The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-04-13
eleventh of March. Here is what it

O@~' ~
said:
It'll now beyond a Teaso2qble douot that
tempted to be carried out bg the acd1te19 Or titnt
gcdrd aided and abetted by d ballot clerk OF
said ward land blythe acquiescence, to use no
harsher term, OF the city clerk.
1t will be seen that the persons whom
the Argus primarily held responsible for
the fraud, were the warden and the bal
lot clerk. MI. Russell's act, or failure to
act, for that really describes his conduct,
was then characterized as acquiescence.
There was just as much known about
the conduct of all these men as there is
now. 1t was known then that Mr.. Rus
sell had made a statement to Mr.. Drum
mond, and it was known just what that
statement was. Yet the Argus described
Mr.. Harper as the principal in the bust
ness, the Democratic ballot clerk as an
abettor, and Mr.. Russell as passive fac
tor, in the offence.
Since then, however, in the opinion of
the Argus, Mr.. Russell has become the
chief offender, and Warden Harper has
been relegated to the category of an in
nocent blunderer. And yet there is not
ray of additional light thrown on the
affair, no new facts have been disclosed
since the eleventh of March. Harper has
said, to be sure, that he did not inten-
tionally miscount in card to the Ar
gus, but he said that the day after the
fraud was discovered. But when he was
invited to say it in court where he
could be cross-examined and where he
would have had to explain how he made
the vote on the ward lines only eight
short of the Mayor vote, though more
than score of ballots containing no
mark on the ward lines remained in the
box all of them marked for the
head of the ticket, by advice of
COUNSEL he refused to avail himself of
the opportunity. He has always been
conscious of innocence, the Argus tells
us, but when an opportunity was given
him to proclaim his innocence before
the world and to explain his conduct
consistently with unintentional mis-
counting he skunk away and said moth
ing,
Mr.. Harper's con duct both before the
count and since, has been the conduct
of dishonest man. Why did he
refuse to allow two citizens of Ward
One, one from each party, permission to
watch the count? Why did be retire to
remote part of the enclosure when he
began the count? Was this the conduct
of an honest man? Is Mr.. Harper so
stupid as not to know that count made
under such circumstances would be
tainted with suspicion of fraud? Does a
sane man who is about to do an honest
act surround himself with circumstances
which will inevitably cause people to
suspect that his act is dishonest? Yet
this is precisely lat Harper did before
the count and what he has been doing
since. If he is an honest man, then he is
an idiot.
But way down in its heart the Argus
believes today just as it did on tile
eleventh of March, that Harper intended
to commit, and did commit, fraudu-
lent count til is seeking to screen him
now because it actually knows OF strong
~ suspects, that Harper can, if he will,
implicate some Democrat or Democrats
of much higher degree in the Ward One
fraud. 1t is handling him very tenderly
for fear that opposite treatment may
provoke him to wrath, with disastrous
results to some of the Democratic sa-
chems.