The Russellville Democrat., 1876-10-19
THIEVES TO THE REAR.

The subjolned plain, straight talk is from the Clarendon Age. We don't pretend to say who is guilty of the ballot box robbery in Pu. laski county, but we fully agree with the Age that if the guilty party be a democrat send him to the Penitentiary. Thieves to the rear, whether they be radical or democratic thieves. And any democratic official who now turns thief, arter all we have suffered from radical thieves should have special act passed for his bene- fit trippling the term of his ser vice in the States Prison. Here is the way the Age talks it:
 We gave notice last week that the Pulaski County Clerks office was broken open, on Sunday night, the 54th of September, and the ballots and returns of the late election stolen by some un. known person, or persons. The transactions in Pulaski county, in connection with the late elec- tion, indicate a good deal of irrcg- ularity, or rascality; and since the polls were controlled by demo- crats, and every irregularity has damaged the Republican candi- dates and benefited the demo- cratic candidates, we are forced to the conclusion that there was more fraud than ignorance at the bottom of these irregularities. The burden and heat of the cam paigns, for four years, has been fought under the battle-cry of re- form, retrenchment, honest men for office and, above all, fair cleo tions. That the Democrats, as q mass, are honest in their profes- sions no one has any doubt, but that there are bad men who claim to be Democrats, we all know, and whenever one of them gets into office and betrays his trust he should be marked and passed to the rear, and if his deeds justify, he should be reformed, out of the party and into the penitentiary, as soon as possible.
 The Pulaski county election should be probed to the bottom, without fear, favor or affection, and the people in the country ex- pect it, and will demand it. There are two democratic papers at Little Rock. They both aspire to the position of organs" of the democratic party. If they are to take the leadership, they should throw little more light on these election frauds, than they have yet given us. The people in the country demand a better investi- gation than merely charging that the Radicals did this. that, or the other thing. If the Radicals stole the ballots out of the clerk s office, there certainly must be some evidence to connect them with it. We have yet to see any evidence that tends to prove that it was to their interest to destroy those ballots, while it was to the interest of the officers in charge of those ballots that they should be destroyed; for, on fair count of all the votes of Pulaski county, we believe they were beaten, and Radicals elected. The democrats of this state would rather that Pulaski county should remain under Radical rule through all time if placed there by fair vote, than that justice should be out ragged and frauds tolerated by their consent. It is claimed by the Gazette that talent naturally tends to the capital. This is true to certain extent; but we also send our thieves there for punish
 ment and it is also possible that contact has corrupted somebody.
 We think the county clerk and and his subs will have to bear the blame until he proves somebody