Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1890 — SPEECH of HON. D. W. VOORHEES, OF INDIANA, [ARTICLE]

SPEECH of HON. D. W. VOORHEES, OF INDIANA,

In the’Senate of the United States, Wednesday, January 8, 1890. [(Continued from last week. ] In this laudable search after light and knowledge by which these defendants might defend themselves they have likewise failed. I believe in one instance aaa attempt was made in thisDistrietiby counsel from New York to take Dud ley’s deposit'on in one of the libel cases, but he stood route by the direction of an emin nt Republican la vver, formerly from Indiana, and an intiinat- triend of the present occupant of the White House. What a roaring farce this libel litigation would be if produced on the comic stage! The only critic cisrn it would have to fear would

4>e that as a burlesque on human conduct it presents such an extravagant departure irom anything ever hitherto known, even in the wildest and most fantastic transactors of I’fe, that the plot wo’d bu deemed incredible, and the play en iredy overdone. JjThe idea of the terribly damaged Dudley, before the election bursting into the courts and clamoring for redress, and after the election at once flying in terror from the courts whose aid he had invoked, and hiding, dodging, and skulking from a party of eagerly pursaing defendants who are trying to lassu hjm back in|s {he jurisdiction of New York, Would indeed seem incredible in dramatic literature, and all the more so when it would be recalled that the principal characs ter in the play had been United States marshal for the fifth state in the American Union, bad held the great office of Commissioner of Pensions, and was at this time the treasurer of the Republican national committee, and was hailed and honored, and din?d, and wined, and consulted by the leading men of the Republican'party, who pretend to soundj morals and even to Christian faith and conduct.

Such a presentation on the stage, with the distinguished persons in their various and appropriate characters surrounding Dudley, who are necessarily and inevitably participants and sliders with him in his plots and conspiracies, and in the emoluments and honors th er-of, con’d not fail to revive in our memories the deathkss satires of Juvenal, wherein the brazen and infamous vices of his day, heralding the downfall of Rome, were so graphically and powerfully portrayed. Even now these vile mockeries, these spurious, bastard suits f. r libel, conceived in fraud and sin and brought torth for purposes of iniquity, are still pending. The defendants appear in no haste, to be rid of a fugitive plaintiff, while the plaintiff himself, like the man who had the wolf by the ears, can not hold on, and can not let go. Only a few days ago, December 30, 1889, the following statement appeared in the Associated Press:

“Judge Lawrence, of the New York supreme court, handed down an opinion in chambers yesterday in which he says in effect that Col. William W. Dudley, who ia suing half a dozen New York newspapers ror alleged libel in the publication of the blocks-of-five letter, cqn’not expect favors from the court when be persistently refuses to obey its orders. This decision wa* handed down .n Dudley’s action against the Press Publishing Company ( orid), any denies a by tb plaintiff to vacate an order for substituted serv.c> on him of an O der for his examination before trial to enable the defendant to prepare an answer. The judge says that by bringing this action in this court Dudley has subjected himself to its jurisdiction and now seeks to vacate its order, but as he k ,eps without the territon '1 limits

of the stats and refuses to obey the order of the court he cau not, in the opinion or the court, be heard affirmatively in opposition to the order.” In view of such protracted evasion of a tr.al, 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? What now becomes of the pitiful and quibbling interviews with which he sprinkled the first ten days of his fearful expos, ure, and in which he basket his plea of forgery on two or three verbal inaccuracies of no conse queoce whatever to the true tenor and meaning of the letter? Why i does he not, bv and with the advice and consent of his committee associates, proceed to tiial and point out the alleg d inaccuracies which change an otherwise genu me paper into a forgery calling for damages f tremendou size?

The defendants wh. m he has sued for libel, and on whom he has called for the payment of big sums of money with which to soothe solace, and especially’ repair his battered reputation, have from day to day, and fiom time to time, mocked, derided, and defied him; they have s< orned an scoffed at his plea of forgery; they have trampled aL his contemptible sub* terfuges under their feet at every step for the last year. And still he comes not to the precincts of a New York court. He se* ks the arena of judicial combat as Bob Acres seeks his antagonist for a fatal duel. He runs the other way.

If, however, the treasurer of the Republican nation 1 committee, and his allies, snuffed danger to their policy of falsehood in the judicial atmosphere ot New Yofk, let us turn in another dictation and behold what a splendid opportunity he had for vindication and damages in the Republican Federal courts and state courts in Indiana. As I hnye said, Dudley’s Utter advising wholesale bribery as a means of carrying Indiana for Harrison and Morton, atd for the Republican candidates genera' y appeared in the Seatinel, a/ Indianapolis, October 31, just six d»ys before the election, ;nd long enough after it was written and transmitted, October 24, for its baleful poison to become diffused throughout the sta e, and to do much of its destructive and treasonable work.

Within the next forty-eight hou”s after the publication of the letter in the bentine 1 , Dudley’s denial that it was genuine, and his audacious statement that it was a forgery, were heard from one end of the land to the other, and a 1 the loyal pipers of a party bent on rule or ruin piped accordingly.— Within that forty-eight hours, however, the policy of falsehood decided upon by Dud’ey, and more especially for Dudley, by those to whom he was subordinate, was met in Indiana m a way which will be long remembered On the morning of November 2, 1888, the Sentinel published a sac-simile of the Dudley’ letter with an offer cf s!,<• 000 then deposited in bank for that purpose to be paid to Dudley if he would come to Indiana and swear that the letter as printed in the Sentinel was a forgery. What a chance for a first-class libel suit on his own native heath, and a thousand dollars to boot.

The letter and the proffered reward for Dudley’s presence in Inn diana and his denial under oath, were kept standing at the beau of the editorial page of the ben tin el for days and weeks, both before and after the election, wh ; ch occurred November 5. In fact it has held good for more than a year, and has been repeated within the last three weeks And what has been the effect of these con.inued publications it the Sentinel, ac c unearned by every sting and taunt, and word of scorn and contumely which a gifted writer could hurl st a crouching outlaw, for his crimes against the majesty and the glory of an incorruptible system

of popular government? Did this leader and high official in th. (cuucib? of his party reich out and grapple for the throat of his assailant in Indiana? Did he rush upon the Sentinel, and with the aid of > hundred Republican lawyers, prompt to spring to the rescue of his good name and the good name of his party, bring libel suits, crush that splendid and enteprising newspaper property, and sell it out under heavy judgments at sheriff’s sale? On the contrary, he cowered in the distance; the Sentinel banished him from the state. He became a fugitive from his own state, as he was from New York. His crime 1 disfranchised him in adv/.nce of trial and conviction; he did not even dare go home to vote for Harrison, for whose el ction he had steeped his conscience in guilt and imperiled his immortal soul. He waited and watched over the border,doubtless with th?, longings and repinings of many a more virtuous exile, until at last a change took place in the ruling dynasty which enabled him to return to his home wi.h an understanding and an assurance that the corruption of the ballot-box should be, looked upon, in his case at least, as an evidfence of honorable and patriotic zeal.

Id ihe meantime, however, while the treasurer of the national executive committer- of the Republi an party was forced into banishment and outlawry from two states, the people of Indiana had a right to expect, and did axpect, that the plainly written laws of the country would be enfotped in the proper courts against one who, in the very language of the United States statutes, had counseled and advised an attempt to b»ioe a certain class of voters of the state, and had procured and proffered sufficient sums of money with which to commit ths abominable and treasonable crime.

ILwt u. see whether their just expectations were realieed, er whether they were baffled and finally defeated by partisan chicanery and fraud on the bench itself. On the 14th day of November the grand juiy of the United States district couit, Judge William A. Woods presiding, was convened at Indianapolis* Th > election had transpired only eight davs before, and the public mind was very hot and aggressive on the subject of brib> cry and corruption at the polls.The leaders of the Republican party, weary from the >ork of the campaign, and scattered throughout distant states, had not as yet realized th ) danger of their questionable s’uccess, and the supreme necessity of protecting, at all hazards, Dudley, and their national committee. ” They had not had time an t forethought to get to* I gether and consult and plan, as they did afterwards, when 'udge Woods, first met an I charged the grand jury >f his court on the 14th of N< veniber. He therefore spoke his own judicial mind, unbiased at that time I y the consequen es which might follow, ani ovary lawyer of standing of both parties agreed that he correctly gave the law to the jury. Ho read in full section 5511 oi the Revised Statutes of the United States, which 1 also here submit: fc. 551 ’ • If, at any election for Represented co or Del-gate in Con gress. any p rson knowingly person'-, atoa wad votes or attempts to vote, in rhe name of any other person, whether living, lead, or fictitious; or votes more than cuce at the same election for any candidate fur the same office, or votes at i place whei% i.e mav not be lawfully entitled to vote; or votes without having a lawful right to vote; or doos any unlawful act to secure an opportunity io vote sot himself, or any other person; o by force, threat, Intimidation, bri* bery, ieward, or offer thereof, unlaw* full" prevents any qualified v ter of any State, ot of any Territory, from

freely exercising the right of surt-age or by -.-.ny such means indu<-es any voter to refuse to exercise such right, or compels, or indue s, by any such means, any officer us an election in any such State or Territory to receive a voce from a person no* legally qu&lified or entitled to vt'He o in’erferesin any manner with any officer of such '■'lection in ibe discharge of his duties; or by any such means, or other unlawful means, induces -my officer of any election ur officer whose duty it is to ascertain, announce, or c eclare the result of any election, or give «i|" make anv certificate, document, "r evidence in relation thereto, to violate or refuse *o comply with his duty or any liw regulating the same, or knowfngiy receives the vet ol any nerson not entitled to vote or aide, counsels, procures, or advises any such voter, person, or officer to •io anj* act hereby made a crime, or otni: to do anv duu, the omission or which is hereby maue a crime, or at tempt to Jo so, he shall bs punished by a tier Jot not more than do,r-irs, or by imprisonment rot u<>re than three years, or by both, and shall pay the costs of prosecution.

In commenting on this section, Judge Woods in bis charge said: “Some of the offenses spoken of here, you will see, may be commuted b an unofficial person, and some of ti.em by an officer of an election. And now, in reference to a particular part of the offenses named, I wish to say that consul* erable question has been made since the election through which we Lave just passed as to whether an attempt to bribe constitutes an offense under this law. I instruct you that it does not under this statute. The latter clause of the section makis one guilty who counsels 1 ribery. I will now in struct you fully upon the word “attempt,” as it is used in this clause, in order that you may understand its force in relation to the specifications made regarding ‘ counseling” to bribe, and actual bribery. The section does not make it an offense to in anv manner counsel, aid, or assist in the bribery of a voter, or in committing any other offense named in the section; but an unsuccessful attempt to brii ea voter does not constitut any offense under this section, in o her words, this statute does not con demn as a crime, no matter how clearly it may be proven, an at* tern, t to bribe a voter, privided it can be shown that it did rot succeed. In order to understand the word ‘-attempt” in its exact force as contained in the last clause of

his section it is necessary to insert, or imply, the “to” before “attempt,” so that the clause will then read in this use: “aids, counsels, procures, or advises any v< ter, person or officer to do any act hereby made a crime, or (‘to’) attempt to do so, he shad be punished by a fine.” And so read, this clause makes it an offense fur any jne to advise another to attempt to commit any of the offenses,named in this section, so that while it is not a crime to attempt, it is a crime to advise another to make the attempt. If A attempts to brite B, that ,s no offense under this statute; but if A advises B to attempt to bribe C, then the one who commen s or gives this advice is an offender under this law, and I will say there is some wisdom in the provision. The judge then concluded his cnarge as follows: “1 think, gentlemen, that those statutes I have interpreted cover all the charges that I have heard brought against anybody or that are liKely to be brought against anvbcdy. If there have been offenders under their provisions they should be punished to the fu.l extent of thier guilt, and it is your duty as grand jurors to investigate all such charges that they mav be brought to your intention, fully and conscientiously, without regard to who n ay be convicted as such offenders. If you have heard, as I have, charges publicly bro’t in our prints and elsewhere againstany citizen of his having offended under these statutory laws we considered regulating an elect ion, it is your duty to take ccgn. zaiice of the charges brought against him, investigate the evidence of guilt that stands agains* him, and fearl issly render your indictment, without regard to the political party to which he may belong, or the official I position he may hold o/ may have held when he cotnmitted such offence.