Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-09-14
Ruying Irish Votes.

The statement winch we puDnSneu
yesterday morning from Col. A. K. Nc
Clure, of the Philadelphia Times, is GER
tainly remarkable document. 1t Is in
effect that on or about the 9Th of June
last one Mr.. John G. Delaney, "who has
long been known as a dealer in Irish
votes" appeared in Washington, and
attempted, through certain so-called
Irish leaders, who hold places under the
government, to purchase 10000 Irish
votes in Pennsylvania for the Cameron
ticket. That this statement of Colonel
Mcclure is true there is no room
for doubt, for he not only boldly
gives interviews and dates with
strict attention to details, but he like
wise incloses photographs of letters in
his possession written by Delaney in
regard to the purchase and sale OF the
Irish-American voters whose support he
Graves for the party of spoils and bossism
in the Keystone State. Nor is this all,
but Colonel Mcclure goes even further
and declares that the Assistant Secretary
of the Interior Department, New, APP
pointed one of the conspirators in the
selling pool to an important Federal
Office, so that he could travel about and
arrange for the delivery of the votes, at
the public expense.
Thus is developed one of the most
shameless and fragrant efforts at wholesale
bribery and corruption which even this
degenerate age has ever witnessed, and
it Is simply grievOus insult to all the
Irish-American citizens of the United
States 1t implies that the Irish voters
of the State of Pennsylvania are so many
corrupt machines, devoid of all principle
and ready to sell themselves out body
and soul to the highest bidder. No
greater stigma could be cast upon any
citizen of this Republic.
That these efforts will recoil upon the
party guilty of making them is we'll
nigh foregone conclusion. Heretofore,
as a rule, our Irish fellow citizens have
been actuated in their political course
purely through principle and conviction.
In some few cases, as IN the Tammany
Hall faction of New York for instance,
they have, it is true, permitted John
Kelly to lead them by the nose, and
make them instruments for defeating
the Democracy of the State. Still they
have generally recognized the great SER
vices which the Democratic party per-
formed for the foreign-born citizens of
the country in the old Know Nothing
days, when the native American party
swept everything before it, until it re-
ceived its death stroke at the hands of
the Democratic hosts Of Virginia,
under the leadership of Governor
Wise. For this reason they have
for the most part remained steadfast and
true to the Democratic party, and now
for the Radicals of the country to think
they can purchase Irish votes by whole
sale, and seduce them with money from
their allegiance to the party with which
they have been always identified, is not
only disgrace to the party of corrup-
ton, but a reflection upon the honor of
our Irish fellow citizens which should
not be, and we believe will not be,
tolerated.
This shameless scheme to prostitute
the Irish vote of Pennsylvania is, how
ever, but in keeping with the programme
of the administration to hubbellize the
country and purchase Congressional
seats in the South. 1t seems to be the
ruling idea of the Radical party that all
virtue has departed from the American
people, and that the elective franchise is
simply thing which can be bought and
sold like any other commodity. Hubbell's
large corruption fund has been accumu-
lated with this idea boldly announced,
for he has openly stated that only on
bribery can the grand old party" rely
for further existence. The people of
the country will, it is to be
hoped, rebuke with indignant en-
phasis this intimation that their
principles are nothing, and that they are
ready to sell themselves and their pOliti
cal freedom to become the bondsmen
and serfs of Radicalism. But even if
the masses throughout the land should
justify HubbelPs low opinion of their
virtue, at least let the honest Irish voters
of the country and the Southern people
show that they are proof against politi-
cal prostitution, and that they regard all
efforts to purchase them as grave insults
demanding emphatic resentment.