The Portland daily press., 1876-09-02
From the N. Y. Times.l
What Tilden Escaped.
The Punishment for his Crime of Perjury
Views of an Ex.District United States
Attorney-What Judge Blatchford Says

That man who might have been a convict
in the State Prison, If the United States laws
against willful perjury had been executed in
time. should aspire to be the ruler of great
nation, surpasses everything in modern au-
edacty. 1t is almost calculated to bring the
great Office itself into contempt, and to degrade
the Republic in the eyes of the world. Mr.
Tilden 10 swearing to a false return of bis in
come for 1862 and 1868, and consenting to
false assessment in subsequent years, COM
mitted duplex crime of the degree of felony
he deliberately took false oath for the pur.
pose of enabling him to swindle the Govern
ment, just as he swindled the Terre Haute aud
other unfortunate railroad corporations while
pretending to act as an honest Trustee" in
their behalf
If he had been indicted, tried and found
guilty Of perjury within the period when the
criminal law was operative he would have been
sentenced to a term of five years 10 the Sat
Prison, with hard labor There could have
been no escape for him. evidence could have
been produced snowiug that he received one fee
of $40 900 for bis services to the Terre HAute
Alton and st. Louis Railroad in 1S62-tbe
very year for which he made a return of only
W, lis. and swora to the truth Of the return
He also received large fees from other railroad
corporations but be trauduleotly withheld any
account of the same from the assessors AT
the same period he was President and ''Trus-
tee" of the New York Balance Dock Company
which, according to statement made by him
In January, 1863 and now on file in the County
Clerks office, had paid up capital of $780,
600. If the same disgraceful facts about Til
cen's perjury that are now sead with wonder
and indignation all over the land had been
known to the Federal authorities in 1868 or
subsequent years within the statute, Mr.. Ii l.
den would have been tried and convicted of
perjury under the following provision of the
Internal Revenue law passed in July, 1862:
SEC. 50. And be it further enacted that if any
person IN any case, matter, hearing, or other pro-
ceeding in which an oath affirmation shall be re-
quired to be taken or administered under and BY
virtue OF this act SHALL upon the taking of such oath
O. animation knowingly and willingly swear or af-
1rm falsely, every person 80 offending shall be
deemed guilty Of perjury, and shall, on conviction
thereof be subject to like punishment and penalties
now provided by the laws of the United States for
the crime of perjury.
The law, as before stated, provided that any
person found guilty of perjury should be pun
ished by fine of not more than So, 900 and an
Imprisonment at hard labor of not more than
fue years, according to the aggravation of the
offense.
And this is the mana self-convicted per-
1urer by his own two contradictory oaths, one
recltlng that his income was only $7,118 in
1862 and the other that he received $4,000 10
that year-who aspires to fill the chair of Wash
ington.
One eminent lawyer, who was United States
Attorney Tor this district during the Lincoln
administration when he had charge of internal
revenue cases-yesterday said to the writer that
while ne was indisposed to say anything against
Mr.. Tilden, he believed he was quite clear as to
what was the law in the case.