Year: 1870

The United States Government is doing its
best to secure an honest and impartial enforce
ment of the new Act of Congress for preserv-
ing the purity of elections. The law contains
no provisions to which honest politicians can
object. II interferes with mono but criminals.
1t makes no discrimination between parties,
and the officers appointed to enforce it are
taken equally from the two great political or
ganiZatiOns. The men whose frauds it is de-
signed to check are the repeaters who are
hired to vote from poll to poll at so much a
ballot aliens who are not entitled to vote at
all, dishonest inspectors who stuff the ballot
boxes, and swindling canvassers who render
false returns. All good citizens ought to re-
joice at the prospect of stopping the shameful
practices which have so long disgraced our
elections. But the Democratic majority will be
largely cut down if the vote is fair one; and
The World. treating the new law as a direct
attack upon the Demo cratic party, addresses It's
readers in these remarkable words:


"This unabashed attempt to bring in reign of terror
and overawe our citizens election day with swarm
OF deputy marshas, backed by the Army and Navy Is
calculated to stir the people to resentment and proroe
them 10 90 10 the polls Nth arms in their hands. We
shall carefully abstain from vehement denunciation and
appeals TO passion. Merely setting forth to-day the
nature of this aggression shall take early Opporu
nifty to recur the subject and offer such sober advice as
the exgency seems require. 1t possible that are
treadng upon the edge OF grave events and approaching
an emergency when freemen must consider uhat they
wng 10 do and dare Let US restrain our fndi2nd
tion and tcih such calnneSs can command take
dispassonae pieo Of the situation We shall none Of us
act ri less rmness when NE time eomes for action for
hQring first cOoy digesied pellceghed plan Of resist
dnce."


"There could be no moro artful device for putting the
peace of the city in peril stationing of twenty
thirty insOent party minons at each polling place with
full liberty to arrest everybody they please without
process II the legal inspectors the policemen act
ing under their direction undertake to protect any voter
in his rights the inspectors themselves liable to sim
liar arrests without process and the election to be left
without officers to conduct It. This plan seems edlcr-
lated If not Intended TO create riot and break up the
election IN the city, In this way, but in no other the
Republicans may possibly elect their State officers"


If this is not intended to incite the mob of
repeaters to violence, what is its purpose
The rufians whose nefarious pursuit the law
tries to break up are warned that it may be
their duty to go to the polls with arms in
"their hands, to consider "what they are
"willing to do and dare" and when the time
for action comes to "act with firmness." In
terfere with us, says The World and there
shall be a riot. Meddle with our illegal voting,
and there shall be no election at all. The
threats are not the less distinct because they
are couched in decorous phrase; the incite-
ment to riot and the use of arms is not the
less dangerous because the writer makes
faint pretense of deprecating the violence
which he suggests. If there should be any
disturbance, who is there to make it but the
repeaters against whom the law is directed
And who will be more responsible for it than
the infamous advisers who teach gang of
ruffans that they are to 90 to the polls with
arms in their hands, and show the Govern
ment what the pot-hOuse democracy is "will-
"ing to do and dare?" The Worlds article of
Saturday is an outrageous oilense against
public order. We believe it will shock re-
spectacle and law-abiding men of all parties,
and it will help the Republican cause more
than anything else The World has done since
it passed under the control of Mr.. Tweed's
Ring and Fisk's corrupt clique.