Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1899-12-08
bPIRIT OF THE PRESS
ACTS AND OPINIONS GATHERED
FROM CONTEMPORARIES.

HE PENNSYLVANIA ELECTION FRAups.
The most reliable Philadelphia papers
ave been saying for years that from
900 to 81 900 fraudulent votes we're
asst and counted for the gang that rules
nd robs the city, and the state as well,
t every election, and it appears TO have
|een so well understood that the state
nent was within the truth that nobody
las thought it worth while to deny 1t.
Neither has any one of power been
hoved to attempt to put a stop or even
o limit the frauds, and as If by common
consent the elections have been the
|eriest farces. in which repeaters and
ballot box suffers have been the prin-
ipal actors, with the bosses ms stage
managers and prompters. The false
voting and counting has generally been
or candidates nominated AS Republicans,
but it has been connived at and helped
,long by those in control of the Demo.
cratic organizations, who have been
given a share of the swag which has
been looted Systematically and persist
Entity from the public treasures. AS to
the honest men of both parties, they
appear to have been too much engrossed
with their own affairs to pay any At
tentOn to the crimes by which they
Jhave been outraged, and have submitted
with scarcely protest; and between
the unscrupulousness of the rascals aud
the supineness of decent people the ma
chinists and their heelers have had their
own way without hindrance or exposure.
But during the recent campaign it oc-
Cured to some newspaper men that it
would make interesting reading If the
exact methods by which the deviltry we
carried on was written up and printed,
and a reporter named Kirkland was or
dered to do the work. He selected the
| 18th division of the seventh ward, one
of the one thousand and eight divisions
into which the city is divided for voting
purposes, and after some investig itiOn
went to Washington and made the ac-
| quaintance of Joseph G. Rodgers,
henchman of Matt Quay, who has
been for ten years in the government
employ and is now lieutenant of the
national capital police, and there he
Joined company of five repeaters, all
employed by the government, who went
TO Philadelphia with Rodgers, and on
election morning he AID another of the
company, named Cook. were taken to
the house of Samuel Salter, one of the
city officials. At that house they met
John Slverman, one of the election in
spectors, and were given 200 ballots
folded and sealed, with which they went
to the voting place. On their arrival
there kirkland was appointed minority
inspector under the name of Clarence
McCabe, who was the regular inspector,
and Cook impersonated E. f Rankin,
the Judge of elections. Then Silverman
and Cook unlocked the balot-box and
Kirkland put into it the 200 ballots pre-
pared at Salter's house. During the
afternoon Cook and Slverman marked
fifteen more ballots and put them in and
finally number of opposition ballots
cast by legal voters were thrown out
votes actually cast by citizens of the
division was 1874, but as declared, the
result was 1897 for James E. Barrett, the
Republican candidate for secretary of
state, and five for William z. Crease,
the Democratic candidate. When the
Job was done Rodgers paid Kirkland SIS
for his days work.
In the meantime the rest of the
Rodgers party, and a large number of
others who had been picked up in Wash
ington for $40 apiece and expenses,
were by similar methods swelling the
majority for Barrett in other divisions
of the city. OF the 342 votes declared
in the division where Kirkland operated,
2l5 were put in by the bogus election
officers and at that rate the fraudulent
vote In the city was more than 900,
without counting what Democratic bal
lots were thrown out. But of course
the repeaters could not cover the whole
city with the thOroughness they did that
division, and the estimate is that they
confined their operations mainly to
about 400 of the zoos divisions and were