Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1879 — SUPERVISORS AND MARSHAIS [ARTICLE]

SUPERVISORS AND MARSHAIS

What They Cost the People They Perform. [From the New York SenJ The resolution of the Senate calling for a detailed statement of the accounts of United States Marshals in the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts and Maryland, sot the payment of wages or lees charged for services performed 4 J them or their special deputies in relation to the conduct of elections in November, 1878, showing the amount claimed by, ot paid to, each of said special deputies and the aggregate claimed by the Marshals for services, does not cover the whole grounds by any means. There is no mention of the Chief Supervisor’s accounts for Southern and Northern New Yqrk, which had been I kept back by these officers, and were not in possession of the department three months after the election, for reasons which may be easily supposed. This resolution is also defective in making no mention of the Marshal’s “ general deputies,” the number of which is only restricted by his partisan discretion, and which are specifically named in the odious Election laws, and especially in section 5,522 of the Revised Statutes, under which they ate clothed with tho arbitrary power to make “ instant arrest without process” of any person who “refuses or neglects to aid and assist” them in the work of carrying elections by intimidation and threats. The Comptroller of the Treasury furnished a statement to the Committee on Expenditures of the Department of Justice in the last House, covering the accounts of Supervisors and Deputy Marshals iu 1878, which had been settled up to the middle of February, “except for Chief Supervisors in Northern and Southern New York, which have not been sent to the department, those of New Jersey, Eastern New York, and Pennsylvania not fully adjusted.” According to that report, excluding the accounts which had not been returned or closed, over $202,000 were expended for Supervisors and Deputy Marshals at the elections last fall. An analysis of the localities in which these expenditures were made shows conclusively that this public money was used to aid the election of Republican candidates for Congress, and that the Deputy Marshals were electioneering agents at the polls. The whole scheme was organized at Washington by the Republican Campaign Committee, with an understanding in the Department of Justice by which the Deputy Marshals were assigned to doubtful and close districts, North and South, in the hope of capturing a majority in the present House of Representatives. To aid that object, the assessment of officeholders was openly made in all the departments, upon Chandler’s model of 1876, with agents who personally visited every incumbent, tariff in hand, fixing the amount to be paid from the salary. Hayes, Evarts, Schurz and the whole fraudulent Cabinet, all the chiefs of bureaus, aud the bulk of the 4,000 or 5,000 subordinates, subscribed to this campaign fund; and when a clerk, who was deluded with the belief that there was something in the profession of civil-service reform and in the executive order forbidding assessments, refused to be taxed, John Sherman ordered his removal instantly. More than one-half of the whole expenditure for Supervisors and Deputy Marshals in 1878 was made in this State, as follows: Southern district $ 59,267.95 Eastern district ; 33,092.33 Northern district 18,00C.00 Tote! ... $111,360.28 Chief Supervisor Davenport and his colleagues in Northern New York withheld their returns, and the accounts of the chief of the Eastern district were “not fully adjusted ” when the Compi troller of the Treasury furnished these figures. Davenport’s operations here are well known, and the Congressional delegation in the House would seem to prove remarkable efficiency on the part of the other Supervisors and Deputy Marshals throughout the State. Over in New Jersey more than $13,000 of this fund we»e put where they would do the most good for the Republican candidates, and with sufficient effect to change the political complexion of the representation in the House. Pennsylvania got $44,000, chiefly applied to the Eastern districts, on the Cameronian plan. In Maryland, some SB,OOO were successfully concentrated on the Sixth district with a knowledge of a Democratic defection to weaken the hold of the regular nominee. To defeat Gen. Williams in the Detroit district, all of the force of the administration was applied to that point; so in Virginia in the district now represented by Jorgensen (Republican), of which fears were entertained; also in South Carolina, to prevent the election of Mr. O’Connor, who got through in spite of the Deputy Marshals and the notorious Mackey; so in the two Cincinnati districts, which will soon be investigated; so in the Eighth district of Alabama, where Lowe (Greenbacker) was elected over the regular Democrat; and so in Louisiana, where the Republicans expected to carry two districts. These spots were all deliberately chosen at Washington, after correspondence with the Republican managers. The campaign fund was raised by drafts on the treasury for the Supervisors and Deputy Marshals, by assessments on the officeholders, and by contributions from the pet banks, to say nothing of the local subscriptions and donations. A round million, at least, was used in doubtful districts, and, if the result could have been foreseen, a million more would have been raised to make a Republican majority in the House sure. If the Democrats mean to go to the bottom of this business, another resolution to include the cost of “general deputies,” omitted by Mr. Wallace from his inquiry, and to bring in every account of Supervisors, and for contingent expenses of the elections of 1878, ought to be passed. The country wants the whole truth, and not fragments of it.