Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-01-25
4 CONTEMPLATED CRIME.

Il
SDispatches from Washington state tina
nearly all persans who ran for Congress
last fall as Republicans in the Southern
States will contest the seats of their sue
cessful Democratic opponents. All but
one of the seats from Mississippi are to be
contested; four minority candidates from
Alabama will apply for admission to the
House, and about twenty others who re-
ceived few hundred votes at the No
vember elections in other States will do
likewise. All of them express confidence
in their admission, and there is no con-
cealment among the Northern Republican
members of an intention to exclude as
many Southern Democrats from seats as
possible There is no claim that the
Democratic candidates did not receive a
majority of the votes cast at the elections,
but the old cry of intimidation and fraud
is to be raised, and Republicans given
their seats on one protest or another.
There will be no trouble in procuring all
the evidence that MAY be necessary, in
the eyes of Republican Congressman.
to sustain any charge, no matter how
preposterous, that may be made. There
are plenty of scallawags, white and black,
who will swear to anything that may be
required, without regard to the truth or
falsity of their statements, and even
though they may know that these
wretches are perjuring themselves, the
Republican majority will have no hest
fancy in excluding from the House all
Democrats whose seats would be compro-
missed provided the alleged facts were
proved by incontestible evidence.
1t will do the Democrats but little good
to protest against this wholesale revolu-
ton that has been determined upon. 1t
will not sway the majority from their
purpose But if the programme already
arranged is carried out, the reaction
against the party will be,so great as to be
without parallel in our history. Con-
gressional districts that have heretofore
been doubtful will be doubtful no
longer, for the people will arise
in their might and rebuke such iniquity,
such gross perversion of our government
al system with an emphasis born of out
ragged decency. Yet this plan is fully in
consonance with the past policy of the
party in power During the entire period
of its dominance in the House it has ex-
cluded Democrats from seats to which
Inr, oil cd fr,x al
texts being sufficient to form bases of ac-
ton. The greatest of crimes against
free government have been perpetrated
under the guise of preserving the purity
of the ballot and preventing unlawful
intimidation.
The GLOBE ventures the assertion that
if intimidation was to form the basis of
excluding members from their seats, and
the evidence should be impartially heard
and considered, more than half of the
Republican Congressman elected to the
next house would be excluded. 1t is no.
tOrious that in almost every district in
the North workingmen were forced to
vote for the Republican candidates on
pain of losing their situations through
which they were enabled to provide
bread for their families. This species of
intimidation was far more prevalent at
the North than any form at the South,
and the evidence to that effect is con-
vinclng and incontestible If the Repub-
lican majority shall carry out the plan
they now threaten, they will be but SOW
ing the wind, and the time is not far dis
tant when they will be compelled to reap
LIZ IA, nd