Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1879-02-12
Cipher Dispatches.

Little by little the unwrtten history of
the last Presidential campaign is coming to
the surface. A subcommittee of the Pot
ter committee were for several days last
week in New York city engaged in invest
igating the celebrated cipher dispatches
which were recently published in the New
York Tribune. Mr.. Smith M. Weed, of
Plattsburgh, admitted that the cipher dis
patches printed in the Tribune were sub
stantially correct. He also gave an account
of negotiations entered into by certain
friends of Governor Tilden, for securing
beyond question, the electoral vote of South
Carolina for the democratic candidate
Mayor Edward Cooper, of New York, tes-
titled in this connection, and his belief ap-
peared to be that the proposed trade with
the South Carolina returning board was en-
gineered by Colonel Pelton without the
knowledge of Governor Tilden.
The programme of the friends of Tilden
seems to be to make Nephew Pelton the
scape-goat of the whole affair, and Pelton's
own testimony would seem to favor such a
theory. Weed, Pelton, Manton Marble and
Mayor Cooper all admit the authenticity of
the dispatches proposing to buy up certain
electors in South Carolina and Florida, and
Pelton acknowledges their receipt by him
at Tilden's residence, No. 10 Gramercy
Park. Indeed, there is not even the pre-
tence of denial on their part that they
were engaged in plot to buy electoral votes
for Tilden. They assert, however, that the
great and good Mr.. Tilden was in no way
cognizant of the efforts they were making
in his behalf. They studiously concealed
their plans from him because they knew he
was too good and pure to sanction them,
and they feared to incur his displeasure.
1t will be remembered that one great argu-
ment in favor of the nomination of Tilden
was that he was an adroit and successful poll
tician, would manage his own campaign,
and had "bar'ls of money" 1t will also
not be forgotten that Nephew Pelton was
the confidential and trusted agent of his
uncle, lived under his own roof, and worked
under his own supervision and direction.
Marble, Weed and Cooper, those visiting
statesmen who journeyed Southwark in fur
therance of this most nefarious scheme,
were also Tilden's most trusted lieutenants,
and the latter two more especially were
generally supposed to be above the suspicion
of any such infamy. Now while these
heightened missionaries were pursuing the
scheme, offering vast sums of money to
procure renegade electors, where, we say, did
they expect the money to come from ? Is
it to be supposed that they were going to
pay it themselves That is too thin. The
money was to come ultimately from Mr. Til
den, and they knew it, whether he did or not.
Again, supposing the scheme had been
perfected. Some time or other Mr.. Tilden
would have had to be made acquainted with
the outrageous manner in which his election
had been secured, and did they suppose so
good and pure statesman and Reformer
would accept the office thus acquired Is
that the kind of man these astute plotters
and most intimate friends of Tilden re-
garded him as being, when they put him
up as candidate for President upon re-
form platform
There is a mystery about the matter some
where. Mr.. Tilden may have known moth
ing whatever about it, and to do him justice
we should state that he positively denies
having any knowledge whatever of the sub
ject until he read the dispatches in the
Tribune. In this statement too, he is con-
frmed by the conspirators themselves. But
if he is innocent, the facts disclose about the
worst case of a mans being murdered in the