The Wilmingtonian., 1884-06-21
sHERIFFALTY NOMINATION.


''The voting early and voting often ee-
ment''wa out in full force on last Saturday,
and never before in the history of New Cas-
tie county was the farce of holding nomin-
alton elections mole thoroughly exempli-
fed.
The Morning Neacs drily remarked on
last Monday ''that Ford's majority could as
readily have been seven thousand AS half
that number" and we have yet to find one
so reckless of his reputation as to dare
defend the wholesale corruption that was
defiantly practi ed at the various voting
precincts on last Saturday. Boys and men
shamelessiy went from poll to poll, and
deposited their votes for Ford in defiance
of all protests, and willing inspectors winked
at the repeated and overwhelming outrages.
In the eastern precinct of the Ninth ward
there were fifty Democratic votes cast at the
recent city election, but on Saturday last at
bue hoHlludtlOu lOr OnellH bnere MeIe over
one hundred votes polled. The fact of
polling more votes at a nomination than at
an election is altogether too suggestive to
require comment, and it remains yet TO be
seen If Ford shall be allowed to be the bene-
ticiary of last Saturdays unhalloN ed work.
1t is significant fact that the respectable
Democrats of the city, far from regarding
Colonel Ford's triumph as victory for the
party OF as an earnest of his popularity,
wore an aspect of such exceeding sadness on
Saturday evening as might we'll have sug-
gested the notion of their being mourners at
a funeral. And a funeral it was-of all that
was left to be respected, all that remained
OF honest political principle, in the mass of
the Democracy of this city. There was no
sort of disguise about Saturdays business.
Mr.. Oldham's increasing favor with the
better class of Democratic voters throughout
New Castle county and the announcement
that Colonel Ford must have heavy major
ity from Wilmington if he would hope to
win, plainly inspired Ford's henchmen with
the determination to carry him through at
all hazards and it has been openly asserted
that some of the voters were actually
marched in gangs from ward to ward, with
out any pretense of concealment and that
in this way, and this way alone, was Mr..
Ford's too-fattering majority built up. A
wellknown Republican merchant of this
town, who watched the farce with amused
interest(slily remarking that it was ''none of
his funeral intimated his conviction that
'noswitastaInding the overt hostility of the
nspectors-enough Oldham men cast their
votes to have ensured his nomination, with
anything like fair contest, vote for vote.
The figures appended afford conclusive
and damning evidence of the methods which
were employed at Saturdays nomination.
We are enabled to see that though Mr..
Lynch fought Mr.. Oldham in 1882 with the
same element on his side (the Irish Catholic
vote), the contest was fair and square one
both in the city and the county. Mr.. Lynch
polled 1870 in the former and 1911 in the
latter total of 310O votes; while Mr.. Old
ham polled 1916 in the city and 1884 in the
county-a total of 1850. Although Mr..
Lynch thus had a clear 800 majority, the
figures render it quite clear that the fight
was fair one on both sides, for we do both
Mr.. Lynch and Mr.. Oldham the justice to
believe that they would scorn the bare sug-
gestion of such political profigacy as won
the nomination for Colonel Ford last Satur-
day. Here are the votes cast for Ford in
1884 and for Lynch in 1882 in both cases III
the nomination contest with Mr.. Oldham