Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-08-02
THE FLORIDA LARCENY
Goc. Dre,c's RECITAL Of Hosy 1T Vas dc.
conplisAed-What He Thinks Of Dehnii
and lMcLin.
Cincinnati Enquirer

con,plished-W What He Thinks Of Dennis
and McLin.
ICincinnati Enquirer.
An Euqui,e,, Representative yesterday after
noon had quite pleasant chas with Governor
Drew, the genial. whole-souled executive OF the
Flowery State. The Governor speaks in gicrys-
:ce terms of the prospects of the Democratic
party in Florida: He thinks that Florida has,
beyond all question, been proved to
be u Democratic State, aitis has no
doubt of its remaining SO. In anBFser
to question concerning the Congressional
elections, the Governor said: i do not be-
lieve they will be as close as the Republicans
seem to think. They are reckoning on the vote
of the last general election, but in that cleo
ton they polled from three to Four thousand
fraudulent votes, something they T,N not be
able to do this time
How is that, Governor
wig! Se have taken measures to guarantee
against a repetition Of the fraud. You know
that it is pretty hard for white man, unless
he is intimately acquainted with a coiorsd man,
to recognize his features, and this fact was
taken advantage of by the Republicans to poll
a large number of fraudulent votes at the
Presidential election. They could do this under
the system of registration they had then but
we have changed it since. Long before | ne-
came candidate l saw that the system of
registration was but for cover for fraud. and
since my election l have worked to regulate
IL"
Speaking about frauds" said the reporter,
you ought to be able to give some interesting
"reminiscences of the stealing OF your State in
'76. GOVERNOR"
Eyes, could tell something about it, l sup
pose,' said Mr.. Drew, smiling reectingly.
How was it the returns elected you and
didn't elect Ti.den?'
tsff bo Democratic statesmen uh lodi
Florida at that time had taken my advice, Mr..
Iilden would have been counted in we'll as
was, answered the Governor.
How" queried the scribe.
"Why, you see, when they talked with me on
the subject / told them to take the election
into the courts, and have n1G11d0nsstS issued
for an exhibit of the election returns. They
! refused on tn, grounds that the court was Re
publican, and that they would rather trust the
effect that public opinion would have in max
ing Congress go behind thereturns. The result
| was that Mr.. Tilden counted out and Mr.
counted out too, although | 5Ot
ahead of Mr.. Tilden, for they had thrown cut
enough votes to do it. only that | got up too
early in the morning Tor them. and by taking
| the election into court, got the returns fairly
exhibited. They would have counted me ou
| that morning, but had the nanttantuS issued
| before they were up.
There were pretty lively times down there
| just then
Yes, there were. There was one attem p
made by the Republicans which was pretty
| high handed, but it failed. 1t was to arrest all
| the members of the Democratic executive com
mittee the night before the election"
| 'On what pretext!
Con none that l know of; but then arrestinl
men without pretext would have been moth
| ing unusual at that time
| How did the attempt fail!
! Because they could not reach as. Marshal
Conant started for my residence at Ellerdalt
on special engine, but when half way h'
| found he could not proceed. owing to burned
out trestle. We had burned them. not having
| the posi- bility of an attempted arrest in view
but to prevent them from moving colored
voters from one place to another on election
day
/ Conant is an INSCRIPTIONS man, is he not!'
| 'sYes, and he has got government backing
for all he does. He is man OF great influence
IN our State, though he is not as shrewd 81
| McLin or Dennis. The latter he resent les il
one respecI--in not being ashamed to own MOI
attempting to deny his fraudulent practices
Speaking about Dennis. don't you think h
knew all about the stealing of the State fo
Hayes?''
Il think both he and McLin knew all abon
it, and both are dissatisfied with the pay the,
/ got. That little iudgeship of McLin's doesn't
amount to anything. and he knows it, and tina
is what puts him out. Dennis is peculia
man. He is one of those men who are mo-
afraid to acknowledge the corn, and when h
makes up his mind to tell the truth he i
going to tell it,
You think, then, that his testimony before
! the Potter committee is reliable?''
II think it is; butt think he could have beer
got to tell more than he did,
just at this point the Governor was called
away unexpectedly and the conversation end
i ed and was not resumed again as he left tn
city shortly afterward. The Governor is tn
prince Of Democrats, and is very popular il
his State. He says that after his election Mar
shall Conant told him that had he known h
was 80 popular in the southern part of tn
| State he would have added another Thousand
votes to the Republican returns of the cleo
ton.