THE HAYES FRAUD AND THE LOUISIANA LOTTERY
(From the "Sun," Friday, November 20, 1891.)
"We print elsewhere an interesting review of the events which have brought the Louisiana Lottery question to its present familiar phase.
"According to this statement, which is verifiable so far as it deals with the open facts of history, one of the most powerful influences in enabling Mr. R. B. Hayes to carry out the infamous political bargain which was the result of the Wormley conference, was that of the Louisiana Lottery.
"The representatives of Mr. Hayes secured the completion of the electoral count at Washington in 1877 by pledging the fraudulent administration, in advance, to do certain things desired by certain Southern Democrats. One of these things was to accomplish the overthrow of Packard in Louisiana, although Packard had received for Governor in that State a vote larger than Hayes' for President.
"When Mr. Hayes was seated in the office to which he had not been elected, he proceeded to redeem the promises made in his behalf by Stanley Matthews and Charles Foster. But he was able to fulfil his part of the bargain mainly through the intervention of the Lottery Company, which furnished at New Orleans a sufficient number of Republican legislators elect, willing to join with the Democrats in organizing the Legislature that destroyed Packard and seated Nicholls.
"Thus the bargain was carried out upon Mr. Hayes' side by the assistance of the concern once powerfully described by the Hon. Benjamin Harrison as the Great Beast. And to that service on the part of the Great Beast, according to our correspondent's recital of the facts, the Louisiana Lottery owes in return its present position of advantage in the State.
"Is there any doubt as to the pledge to overthrow Packard, which the Great Beast helped Hayes to redeem? Mr. William H. Roberts of New Orleans, among others, has testified that when the electoral count was pending, he received this assurance from a distinguished Republican statesman and a close personal friend of Mr. Hayes:
"'You need not be uneasy. I see that you are all restless and nervous; I see that Blackburn and those men are controlling the Southern men. I assure you that it will be all right; and when I assure you that you are to have your State government, you ought to know me well enough to know that I am telling you the truth.'"
The distinguished Republican statesman and personal friend of Hayes was the Hon. Charles Foster, of Fostoria, Secretary of the Treasury under the administration of the Great Beast's enemy, the Hon. Benjamin Harrison.
Is there any doubt as to the understanding of the pledge by the Southern Democrats who were active in arranging the bargain, afterwards carried out by Hayes with the aid of the Louisiana Lottery? "If we should lose the national government we may be able to save Louisiana," said the Hon. Lucius Q. C. Lamar to Mr. Roberts of New Orleans early in the progress of the negotiations. And later, when certain Democrats in the House were proposing to stand out to the last against the consummation of the fraud, Judge Lamar sent to one of their number, the Hon. John Ellis of Louisiana, this letter of vindication and appeal:
"I have just learned from an unquestionable authority, which I will give, if you wish it, that Foster said to a gentleman, my informant, that the speech he made to-day, which so significantly but indirectly hints at Hayes' Southern policy, that he made it after consultation with Mr. Matthews, Mr. Hayes' brother-in-law, and Mr. Matthews told him and urged him to say squarely that Hayes would have nothing to do or to say to Packard.
"Now, Ellis, this is the first thing I have ever heard as coming from Hayes, directly or indirectly, that is worth acting upon by any Southern man. We do not want offices, but we do want to get our States and our people free from the carpet-bag government. Ought you not, if an available opportunity offers you to serve your State and people, to spring forward at once and see if you can't free your State? I think you should at once see Mr. Stanley Matthews and ask him if Governor Hayes will give you some assurance that he will not nominate Packard in his domination of your people."
This Judge Lamar is the gentleman who afterwards served as a member of Mr. Cleveland's cabinet, and who received from Mr. Cleveland an appointment to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States.