Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 February 1879 — ELECTION SUPERVISORS. [ARTICLE]

ELECTION SUPERVISORS.

Extracts from the Debate in the National House of Representatives on the Proposition to Abolish Them. Mr. Frye (Republican) argued against the amendment He declared its object was for effect not in the South, but in the State of New York. In the South, notwithstanding the election laws, the Republican party had disappeared as the dew before the rising sun. The South would be solid for the Democratic candidate for President in 1880, law or no law, Supervisor or po Supervisor, United States Marshal or no United States Marshal. Mr. Frye went on to state that it was the election frauds in 1868 that had originally caused the enactment of the Federal Election law. and that it was .the present necessities of the Democratic party that now required its repeal He gave some of, the figures of the naturalization and election frauds in New York in 1868, and characterized that election as the most monstrous and marvelous for fraud, for wickedness, and for-every device of the devil, that had ever been heard df. He showed that, on the 6th of October, in one single day, the Supreme Court had naturalized 2,109 persons, and on the 19th of October the Supreme Court had naturalized 919, and yet a Judge of Louisiana had been impeached and found gnilty for having naturalized some 400 persons in one day—that being declared to be a physical impossibility. He spoke of nine witnesses (one a Captain of a squad) witnessing the naturalization of nearly 7,000 persons, one of them (the Captain) being a witness in one court for 996 persons, and swearing that he knew all the men, while he did not know a single one of them, and while the Judge knew that he did not, but that ho was a drunken thief. In conclusion, he quoted from Cox’s report on the New York election in 1876, in which a high compiitnont in paid to the United States Supervisors and Marshals. Mr. Lynde (Democrat) denied the statement of Mr. Frye as to the false naturalization papers in New York, and asked why it was that, if there was so many false naturalization papers in 1868, not one person had been successfully prosecuted for using or issuing them. He believed that the greater part of those naturalization papers were valid? The Election law had been got up by John L Davenport for his own and for partisan purposes. The way in which the law had been administered by Davenport wae sketched and criticized by him to prove that all these statements of election frauds were gross exaggerations. He characterized the Lawrence report of the election of 1868, from which Mr. Frye had obtained his facts and figures, as the most unreliable political document he had ever seen. Mr. Baker (Republican, Ind.) expressed the opinion that his friends on tho other side who declared themselves in favor of freedom of election while they had their hands on the throat of the law that secured it were protesting a little too much. Underlying the discussion was tne question which had culminated in the Rebellion, whether or not the life of the nation can be protected by the nation itself. Mr. Wood (Democrat) recited the history of the laws which were proposed to be repealed. They were but a portion of a series of laws passed In order to keep the Southern States as stipendiaries of the Republican party. That had been intended for the South, but it was now applied to the North. The gentleman from Maine (Frye) assumed to speak for his party when ho said that he would resist by every means in his power the repeal of those aws. He (Wood) could not speak for his party but he could speak for one man when he said that he did not care what became of the appropriation bills. He believed there was a higher question than that of appropriating money. He could stay in the House as long as any gentleman. The Democratic party conld resist as long as the Republican party, and he would not consent to vote for a dollar until this amendment should be engrafted on the bill. Mr. Garfield (Republican) opposed the amendment. He said: Gentlemen (addressing the Democratic side of the House), you seek to cut out a section, a living section, from the criminal laws of the United States, and to say that the ballot-box stuffing, fraud at elections, intimidation, outrage, poisoning the very foun-tain-springs of the elective franchise, shall be no crime, and that the machinery by which such crime can be punished shall be deslroyed. That is what you propose to do here to-day, and to do it at the dictation of a party caucus. * * * Now, Mr. Chairman, if this be the purpose which we are called upon here to vote on, we on this side are compelled to meet it in the spirit of tne constitution and our rights, and that we prop se to do, and if it takes one night, two nights, ten nights, not while Congießs lasts ehall 7 0U strike from our statuteVVuao mv wx txio pi. UU3CUOII OI blltJ elective franchise. When you do it you must do it because you have the‘whole power to do it, and not by our help, not by our consent. A hundred criminal prosecutions are to-day pending before the courts of the United States to punish crimes against the elective franchise Already enough men from the citv of Cincinnati have been sentenced to the ‘penitentiary for fraud to take away the majority of one of the members on this floor from that city and all the proceedings in the criminal courts are to be abandoned at the cry of a party order which demands it for party success. —The Potter Committee, on Feb. 21, held a rather uninteresting session, at which Manager Whitney, of the Western Union Telegraph Company, said that within the last ninety days there had been some telegrams withdrawn from his office, which were sent to New York. The telegrams were from Gibson, at New Orleans, to the correspondent of the New York Hun at Washington. Gen. Butler then cross-examined Marshal Wharton, when it was brought out that Maddox expected to be appointed chief of the secretservice division, and was to give witness a place. Witness said that he had never made any proposition to any member of the Returning Board that would lead him to entertain an idea that he (Wharton) wanted to buy him out He was positive that if the board did its duty Hayes and Packard would surely be elected.

McManus and O’Neill, Mollie Maguires, convicted for the murder of Coroner Hesser several years ago, are whiling awiy their time in the Sunbury, (Pa.) jail. They do not expect to hang. Their cases will be brought before the Supreme Court on writs of error. They are the only two Mollies left unhung of the whole party convicted. He saw Washington, rode on Robert Fulton’s pioneer steamboat, fought the British at North Point, moved to Newbury. Ohio, and the other day died at the ripe age of 86 years—,whioh his name was Samuel Harrison, the aeronaut, ‘ ‘