"'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.
BIGELOW TO JUDGE STEPHEN J. FIELD
(AN ADDRESS OF THE MINORITY OF THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION)
"21 Gramercy Park, January 31, 1894.
"Hon. Stephen J. Field.