Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-02-08
The Cipher Inquiry.

ing what excellent service the Tribune did
in publishing the cipher dispatches used
in the attempt of the democratic coparce-
ners to buy the electoral vote of South Car
DINA, and unfolding the meaning of the
same The friends of Mr.. Tilden have
suffered badly in the revelations so far.
Nephew Pelton has been sacrificed to save
his uncle, and the sacrificial pile is grow
ing. Perish all others, but save Mr.. Til
den is the cry of the democratic leaders,
In regard to the testimony of Smith Weed,
who was one of the principal Tilden agents
the New York Times says:
Weed did not prove willing or swift
witness. His memory had been cautious
ly reduced to that condition of feebleness
which enabled him to fail to remember
everything which it could not be otherwise
proved that he could not possibly have for
gotten. He did not remember who asked
him to go South, or who gave him the ci-
pher in which he communicated with New
York he could not say to whom his dis
patches were really addressed under cover
of the name of Henry Havemeyer he could
not recall what his cipher was; he could
not recollect what the correct translation
of his dispatches was though he knew that
some Of them had been enormously inter-
preted. This convenient and elaborate
weakness of his memory brings into very
strong relief the facts as to which he was
compelled to make distinct statements
After recounting the feelings with which
he learned that republican "emissaries"
were in South Carolina, the democrats, it
seems, were missionaries, and how he
learned that the Returning Board would
sell their certificates to the democrats, he
gives testimony on the main facts which is
so conclusive that we reproduce it here.
He says:
IL telegraphed to New York to find out
whether money could be furnished, to Henry
Havemeyer, and, so far as | rccollect, every
dispatch l sent was directed to him. num-
Der of dispatches were sent backward and
forward, and finally an arrangement was
made, or proposition was made and sub
mitted, definite proposition, which | tele-
graphed to New York, on the part of the
Returning Board of that State, offering to
give the vote of that State for either 500, OOO
or $4,000. My recollection is that it was
100000, although the dispatches say $780,
900. | telegraphed that proposition to New
York, and received what | considered at the
time TO be an assent TO it,
Later, being asked to identify or deny
specific dispatches, he saws:
''1he dispatch dated Columbia, Nov. IS,
and addressed to Henry Havemeyer, and
which stated that the votes of the Returning
Board could be secured for $50 900, and
urging the money to be sent to Baltimore by
the following Sunday night, was sent by him. -
WEED.
So much for the existence of the bargain
and the indications as to who were the par
ties to it. 1t ought not TO be difficult for
the committee to follow the clue here given,
to discover who sent Weed South, who
gave him a cipher fitted to transmit the
terms of a corrupt bargain in, who received
the propositions telegraphed to Henry
Havemeyer, who accepted them, and who
were involved in the scheme to carry them
out.
Mr.. Tilden's relation to the transaction
is not yet made clear, but some light is lei
in upon it. in his card of Oct. 1G, 1873
he declared regarding the South Carolina
cipher dispatches:
mo one of such kilograms, either in cipher
or translated, was ever shown to, or its con
tents made known to me-
Contents, in the light of Weeds tes-
timony. seems to have been carefully
chosen word. 1t may mean the specific
language or the substance of any one tele-
gram, by which Interpretation Mr.. Tilden's
truthfulness is saved. But if il means, al
it was plainly intended to mean, that Mr.
Tilden had never had any knowledge O
the subject-matter and purport of the dis
patches, or of the transaction to which they
referred, then Mr.. Tilden's volunteered
statement conflicts with Mr.. Weeds reluc
tant one.
by the language we have cited and BY
the further assertion that no transaction
such as Weed was engaged in could al
any time have come within the range O,
his power without that power being in
stantly exerted to crush it OUT" Mr.. Til.
den conveyed, and must have meant to
convey, the impression that he knew moth
ing of such a transaction. But Weed ties
titles as follows:
ale [Pelton, Tilden's nephew informed
me in substance that since he had left New
York the night before, the matter had come Ia
the knowledge of Gov. Tilden, and that he
Peltonl had received two dispatches, one OF
Il EN- from Mr.. Edward Cooper, saying that
no o iey could be furnished, and that all the
negotiations must be stopped, and one from
Gov. TiIden saying that he Peltonl must re-
Ia n At once 10 New York City"
Ii is evident lliat Mr. Tilden did not