The Portland daily press., 1880-07-31
IN. Y. Times.l
Fusion in Maine.

The Maine Democrats, having surrendered
to the Greenbackers in the matter of Guber-
material nomination, have perfected their
fusion on an Electoral ticket Both parties
assembled in Bangor, in June, and H. NJ
Plaisted, an ex-Republican who had joined
the Greenbackers, was nominated by the party
which had just received him into its fold.
The Democrats, who had been holding their
convention as a mere sde-show to the Green
hackers, indorsed the nomintion of Plaisted,
and hurriedly adjourned as if in terror Of
bolt which then threatened. The business of
nominating Presidential Electors was left to
the State Committees of both parties, the man
ayers of the two conventions making it clearly
understood that o trade was being negotiated,
and that this delicate transaction could be
better managed by few men in a lawyers
back office, than by a large body of delegates
exposed to the "broad sunlight of publicity"
Subsequently, the Democratic State Central
Committee met in Portland and nominated
three of the seven Presidential Electors, leav-
ing the other four to be put up by their Green
back allies These candidates for Elector
were William A. Cromwell, Samuel Watts,
and John Donworth. This abject surrender
was received in the Greenback camp with
much rejoicing, and with a fresh demonstra-
tion of insolence. The Greenbackers, so far
from being satisfied, arrogantly refused to fuse
until further concessions were made. Secure
of electing Plaisted Governor in September,
they decided to postpone their nominations for
Presidential Electors until that happy eyentf
should be reached, when of course, they would
be in a situation to dictate almost any terms 10
the cheated Democracy.
In exact harmony with all this base and
vulgar political trading the Democrats,
quickened with hopefulness 10y the short-lived
Hancock boom, threatened to take down PlaS-
ted, whose recent departure from the Repub-
lican party made him specially obnoxious to
them. This alarmed the Greenbackers, and
their State Committee was hurriedly called
together last Tuesday, at Augusta The
Democratic committee was brought together in
the same city, and the result is fusion ON the
Electoral ticket. The Greenbackers have
nominated their four of the seven candidates
as follows: Solon Chase, Benjamin Bunker,
j. f. Turner, and Charles r. Whidden. Gu
riously enough, all of these men are editors of
Greenback newspapers. Mr.. Watts, the sec
ond man on the Democratic Electoral ticket,
was highly Objectionable to the Greenbackers
as a hard-money man who had refused to vote
the Fusion ticket for State Represen tative in
his district last year. They insisted that they
would not eat that crow" whatever else they
will swallow. The Democratic committee,
accordingly, took his name from their ticket,
last Tuesday, and voted that he be asked to
withdraw ''or accept the alternative of being
abandoned" On the same day Murch, the
Greenback Representative in Congress from
the Fifth District, was nominated by the
Democrats or rather his previous nomination
by the Greenbackers, was Endorsed by them
Fogg one of the engineers of the notorious
GaIcelon conspiracy, has been nominated for
Congress in the Second District by the Green
hackers, and his acceptance by the Democrats
is now under consideration.
Thus it will be seen that the Democrats have
formally andipublicly acknowleded their abiect
hopeless dependence upon the Greenbackers
by accepting Greenback-Republican as their
candidate for Governor, and by concluding
bargain for Presidential Electors. Four of the
seven candidates for Elector to be voted for by
Democrats are pledged to cast their votes for
Weaver for President of the United States.
The other three candidates are pledged to Han
cock. Any man;who casts this hybrid vote gives
four-sevenths of q vote to Weaver and three
sevenths to Hancock. On the homely prinei-
pie that half loaf is better than no bread,
Democrats and Greenbackers propose to 90
through the State asking the voters to divide
their suffrages and give their candidates
each a fraction Of ballot "The superb SOL
dier" is to be yoked in with the Iowa inha-
zionist and driven through Maine, in order
that gang of plundering, unscrupulous poll
place. Even the presense of honesty is flung
to the winds by the Maine Democrats, who,
while they held themselves aloof from open
union with the inflationists, maintained fair
claim to respect. They have confessed THAT it
is better to be in office by surrender of prin-
ciple than not to be in office at all And by
this sort of double dealing, it is supposed that
the State of Maine can be carried for one of
the most corruptI political combinations that
ever dsgraced the country. The men who are
in the forefront of the new fusion are the same
who attempted to steal the State last year.
They are the same men who forged and falsi-
fed election returns, organized fraudulent
Legislature, and brazenly deted law and de-
ceucy, until, inch by inch, they were driven
out of their refuge of lies by judicial decisions
and an outraged public sentiment The thiev-
ing Fusionisis of 1879, painfully conscious OF
their unsavory reputation, find it me- needfGl to
have united on political gambler for Govern
or, and they have agreed to divide the Presi-
dental Electors between the two gangs.