Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1884 — HOW MAINE WENT. [ARTICLE]

HOW MAINE WENT.

Money the Motor by Which the Party of Great Moral Ideas Win an Election. < Disgraceful Scenes of Bribery and Corruption in Augusta for a Few Votes. A special to the New York World from Augusta gives a faint conception of the amount of bribery and corruption by which the friends of Mr. Blaine secured a paltry majority for the Republican ticket. It says: “The apologists of Mr. Blaine have been bnsy all day trying to justify his cowardly dodge of a vote on the prohibitory amendment yesterday. He tried to explain it himself last night, when he said he did not vote on the question because it was a State issue. The election of Robie was also a State issue, bat he voted for it. His Prohibition friends, like Neal Dow and Anson Morrill, are ready enough to forgive him under the circumstances. They would have forgiven him almost as readily if he had voted against the amendment, if it were evident to them that he would gain a political advantage thereby. The party which supports Blaine here and keeps him in power is as bad as he is. It would follow him to any extremity and excuse him for every wrong. In Augusta he has built up a political system that is thoroughly illustrative of his character. He it was who made bribery at the polls a fine art, and who fastened upon the civil service of this State a set of bosses and strikers whose chief wortt is to serve party ends in ways good or bad. All the political dirty work in Augusta is done by officeholders. They are nearly all Prohibitionists and church members, from Joe Manley, the eminent Postmaster, down to the watchman at the State House, but they will make a compact with a rumseller in the twinkling of an eye. Some of the more richly plumaged ones get drunk when they are outside the State limits. Mr. Manley knows this is not a slander. There are forty clerks in the postoffice of the city of Angusta, the whole population of which is not over eight thousand. That is about as many as are generally found in postoffices of cities having a hundred thousand inhabitants. These clerks are expected to do political duty. The forty clerks of the postoffipe are forty political messengers whom Boss Manly sends hither and thither on whatever mission he sees fit. These chaps and others were out in full force Monday, and helped to distribute the huge corruption fund that was given to carry this city for Robie by an increased majority. Dozens of men who have heretofore voted the Democratic ticket sold out for a fixed price to bribers after they had learned that there was no prospect of remuneration from their own j-irty leaders. Some of them were so persistent and anxious that they came to a Democratic leader and said that they had been offered $lO by Joe Manly’s agent, and that they would not desert their party it they, could get bnt half that sum. They were sent back, and it is supposed, took the money from the other side, for they voted the Republican ticket. I mention these facts to indicate in some degree the corruption that prevailed at the election on Monday. It is not a statement out of the way to say. that 15,000 men in Maine sold their votes. The Republicans have won a dearly bought victory in Maine—dearly bought, both because of the actual dollars and cents it cost and of the sacrifice they have made of the most sacred principles that underly.a free government. If a truthful account of the briberv practiced throughout the State yesterday could be given, it would not be believed. The bold, andaoious, and insolent purchase of votes right here in Augusta is simply incredible to one Who did not see it. The only way the American people could be convinced of such wholesale oorruption of the ballot would be to look down and behold for.themselves men bought and marched up to the polls in herds like so many servile beasts. It must be a matter of some humiliation to the friendß of Mr. Blaine to know tnat the most flagrant outrages in the whole State were permitted in his own city, where the voting population does not exceed 2,200. Talk of CoDiah and Danville, of Southern proscription of the negro, of any wrong or injustice to individual freedom or the public welfare!”

An Independent View of the'Result. [From the Chicago News, Ind. Rep.] Republicans have every reason to congratulate each other on the fact that the Maine campaign was so skillfully managed that the result—a plurality of over 16,nOO—has the appearance of a famous victory. Democrats can also congratulate themselves that “’twant no wuss.” Our dispatches this morning show that the Republican leaders really hoped for a plurality of over 20,000, Hannibal Hamlin putting it at 25,000. Bnt they refrained from any rash predictions, and studiously discounted by 50 per cent, the majority they hoped for. There are several things to be considered in arriving at any just understanding of Monday’s vote in Maine. It was the first time in four years that the Democrats nominated a man of their own and ran him without assistance from Greenbackers. Their victory of September, 1880, was through fusion, and In 1882, when Robie carried the State, Plaisted was the nominee of both Democrats and Greenbackers. The highest vote for a straight Democratic ticket in Maine in a Presidential election was 60,423 for Tilden, in 1876. The total vote this year is in thA neighborhood of 140,000. This is 7,819 below the vote of September, 1880, and at least 15,600 below what a full vote would have been this year. It is not difficult to account for this stay-at-home defection. Thq Democrats made ne attempt to get out their vote, and the Independent Republicans had no reason to Interest themselves to increase Robie’s majority. It is no part of their scheme to heat local and State Republican candidates. Had Robie needed their votes he probably would have got them. Their places In the Republican ranks were taken by the returning Greenbackers who seceded in 1880. When everything is taken into consideration—the wonderful and unceasing activity of the Republicans with oceans of money and the apathy of Democrats with no funds—the wonder is not that Robie’s plurality is so large, but that it Is not larger.