Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1880-07-23

to have done the heaviest business. Golf
gave his address in thirteen different streets,
but alwavS ut the same number, A. The
residences vf the supposed applicants were
placed in vacant lots. stone yards. or wheres-
er chance or fancy dictated. Occasionally
the constructors went through whole street.
and located colony Of appl cants IN each
house. not stopping when they got 10
the end of the street. but carrying on the
numbers nd HJifam In City Hall Place for
example. which contains only forty houses.
they run the numbers up to 342. The appil-
cants for naturalization. il appears, during
the height of the fraud, rere nerer ADMITTED
TO the court room, and aerer sac the Judge
| The professional witnesses obtained the GER
tificates, either filled out or in blank. and
disposed of them at rates varying from %
cents to g. Quantities were delivered in
Westchester. Putnam, Grange. and Rock.and
| Counties Golf took 400 to Kings County,
aad Mr. Davenport knows Of 300 that were
! offered for sale in Saratoga County
| The completely of the democratic Com
mittee in these transactions was notorl-
GUS The principal part of the business was
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 pa
pers received their instructions. So vast
scheme could never have been carried out
except by an organized GENITAL authority.
But that there might be no doubt about the
real responsibility for the crime. United
States Marshal Murray in 1s6S sent a num-
Der of ficticious names to the Democratic Ma
tional Committee, and in few hours obtained
/ certificates of naturalization for all at 81
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; the
&C, 900 aliens supplied with bogus certificates
repeated the crime every year they voted.
When Mr.. Davenport was appointed Chief
| Supervisor of Elections his first undertaking
was to put stop to this outrage upon the le
gal voters, and his method of doing seems
to have been highly Judicious. He gave fair
warning through the press. through the post
office, and whenever possible by personal
notification, that the fraudulent certificates
would be challenged at the polls. He invited
| a committee from Tammany Hall to sit with
| him at his office. and requested all holders of
| the papers of 1868 to appear there and ex-
change their false certificates 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 their
bogus papers and made affidavit as to how
they obtained them; and the number of vol
untary surrenders would no doubt have been
much greater if Tammany Hall-not the bad
Tammany of Tweed but the present reformed
Tammany of Mr.. Kelly-had not sent out cir
culars, in English and German. warning dem
ocratic voters not to appear before Davenport
and to keep away from all government super
visOrs.
| 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
cOrruptions 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 40. 900 to 10000 aliens
were lawlessly 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 success
full detective work stopped good many Of
them. And because Mr.. Davenport did that
and because he purposes to go on and com
plcte 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. A petition signed by Fernando Wood
and seventy others has called for Davenport's
Impeachment and removal. 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 Numbered at him
Resolutions have been hurled at him. He
has been made great political issue. And
finally the democratic party of the Nation re-
solved in solemn caucus to stop the govern
ment 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 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 de-
cency.