The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1886-07-01
For tho SITTER.
That "Packed Caucus" again.

M. S0ter; Levi Fuller and his
chief strikers, including Lo. Martin
and Editor Davenport, are awfully
stirred up because the people, and the
SITTER particularly, will persist in call
ing the first Brattleboro caucus II "pack-
ed caUcus.' ''Conscience makes cow
ards of us all" is an old, and, in this
ease, true saying. Guilty men see
accusing ghosts in every bush, Now
if that caucus was not packed in the
most dscrcditable and offensive sense
of that term, do not know how any
body could 80 TO work to get up such a
caucus. Here were about one hundred
and twenty five men and boys, repnb-
Leans and democrats alike--all the en-
ployccs of single iirm--who We're
brought into Il caucus under the watch
full supervision of their several shop
bosses, printed tickets in hand that had
been carefully distributed to them be-
fore leaving their benches, and voted in
Il solid body for one member of The
firm from whom they received their
bread and butter, every man of them
knowing that II watchful eve was upon
him. Not dozen men voted for this
ticket who were not employed by the
firm aforesaid. The job was all plan
ned and put up on the sly, the packed
tickets were secretly printed on type
writer in the Office of the candidate and
employer, lest the plot should leak out
prematurely; andnot the slightest whis-
per of what was going on was heard by
the 1900 or 1900 other voters of Brattle-
boro outside the Estey shops. AT the
opening of the caucus about fifty re-
publican voters, who were not aware
of this secret conspiracy, and who had
no printed tickets and no cut and dried
programme, were present, intending to
take part in an ordinary caucus con-
Quoted in the usual open way that has
prevailed here for number of years !;
but when they saw what was up, they
quietly took back seats and thencefor-
ward were mere spectators at the show.
Your "Lo" acted as ringmaster, and
put the well drilled cohorts through
their pre-arranged evolutions. What
ever else you may say of To-, as eau
cus-packcr and manipulation he is sue
cess, and does credit to his training in
the school of the great boss himself.
The Reformer, with genuine democrat
ic obtuseness where moral questions
are involved, can see no difference be-
tween this sort of put up Job, worked
up on the sly almost exclusively among
the employees of the candidate him
self, aud an ordinary majority in an Or
binary caucus composed of all classes
of republicans from all parts of the
town, openly gathered together to do
this work in an open and aboveboard
manner. But the people did not take
the Reformer's view of thence the
second CAUCUS, which was practically a
popular rebukc of the ring tactics that
prevailed at the first. Imake this state
ment, and no honest man who min
giles freely with the people and is ac-
quainted with public opinion will con-
tradict it,-that if every republican vo-
ter had attended the first caucus and eX-
pressed his honest unhampered convic-
tons, not one in five of them would
have voted to make Levi Fuller can
didate for Lieut.. Governor. Now that
he is nominated, of course much
greater proportion will vote for him
through stress of party discipline; but
the majority will do it with Il wry sface
and almost with a feeling of contempt
for themselves that they should thus
ratify nomination which they know
was "not fit to be made More anon.
A SPECTATOR.