The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1876-08-18

/ one side. it is morally impossible that any
considerable proportion of fraudulent votes
should there be polled. For those who
| attend a poll are all nearly well known
/ to each other, and hardly ever is one
1 entitled TO vote who is not known to
be so to the men of each party. If one
shoiLd offer vote who Is not known he is
/ challenged and questioned of course, and
his answers will convict him Ii bogus
voter. / do not believe that the illegal
! vote in the rural districts was ever one per
/ cent. of the whole number polled. even
| when there was no registration of legal
| voters.
How different is the case in cities, and
/ especially in this Babel. You very well
know. long as you have lived on Gram
mercy Park, and eminent In social posi-
| ton and fortune as are the Inhabitants of
| that favored locality, you could not tell
| within twenty which of the residents with
| in sight of your front door are and which
are not entitled TO vote. You could not
| make list oil the legal voters residing on
that square which would even approach
| accuracy. How must it be, then, with the
| nonladic deiliZens of our .'back-slums' and
| of our great tenement houses-how utterly
| impossible it is that any one should know
| which among them are and which are not
| legal voters, and whether the man who Of
| fers to vote at / A. NJ. at one poll has or
has not already voted several times at diff
| feTent polls. and whether he is not OH his
way to vote still oftener at other polls.
You cannot help knowing If you would.
car imagine how man may shut his
eyes to many things which lie deems it
convenient not to know but speak of
what YOU must know, however you may
wish or seek to be ignorant of it.
The matter to which 1 call your atGen-
tion Is vital to the very existence of free
popular government. Whenever it shall
be generally understood that the results of
elections are not determined by ballots Of
legal voters, but by frauds IN voting or
frauds Ill counting. then the advent of
avowed, uneqnivocal tlespotism nn.st be
near ut hand. Between the rule of an en-
peror and the rule of cliqne OF ballot-box
suffers every intelligent man must prefer
the former, as less rapacious and more re-
sponsible. When honest citizens shall
avoid the polls, asking What is the use
of voting? the result ia always flxed,''
THE DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC WILL BE
NUMBERED. Between the ruler who pro-
hibits voting altogether and the gang who
make it sham by filling the baIlot-boxes
with illegal votes. or misconnting those ac-
tnalIy cast. the sway of the former is every
way preferable.
Mr.. Tilden. | have been voting here for
thlrty-seven years. and an active politician
for more than thirty of them. and appeal
to God for my sincerity aud to my public
record for witness that in all those years
have earnestly sought and lab0Fed to have
our elections decided by legal votes and
none other. Seeing how great are the
temptations and the facilities. nnder a
right of suffrage so general as ours, to poll
illegal votes, | have openly aud actively
favored every effort to shut them out and
keep the suffrage pare and legal. That
every legal voter should have Il full and
fair opportunity to vote once at each cleo
ton; that no one should be enabled to vote
more than once and that none but legal
voters be allowed or empowered to vote at
all-such has been my constant aim.
lave not confined myself TO barren pro-
fessioFs. but have shown my faith by
my works. How is it with youl Yon
hold most responsible and influential po-
sition in the councils of great party You
could make that party content itself with
polling only legal votes if you would In
our late constitutional convention I tried
to erect some fresh barriers against elrction
frauds. Did you? The very little tI:aS
was enabled to effect in this direction I
shall try to have ratified by the peorle at
our ensuing election. will you2
Dir. Iiltlen, you cannot escape respon-
sibility by saying, with the guilty MIC
beth
Those CORY locks mt Me-"
For you were at least passive accomplice
Ill the giant frauds OF last November. Yotr
name was used, without public protest on
your part. i'll circulars sowetl broadcast
over the State. whereof the manifest intent
was TO make assurance doubly Stlre'' that
the frauds perpetrated should not be over |
borne by the honest vote of the rural dis |
tricts. Aud yotl, not merely by silence,
but by positive assumption, have covered |
those frauds with the mantle of your re-
specta bihty. On the principle that 1.-THE |
receiver is as bad AS the thief you are as
deeply implicated in them to-day as though
your name was Tweed, O'Brien, or Oakley |
Hall.
Mr.. Tilden, you and / were ardent par
ticipants III the struggle of lS4O, wherein
Martin Van Buren, was ousted from the
Presidency by General Harrison. You
know how thoroughly our city was alb
sorbed in that contest, wherein. every man.
woman, and child took q deep and lively
interest. Our elections were then held |
throughout three days. There WAS 4 regis |
tration freshly enacted which blackievs |
had not learned to circumyent. The right |
of suffrage WAS as widely diffused as it |
now is. and no one ever complained that a |
single legal voter WAS unable then to poll |
his vote. And, though our city has since |
largely increased its populations, the Iogcer |
1cards were quite as popuous then as they |
are to-day, several of them more so. They |
were full of boarding-houses crowded with |
clerks and mechanics; many of these COW |
cred sites since given up to great ware |
houses and manufactures; their denizens |
have moved up town, over to BROOKLYN, |
or out Oh some Of the railroads that lead |
into the open country. Practically the |
lower wards are being given up to COM |
Inerce. and no longer shelter by night the |
multitudes who tIrong their streets by |
day.
Now look at the vote of fur of these |
wards in lS40 and 1s4S respectively
Wards. Harrison. Van B. Griswrd Hoffman. |