The Portland daily press., 1880-01-12
MUNCHAUsEN SPRINGER.
Dennis Kearney Wants to Lead Gang of
Roughs to Maine.

AT the Greenback conference in Washington
Thursday night r. NJ. Springer of the New
Era of this city undertook to give a complete
history of the Maine campaign. Having seen
great deal of corruption and intimidation at
the polls, he and his friends decided that the
State must be Nrested from the Republicans
in order that this treatment of voters might be
exposed. Men were set at work canvassing
the State, and they found, the speaker as
serted, that over 10000 voters had been driven
from the poles and not allowed to vote 'The
evidence was laid before the Governor" he
continued, "and will be published The fear
of this was the secret of Blaine's opposition
He then declared that the Republicans had
held back returns and manipulated them. 81
can show" said he, 'that Is per cent. of the
voters in some towns were intimidated aud
bought, and that in Portland over 200 men
lost their votes in this way. L sat beside the
clerk when the House was organized. Eu-
gene Hale made only one mistake, and that
was in qualifying and in that way making IL
quorum for US. But we put up job for him
and he fell into the trap. Ten members had
told us that attempts had been made to bribe
OiiOul W otdJ CIV "JJ poe eAAOJ SS-> ~~ON ~
bought 1 advised the leaders to induce some
members to take the offered money, and III
this way to secure evidence which would save
the State The first man to yield was Thomas
B. Swan of Minot, who went and took Sl,0O0
and brought it to us. Solon Chase holds
check for it, Then / declared that we must
have another, and the second man was Moses
Hartman of Kennebunk. He brought the
money to us in bills, nearly all OF it in packages
of 800 each. We were watched by spies and
surrounded by Republican ruffians Hartman,
| Cove Pillsbury aud myself, therefore, went to
an attic in the State House as the only place
| where we could be safe. We locked the door,
and Hartman took the money from his
| pocket There were 81 ,005 they had over
paid him. To save these two men from
| murder, we locked them up in the State House
| that night, and put guard around them. The
| Associated Press has not told the story cor
| rectly. The State House was full of rufflans,
hired by the Republicans. AT the time of ad-
| journment the Republicans tore the presiding
clerk from his desk, and son of Speaker
Blaine tried to take away the gayel The Clerk
nearly Drained him with it, and if he had not
| been restrained 500 men would have been Killed
il. the State House in fifteen minutes. The trick
! we PLAYED was this: When the first roll was
called only 70 men responded, although we had
| 75 Hale felt sure that Swan and Hartman
| were keeping tnelr Word, anu Ilite liieIo oouIu
! be no quorum, even if he qualified, for rs were
needed. Then the members qualified and
signed their names to the roll This time IA
| signed, and after all seemed to have qualified
Hale came up and counted the names. Feel
| ing certain that there were no more to come,
| he added his own. Then we brought up the
seventy-sixth man, who had been standing at
one side and his signature made quorum.
AS soon as I saw the House organized | came
away. They tried to detain me, but L said,
| you need some assistance at Washington.
| Joseph Smith told me that as soon as he was
elected he would issue proclamation that the
| liberties of the people were in danger from
corruption and conspiracy" Mr., Springer
frequently appealed to the audience to dis
cover whether they believed him. and often
referred to many supporting affidavits which
| he had in his trunk. He fatty denied many
of the statements of the Associated Press. He
was acting part of the time in Maine for the
| Boston Globe
Dennis Kearney then made Speech begin
ming by announcing his readiness to lead
gang of men 20 Maine to oppose any troops
which might be sent there. In the course OF
| his TRADE he advocated lynch law, freely used
| his threadbare adjectiveS, land denounced John
| Sherman as thief who would steal the cop
pers off a dead mans eyes and then kick his
corpse because they were not silver, "Eill my
belly with potatoes, said he, "and I am a
man. Give me dollar based on q potato or
| cabbage that will sustain life, and not a bit Of
| gold to stick in a woman's cars or a mans
tooth" At the close he dealt with the Chi
nese question and the provisions i'll relation to
| it in the new constitution of California III
the United States NEEDLES with that constitu-
tion,' he cried, 1--WE will lop off California and
form solid West, and, with solid South, we
will whip the devil out of New England" ="
Speeches were also made by by ex-Gov. Nc
| Millen and Others