Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1885 — The Mullen Case. [ARTICLE]

The Mullen Case.

The Mullen case, in which President Cleveland released a man from the con.sequences of gross partisanship on the bench, is evidently to be made as much of as possible by the Ohio Republicans, just as it is by Republican critics of the President in other States. The charge that Mullen deprived 160 electors of the right to vote, which was the basis •of the indictment against him, was the text of Judge Baxter’s sentence; and both charge and sentence will be read from the Ohio stump in the efforts which the Republicans are making to •carry that State on something beside local issues. Apparently, however, they are not to be undisturbed in their use of thia matter as campaign ammunition. The •charge that colored citizens to the number of 160, or to any number, were deprived of their right to vote is stoutly •denied; and the facts shown in the statement of Mullen’s counsel to a reporter of the Cincinnati Enquirer not only sustain the denial, but show that there never was any pretense of citizenship on the part of the arrested men •except as to six of them. From this statement it appears that Mullen, acting under an order of the Mayor to arrest all suspicious strangers, went to a notorious “crap” house on the river front which was kept by a colored man and which was reported packed with strange colored men from Kentucky. He found the report true to all appearances, the bar-room being filled at 2 o’clock in the morning of election with colored men sleeping on the tables and chairs. These were the men he arrested as suspicious persons and locked up. Mullen was indicted for conspiracy with certain other members of the police force to prevent certain citizens from voting, and in one count was charged alone with preventing such citizens from voting. The single charge alone was examined, the prosecution withdrawing the charges of conspiracy upon Mullen’s agreement to plead guilty to the sole charge, which he did, his counsel affirms, to relieve from arrest the men who had acted with liim and under his orders. On the examination there wasproof of citizenship in the case of six persons only, and these the witnesses in the case. The proof was their own testimony in their own and each other’s behalf and the testimony of the keeper of the “crap” house where they were arrested and claimed to reside. The testimony showed, however, that their “residence” consisted in sleeping on chairs or tables in the bar-room of the bousd; and if there had been no plea

of guilty in the case it is more than likely that even a Republican jury would have refused to find that the men were citizens of Ohio. Other testimony in the case showed that numbers of the arrested men were pot citizens of Ohio, but came from Kentucky to vote illegally at the election in the former State. If these are the facts—and most of them are undisputed, especially the last given—the President did an act of simple justice in pardoning Mullen, who was evidently sentenced to gratify a partisan sentiment which the judge either entertained on his own behalf or deliberately catered to. But even if the pardon were injudicious it is not easy to see how the Republicans can use the case to advantage in their State campaign. If they should succeed even in convicting the President of pardoning an undeserving man they will certainly succeed at the same time in convicting the Republican party in Ohio of a shameless attempt against the purity of the ballot-box. Whatever a jury might be led to believe, intelligent people outside the jury box cannot be made to believe that the scores of men who claimed their residence in a low gambling den by reason of sleeping on chair, table or floor were really citizens of Cincinnati and entitled to vote there. It looks a good deal as if the Ohio Republicans were blundering in trying to mvke the Mullen case an issue.— Detroit Free Press.