Box 19, Folder 12, Document 38

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Box 19, Folder 12, Document 38

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"REMINISCENCES".

There.sat at my dad's sunver table on a Sunday Afternoon when

I was a lad an old retired Lutheran minister, by the name of Carrol.
Doctor Carroll had svent the buik of his ministeral carreer in the
State of Pennsylvania, and was then living with a married daughter
here in our midst. He and dad had become quite friendly. The topic
of conversation just then havpened to be " politics’ and Doctor Garroll
says accross the table to me, "John ‘4 do you know,Ben amin’habpened
to be elected president over Grover Cleveland in 1888" ? My answer was
"No" . "Well", says he, "I will tell you".

"Mr. John Wanamaker, the wealthy Phila. merchant and Sunday
School teacher suddenly acquired political asptrations so he sent for
Mr. Mathew Stanley Quay the U. S. Senator and republican boss of the
State and he says to him: "Mr. Quay, I have 50 thousand dollars here
for Mr. Harrison's campaign and I want you to take and use it where
you think it will do the most good", "Now where do you suvpose that
he put it"? My prompt reply was: "He put it in his pocket”. "No"?
says he, "Not all of it". "To svend it in Pennsylvanis meant merely
throwing it in the sewer, that state being already safe and sound. He
zoesover into Brooklyn and gets a ward=healer to line up 5 thousand
repeaters (the woods being full of such cattle in those days) to grow
beards. On election day they showed up at the polls first with a full
growths some hours later they showed up with side-burns, then Later on
with only a mustash and finally clean shaven. The State of New York
was Harrison's by 8000, and John Wanamaker, the Sunday-School teacher

became Post Master General

Thus much on the election of President Harrison so now for
some politics of a local flavor. Who in his right mind would ever
have dreamed that an obscure pursonage by the name of Thomas S. Martin
would ever have defeated one of our Confederate War heroes whose name
was Fitzhugh Lee for a seat in the U. S. Senate ? Well, he did, and
by just such tactics as was used in the defeat of Mr. Clevezand by
senator Quay. The only difference being that the black man's vote
was used instead of that of his beewhiskered. brother’ se This system
was rampant in the good old days beforethe pole=-tax and registration
laws were placed on our statute books. Poe saw it in 1844 and he so
vividly described same saying; "A republical government could never
become other than a rascally one,

These laws were not ror the purpose of depriving tide Negro of
his right to vote any other than that of the white man whose ballot
was for sale to the highest bidder and they could be purchased by
the dump-cart load just before sun<down at 50¢ per head. In plane
language the system was nothing other than cheating Now our .Supreme
Court comes along and says that where the U. S. government‘é’daw foe"
the prevention of cheating in politics is unconstitutional \!

Well, if this condition be so, why is it not unconstitutional
to prevent cheating in her military College out in Colorado ?
And President Johnson tells theworld that he is going to enforce this
decision at the point of the bayonet if necessary. John Milton told us
that; “Who overcomes by force has overcomed but half his foe",

From earliest youth I had been a great fancier of POE both as

a poet and story teller, but all else I could learn was that he was

morally a sot and practically died in the gutter. It was not until I

got hold of his biography by Mr Harvey Allen that I saw a new light.

Poe was a caustic critic of our form of government and his traducers
were many. “He who ascends to mountain tops shall find,

The Loftiest peaks all wrapped in clouds and snow".

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