Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1877-02-19
The End at Hand.

The End at Hand.
The decision of the electoral commits
sion that the Hayes electors are the right
full electors of Louisiana virtually closes
the contest for President and Vice Presi-
dent of the United States. What remains
to do will be quickly done. 1t may be
possible that the case of South Carolina
will be presented before the commission,
but 1t is scarcely probable. There never
has really been much dispute that the
HAYES and Wheeler electors in that State
were elected. The Tilden men have no
case with which to go before the commits
sion. Allowing that they claim the cleo
ton OF the Tilden ticket by the popular
vote, nevertheless the decisions OF the
commission in Florida and Louisiana are
such as to establish the futility of an at
tempt to go behind the returning board in
South Carolina. II the case comes before
the commission at all. it can only he to de-
lay the count, and not with any hope that
the State will be decided for Tilden.
The only question to be decided by the
commission will be that pertaining to Ore
gon. With tails we imagine the commits
sion will make short work. The claim Of
Cronin has no basis to stand upon. He
was never elected Watts election is a
duly certified fact and his eligibility as
elector, the only ground upon which the
dispute concerning him is based, is sub
stantiated by the facts disclosed concerning
his resignation of the federal Office which
he held. And while the legal aspect OF
the case points clearly TO the counting of
the three votes of Oregon for Hayes and
Wheeler, the developments which have
been made by the deciphering of the des-
patches which passed between New York
and Oregon of the corrupt means en-
ployed by Tilden to secure an electoral
vote in the latter State, have shocked the
moral sense of the country and prepared
it TO receive with the most profound appro-
baton the counting of Oregon for Hayes
and the well deserved defeat of the con-
spirators, of whom Samuel j. Tilden
was the principal. Those dispatches
show that Governor Grover of Oregon,
now Uuited States Senator-elect from that
State, was supple tool in the hands of
Tilden. They show that Kelley, the pres
ent democratic Senator from Oregon, was
an active agent in the negotiations to pur-
chase an electoral vote, advising Tilden
what could be done with money, how and
to whom to send it, and where 1t could be
placed ito do the most good" They
trace the origin of this scheme to control
the election of President of the United
States by the direct purchase of an cleo
toral vote home to the door of Samuel J..
Ti!den. The money TO buy Cronin was a
part of his millions. His money was the
power which raised up and support
ed the conspiracy until its collapse.
II such a man and such plot comes to
grief no honest man of any party will
have tear to shed on account of it. They
will rather conclude that as Tilden and
Tweed were eo-workers in the days
of Tweed's power and prosperity, recent
events show that this lovely pair should
not be separated in the public estimation,
and should be ranked together on the
same moral or immoral plane,a the arch
corruptionists Of the period