Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1890 — ROASTED BY VOORHEES. [ARTICLE]

ROASTED BY VOORHEES.

HARRISON AND DUDLEY XHRAIGNED BY THE INDIANA SENATOR. - The Conductors of the Notorious “Blocks of Flue” Caiupaigu of Corruption Scathingly Denounced and the President Urged ! to dear His Own Skirts. [Washington special to Chicago Herald.] There was a sensational scene in the Senate on ! the Bth of January, when Mr. Voorhees called up iris resolution of inquiry into the failure of the Federal authorities at Indianapolis to ar- I rest Colonel William Wade Dudley. Voorhees, always a forceful, robust speaker, was at his best, and when he carefully described the of- I lense of Dudley, his former intimate relationship with the man who is now President of the United States, and the long series of efforts made by the administration to defsat justice and shield an offender, the people in the galleries murmured applause, while the empty -seats on the Republican side bore testimony to the unwelcome nature of the characterization. Among the few Republicans who faced the ■storm were Chandler, Ingalls, Sherman, Edmunds, and Quay. For the first time since Congress met the last-named appeaerd to take genuine interest in the proceedings. He watched Voorhees like a hawk, and it was with a timid voice and crestfallen manner that he rose during the delivery of the Indiana Senator’s address to enter a brief denial of a statement concerning himself. At first Ingalls, Sherman, and Chandler affected unwonted interest in their correspondence or morning newspapers, but as Voorhees made his case stronger and stronger, and heated to a white heat the shot which he was pouring into the Republican party’s National Committee, the President which that partv had elected and other officers of the administration, newspapers and letters were laid aside, and the orator was listened to with close attention. These Republican Senators could not close their eyes to the significance of the occasion. With a skillful hand Voorhees unmasked the whole conspiracy, in which it was soon seen there were enmeshed the President of the United States, his former personal and political friend, a former Republican officeholder and the present Republican leader and Treasurer of the National Committee; a Federal judge, who is also the close personal friend of the President, and who would in all probability have been promoted to the Supreme bench bus for the fear that ne could not be confirmed ; a Republican Senator and Chairman of the National Committee; the Attorney General of the United States, the President’s personal friend and former law partner, and a Federal District Attorney appointed by the President, To none of these did the orator show mercy, and before h*? had gone far iu his effort of an hour’s duration every Republican in the chamber looked like a man struggling in the embrace of la grippe. Senator Voorhees said Dudley had inflicted an indelible stain on that memorable election and impeached the integrity of the political result that followed. The fact of the crime, ne said, was open, universally known, and practically confessed by its perpetrator and hie coadjutors, and yet, by constant vigilance in obstructing the law and in denying and preventing justice, the crime has thus far gone unpunished. The beneficiary of a polluted ballot-box, now in high place, the Senator declared, had felt compelled to shield the corrupt instrument of that success from the penalties due to such notorious guilt. It was high time, he said, that that most disgraceful and most alarming episode in the Presidential election should be fullv understood by the whole people, and that the proper degree of responsibility should be assigned to the instrument by whom it was perpetrated and to those who tried to hide the offense. He should “nothing extenuate, nor aught set down in malice,” but forbearance- on the subject had long ceased to be a virtue in the estimation of all honest people in Indiana, and for those alone he spoke. BROUGHT QUAY TO HIS FEET.' Mr. Voorhees sent to the clerk’s desk and had read the notorious “biocks-of-five" letter, aud went on to say that the days and weeks which immediately followed the publication of that polluted and polluting campaign document would always be remembered for the rapidity, audacity and fecundity with which the most self-evident falsehoods were conceived and put forth by the Republican press in order to avert the odium and to escape the legal penalties of an organised attempt at wholesale bribery. “This document, emanating officially from ,lhe National Republican Committee and never disavowed, had pointed out,” he said, “tbal an ample corruption fund was already in hand ana gave explicit directions for its use by agents selected for their skill in such rascality. Dudley was the immediate personal representative in the National Republican Comhiittee of Benjamin Harrison, then a candidate for the Presidency and now the President of the United States. He had been put upon that committee at the earnest request of Harrison, and between them were the most confidential and intimate personal relations. They had been political Siamese twins in the State of Indiana. When, therefore, the scheine of bribery and corruption was exposed on the 31st of October as far and as fast as the lightning carried the shameful story, was it to be supposed that Dudley was left without advice, instructions, and assistance? Senator Quay, Chairman of the National Republican Committee and Senator from the State of Pennsylvania, arrived at Indianapolis and held repeated and protracted conferences with those who held the fate of Dudley and the interests of the Republican party in the hollow of their hands. ” Senator Quay, who had not taken his eyes from Mr. Voorhees during his speech, here arose and said: “I state to the Senator from Indiana that it is not true that in Indianapolis I conferred with those who had the Republican party in the hollow of their hand or conferred with any one in regard to the < a,-.e ot Mr. Dudley.” “The hands of those with whom the Senator consulted,” replied Mr. Voorhees, “were rather small, it is true, but to the extent of their Salms they did hold the interests of the Repubcan party in their hands. Does the Senator deny that he called on President-elect Harrison in Indianapolis?” “I called on President-elect Harrison," admitted Quay. “Certainly you did!" Mr. Voorhees “The Senator will not blame me if I draw the big inference that he wanted the prosecution of Dudley stopped and that he went to Indianapolis to see him, and that he did say certiiin things in quarters where it would do the most good, and with an emphasis that was not forgotten.” DUDLEY’S BLUFFING LIBEL SUITS. Concerning the libel suits which Dudley brought in New York Senator Voorhees said : Before the election Dudley thought to blind the people by bringing suits against several papers in New York. Subsequent proceedings, however, have doubtless convinced even Dudley how difficult it is to play Jekyll and Hyde at the same time; how difficult it is to combine the assumption of injured innocence and honesty with the conduct of a scheming, conspiring political freebooter. From the earliest day it was possible for any one of his libel suits in New York to be forced to trial by the more than ready and willing defendants to the present hour Dudley has been an alert, vigilant and persistent exile from the jurisdiction of the Empire State. With the first symptoms of an opportunity to put his good name to a judicial test and to recover enough money for another huge corruption fund he fled from New York with the speed of a bank embezzler, and found in this District as safe a refuge, it seems, as if he had gone to Canada. For more than a year the defendants in the libel suits have been exhausting all legal methods to get him (the plaintiff) into court to prosecute his own case in vindication of his own damaged and battered reputation, and as yet their efforts have all been in vain. These defendants, failing to secure the personal presence of Dudley in court, have also made every effort to obtain his testimony in his own behalf, to induce him to inform them ana the court of all the particulars whereby he has been damaged in his fair fame and reputation to the amount of several hundred thousand dollars. In this laudable search after light and knowledge by which these defendants might defend themselves they have likewise lailed. I believe in one instance an attempt was made in this District by counsel from New York to take Dudley’s deposition in one of the libel cases, but he stood mute, by the direction of an eminent Republican lawyer, formerly from Indiana, and an intimate friend of the present occupant of the White House,. In view of such protected evasion of a trial and such chronic and cowardly skulking from the courts of his own seeking, what other conclusion than that of overwhelming guilt can be reached by any fair mind? The defendants whom be has sued for libel, aud on whom he

has called for the payment nf Mg seaas cl money with which to soothe, solace, and esp< - i ci ally repair his battered reputation, have frem day to day and from time to time mocked, derided, and defied him; they have scorned and scoffed at his plea of forgery; they have trampled all bis contemptible subterfuges under • thdr feet at every step for the last year, aud t still be comes not to the precincts of a New ! York Court. He seeks the arena of judicial com- i l>at as Bob Acres seeks his antagonist for a fatal i duel. He runs the other wav. JUDGE WOODS TAKEN IN HAND. Senator Voorhees then turned his attention to ( Judge Woods, and showed bow that Judge, in charging the Grand Jury on Nev. 14, before the Republican leaders had a chance to get together and sound the alarm, had spoken his own judicial mind, and fairly instructed the | jury in its duties. His charge fully and com- i pletely covered the case of Dudley and hie aMies. At this point, however, the Republican i leaders, roused to the danger of exposure, began work, and from this time henceforward a reaction was noticed in Jndge Woods’ court. For no apparent*reason, court was adjourned Tor three weeks. Mr. Voorhees thus explained the delays: While the Grand Jury was yet in recesa. Dudley told prominent men of both political parties whom he met in New York that his pockets were full of dynamite, and if be was indicted and prosecuted a very loud explosion would occur. He did not intend that his associates and co-workers in the campaign, while enriched with the spoils of victory and glittering with official honors and distinction, should look on his arraignment, trial, and inevitable conviction with a complacent sense of security to themselves. His threats of dynamite were writ understood in certain quarters which had power to protect him. He had carried and disbursed the corruption fund of his party for eight years in Indiana. and was in possession of political secrets of a character to numble and bring low many a proud head if he was abandoned to his fate. Dudley is a stanch and extreme part}- man, nor do I think him wanting in personal fidelity to those with whom he breaks bread and eats salt; but to go to the penitentiary, not merely for his own sins but also as a scapegoit for the sins of others, who from high places were intending to let him make the journey alone, was more than even his patriotic devotion to the ReSublican party ana hie personal adhesion to arrison could stand. He pointed to the wellknown dynamite in his pockets, and the menacing gesture and hint were heeded with startling promptitude. ■ The Grand Jury assembled Dee. 4, and within the next four days it was known from the witnesses who had beeu called and testified that an overwhelming case had beeu made against Dudley, and that his indictment was an assured fact under the rulings of the court as they then stood. Suddenly, on Dec. 9, Judge Woods adjourned court at Indianapolis to hold a week’s term at Fort Wayne, which term at Fort Wayne, I have been informed, lasted one hour and forty minutes and involved the trial of one very unimportant and trivial case. But time had been gained, and the Grand Jury did not reassemble until Dec. 17. In the meantime the District Attorney in charge of the case resigned and Mr. Bailey, an able and very competent man, was appointed in his place. Thereupon a strange coincidence took place between the views of Republicans at Washington aud Indiannp dis. Republican Senators with singular unanimity and promptness declared for the ear of the public that they would under no circumstances allow Bailey to be confirmed, while Judge Woods, wi.h equal promptness and publicity, declared that he would under no circumstances receive an indictment from the grand jury signed by Mr. Bailey until he had been confirmed by the Senate. Another adjournment of the court and the grand jury followed the advent of the Chairman of the National Republican Committee, this time suspending all action aud going over from Dec. 23 to Jun. 14, a period of full three weeks. And then, when the court and the grand jury came together again, the object for which justice had been delayed aud jockeyed and juggled so long in the interest of partisan -crime was speedily made manifest. On the 15th day of January, 1889, a dav long to be remembered in the history of the judiciary with shame, Judge Woods delivered the iufa mous second charge to the Grund Jury whereby Dudley and his confi derates were enabled to escape, at least for the time being, from the lashes of the law. In his first charge Judge Woods, in the plain, simple words of Section 5511, had told the jury that to counsel or advise any one to attempt to bribe a voter was an indictable offense. In his second charge he says that such counsel or advice, whether in a letter or otherwise, setting forth a scheme of bribery, however bold or reprehensible, is not indictable in his court. To make it so he declares there must be shown, in addition, that the person receiving the letter, who may lie unknown to the Grand Jury ana legally described as unknown in the indictment , has himself made an attempt to bribe somebody, or has instigated some other rogue to make such attempt. The impossibility of making this kind of additional proof iu the Grand Jury-room or before a traverse jury had been very carefully weighed and considered in the close and high councils of the party before the second charge was given; but, as if fearing that the Grand Jury might adhere to solid principles, although he himself had betrayed and abandoned them, Judge Woods went further, and gave notice, in substance'if not in terms, that if an indictment under bis first charge should be returned he would allow no conviction on a trial of the same HARRISON INVITED TO CLEAR HIMSELF. Senator Voorhees then paid his respects to President Harrison ana District Attorney Chambers as follows: Chambers in ordering the warrant not to issue calls for his summary dismissal from office, unless the administration, of which he is a member, is willing to have the law still further violated in order to still further protect Dudley. It is not worth while to have it put forth and heralded over the country at stated that the administration did not shake hands with Dudley at the inauguration ball, and that he now only enters the White House at the back door or not at all. No fairer opportunity .can occur than the one now presented to the President to define his position as to Dudley and his crime and its indorsers. It matters not whether District Attorney Chambers had the legal right to prevent the arrest of Dudley or not. He exercised that right, aud not only refused to prosecute him, but declared himself in earnest sympathy with the felonious act with which Dudley is charged. The factlthatDudley committed a substantive offense against the laws when he advised his correspondents to attempt the bribery of voters stands Out as the great central feature of this whole question, and can never be escaped as long as section 5511 endures. The attempt of Judge Woods and his counselors to dwarf Dudley into an accomplice and an abettor, aud to exalt the miserable pigmies who are his tools in Indiana to principals, only excites derision and contempt among honest and intelligent people. This issue can be left where Judge Woods has placed it, with the certainty of a conspicuously shameful place in the history ot the judiciary of the United States. And now in view of the indignity, the injustice, and the open outrage inflicted upon the people of Indiana in the name and by the authority of the National Committee ot the Republican party, aided and abetted in the protection of Dudley by the action of the Federal court, it will not, I hope, seem strange that as one of the representatives of that abused and insulted people I should desire to know by whose instructions and by what authority of law the responsible law officer of the Government in Indiana, selected and appointed by the present administration, felt himself warranted a few weeks ago in ordering a United States Commissioner not to issue a warrant for Dudley’s arrest when he had ventured to return to Indianapolis for the first time in more than a J rear, at the same time characterizing Dudley’s etter, with all its world-wide infamy, as an honorably and patriotic political document, “indicatins simply a patriotic interest in the elections." In behalf of the people of Indiana I desire the Attorney General of the United States to inform this body whether the action of his official subordinate In interfering with and obstructing the duties of a United States Commissioner was inspired by his instructions or now meets hie approval; and, if so, to further inform the Senate and the country by virtue of , what law he and his subordinates are upheld. Sir, I here assert, fearless of any intelligent contradiction from any Senator or from anybody else, that a District Attorney for the United States has no more legal right over the action of a United States Commissioner in the issuance or the refusal to issue a warrant of arrest than he has over the appointment of a Minister to England. Is the President willing to be held responsible for the conduct and the language of his law officer in Indiana, who openly declares “the blocks of five” letter to indicate simply a patriotic interest in the election ? If so, he will allow Smiley N. Chambers to i 'tmain in office.

It Rot, he will call very promptly for his resignation. EDMUNDS TO THE RESCUE. Senator Edmunds then took the floor and endeavored to break the force of Voorhees’ ringing arraignment of the administration. He cited the Morey letter as evidence that bad men do bad things in the interest of all political parties. He endeavored to wake it appear that the Dem ocratic District Attorney had failed in his duty, and asked why Dndley had not been punished undsr the State law. Mr. Edmunds then cited the case of Sim Coy and the other alleged tally-sueet forgers at Indianapolis. A WHACK AT PARTNER MILLER. By the time Edmunds had concluded his provokingly ironical and satirical apology for Republican election bribery Senator Voorhees was recklessly indignant. In replying he did not mince bis words. He said : The Senator from Vermont has held this morning the brief of the Attorney General, and as barrister has spoken for him here, and inasmuch as he was coached very thoroughly this forenoon by the Attorney General in person, in this Capitol, I am surprised at the trashy and quibbling character oi the stuff that he has trumped up from Indiana. Nobody could have given him such material except somebody chatging himself with that duty from the State, and Inasmuch a? the Attorney General was known to call the Senator from the Committee on Foreign Relations this morning and hand him his notes, I take it that I am not transcending any rule ot propriety in saying that he has spoken the answer of the Attorney General to whatever impropriety may attach to his conduct. In conclusion Mr. Voorhees deplored the obvious “trifling of the Senator from Vermont with a great question, au attempt to belittle a great wrong in a manner unbecoming a pettifogger before a Justice of the Peade.” A QUIBBLING SUBSTITUTE ADOPTED. Mr. Edmunds then offered a substitute for the resolution as follows ; “That the Attorney General be and hereby is instructed to inform the Senate what instructions, if any, the Department of Justice has given to b. N. Chambers, District Attorney for the District of Indiana, on the subject of the arrest of W. W. Dudley and his exemption from arrest; and by what authority of law any such instructions have been given ; and that copies of all such coirespoudence be transmitted to the Senate.” The amendment was agreed to by a party vote of 31 to 24. and this ended one of the liveliest days ever known m the Senate.