Wilmington daily commercial., 1876-10-25
FIRST EDITION.
The intimidation MIN.
WILMINGTON. Oct. "a, 1877!

WILMINGTON, OcG. z4i 1919.
TO the Editor of the Commercial;
In your edition of this evening notice
an article, head lined "The Intimidation
Mill, y "Arresting colored voters on trumped
up charges" &C., and you go on to charac'
terize the proceedings before the Mayor
last evening as pre-arranged scheme by
" Archie Given and other Democratic wire
pullers" to intimidate the colored voters.
AS you mention my name as one OF the
authors Of the " Trumped up Charges" l
desire to make short statement of some of
the facts in the case, trusting to your sense
OF fairness to publish the same. At the
" Little Election" was the Inspector in
the Seventh Ward and in the case of Ger
tain persons offering to- vote on what be-
lieved to be fraudulent tax receipts, l re-
fused the votes, and kept the tax receipts
as the best evidence of the attempted fraud,
assuring the parties that l would investl-
gate the matter, and if the receipts were
genuine, | would return them in time for
the general election, but if they were as
believed, fraudulent, 1 would prosecute
them. In the cases of several others offer
ing to vote on receipts bearing similar evil
dence of fraud, but where the parties were
willing to swear that they paid the tax per-
sonally to Mr.. Mccall, and received the re-
ceipts from him, 1 took their oaths and
their votes.
In accordance with my PROMISE have
| investigated the matter, and found the re-
! ceipts to be fraudulent in each instance. l
accordingly made information against them,
and had warrants issued for their arrest. l
believe that was my duty, and, as a sworn
election officer, could do no less. You
complain that only Republicans have been
arrested. If you have any facts as to frau
dulent voting by Democrats, | presume
you know what steps are necessary to take
to procure their arrest, and l certainly do
not doubt your inclination to take such
steps, if you have any facts to base them
on. presume that the fact that only Jour
arrests we're made from the Seventh Ward,
was owing to the fact that it is not always
easy to find some of your Uoters i'll the
wards whore they vote, especially when
they are not known by the names they vote
on. In conclusion, permit me to suggest
that, in future, before you make such
ScdnddlouS charges against your peers, you
be sure of the facts you base them on.
Yours respectfully,
J. PARKE PosTLEs
Comments by tie Commercial
| lit being unfortunately true that Cap
| tain Postles was involved with Archie Given
in these prosecutions, and that his cases,
which he probably believes well founded,
we're ground out of the intimidation mill
with batch of others. which are not, we
| could not very well save him from being
tarred by his own company, though we &C
cord to him, cheerfully, now that he claims
| it, higher standard of conduct, even in
| party AFFAIRS than some of the 'wire-pull-
ers' in whose oompanionship he nos aI-
| pears.
2. Capt. Postles took votes, he says, on
| tax-receipts clearing similar evidences of
| fbnaa w
| persons offering them swore they paid the
tax 'personally" to Mr. Mccall. This is
| an extraordinary statement, and deserves
| notice, for present use, and future also. II
the ''evidence of fraud" when found on one
receipt, satisfied him of the need
of arrest and prosecution in that
| case, how could he disregard the
same thing on another receipt? In
cases. he says, where the party offering to
| vote, could swear that he paid his tax per-
sonally, and got the receipt from Mr.. Nc
Call, he disregarded the ''evidence of fraud
on the receipt, and took the vote. This is
stranger still. Did Mccall, then, issue
fraudulent receipts, or receipts "bearing
similar evidences of fraud with those ON
which these prosecutions are being made
II the Captain thinks he did not, how could
the votes which he Captain Postles, now
says he took, be accepted?
3.-Dozens and scores of colored men in
the Seventh Ward did not pay their tax ''per-
sonally" to Mr. Mccall, but as the time for
payment was about expiring, Eve especially
refer now to February 1876 } it was paid
for them to Lewis Mccall, and receipts for
the same were given by him. Some of those
| very receipts, we understand, Mccall now
calls forgeries, though they came from
his own hands into those of Henry @. Ma
haffy who paid the money for the taxes and
| got the receipts. When, therefore, Captain
| fafa cd xrrfo ptaf.I, aft,fal l,,
cause the man could not swear that he paid
personally to Mr.. Mccall, he did the citi-
zen great injustice, and when ne thinks
the receipts not personally obtained are to
| be prosecuted, the above statement of facts
shows that either Mccall did issue fraudu-
lent receipts or, second, that his evidence
concerning the genuineness of his receipts
is of no value whatever or, third, that
there was in October, a disreputable con
spiracy to throw out the votes of colored
men who were paid for by MIR. Maha1fy, but
who did not goi"persoi ally" to McCall-and
did not need to. under the law.
4.-Capt. Postles says if we know any
"factsn of Democratic frauds, to present
them. We have presented them. We have
published the details, in most cases with the
names, of not less than dozen frauds at
the Little Election, perpetrated by the
| Democratic repeaters and non-reSidents.
We will give him one or two right here
| A well known Democrat living in the 7th
Ward, mot ia from the Captains own house,
voted at the Little Election, at the 9Th Ward
polls, upon the solicitation of Constable
| PTitchett and the opinion Of John p. Sprin-
| ger, that it was all right. An Euglishman
employed at the city hospital, under the late
Lewis r. Springer, voted the Democr attic
ticket at the 5th Ward polls, though he is
not naturalized, upon fraudulent tax-re-
ceipt furnished by "Wire.pullers" of that
party at those polls, his vote being received
by Esquire Publ under an assumed name,
ceipt. These are two cases. we have
published in the COMMERCIAL
long list and the facts are
notorious, but the prosecutions in the
intimidation mill are only leveled at Repub-
hcans. We denounce them, therefore, as a