your
readers that it is not groundless, we pre-
sent them to-day with the facts, so far
as we can learn, of the late election in
matters pertaining to this election were
developed by the contest of Colonel
| Cause against Asa Hodges for congress,
the latter, be it remembered, residing in
Little Rock, though he claims to live in
Crittenden county. In this contest it
was proved that the poll-books, ballot
boxes, ballots, and returns were brought
to Memphis by the judges and clerks of
election, and taken to where Hodges
was stopping, and most of them kept
for several days. 1t was shown that
some one of the judges of these precincts
was either a relative or tool of Hodges,
not resident of the precinct where the
| voting was done, but resident of the
precinct where Hodges claims to live.
| The registration was a most shame
less thing. About tWenty-three hundred
names were found on the voting list and
must have been registered, while the
best data, poll-tax-lists of other elec-
tions, and citizens who know nearly
every man in the county of Crittenden,
all verify the fact that there are not
more than twelve hundred voters in
the county. Negroes who were merely
| transient were registered and voted. In
one precinct one of the registrars took
the book of registration and regis
tered voters, though the regis
tration law requires the registration
! TO close and the books to be turned over
| ten days prior to election day. The
Arkansas law further requires that the
books of registration shall be filed in the
| clerks office of the county before the
! election. This was never done in Crit
tenden county. They affected to have
had an election in a precinct calle1
Burnt Cane, at which Hodges got one
hundred and twenty-six votes, and
Cause none; when Cause showed, first,
there was no such voting district as
Burnt Cane in the county, and second
there was not a single man living
in the whole county OF Crittenden
except two, whose names would CORE
spond with the names of the pell-list o.
that precinct. Blergett's precinct voted
two hundred and nineteen, according
to HOdges's Memphis returns. Yet il
was proven therewere but twenty voters
in that precinct, and the other names
We're fictitious. Marion precinct voted
over eight hundred votes, yet it was
! proven that only about one-third OF
these lived in the county of Crittenden
and many of them not in the pre-.
cinct; the latter class not beins
properly transferred were illegal votes
| Hopefleid was proven to have but about
| fifty bona .fde voters, yet Mr.. (?) G. w
| Bryant, nonresident of HOpefield pre-.
cinct, produced vote there of one
hundred and nineteen. So witt
Kingston and Jones, about in the same
proportion. Another remarkable fact
! is, that hardly any of the returns were
signed by the judges of election
and what were so signed were
signed in the handwriting of Hodges's
| strikers that he sent out tC
hold elections in the different pre-
cincts. All the returns of these pre-
cincts are in the handwriting of one ol
these strikers, who held elections out Of
his precinct at Hodges's instigation. e.
s. Paul is his name, and the precincts
that his handwriting is in, are Burnt
Cane, Blergett's and Council
! When Colonel Cause went to Crit
| tenden county to take his dep
ositions, Hodges and his friends
procured the absence of every witnes:
they could influence, and what could
not get away, including Bryant, Lewis
and the notorious Bill Haskins, abso-
lutely refused TO testify. Hodges anc
his friends tried the little game Of bluff
and attended the whole thing armed
Hodges himself, the most of the time
held in hie hand long dirk knife, pre-,
tending to whittle, but evidently with the
intention of intimidating Colonel Cause,
while a witness named Sweptson was
on the stand testifying, Hodges made
the. notorious Bill Hndln seize the
records Sweptson had in his hand using
as testimony, and take them ia a man.
ner calculated to frighten one not Civ
en- to broils, swearing men sbouldn't use
any records of Crittenden county
in his contest. Now the question
remains to be settled whether the man
who is elected or claims the seat
in congress by such means as
these, in district that is clear
ly FIVE thousand conservative ma
ljority, can obtain that seat, and by such