Year: 1876

TO Samuel j. Tlden, Chairman Dem
Ocratic State Committee.-SIR: You and
| are growing old. We came here young
from the country, and have lived and
struggled side by side for nearly fifty
years, We have participated ardently in
many political struggles, always on the
difficult sides. X On one very I'M
portant point, however, your bitterness as
a partisan has impeIled you to ignore and
come short of your duties as citizen and
a professed upholder of Government by
the people, and for this dereliction | here
arraign you. L allude to the preservation
of the purity Of the ballot-box


/ can imagine how man may shut his
eyes to many things which he deem it
convenient not to know; but l must speak
of that you must know, hoaoeuer you Emay
s0ish or seek to be ignorant oft. The matter
to which l call your attention is vital to
the very existence of free, popular gov
ernment. Whenever it shall be generally
understood that the results of elections
are not determined by the ballots of legal
voters, but by frauds in voting or frauds
in counting, then the event of avowed
unequivocal despotism must be near at
hand. Between the rule of an Emperor
and the rule of a clique of ballot-box
suffers, every intelligent man must prefer
the former as less rapacious and more re-
sponsible. When honest citizens shall
avoid the polls, asking "What is the use of
voting? the result is already fixed" the
days of the Republic will be numbered.
Between ruler who prohibits voting al
together and the gang who make it a
sham by filling the ballot-boxes with illegal
votes, or miscounter those actually cast,
the sway of the former is every way pre-
ferable.


You hold most responsible and infu-
entail position in the counsels of a great
party. You could make that party con-
tent itself with polling legal votes if you
only would. In our late Constitutional
Convention l tried to erect some fresh
barriers against election frauds. Did you?
The very little that was enabled to effect
in this direction shall try to have ratified
by the people at our ensuing election
VIII you? Mr.. Tilden you cannot escape
responsibility by saying, what the guilty
Macbeth:


Thou canst not say did it; never shake


Those CORY locks at me-


for yOu lCere at least q pdsSiUe dccOmpIice
IN the giant frauds of last November.


Your name was used, without public
protest on your part, in circulars sowed
broadcast over the State, whereof the
manifest intent was to "make assurance
doubly sure" that the frauds here perpe-
trated should uot be overborne by the
honest vote of the rural districts. And
you, not merely by silence, but By positive
assumption, hare covered those frauds tcith
the mantle Of your responsibility


On the principle that "the receiver is
as bad as the thief" are you as deeply i'm
plicated in them to-day as though your
name was Tweed, 0 'Brien, or Oakley Hall.


Mr.. Tilden, you and | were ardent par
Elephants in the struggle of 1910, wherein
Martin Van Buren was ousted from the
Presidency by Gen. Harrison. You know
how thoroughly our city was absorbed in
that contest, wherein every man, woman
and child took deep and lively interest.
Our elections were then held throughout
three days. There was a registration
freshly enacted which blacklegs had not
yet learned to circumvent. the right of
suffrage was as widely diffused as it now
is, and no one ever complained that a sin
gle legal voter was unable then to poll
his vote. And though our city has since
largely increased its population, the lower
wards were quite as populous then as
they are to-day-several OF them more so.
They were tull of boarding houses, crowd
ed with clerks and mechanics; many of
these covered sites since given up to great
warehouses and manufactures their den
izens have since moved up town, over to
Brooklyn, or out on some of the railroads
that lead into the open country. Practi-
cally the lower wards are being given up
to commerce, and no longer shelter by
night the multitudes who thronged their
streets 10y day.


Now look at the vote of four of these
wards in 1910 and 1868 respectively:


President 1910. GOperIlOI. 1898