New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-07-25
TIE GRE4T UNKIDN4PPED.

THE GREAT UNKiDN4PPED.
It is not impossible, of course, that there
was plot on foot in March, 1877, to kidnap
the Reform Movement while in the act of TAX
ing the oath rs President of che United States
on the City Hall steps. Men who believe that
John /. Davenport inundated the voters
Of this city in 1873 to such an ex
tent that as he walked down Broad
way, Democrats fled away from before
his face by thousands, while thousands more
were by his cruel orders pmiOned and man
aclcd with gives and letters and cast into
loathsome dungeons, can easily credit the
tale that the Federal Administration con-
spired with General Woodlord on that Oc-
casion to catch the Head ReiOrmer taking an
oath, chuck him into a coupe, whirl him
down Broadway at canter, and fire him into
the muzzle of Il gun on Governors Island
1t Is not absolutely impossible that Cen
eral Woodford, after cOnspirng on this large
scale with General Grant and Secretary Robe
son and Senator COnkling to nip the noble
Reformcr in his great swearing act, took Mr.
John f. Mines by the buttonhole one fine
morning, and discharged the entire history of
il into that accurate chronicer's large and
are possible. A degree OF improbability that
mounts well up into the nelshborhood of the
impossible, attaches to all of Mr.. John f.
Mlnes's communications, but it can hardly
be said that it is impossible for that
person to tell the truth. He must have
had moments Of inadyertence in which he
has let fail a casual truth which came to
him suddenly and glanced off, as it were,
without being assimilated ; and there must be
living men who have caught him ut it, So when
Mr.. John +. Mines related. with a circumstan-
TALLY of detail which only the fact of pay
ment by the line can account for, tine story
which General WOOdiord poured into
him, the most that could be said was
that it was not impossible. If Mines
had stated that the purpose of the conspira-
tors was to barbecue Mr.. Iiden and serve
HIM out TO the Army and Navy, it would have
been said, by persons to whom the non-succu-
lcncy and lack of juice in that statesman would
have occurred at once, that this must be a
mistake not that Mines was lying about it,
by any means, but that he had evidently mis-
taken clam-chowder for barbecue. Still the
possibility of the conspiracy would have been
credited If Mines told the story.
That is to say, unless somebody contra
dicted it. In the case OF the conspiracy story,
which Mines seems to have fabricated with
some cieverness, and an economy of truth
quite admirable, he had rather an unusual
stroke of luck. The other party TO the inter-
view which he reported being absent from
the country, the story had free course, ran
and was glorified for the space of two or
three weeks. 1t was given wide circulation,
and, by those who wanted to believe it, full
credence. Many persons of prominence
who would probably give more to have
Mr.. Tilden actually kidnapped than
for any other charitable or philanthroplc
object that could be named, rose up early IN
the morning after Mines had found market
for his invention of a discovery, and said:
"'Thc Milingtery The MilingteIy Beware
81 tbe MilingteIy Our Liberties are in dan
" ger from the fierce Milingtery." They said
this conspiracy only illustrated the dangers
to which our liberties are exposed from mill
itory tyranny, Capitalization and the use of
troops at the polls. The possibilities of kidnap-
ming, the extent to which it might be carried,
the number of distinguished Democrats liable
TO be whirled off into gmbOats at any mo-
ment and immurcd in dungeons, the names
III,
fry if il was deprived of them-were all dis
cussed al great length in the press and so
far rs we could Judge from its utterances the
Democratic press was substantially unanimous
in the belief that If these things could be- and
overcome us like Summer cloud, Liberty
could only be rescued by the election of Il
Democrat in 1850 and his Inauguration i'll
spite of the Army and Navy. In some quar-
ters il was suggested that the proper thing TO
do under the circumstances was 10 renOmnatc
and elect the intended victim of the plot
and while Others discussed the general subject
Of kidnapping as an element in the political
situation without dwelling upon this particular
ease there was general agreement that
a great outrage was contemplated, and that
Republicans had concocted and were pre-
noring to execute It. The friends OF Mr. I'll
den said that great and good man ought to be
doubly dear to the party for which he had
incurred such risks and his opponents, in
their eagerness to make point against the
Renublicans, had to wink at his elevation to
martyrdom.
II is a singular, and not entirely irrelevant
circumstance, that there wasn't any such con-
spiracy. Mines having sold his wares, and
the Aory having had its run, General Wood
ford on his return from Europe pronounced 1t
AN utter no-such- thing The denial was so
plain and so absolute that the gentlemen who
were so excited and indignant were caught
with their homies on military tyranny,
and their preachments On the country