American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1879-08-30
The New York Times Mares Nest.

the community at the expense perhaps
of its readers by printing an article ten
columns in length upon the novel sub
jet of the popular vote of 1876. The
World, alas! is not liberal enough to
give up ten columns in answering the
Times according to its-its statistics,
but fortunately we need only dedicate
ourselves to the agreeable and easy
task of emphasizing the Times strong
points and carrying out the Times ar
gumentative processes to wider and
more impartial results. 1t seems but
yesterday-or, at most. the day before
that the Times was using the election
returns of 1876 as the best possible evil
dence to show that the population of
the United States had greatly increased
bullet that pass!
II we have any quarrel with our con-
temporary, it is for falling at sufficient
length and with adequate heat to ex-
pose the develish craft of the Demo-
Gratis in stuffing the ballOt-boxes and
manipulating the returns in the twenty
States which Hayes carried, and in
which as full vote was brought out in
1876 as in the States which went for
Tilden. This is the more to be re-
GREETED, that the Times appalling story
of 1876 demonstrates the utter inutility
of the Davenport system of Federal
Supervisors. If in spite of books, maps,
armies of Deputy Marshals and acres
of iron cages, millions of bogus votes
can be cast and counted under the nose,
as it were, of Davenport, it is surely
time to abolish a system as Intellectual
as 1t is cumbrous and costly.
OF Florida we learn that the Demo-
cratic claim rested on the Democratic
assertion that the popular vote amount
ed to 48, 791, which required that 1850
ballots should be cast in excess of the
whole number of qualified electors in
the State. And yet, when the Rcpub-
ican Returning Board of Florida gave
the State to Hayes, November %, 1876,
it certified that 1862 votes had been
cast. On the 26th of December it
certified to the Supreme Court that
Drew, Democrat, had been elected Gov
ernor by a majority of 1875 in poll of
48, 1853 votes. Surely, if there were
only 44,741 voters in Florida, the Re-
publican Returning Board, even if its
members felt compelled to count in q
Republican President on poll of 49,
600, ought not to have missed this OPP
portunity to count out a Democratic
Governor. So, too, in the case of Lou
isiana. If the Times can trust Kellogg's
Returning Board in 1876 to make the
returns IL, 900 less than they actually
were, why should it decline to accept
Kellogg's census enumeration of 1875,
which makes the population 118, 777
larger than the Times desires it to be?
There can be no wriggling out of this.
If the Kellogg count of the votes was
good, the presumption is that SO was
the Kellogg count of the voters. Be-
side, the Republicans. didn't complain
that there was ballot-box stuf1ing in
Louisiana; they complained of BULLDOG
ing, thanks to which votes were not
counted at all. And finally, as all the
election machinery was in Kellogg's
hands, it is clear that in order to perpe-
trate frauds of any sort, he and all his
agents must have been bribed by the
Democracv!
There is one Southern State which,
owing, doubtless, to provoking typo
graphical error, the Times did not deal
with. That is South Carolina. It went
for Hayes, the total vote being 1873, 543.
In 1875 census was taken by the Re-
publican Government, which showed
that there were in the State 184,94
males above twenty-one. Mr.. Hayes,
therefore, owes his election to the fact
that 994 per cent. of the male adult
population voted, and, as we learn
from the Times that it is prima facie
proof of fraud, for 944 per cent. of the
adult males to vote in Mississippi,
why But reason totters on her
throne at such revelations-and we for
bear! Let us rather consider the North.
To prove that the vote of New York
was fraudulent, the Times rejects the
State census and invents one of its
own. 1t is really difficult to put the
salt of correction on the statistical
tail when it is not only airily wagged
from Dough to bough, but finally taken
up with a hop by its owner upon
purely imaginary twig, which the
owner Immediately pulls up after him.
But we may assume as a starting
point the declaration that it is :" a sheer
possibility for 95.2 of the qualified
voters of any State to deposit their bal
lots at any election, and that a recorded
vote of 21.3 per cent. of the whole pop
uIatiou is, therefore. a record of fright
full frauds. In New Hampshire, which
went Republican in 1876, and is
thought to be a moral and truly
rural State, we find, even if we
take no account of probable de-
crease of population since 1870,
that 1876 brought out a total
vote of 8O.124, or something over 96.1
per cent. If 21.3 per cent. of the pop
ulation of Democratic New York is a
fraudulently large voting percentage,
what shall we say of 21.1 in Republic
can Iowa, or %. 1 in Republican Kan
sas, or 22.5 in Republican Michigan,
the apple of Mr.. Chambers eyeP To
get a closer view of the Democratic
strategy in 1876, as now invented by
the Times, strategy as far seeing as it
was futile, let us look at the county re-
turns. Take st. Lawrence County, the
Republican stronghold. With a popu-
lation of 84,826 it cast 1921 votes, or
228 per cent. nearly. Out of voting
population of 1926 it contrived to
bring 10, 2S1 voters to the polls! From
1872 to 1876 the increase on the Demo-
cratic side was 1,O51, or 1922 per cent,
and the Republican side 6,506, or near
ly "a per cent! Or let us take Chau-
tauqua, another Republican strong
hold. With a population of Ga, S69 it
cast eE T pse out and
most "a per cent. The Democratic
vote had increased in two years $50
and the Republican 1888! Or let us
take Washington, still another Repub-
lican stronghold. With population
of 48, 1877 it cast 1928 votes, or 24.3
per cent, and out of 1878 voters it
brought out almost 90 per cent! Here,
too, the Democrats only gained 400
votes upon Mr.. Tilden's first canvass
of the State, while the Republicans
gained 1898!
On looking, therefore, closely into the
matter we discover that the Democrats,
after planning with an astuteness, la
l,or;oucpoue and devlishnesS which we