PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



715 



been fair, full, and free. Kelly, registrar of Rich- 

 land Parish, has related to the Committee the ex- 

 traordinary pressure brought to bear to induce thorn 

 to do so. 



As in East Feliciana, so in the other negro parish- 

 es, the same claim of intimidation was inade, sup- 

 ported by the same class of witnesses, and in the 

 same ex parte and dangerous way ; and though fully 

 disproved and in direct conflict with the fullness of 

 the vote, and with all the known facts and circum- 

 stances, the claim of intimidation was nevertheless 

 allowed, and so much of the vote of these parishes 

 as was necessary rejected. And the Board so man- 

 aged it as to reject 1,010 votes in West Feliciana, 

 1^736 in East Feliciana, 1,453 in East B.jton Rouge, 

 1,517 in Ouachita in all 5,706 votes, while rejecting 

 but 259 Republican votes ; and yet 49 witnesses to 

 intimidation in West Feliciana were contradicted by 

 527 witnesses, 51 in Ouachita by 727 witnesses, 63 in 

 East Baton Rouge by 457 witnesses, and 26 in East 

 Folicianaby 1,196 witnesses. Throughout, the action 

 of the Board was partisan, arbitrary, and flagrantly 

 unjust. For illustration: In New Orleans one re- 

 turn showed 297 or 299 Democratic votes ; because 

 the last figure was so made that it could not cer- 

 tainly be said whether it was me.int for a 7 or 9, they 

 rejected the whole poll. In Vernon they changed 

 the returns by adding to them 176 Republican votes 

 and subtracting from the Democrats 178 votes. In 

 Iberia, whore the Republican election officers omit- 

 ted to write "voted" upon the registration certifi- 

 cate of the first hundred voters, they rejected the 

 whole poll 322 Democratic and 11 Republican votes 

 although there was no pretense that the vote was 

 wrong. In Concordia and Nachitoches they counted 

 1,854 rotes not appearing on the returns, and which, 

 by the rule applied to Democratic parishes, should 

 not have been counted. In De Soto they accepted 

 protests and returns which had evidently been in- 

 serted in the packages after they were mailed. 



Many of the witnesses who sustained the charges 

 of intimidation before the Returning Board, when 

 examined by the Committee, retracted their former 

 testimony. Fifteen witnesses in Feliciana, from a 

 number whom Mr. Sharman desired the Committee 

 to call, appeared, and only two, Swayze and Dula, 

 held to their original declarations. The latter as- 

 serted that Weber had influenced the other witness- 

 es to corroborate his new testimony after he had re- 

 tracted his former statements. Mr. Sherman desired 

 that ninety witnesses be examined upon acts of vio- 

 lence in Feliciana; but, after the Committee had 

 expressed willingness to hear them, they were not 

 produced. Anderson and Jenks, the principal wit- 

 nesses to intimidasiou in East Feliciana, afterward 

 retracted before the Committee their former evi- 

 dence, as did also Emile Weber, the brother of Don 

 Weber of West Feliciana, who had in the mean time 

 been killed. Anderson's story before the Committee 

 was that there was a Republican conspiracy to pre- 

 vent Republican votes being cast in the Felicianas, 

 and thereby to afford a pretext for rejecting the vote 

 of those parishes, in which there was a large bona 

 fi-U Democratic majority ; that the registration and 

 election in both parishes had been perfectly fair and 

 free ; that upon arriving at New Orleans he was urged 

 to protest his parish ; that he resisted, on the ground 

 that there was no foundation for such a protest ; that, 

 under pressure, he prepared a paper, which Judge 

 Campbell, the counsel for the Republican party di- 

 recting such matters, declared to be worthless ; that 

 thereupon, at the request of Pitkin, the United States 

 Marshal, Campbell prepared an effective protest for 

 him to sign ; that Campbell was subsequently sent 

 for to come and take the verification of this protest ; 

 that lie then refused to verify it, but that he signed 

 it and left it with Pitkin, with the important parts 

 of it not filled up ; that he subsequently called on 

 Pitkin to reclaim it, who refused to give it to him ; 

 that thereupon he began making complaint, and the 



Republican leaders used their influence to keep him 

 quiet ; arid, finally, that he went with Weber, who 

 had also made a false protest, to Moreau's restau- 

 rant, where they mot Sherman; and that they re- 

 ceived from him satisfactory assurances of reward 

 for letting their protests stand, which assurances 

 they determined the following day to have in writ- 

 ing, and thereupon sent Mr. Sherman a letter to 

 that effect, to which lie returned a satisfactory reply. 

 Many of his statements were corroborated by other 

 evidence. The letter from Mr. Sherman, if it had 

 any existence, was directed to Weber. Emile We- 

 ber testified that he found it among his brother's 

 papers and destroyed it. A letter was shown to 

 Sypher, former member of Congress, by Don We- 

 ber, which he believed to be a genuine letter from 

 Mr. ^Sherman. This dirt'erel in shape and hand- 

 writing from a spurious letter, perhaps a copy, art- 

 fully brought to the notice of the Committee, which 

 Mrs. Jenks testified was the original letter, which 

 she had procured to be forged for the deception of 

 Anderson and Weber. Considerable pains seem to 

 have been taken to attract the attention of the Com- 

 mittee and of the public to this forgery, perhaps 

 with the object of having it accepted, first as the 

 original document, and afterward proving its spuri- 

 ous' origin. 



The influence and encouragement of the visiting 

 statesmen and the presence of the Federal troops 

 sustained the Returning Board in their fraudulent 

 purpose of declaring the State for Hayes, without 

 which aid they would not have thus outraged the 

 moral sense of the community. As soon as the mili- 

 tary was withdrawn the control of the State passed 

 into the hands of the Democrats ; the Democratic 

 Governor took possession of the office legally, al- 

 though Packard, the Republican candidate, had re- 

 ceived 2,366 more votes than the Hayes Electors. 



The persons most conspicuous in the election 

 frauds were afterward rewarded with lucrative posts 

 in the Government service. J. Madison Wells, 

 President of the Returning Board, was made Sur- 

 veyor of the Port of New Orleans; Thomas C. An- 

 derson, Deputy Collector of Port; Kenner, Deputy 

 Naval Officer. Kellogg, the Governor, was elected to 

 the United States Senate ; Packard appointed Consul 

 to Liverpool ; and the other political managers, the 

 Electors, and the Supervisors, given most desirable 

 positions. The visiting statesmen also received the 

 following appointments : John Sherman, Secretary 

 of Treasury ; John M. Harlan, Justice Supreme 

 Court ; Stanley Matthews, Senator from Ohio ; James 

 A. Garfield, Administration candidate for Speaker; 

 Eugene Hale, offered Postmaster-Generalship; Ed- 

 ward S. Stoughton, Minister to Russia ; William D. 

 Kelley, Member of Congress ; John A. Kasspn, Min- 

 ister to Austria ; J. R. Hawley, Commissioner to 

 Paris ; John Coburn, Hot Springs Commissioner. 



III. The Forged, Electoral Ceriificnles The Elect- 

 ors met on the 6th of December. Two of them Le- 

 visee and Brewster, at the time of the election held 

 offices under the Federal Government. These they 

 had resigned, as rendering them ineligible as Elect- 

 ors. They were then elected into the vacancies 

 caused by their previous ineligibilitv. The Electors 

 did ballot separately for the President and Vice- 

 President, as the Constitution provides that they 

 should, but wrote both names upon the same slip 

 of paper. They then signed a certificate of the vote, 

 which was a single certificate and not two separate 

 ones, as the law requires, for the two distinct votes for 

 President and Vice-President. They further omit- 

 ted to sign the endorsement on the envelope, certify- 

 ing to the contents. One copy was mailed to Wash- 

 ington, one put on file, and one carried by Thomas 

 C. Anderson to Washington, and presented to Mr. 

 Ferry, President of the Senate, who declined to ac- 

 cept it as being irresrular in form. Anderson has- 

 tened back to New Orleans. A new set of certificates 

 was prepared, and antedated the 6th of December, 



