Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1878 — Tilden's Poor Plea. [ARTICLE]

Tilden's Poor Plea.

The Cincinnati Gazette says of Tilden’ s so-called explanation: “He does not deny the proof of the attempts, directed by his nephew from ins own residence, to buy a canvassing officer in Florida, and to buy the Returning Board in South Carolina; attempts carried on by a numerous series of telegrams, and authorizing the payment of 960,000 in the Florida, case, and actually sending SBO,OOO in the South Carolina case, but he denies that he was knowing to this. His charges, in substance, that his nephew and his most trusted agents betrayed him into this crime, without giving him any inkling of what was going on.” It is a case of a very innocent man, terribly Involved by wicked partners. Surely Mr. Tilden has a cause against these. Can he do less than to kick his nephew, Col. Pelton, out of the house, and to denounce him and Smith Weed, J. F. Coyle, Manton Marble, C. W. Woolley, and the rest, as treacherous friends, who betrayed his trust and plotted to make him accessory to a crime by bringing him into the Presidency through bribery? And surely the least that Nephew Pelton and the confidential agent, Smith Weed, can do is to relieve Tilden by confessing that they treacherously abused his trust. The betrayal of Tilden is much aggravated by the fact that he trusted his bank account and his whole fortune to them, as is shown by their agreeing to accept Marble and Woolley’s draft for $50,000, and by their actually sending SBO,OOO in currency to Baltimore, to meet Smith Weed, to complete the South Carolina purchase. It is possible—so evil-minded is the world— that it will say this shuffling of the responsibility is too thin. Ana this tendency will not be prevented by the manner in which Mr. Tilden tries to get up a diversion by charging that all this negotiation was originated by these Returning officers, and that they tempted his agents. But the cipher telegrams themselves claim that his agents approached the canvassing officers with offers to bribe. And furthermore, although they show that they expected to make the purchase, it is more likely that they were hearing their proposals and drawing them on to expose their villainy. But whether this be so or not, there are the telegrams, which prove that in each of these cases Tilden\ agents began from the first to talk of money as the essential thing. They show that in the case of Florida they had no expectation of a return in favor of the Tilden Electors, if the Canvassers did tfieir duty. And in the case of South Carolina, Smith Weed, as soon as he got on the ground and saw the returns, telegraphed that the Hayes Electors had a majority. Hampton claimed only 1,400 majority, and Weed telegraphed Pelton Nov. 14: “ Best I can figure, Tilden will be over 2,000 behind Hampton, and see little hope.” Nov. 13 he had sent: “If Returning Board can be procured absolutely, win you deposit $30,000? May take less. Must be prompt.” After he had told Tilden that in his own count, the Hayes Electors were chosen, he telegraphed this Nov. 14: “ Shall I increase to $60,000 if required to make sure?” And to this the answer was made by Pelton: “ You can go to fifty if necessary. Perhaps use future

prospects for some part.” Again, Nov. 16: “Try and make portion payable after votes are (cast) and another portion after the final result.” And so the thing went on, with rising price, until Nov. 18, Weed telegraphed: “Majority of board have been secured. Cost is SBO,OOO, to be sent as follows: One parcel of $65,000, one of SIO,OOO and one of $5,000; all to be of SSOO and SI,OOO bills; notes to be deposited as parties accept, and given up on vote of the land of Hampton being given to Tilden’s friends.” And there is every reason to believe that this large sum was sent. But the Hampton party, through the corrupt Supreffie Court, was playing his game, and thus playing at cross purposes with Tilden-’s, and fthis foreed the board to act promptly and thus this bribe failed to connect. In this there was no pretense of Tilden's agent that he was entitled to the vote of the State. He told him from the first that in a fair count his Electors were defeated. Therefore, Tilden’s effort, in the face of this testimony of his agent, te-uwake a diversion, by charging that he was defrauded of his election; and by accusing Congress of abandoning its office, which was to count him in, looks very forlorn. We doubt jf it will do anything to relieve Mr. Tilden, in the popular judgment, from this infamous crime.— lowa State Register.

—The St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer-Press wends out the foliowing story concerning Walker H. Brown, late Democratic nominee for Congrees in the Ninth District of Iowa: “It is said that while a member of the Board of Supervisors in Emmett County, lowa, he was made Chairman of the board, which consisted of three members; that at a cer}tain Jneeting he presented a proposition before the botrd for action te which the other two members were opposed. He requested one of the other members of the board to take the Chair while he discussed the measure, which was done; the#, while on the floor, called for a vote on the question, which, of course, the Chairman not voting, was a tie. He said, ‘ I will now resume, the Chair,’and then announced as there seemed* to be. a tie vote, that it became necessary for the the, affirmative, and declared the measure carried.” The handsomest woman in Europe paid to the Queen of