Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1880-08-12

Is the Civil-service plank in the Chi
cago platform one of the planks which
Garfield repudiates? Has he made the
bargain? Does he really mean to offer
an affront to the Administration Of
Hayes?-Cincinnati Enquirer.
General Hanc0ck's Position With Re.
spect to the Fraud Of 1876.
Some of our Republican contempora-
ries seem to be strangely anxious to get
it understood that during the closing
months of 1876 or the earlier months of
1877 General Hancock notified one of
his superior officers that he considered
Mr.. Tilden to have been duly elected
President of the United States, adding,
of course, that if Congress declared Mr..
Tilden to have been so elected, and if
Mr.. Tilden should take the oath of
office as President. General Hancock
would obey his orders on and after the
4th of March, 1877. 1t is to be hoped
the Republicans may succeed in prov
ing this, because if they should succeed
in proving it they would greatly
strengthen General Hancock's claims
upon the confidence of his countrymen.
General Hancock had in 1877, as he
has in 1880, but two superior officers in
the military service-General Sherman
to anybody such a notification as is
alleged, he must have addressed it to
one of these officers, and official pro-
priety would doubtless have induced
him to address it to General Sherman.
AS neither General Sherman nor Gen
eral Sheridan nor yet General Hancock
himself has confirmed the rumor of
such a notification, it must at present
be regarded as merely rumor, though
a rumor highly creditable to General
Hancock, and such a rumor as would
naturally arise concerning an officer on
whose loyalty and patriotism partisan
passion itself has not ventured to cast
doubt.
The assertion that such q notification
was made by General Hancock after the
false judgment of the Electoral Com
mission had been rendered, or even
after that body had been established, is
neither rioter nor revolutionist, but
law-abiding citizen and a faithful
soldier. The Electoral Commission
gave to Mr.. Hayes q color of title which
protected every public servant in obey
ing any lawful orders which came from
him, and in which the whole American
people acquiesced rather than run the
risk of a new civil war. Before the
Commission was established, and when
the monstrous claim was put forward
that the President of the Senate alone
had the right to count the votes and
that there was no appeal from his deci-
sion, though every member OF Congress
might know that he certified false
hood in every pretended count, it was
among things possible that every public
servant and every private citizen of
this country might be forced to choose
for himself whom he would recognize
as President. On the one side was this
monstrous claim that a casual Senator,
who happened to be the presiding Off
Ger of the Senate in consequence of the
death of the Vice-President, had power
to nullify the will of the American peo-
pie. On the other side was the fact, as
clear then as it is now, that the will of
the American people had been ex-
pressed in the election of Mr..
Tilden. If it had come to
choice between these alternatives it
would have been the duty of General
Hancock, as a soldier and citizen, to
choose his course in accordance with
what he believed to be the facts, and to
take sides with the American people
against the group of desperate political
gamblers who were trying to defraud
them of their right to choose their own
President. If it seemed to General
Hancock that the time for choice had
come, it was his duty to give, as it is
alleged that he gave, a timely notice to
his military superiors of the decision at
which he had arrived, and to warn
them that no assistance could be count
ed on from him towards reversing the
verdict which the people had rendered
at the polls.
If it be true that General Hancock
felt himself moved to give this notice
and this warning, the fact would tend
to justify the fear felt at the time by
such patriotic men as Senator Bayard
and Senator Thurman that the Elect
oral Commission was necessary to save
the country from the alternatives of the
unresisted seizure of the Government
by cOnspirators or of a new civil war.
1t was certain that at midnight on the
Sd of March the functions of President
Grant would absolutely cease and de-
termine, and that on that day then
begun either Mr.. Tilden or Mr..
Hayes must become President OF
the United States. There was chance
that Mr.. Ferry would attempt to usurp
the power which was vested in the two
houses. over the joint meeting of
which he was to preside. There was
more than a chance that the two houses
would disagree as to choice. In that
case, we repeat, every man in the
country would have been forced to
make his election between the claim
ants, and it would have behooved
every man to make his election, as it is
now alleged that General Hancock did
make his election, according to the
facts. In so looking back at that time,
it is plain from what peril the Elec-
toral Commission saved us. If ma
jority of the arbitrator to whom the
case was left cheated the American
people, by deciding that the facts were
relevant in Oregon and aliu'sde in
Florida, the disgrace to their thimble-
rigging is theirs alone, and not that OF
the men who devised the arbitration,
or of the American people who Loyalty
4 oh hot