New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-04-20

SENATOR SHERMAN AND LOUISIANA.
Senator Sherman's speech on the election OF
1876 came at a most felicitous time. Even
while he was speaking body embracing thou
sands of Democrats who wished reform were
irving to get an honest count and return Of the
votes in New-Orleans Only by threats almost
revolutionary in their character they sue
ceeded so far that the corrupt ring IN that city
was defeated. But at the same time returns
were coming in from the parishes, where there
existed no such power to compel fair count,
and these were as impudently false as the re-
turns upon which the Democrats claimed the
election in 1876. The result OF this fraud, to
which it is to be hoped that Senator Sherman
and his Republican associates will not fan TO
call public attention, is that Democratic ma
iority of $4,000 or more Is returned, where
there is an actual Republican majority. There
Is scarcely a possibility that satisfactory EVIL
dence can ever be procured as to the nature OF
the vote cast Democratic partisans will con-
tinue to assert, as in 1915 they did in defiance
of all evidence, that the colored Republicans
voted the Democratic ticket. But the letter Of
Governor Warmoth, recently published, stated
the reasons for expecting this fraudulent re-
turn and the evidence that it was intended, in
a manner to convince candid minds. The re-
suit follows, with returns Of overwhelming
Democratic majorities in precisely the parishes
where the present Governor had directed his
tools to manufacture Democratic majorities " at
all hazards
Senator Sherman utters the belief and the in
dignant feeling of all genuine Republicans In
his strong protest against this chronic crime.
Granted, that no adequate and practicable rem
edy has yet appeared. Granted, that protests
under such circumstances seem fruitless and
empty. The crime goes on, year after year, and
with each success in fabricating false returns
its plausibility is increased. Young men and
Indifferent men, who easily forget, if they ever
well knew, the overwhelming force of the evil
dence against the Democratic pretences In
1875, are impressed each year when they see
that Louisiana goes Democratic again, as it
did before, but only somewhat more strongly
Democratic.D 1t becomes each year harder for
them to realize that there has not been any
thing like an honest election or true return OF
votes in that State for twelve years; that at
hundreds Of voting places partisan officials
have been found, and regularly appointed, to
set down on pretended returns each year
larger Democratic majority, without the slight
est regard to the votes cast that the number OF
such voting places, where the elections are a
mere farce, increases year by year, as the party
of crime extends its power over new localitiesj
that honest citizens finding that their votes
make no sort Of difference, and that they have
no redress, become each year more Indifferent
to the voting, and leave the election more COM
pletely in the hands of periured tools Of party.
Yet it is never amiss, nor altogether waste
of words to tell the country in plain Anglo
Saxon that these returns are lies, and these
elections are but successive steps in great
crime against self-government. Many of the
Democrats who most strongly deny it are per-
fectly aware that it is the truth. They know,
beyond any question, that neither opposing Re-
publican votes nor the strife of factions among
Louisiana Democrats can make any difference
with the returns, which are sent in as party
leaders may direct. II was this great crime
which the Republicans of Louisiana defeated in
1875, having legal power TO that end, by throw
ing out returns of certain parishes, though at
that day organized violence, terrorism and as
sassination played large part, because it was
not then possible to do the whole work by forg-
ing and swearing to a false return. The Re-
publicans await their opportunity. Sooner or
later it will come, and then single fair cleo
tion and honest return in Louisiana will prove
that the party Of crime has counted that State
by fraud for all these years.