The daily gazette., 1882-05-26
1aA:lszss.T:jIi IILiI nA-.4t.
WILMINGTON. FRIDAY. MAY 80.
Fraud at the Election.

For several days past 1t has been rumored
that one of the devices of the Republican
managers for success on the day of election
will be to purposely create fights around the
polls, where they have inspectors in charge,
and during the confusion and excitement
thus created rush in the votes of FOUNDERS
and repeaters without stint. Peculiar
significance and color is given to this rumor
by the persistent manner in which the Re
publican papers are crying out against
imaginary Democratic frauds, and particu-
larly by the declaration of the Morning
Ne,rs that there will fbe a fair election or
''such time as Wilmington has neveryet
''seen."
Such plan is not at all inconsistent with
the political record of the Republican
party of Wilmington as represented and
controlled in the present campaign. The
men who stuffed the ballot boxes at the
Mayoralty nomination in 1872, who backed
Marshal Dunn when he brought his hired
repeaters from Philadelphia, and slowed
them in the Custom House cellar for the
purpose of sending them down the county
to destroy the ballot boxes in the Democra-
tic strongholds on election day, who forged
tax receipts for colonized negroes and kept
them in the Water Department safe until re-
quired for use, who were cronies with
defaulting postmaster, collector of the port
and city treasurer, who encouraged the last
outrageous Republican defalcation in the
Water Department, who contracted Street
Department pay-rolls amounting to 81 800
in a single week for purely political pur-
poses, and who, in short, were guilty of the
grossest political rascalities that ever dis
graced this or any other city, are the men
who are now managing the Republican
party of Wilmington, and are interested in
the success of its ticket at the approaching
city election. These men would carry out
the plan above mentioned without the
slightest hesitation if they for an instant felt
assured that it would succeed. They are
the men whose manipulations nominated
the Republican candidate for Mayor, and
they would naturally expect to profit by his
election and the consequent triumph of their
party.
As the Necs truly says, "Forewarned,
"forearmed' is an old phrase "that fits this
tease exactly y and if there is to be "such
ga time as Wilmington has never yet
"seeD," the Democratic voters will take care
that they are not left out in the cold on this
interesting occasion. They have too often
faced Radical ruffians, drunken u S. Deputy
Marshals and even Federal bayonets to be
scared by the idle vaporings of an organ that
1,Nv., Il
proposed cheating devices of its own party.
We do not anticipate that on election
day there will be "such time as Whining
"ton has never yet seen." On the contrary
we think there win be "time" like unto
that of pleasant day in September, 1878,
to the polls and by majority SC
decisive that the loudest cry of fraud
could not impair it, fairly buried
Charles II. Gallagher, the "Ring' candi
date for Mayor, and swept the "Ring'
Council, that had been using the money o
the people for the purpose of aiding in hi
election, out Of existence. To-day the sam
old corrupt "Ring" that would not "dowI
" at the bidding" of its more decent part
associates, rears its defiant head and essay
TO control the political affairs of this city
The same element that was embodied in tn
nomination of Gallagher is represented in til
nomination of DIR. Wales, and the fate {
Gallagher in 1878 will be the fate of the r,
publican party at the next city election. tn
''Ring" has been "tried and found wanting
and the people of Wilmington have n
further use for it.