Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1880-08-05
NO. 80


The continuation of the testimony of
MIR. John l. Davenport as to the frauds
practlced by the democrats in New York
develops still more startling disclosures
than those to which editorial reference has
already been made in the Tribune. His
Investigations made in 1868 show that 70
600 naturalization papers were issued in
that year by Judges Barnard and McCunn.
The outrage commenced in Judge Car
dazo court in 1866, but was finally stopped
by the honest clerk of the court, who
though a democrat, refused any longer to
be party to such an outrageous fraud.
The mill was then transferred to the
courts of McCunn and Barnard, and al
though it was well known that with the
utmost dispatch but ten men could be natur-
allied in an hour, these two democratic
Judges turned them out at the rate of 500
per hour. In October of that year these
two conspirators, working for the Tam
many ring, naturalized $1,000 men, or
purported to do so, the papers. of course.
being bogus. Mr.. Davenport further tes-
titled that these bogus papers were issued
as II to persons exempt from declaration
of intention on account of their age on ar
rival, and he himself obtained the atfida-
Wits of one thousand men between the
ages of 40 and 60 who acknowledged that
they had been naturalized as minors. AT
AT least 10000 naturalization papers were
issued in blank, of which no record was
ever made in court, and for which no ap-
plication was ever made. In the issuing
of these papers the ring made no scruple
in the matter of the witnesses required by
the law. They had paid professional
witnesses. Sometimes the papers were
signed with the names of witnesses who
could not write, and often the names of
such men as Belmont. Hoffman, Tweed.
Sweeny, and Vanderbilt appear upon
them, signed with mark The certif-
Gates were obtained by these professional
witnesses, ten of them having obtained
papers for over 5000 persons, but the APP
plicants never saw either Judge or court
room. There is no question of these
frauds practiced in 1868, and there is no
question that these aliens, armed with
these bogus papers, have been voting the
democratic ticket ever since. And yet this
party which perpetrated these infamous
outrages, and which sought to continue
them by interference with the operations
of the courts, by attempting to stop the
supplies of the government. and by fore
ing an extra session of Congress upon the
country, is the party that is clamoring for
honost election. 1t is this party which
cast from forty to sixty thousand
fraudulent votes IN New York, which
has been convicted of proportionate frauds
in New Jersey, which committed such out
rageous frauds in Cincinnati that some of
its leaders were sent to the penitentiary,
which has been detected III its villainy in
Chicago, which has stuffed the ballot-boxes
of South Carolina with thousands of tissue
paper votes and which has prevented re-
publicans from voting in the other south
Orn states by bulldozing the terrorism, that
demands elective reforms and prates about
the honesty and purity of the ballot-box.
A gambler preaching honesty, or drunk
ard eulogizing temperance, or a debauchee
proclaiming his virtue, could not be more
inconsistent or disgusting to public de-
cency than the spectacle of the democratic
party, rotten with fraud, convicted over
and over again of corruption, and practic-
ing its viIlainies openly, without any at
tempt to conceal them, believing itself
hoarse with its sham appeals for honest
elections.- Chicago Tribune.