Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-11-22
The LOcked.UD Returns.
By the Governor,
f.. COVE, Secretary of Sta

Mr.. Foster of the Council says that the
public Immediately interested in the cleo
ton returns shall not be permitted TO see
them. Why? Because they have no
right to see them, he says and farther,
because if they were permitted to see
them, that 'some persons might copy
'some of them and then change the rec
cords to correspond, providing it would
s.be for their advantage to do so.''
Now the practical and actual condition
of the returns under Mr.. Fosters ruling is
this: The returns are open to the fusion
consprators, but they are locked up and
inaccessible to republicans who desire to
see them. Fusion conspirators had access
to the returns long ago. According to
Mr.. Foster they might have copied and
changed them or the records where it
would be for their advantage to do so.
Have they done itP There are grounds
for believing they have. Rumors of a
great fraud and outrage intended and be-
ing carried out through the manipulations
of the returns have been i'm circulation
long while Facts are known which cor
roborate these rumors. And at last the
opinion has become firmly established
that what Mr.. Foster says might be done
has been done.
The very fact that republicans have
been excluded from look at the returns,
even for one minute, and that in the pres
eRce of the Governor and Council, is proof
in the eyes of the public that they have
been tempered with. II nothing of that
kind has been done why refuse to allow an
inspection of them by republican men,
bers-elect of the Legislature Why deny
a right and privilege never before deniedp
If the great fraud now talked of in every
part of the State and in all the other States
has no foundation oftruth to rest upon. what
an easy matter it would have been to set
public opinion right, and put an end
to the excitement which exists in regard
to this subject, by permitting an ex-
animation of the returns as in years
past. Republicans have asked in per-
son, by counsel, and through large
and respectable committee, to see
the returns, after they had been "opened,"
but with no other result than refusal and
the confirming of the belief before enter
tanned that an inspection of the returns
would show that the very fraud mentioned
by Mr.. Foster had been perpetrated upon
them for the purpose OF foisting a fraudulent
Legislature and government upon the peo-
pie OF Maine.
Mr.. Fosters words are the key to the
whole conspiracy. As long as the repub-
licans made no special effort to see the re-
turns he put them off with fair promises
that the count should be entirely fair and
lawful but when the pressure on their
part became SO strong that he could no
longer resist it by smooth words he as
sumed the position that the public had no
right to see the returns.
If the Governor and Council are without
fault in this matter, they have pursued a
most remarkable and extraordinary
course they might have swept away every
breath of suspicion against them at the
outset, if they are innocent, by an open and
candid avowal of the honesty of their pur-
pose, but by the astonishing and unprece-
denied course pursued-if there were no
other evidence-they have impressed
the public with the firm belief that the
contingent conspiracy is veritable and
serious fact.
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