Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-05-09
THE GREAT ELECTION FRAUD.
Tho Men Who Perpetrated It Still Def-
 ant in Their Guilt.

Tho Men Who Perpetrated It Still Defi-
 ant in Their Guilt.
 During the debate on the bill for the admission of Dakota into the Union a haunting remark by Senator Edmunds drew from Senator Vest, of Missouri, the retort that it was MT. Edmunds who crea- ted the celebrated board which put Hayes into the presidential chair" MT. Edmunds rejoined:
 wish to say with emphasis that believe, and I think nine-tenths of the people of the United States who know anything about it believe, that President Hayes was lawfully and fairly and justly elected by the votes of the states according to the constitution of our country.
 This audacious assertion was at once met by Senator Vest with the question why Packard, who received for governor of Louisiana 8 larger number of votes than Hayes received for president, was thrown out of office and sent as consul to Liverpool, while Hayes was sworn in as president of the United States. '1 have heard," continued MT. Vest, 'the ablest Republican in this country, the foremost in every combat for the Republican party and it's supremacy-I have heard Roscoe Conkling say upon this floor that it was by fraud that Hayes came to be presi- dent.' -<z
 MT. Vest walked up a nest of snakes. The old memories came crawling out of their holes, the old impudent pretenses, the old defiant insults to right and justice and common sense. It happens that sew eral of the most conspicuous actors in the conspiracy of the great fraud are Repub ican members of the senate: Edmunds, the creator of the electoral commission; Hoar, member of the infamous eight; Sherman, the visiting statesman and man- aging man in Louisiana and the discoverer of Eliza Pinkston; Hawley, a member of the second Louisiana commission, charged by Hayes with the arrangement of the Packard difficulty; and Chandler, of New Hampshire, whose fertile brain first grasped the possibilities of the situation on the early morning after the day when Tlden was elected, and who completed in Florida the work which he began at the Fifth Avenue hotel in this town. They all had their say concerning their respec- tive parts in the fraud of 1876; and the result was that considerable part of the time of the senate on Tuesday, Wednes- day and Thursday of last week was taken up by this unexpected overhauling of shameful history.
 The whole story was spread again upon the record for the benefit of the latest generation of voters, down to the very last hush money paid by John Sherman to the negro Casenave three years after the consummation of the crime, and to the list of conspirators, accomplices, princi- pal and subordinate, who were rewarded with public office by Hayes and Sherman, at an annual cost of $223, 1000 to the treasury of the United States
 Yet not one of the defenders and up- holders of the fraud answered the plain question asked by Senator. Vest, of Mis- souri. Not one of them could satisfac- torily explain why, if Hayes was fairly and honestly elected as president, Packard was not the legal governor of Louisiana. With great force MT. Vest recalede.the memorable warning of MT. Blaine:, .sYou discredit Packard and you discredit Hayes. You hold that Packard is not the legal governor of Louisiana and you hold that Hayes has no title"
 We should be glad to announce that in the sober views of eleven years after, and