The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1879-01-24
THE FORGED TITLE.
New York SUM-

There never has been the least moral
doubt that when Kellogg signed what
is known as the second set of certificates
for electors of Louisiana, to correct the
errors which rendered the first set
worthless, he knew that several names
were forged to that paper, If he was not
directly party to the forgery.
Everybody knows now that the date
of the certificates was fabricated to cor
respond with the rejected original, which
Returning Board Anderson had carried
to Washington, and which Mr.. Ferry,
President pro tenel1orc of the Senate,
had told him was irregular in form and
therefore invalid. 1t has already been
proven that Anderson opened this GER
tificate in Washington, where he con-
suited with the Republican chiefs as to
the exact form, and then hurried back
to New Orleans to procure the paper
upon which the Electoral Commission
acted finally. A. b. Levisee swore
before tho Potter Committee that his
signature to the second set was a palpa-
BILE forgery, and Kelly, the colored
man, who was Kcllogg's messenger at
the time, and had charge of tho room
where the forgcries were perpetrated,
recently swore that to his knowledge
the name of Oscar Joffrion was also
forged.
When the Potter Committee were Mt
New Orleans ten days ago, diligent in
quiry was made for others of the Hayes
electors about whose signatures there
is also distrust. Yet additional testi-
mony on this point is not necessary,
and the case would not be strengthened
if every name to the second certificate
was shown to have been forged. Levi
sec, who now holds the Office of sub
revenue agent in San Francisco, and
was probably assigned to that remote
service so rs to be out of the way, has
established one forgery in his own per-
son, and Kelly has proved another.
The difference between the two GER
tificates from Louisiana is that the first
pretended to verify fraudulent result
of the election for President by genuine
signatures, while the second repeats the
fraudulent attestation by forged sigma
lures; and this second paper was the
one adopted by the Commission as the
means of declaring Hayes President.
So that the astounding fact will go into
history that the eight electoral votes Of
Louisiana were in the first instance
stolen by conspiracy and fraud and in
tho second instance, that the certificate
declaring this result, being vitiated by
barefaced forgery, was yet solemnly
adjudicated rs valid, because the eight
by-seven Commission determined that
they would not go behind the face of
the forged paper!
Honest thinking men may be de-
luded or confused by conflict of testi-
nfony in regard to the vote of Louisiana,
based upon the stories of intimidation
and violence, artfully constructed to
mislead tho unwary and to deceive the
tens OF thousands who accept at second
hand the assurances of party managers
and party papers: But putting all that
entirely out of view, the astounding
fact yet stands, that the whole admin
istration of forty-five millions Of people,
the public policy, the treasury and its
mighty operations, the vast patronage
of the Government, and the hundred
thousand Offices at home and abroad,
are to-day in the hands of man who
was not elected at all and that even
the fraudulent title by which he claims
to be President rests upon a forgery!