National Republican., 1876-01-29
SENATOR VESTS ELECTION.

The New York Tribune of yesterday has
a Washington dispatch concerning tine
election CT Senator West TO the United
States Senate from the State of Louisiana,
which is notable as an assemblage of lies
even in that distinguished repository of
falsehcod. The dispatch, in. substance,
states that L. A. Wilt, of the Louisiana
Legislature will present evidence tending
TO show that Senator West procured his
election by means of bribery and corrup-
tioD, and that committee Of Investigation
will be moved. This is followed by list
OF members Of the Legislature to whom, it
is alleged, Senator West paid money,
amounting, in the aggregate, to about
S23, 500. The list includes twenty-five
names and while all of them were mem
bers OF the Legislature of 1871 we have the
best authority for stating that four out of
the twenty two did not vote for Senator
West, viz: W. D. Floyd, David Young,
Charles Abel and George Washington
That Senatorial contest was decided Jan
uary 10, 1871, and in the joint ballot 155
votes were cast, requiring IS votes to elect.
Out Of the 135 votes Senator West received
IS, or twenty more than majority. Take
the four from the list, as given in the
Irij"Re, who did not vote for Senator
West, and eighteen are left, the eighteen
charged with receiving money from him,
but the official record proves thss they
were not necessary to his election. How
ever, this is by no means a refutation
of the SANDER, but it helps to
bring into clear light the miserable
foundation upon which it is built up. At
the time of the election only three of the
members J. McCarty, Gartscamp and Kin
selIa, were in the employ Of Senator West.
and while probably he relied with reason
upon their friendship, it is fact that he did
not even ask them for whom they proposed
TO vote, much less did he find it necessary
to offer them money as bribe. This stands
to reason, though not in the nature of abso-
Lutte proof, but the fact is that the entire
Tribune dispatch is tissue of falsehoods
from Alpha to Omega. There is not the
shadow nor semblance of truth in any one
Of lis statements. 1t is the work OF rogues
in Washington, operating in collusion with
rogues in New Orleans, and finds EXPIRES
sion in the organ of Jay Gould, which joins
hands with the White League Of Louisiana
for the purpose of weakening heinfluence of
the chairman Of the Senate Committee on
Railroads, whose opposition to monopolies
and to some of Jay Gould's pet schemes is
well known. For this purpose those who
have had pre-eminent training in the fabri-
cation of falsehoods, and are specially en-
dowed by nature with the gift of lying.
have been called to accomplish the nefari-
Gus task. The party in Louisiana is de-
scribed in the report of George F. Hoar,
William A. Wheeler and William p. Frye
as follows: First, that there has been,
land is, on the part Of the party calling
themselves the White Mems party, in
Louisiana, purpose TO take possession
"by force and fraud of the State govern
"ment. without regard to the question of
who may have the numerical majority at
"a fair election. Second, that in the exc
"cution of this purpose they have refrained,
'tand will refrain, from the use of no in
"struments which they think designed to
accomplish ii, whether those instruments
"be murder, fraud, civil war, or coercion
"of laborers by employers. The party
in New York, who controls the sheet in
which the SANDER appears, constitutes an
other league whose corruption and infamy,
whose utter disregard of right and wrong,
find its only counterpart in Louisiana. An
editorial satellite of the dispatch referred
to says:
"These are hard times for carpet-baggers.
Senator Spencer has not begun to get through
his troubles yet; and here now are the facts
coming out about the way Senator West car
ried the Louisiana Legislature. According to
the dispatches it was tride of $4,000, more
or less, cash in hand p lid, that settled things.
1t must be a thriving business that is driven
in the Senate Chamber which warrants specu-
lators IN paying such prices for a chance at it.
seat in the Stock Exchange does not cost
half so much"
Is Senator West carpetbagger? Here
the Tribune in history is as much at fault
as it is in figures. The Congressional
Directory" Of the Forty-fourth Congress
says: "J. r. West, of New Orleans, was
born in that city September 10, 1922"