Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-05-10
THE FRAUD OF .7e.


1
penitent Perpetrators.
April Is was made notable in the Sem
ate by the unexpected revival and full
discussion of the great crime of 1876.
During che debate on the bill for the
admission of Dakota into the Union
haunting remark by Senator Edmunds
drew from Senator Vest, of Mis-
souri,, the retort that it was Mr..
Edmunds who created the celebrated
board which put Hayes into the Presi-
dental chair" Mr.. Edmunds re-
| joined:
81 wish to say with emphasis that believe,
| and think nine-tenths of the people OF tho
United States who know any thing about it be-
| Heve, 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 ques-
ton why Packard. who received for
Governor of Louisiana larger num-
Der 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. 81 have heard"
continued Mr.. Vest, "the first Repub-
lican in this country, the foremost in
every combat for the Republican party
and its Supremacy have heard
Roscoe Conkling say upon this floor
that it was by fraud that Hayes came
to be President
Mr.. Vest walked up nest of snakes.
The old memories came crawling out
of their holes. the old impudent pre-
lenses. the old defiant insults to right
and Justice and common sense. It
happens that several of the most con-
| spicuous actors in the conspiracy of
the Great Fraud are Republican men,
bers of the Senate: Edmunds, the Gre
ator of the Electoral Commission;
Hoar, a member of the infamous eight;
Sherman, the visiting statesman and
managing man in Louisiana, and the
discover er of Eliza Pinkston; Hawley.
a member of the second Louisiana
Commission, charged by Hayes with
the arrangement of the Packard diff
Guilty; and Chandler, of New Hamp-
shire, whose fertile brain first grasped
the possibilities of the situation on the
early morning after the day when Til
den 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
respective parts in the Fraud of 1876;
and the result was that considerable
part of the time of the Senate was
taken up by this unexpected overhaul
ing of shameful history. The whole
story was spread again upon the rec
ord for the benefit of the latest gener-
alton of voters, down to the very last
hush money paid by John Sherman to
the negro Casenave three years after
the consum nation of the crime, and to,
the list of conspirators, accomplices,
principal and subordinate, who were
rewarded with public Office by Hayes
and Sherman, at an annual cost of
1928, 600 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
Missouri Not one of them could sat
isfactorily explain why, if Hayes was
fairly and honestly elected as Presi-
dent, Packard was not the legal Gov
ernor of louisiana With great force
Mr.. Vest recalled the memorable
warning of Mr.. Blaine: "You dis
credit 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 review of eleven years
after, and under the Christening in
fuence of political vic1ssitudes, some
one of these principal actors in the
crime of 1876 showed signs of remorse.
That is not the case. Without single
exception, their attitude is as impu-
dent and defiant as it was when their
party was in the full enjoyment of the
stolen goods. Hear what John Sher-
man, the discover of Eliza Pinkston,
and afterward the paymaster-general
for the chief beneficiary of the fraud.
says in 1888:
thereafter, when any man shall assert of
President Hayes that he was elected by fraud
or wrong, 1 will hold him in contempt The
name and fame of President Hayes are unfair
nished. = No, no. the truth is that
whenever the legality of the election OF Presi-
but WILL as said, hold any man who will do
SO in contempt.
And hear, likewise, the Pecksniffian
declaration of the impenitent Mr..
Hoar. of Massachusetts,:
| my political life has been very
humble and obscure one, and there are some
| things in it which, in looking back upon It,
wish were otherwise; but have never had a
doubt that the humble part which I was per-
mitted, by the confidence Of my constituents.
to take in the creation of that tribunal, and
the humble part was permitted to take as a
member of it by the confidence Of the House
of Representatives, to which then belonged,
are among the most honorable, the most use
full, and the most satisfactory actions Of nay
life.''
The fraud issue will never be dead
issue, so long as these gentlemen live
and boast of their part i'll the fraud.
They need to have the sense of guilt
whipped into them. Mr.. Vest did
well to lay on the first lash.-M y
Sun.
LOUISIANA SOLID.
Humiliating Defeat of the Republican