The Indianapolis journal., 1893-11-11
THE PARTY OF BALLOT-BOx CRIMES

If. as a people, we can preserve the integ-
rity of our elections nothing can happen to
us that will sink us.
The above words appear in Interview
which a representative of the Pittsburg
Dispatch obtained with General Harrison
the day after the Democratic disaster. The
words quoted are not many, but they are
of the greatest Importance. Free suffrage
and honest counting do not exist in at least
ten States of the Union. The essential prin-
ciple of popular government. has been de-
stroyed in these States. The election ma
chinery is in the hands of the central State
authority. and Calhounism rather than De-
mocracy perpetuates itself by ballot-box
a Democratic citadel for years, frauds have
been organized upon and crimes perpetrated
against the right of suffrage. In this State,
the crime has taken the form of a gerry
mander which disfranchises, in the election
of Legislatures, nearly two-fifths of the Re-
publican voters In New York. Brooklyn.
Buffalo and Albany it takes the form of
false registration and systematic repeating
Both are alike Infamous and both are
crimes which should be placed in the list
with treason. Never were these crimes more
generally practiced or attempted than in
New York and New Jersey at the
late election. But for the vigilance
and wrath of the people, thousands
more votes would have been polled in
New Jersey and New York for the Demo-
cratic candidates. In both States they were
attempted so generally by Democratic man.
ayers as to become notorious and were de-
nounced by Democratic and brevet Demo-
cratic papers. McKane, in Gravesend, New
York, defed the mandate Of the Supreme
Court. In Buffalo, N. Y, and Camden, N.
J., the Democratic police drove voters from
the polls to the end that fraudulent voters
might cast their ballots. It has been as
sumed by the Cleveland papers that the
wicked Hill machine alone perpetrated bal
lot-box crimes. 1t is not the case. Albany
is the one city in New York which is under
Cleveland control The leading Democratic
paper, the Argus, is not Cleveland organ,
but out-and-out Democratic. Mark what
it says of Cleveland Democratic election
methods:
The police have chosen. They prefer the
friendship of criminals to the favor of good
citizens. They would rather ally them
selves to repeaters than to the responsible
and respectable men who make up the bmsi-
| ness and social life of Albany. The
people have had their eyes on the police. 1t
was in the power of the police to stop the
repeating which is not only an injury 10
| Albany at home, but a disgrace to II abroad.
| The information was laid before them IN
| the records of the courts and by the public
prints Their attention repeatedly
called yesterday to the violations of the
law. Their reply was jeer and sneer.
Had there been police force yes
terday the criminals would have skunk in
| the holes from which they emerged to in
suit the citizenship of Albany and TOP to pollnts
| and abetted by the police. Clad in the maj
| esty of the law, the police combined with
! these criminals against decent citizens.
This arraignment of the Cleveland police
commissioners in Albany by an alleged
Flower and Hill organ is as scathing as
| those of the New York Times and Brooklyn
Eagle upon the Hill and Mclaughlin leaders
| in Brooklyn and Buffalo. The truth is
| crimes against suffrage a leading feat
| ure in the methods of the Democratic man
| ayers to-day. There has not been cleo
| ton held in any city In which Democrats
! are in control for years in which some va
| riety Of crime upon suffrage has not been
| introduced as an element. Just now public
attention has been called to these crimes,
| which involve danger to our institutions as
it never has been before. In the end, such
| crimes bring their punishment upon those
| who attempt them Cannot the Democratic
! leaders see this?