(_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.