Nevada County picayune., 1889-05-29
POLITICAL PERSECUTION.


 cipled extravaganza. and besides all this, history shows how it will pcrsc- cute and oppress it's political oppon- ents wherever and whenever oppor- tunitv is afforded. Below we give fair sample of this, in Judge Cald- wells court al Little Rock. which We take from the Russellvile Democrat:
 The Federal court for the eastern district, sitting in Little Rock since the first of last month. adjourned last Saturday, after cXhaustng the appropriation for witness and jury expenses. Perhaps no term of court held anywhere has attracted more widespread attention than the one just closed, and certainly uo greater amount of criticism haB ever been directed against similar tribunal on account of it's findings \ review of the work done will disclose some pe- culiar facts and prove interesting reading at this time. We shall refer to the political prosecutions and the disposition of the cases. An old gentleman from Union county named Darden was convicted for driving
 
 negro from the polls. The evidence showed that the offense was the act of drunken man and altogether un- malicious or premeditated. He was given two years in the pen and fined heavily. Young Dansby, of Cleve- land county, was tried for interfering with colored election supervisor, was convicted and fined Sj00 The evidence disclosed the fact that the difficulty was the result of an old grudge and that he didn't know the negro was a supervisor. No one was deprived of his right to vote by reason of the difficulty and the re- suit of the election was not changed an iota one way or the other. Two Woodruff county judges were con victed beccuse they postponed the count of the vote of their precinct three days. No votes were changed, no fraud was committed. Two other Woodruff county officers were indicted, convicted and fined for sep erating before completing the re- turns. No votes were lost in this case and no harm was done One of the Plummerville judges was tried, convicted and fined heavily for dis placing the regular judges He be- lleved he was justified under the law in doing what he did and the evi- dence proved that the action of Wahl, the Republican supervisor, wa9 more deserving of reproof than his
 The oificious and unwarranted ac- tion of Wahl brought about the whole trouble. The two negroes who were displaced went to another building and arranged to open another poll ing place, Deputy Sheriffs Reid, Blakeney and Lucas advised them to desist and let the voting go on at the regular voting place. Reid law yer, read the law governing elections showing them that the votes cast at their box would be illegal and could not be returned. They succumbed and all voted at the regular polling place, At the trial Blakeney was ac- quilted, but Reid and Lucas were convicted. The Judge iatimated that their punishment would be se- we're and ordered them to the peni- tentiary for safe keeping over the earnest protest of their attorneys and pitiful pleading of anxious rela- tives. They remained in prison thirteen days, when the Judge quashed the indictment under which they were convicted on the ground that it did not specify in what par ticular the interference was made. They were released on bond to await the action of the next federal grand jury. These men were forced not only to listen to the severest arraign- ment of the Judge on the bench, but were sent by him to felon's cell be- cause of conviction on an illegal indictment, and for what? Because they read the law and advocated it's proper enforcement. Their action did hot prevent the polling of a sim gle vote. The defendants in all these cases were democrats.
 Now, we will look at the other side. Two Jefferson county judges of election, both colored, were in- dicted for allowing thirty-fve negroes to vote who had not been in the ~tatp loug pupuph to arulIire 4 rioht