Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1896-12-31

Editor The Gazette: A friend has
sent me copy of the New York Sun
of Sunday, 10th instant (which other
wise should not have seen, as make a
point of avoiding the journal that
George d. Prentice dignitied as "a
rotten mackerel'' for its decadsnt
shine), that | might see its full-page
screed on Corrupt Delaware. No
body denies that there is corruption in
De!awaro--mors's the pity-but what
there is here Ia not more corrupt than
the setting forth of our State by the
Sun correspondent, who has gone to
such men as brought him here--men
who are not natives, and have no
knowledge OF our history, and who
rely on bigoted partisans who have been
mainly the source of such corruption
as there is for what they have given
him for facts. Tho following extract
shows the whole text of his argument:
Now for the peculiarities in the laws, IL
Is the tax law that has to do with the cleo
tions. The Delinquent Tax law is notori-
ohSly the most unfair and the worst law
that has place on the statute books of any
State in the Union. Its chief object is not
10 raise revenue for the State, but to enable
the disfranchsement of the people. In that
1t is worthy of the term dabolical. The
Hon. Thomas i. Bayard. the present
Ambassador to the Court of 81. James, is the
man who made it, He was then in power
in Delaware and did not propose that any
body else ever should attain to power. The
law and its operation have been explained
in the sun. The law provides a tax qualilica-
ton for voting. Assessors assess the tax,
the Levy Courts make out the tax list and
the collector or receiver is supposed to col
lect the tax. No man may vote who has not
paid n tax which is assessed at least six
months prior to an election, and If a man
does not pay his tax and is returned as a de-
linquent the law says he shall not have the
right to get on the tax list again for year.
Collectors frequently flee about tax paving
time so as To avoid taking taxes Thus men
are disfrancbised. Because they did not
pav their taxes they are returned as delin-
qucnts. They have to go to the Levy Court
to get on the list again. Suppose the list of
delinquents is accepted by the Levy Court
on March 2ith. No delinquent can get on
the list until the following March 24th. On
the March 23d following the Levy Court
will adjourn for the year. and then the
would be taxpayer is DISTINGUISHED for
another year and he has no remedy.
a few lines later he says Previous
to 1888 there was bribery in the State,
but only in small way. Each party
bribed its own men to vote rather than
attempted tn bribe ths men of the op-
posite party" Here is proof, il any
was needed. of the very modern
scourees of information reached by the
Sun man. Every old Delawarean
knows that for the past half-century,
at least, money has been brought into
this little community to help elect
good high tariff men," and that, in
some instances, local candidates of that
faith have epent money like water for
1.-THE glory of God. and Protection. T"
While the senatorial contest was going
on at Dover, two years ago, plain
spoken Pennsylvania said to Della
warean: II had fight at the Manu-
facturer's Club day or two ago 6ver
the contest in your State. There was
party of men there scolding over the
attempt of Addicks to corrupt Della
ware With my memories 1T was too
much for me aud | asked them what
they thought of themselves and me. l
said, you know, every one OF you, that
we here, and at the Union League,
have been sending moaey down into
Delaware for the past % years for Hig-
gins to use in exactly the same way as
.Addicks has been now using his own,
aDd if he is the guilty thing you say,
we and Higgins are just as guilty. -,
The passage from the Sun above
quoted, as every one who is cognizant
of the facts knows, ia mastery COM
bination of asserted fasehood and sun
pressed truth. The old, often denied
falsehood, that Thomas Il. Bayard
''made' the present Delinquent Tax law
| is pus forth again, when the truth is
that it was drawn and presented with
out his knowledge, and enacted against
his advice The suppression and the
suggested falsehood is in trying to
make it appear that the matter of the
needful prepayment OF tax before voting
Twas brought in by that law, when it is
a part OF our Constitution, and put
there by the man whose portrait is one
OF the chief ornaments of the parors of
the Young Mems Republican Club in
your city-John M. Clayton,-and for
IS years it has been compulsory under
5f Unconstitutional requirement
hi Again, the informHnts of the Sun
Ntman have no recollect on of the corrun-
4'tiUn, mainly engineered by the section
&of tho Republican party which is
known as "the Higgins wing" which
the present law was intended TO pre-
vent and obstruct That it did prevent
& that special form there is no question.
and the aboe pinches thom there The
z objection of Mr.. Bayard to ii was that
'E il might he twisted to corrupt usos as
4 it has been. and who saw that when
u the time came, as it has now come in
h New Castle county, when the Republi
cans should hold the tax office. thew
would use Shylock' s philosophy: "The
villainy You teach me- l will execute;
and it shall go hard but l will better
II the instruction.
These Sun ipformants, too, have no
M reoolection of the campaigns here
Il under rhe Grant regime and even later.
when the State and city Republican
sides of the elections were rum out of
The Federal offices at Sixth and King
STREETS by United States Office holders,
andaat times helped by imported thugs
and repeaters, and this publicly boasted
of by those who helped run things. !"
Neither have they any remembrance of a
later campaign, before 1888, known
! nationally as ''the Indiana two dollar
year," when noted corruptionist came
here and spent nearly the month of
n October in Kent ana Sussex, with
Ilenty OF funds, trying to elect legis-
lature pledged to send to the United
States Senate one of the most utterly
corrupt men in the State. In telling
Of it afterward, he said: "Why, /
thought there would be no trouble iu
s carrying the darned little State that
had fewer voters than many of our