New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-07-20

United States District Attorney Courtney
were signed with a mark! But great deal
of the work was done by professional Wit
nesses. who made nothing of swearing TO
five years. acquaintance with some two thou
sand applicants. These professional witnesses,
of whom there were about 100, were kept in
room adjoining the court, anu III one
month they signed for 10000 applicants. Ten
of them appeared for no fewer than S,24o
persons. Patrick Golf. John Moran, John
Ward and Patrick McCaffery seem to have
done the heaviest business. Golf gave bis
address in thirteen different streets, but always
at the same number, AZ. The residences OF
the supposed applicants were placed IN vacant
lots, stone-yards, or wherever chance Or fancy
dictated. Occasionally the conspirators went
through a whole street, and located colony
of applicants in each house, not stopping when
they got to the end of the street, but carrying
on the numbers ad HJifum. In City Hall
Place, for example, which contains only forty
houses, they ran the numbers up to 342. The
applicants for naturalization, 1T ap ears, dur
ing the height of the fraud, tcere nerer
admitted to the courtroom, and neper Sdw
the Judge. The professional witnesses
obtained the certificates, either hiied
out or in blank, and disposed Of them at rates
varying from so cents to 50. Quantities were
delivered in Westchester, Putnam. Orange
and Rockland Counties; Golf took 400 to
Kings County, and Mr.. Davenport knows OF
500 that were offered for sale in Saratoga
County. The completely of the Democratic
Committee in these transactions was n0tOrl-
ous no nj Of no I'M
carried on at the party headquarters, the sys-
tenn was organized there. the witnesses were
supplied, the judges were managed. and the
aliens who were to vote on these bogus papers
received their instructions. So vast scheme
could never have been carried out except by
an organized central authority. But that
there might be no doubt about the real Te-
sp0nsibility for the crime, United States Mar
shall Murray in 1868 sent number OF fct-
tious names to the Democratic National Com
mittee, and in few hours obtained certificates
of naturalization for all at 50 apiece.
These things were done while Tweed was
in his glory. But we must not forget that
the corruption of the suffrage thus introduced
was "a continuing danger and injustice; .he
10000 aliens supplied with bogus certificates
repeated the crime every year they voted.
When Mr.. Davenport was appointed Chief
Supervisor of Elections his first under
taking was TO put stop to this
outrage upon the legal voters, and
his method of doing so seems to have been
highly judicOus. He gave fair warning through
the press, through the post office, and when
eve: possible by personal notification, that the
fraudulent certificates would be challenged at
the polls He invited a committee from Tam
many Hall to SIT with him Mt his Office, and
requested all holders of the papers of 1868
to appear there and exchange their false GER
tfcates for valid ones, if they were entitled
to them, or, at any rate, to be put in the
way of becoming citizens. Several thousand
persons did give up :heir bogus papers and
made affidavit as to how they obtained them
and the number of voluntary surrenders would
no doubt have been much greater if Tam
many Hall-not the bad Tammany of Tweed,
but the present reformed Tammany of Mr..
Kelly-had not sent ont circulars. in English
and German, warning Democratic voters not
to appear before Davenport and to keep away
from all Government supervisors
The course which Tammany adopted then
is the course which the Democratic party has
adopted ever since the Federal Government
undertook to protect itself against wholesale
corruptons of the suffrage. There is no
doubt, there is no dispute, about the facts of
the naturalization frauds of 1868. There is
no question that from 10000 10 10000 aliens
were lawessly thrust into the body of
voters at that time, and that they had
been voting ever since on the bogus
papers of McCunn and Barnard. until Mr.
Davenport's successful detective work stopped
good many of them. And be ause Mr..
Davenport did that, and because he purposes
to 20 on and complete his good work. he has
been pursued by the entire Democracy of the
United States with oaths in their mouths and
blood in their eyes. petition signed by
Fernando Wood and seventy others has
called for Davenport's impeachment and re-
moval Congress has spent four years trying
to invent some kind of an investigation which
would destroy him without letting him get
his mouth open. Democratic orators have
thundered at him. Resolutions have been
hurled at him. He has been made great
political issue. And finally the Democratic
party of the Nation resolved in solemn eau
Gus to stop the Government if Davenport
were not removed. 1t was to get rid of
Davenport. more than for any other purpose,
that they made the fight on the Marshals
bill, and refused to pay debts, and blocked
the operations of the courts, and brought on
the extra session. They have made they are
still making, an astounding exhibition of
themselves in this crusade for free fraud
but in matters that affect the purity of the
suffrage they never did have any sense of
decency.
TILL pARK VI TILE QRELLSK