The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-09-22
Bad Features of the Maine Elec.
Penn Weekly Notes. !

The two bad features in the Maine election
are (1) the popular conformation of the Garce-
Ion frauds; and ~ the abdication of political
principle involved in the coalition itself.
Neither of the two parties to the new coali-
ton took any pains to clear their skirts of the
frauds and forgeries which were perpetrated
in connection with the election of 1879. Neith-
er of them could deny the facts. Even the
minority of the Legislative Committee, which
published the exposure of these frauds, show
ing the dishonest alterations made in the re-
turn papers after they had passed into the
hands of the Executive, admitted all the facts,
while refusing, for no reason given, to sub
scribe to the just inferences hich the majori-
ty had drawn. Only tile impossibility of
Identifying the special offender in the group
OF conspirators prevented the State from CIV
ing one or more of them an opportunity of
studying life through crossed iron cars. But
the same inpossbility left every one of them
except perhaps Governor Garcelon himself
under the suspicion of the offence, and made
it impossible for self-respecting men to associ-
ate with them politically or otherwise. The
Fusionists were under no necessity to take up
these men again. They are not so poor in
candidates as to have needed them Nor were
they, as party, formally committed to the
deeds of these suspected criminals. Thew
might have washed their hands of the whole
infamy, and remanded its authors to private
life. Instead of that, they allowed several of
these men to be put in nomination for posi-
tions, and in some instances elected them
by their votes. They have by their success
made the State of Maine an accompIice in the
iniquity of falsified returns and of the con-
temptible trickery by which the lawfully ex-
pressed will of whole communities was to he
set aside.
Some weeks ago, a Canadian paper, discuss
ing one of the perennial scandals of Dominion
politics, remarked that in the United States
men who had been convicted of political
crimes at the bar of public opinion, were
forced by public opinion to retire to private
life. 1t instanced Tweed, Kemble, Oakes
Ames, and some Others But Maine has set
aside all that; and were there no Constitution
al obstacles in the way, we might now see Mr..
Kemble plucking up heart to appear as a can
didate for the Governorship of Pennsylvania,
The coalition is less censurable as a moral
offence, because it is one whose iniouity is less
visible to the average voter. But it is one
which deserves public reprobation in every
case, whoever may be parties to it. The Green
hackers especially are, as rule in agreement
with Republicans on all national questions ex-
cept the money question. Yet, being them
elves IN hopeless minority, they enter into
compact whose only effect can be to strength
en- the hands of the Solid South, to encourage
It's friends and dishearten its opponents, and to
precipltate an era of oppression for the negro
and ruin to Northern Industries, which they
cannot but deplore even as possibility. Their
Maine victory has not brought them one step