Maryland Independent

MR. WOOTTEN'S ARGUMENT- MEAT OF GORMAN & CO.
Baltimore City, October 8th.

My Dear Sir —I am in receipt of your letter of the 7th inst. in which you ask me to write you upon the men who dominate over the Democratic party in this State. These men are not lightly to be treated. I trample upon their rights the brand of moral treason. These brands and take arms to vindicate their character before a jury of their country. In order to give some of them an opportunity, let me cite a single instance in detail.

On the morning of the gubernatorial election held November, 1879. Mr. Eugene Higgins made his appearance at the polls of the Fifth election district of this county, held at Clarksville, a small village situated about ten miles from this city, with a squad of negro repeaters and one or two white ruffians from the city of Baltimore. He successfully plied his vocation for several hours, and about twelve o'clock, being fully detected, was warned to leave, and thereupon took his departure. It would be useless for me to furnish full details of this revolting conspiracy against the rights of the people. In point of fact the poll book delivered to the judges of the election, and used by them, was not prepared by the register of voters Robert E. Scaggs, but was manufactured by Eugene Higgins in the city of Baltimore at Democrat headquarters. In that election district more than fifty names of registered voters were dropped from the poll book furnished the judges of election, and thereby were those voters disfranchised. Several names were misspelt, and in this manner other voters were disfranchised and the repeaters and ruffians brought from Baltimore voted upon names placed upon that manufactured poll book. Immediately upon the closing of the polls, Scaggs, the register, requested that manufactured poll book from the return judge of the election. It was delivered to him, and it has never seen the light of day. The pollution of the ballot box at the election, including official perjury, subornation of perjury, and fraud of every hue can only find a parallel in the annals of the returning boards of the late carpet-bag governments of our sister Southern States.

In this roll of infamy Mr. Higgins bore the leading part. Every link in the chain binding him to the body of this crime is solidly welded, and I am prepared to prove the conspiracy by a cloud of witnesses and by irrefragable testimony. In this fraud Arthur P. Gorman, senior Senator from Maryland, was an active participant, a principal in the first degree. This charge is either true or false. If it is true, and if our form of government is not a fraud and a delusion, and if the Constitution and laws of this State are not ropes of sand then surely, Mr. Gorman degrades a position once accrued by Finley, and Harper, and Chambers, and Pearce. If this charge is false, I deserve the reprobation and contempt of every honest man. Let Mr. Higgins or Mr. Gorman sue me for libel. I will plead the truth and justify, and if either of them obtains a verdict against me, I will never look my fellow men in the face, and will at once pay any judgment there rendered. I rely not upon the confessions of co-conspirators. When the most responsible gentlemen from that district came to my office and furnished the facts within their knowledge I carefully studied and prepared the whole case. This is but a single instance. Many more could be cited equally as well authenticated. What Democrat does not remember his humiliation and mortification at the frauds practiced in 1875 in which Mr. Gorman and Mr. Higgins also figured? These men for the most part are without professions, without trades, without any vocation or occupation in life save that of practical politicians of methods most corrupt and most corrupting. Their henchmen who commit these frauds are supported at the public crib and at the expense of the people. For example, every man who actively participated in the fraud of 1879 in this county to which I have alluded has been rewarded by Mr. Gorman with official position. Mr. Gorman's recommendation of the appointment of Mr. Higgins and Mr. Morris Thomas was a slap in the face to every true son of Maryland, and every true son of Maryland will return that slap fourfold.

How utterly insensible to the claims of public virtue and of political integrity are some of the public men of this State, who endorse as staunch Democrats Higgins and Thomas and their confreres, and who impugn the motives of men so far their superiors who are struggling for better methods of government, and, indeed, for the very existence of free institutions.

I had intended to give in detail the different amounts received by some of these modern statesmen as pluggers of corporations and lobbyists of the lowest type, but this I reserve for another occasion.

Sincerely trusting that success may crown your patriotic efforts, and that after the election the good people of this State may say to you all, well done, good and faithful servants, I remain very respectfully yours,

HENRY E. WOOTTEN

Mr. Wootten is a prominent citizen of Howard county, and the leading member of the Howard county bar. Let the Democratic speakers take this letter around through the campaign and tell us something about Democratic honesty. Let the candidates for the Legislature come to the front and say whether or not they intend to support Gorman and his henchmen. No evasion; no equivocation, the naked truth.