Gen. Barlow's Story

Ilere was a man, a gallant and brave Union soldier, bearing about him the terrible proofs of the service in which his Ufe was long exposed, come before the Investigating Committee totell his plain, straightforwanl story of what he saw with his own eyes while the count was proceeding in Florida. Gen. Barlow is a Eepublican, and his scars at least entitle him to the respect of the party which exultingly claims to have saved the Union. He said that he went down to Florida at the request of Gen. Grant, in November, 1876, He went siniply as a Republican spectator of the count. AV. E. Chandler assigned to him the part of preparing a certain portion of the case on the Republican side to be presented to the Iteturning Board. He devoted himself chiefly to the legal features of the case, election laws and so forth. He was requested by Chandler and Noyes to sum up the case for the Itepublicans before the ïteturning Board, but he refused to comply because his examination of the case had destroyed his faith in the justice of the Republican claim. He believed that the vote of Florida rightfully belonged to Tilden, and he reached that conviction after listening to the evidence presented to the Returning Board and reading the affidavits and papera in the case. The very night before the Board met to declare the vote he gave to Cowgill the reasons for his belief that the State had gone Democratie. He subsequently, and before the vote was declared, gave the same reasons to Gov. Stearns. He asserted that at no time had he agreed to act as counsel for the Republicans or for the rj.iicrcLi Ui norma, ana rroiii Uie tirst he had discussed the question in a different spirit and on a different basis from one who discusses it as employed counsel, whether his side of the case ia right or wrong. He said he went to Florida siinply to see the election decided rightly, and in this spirit it was that he told Cowgill the Board could not lionestly decide against Tilden. A witness like this was the very one to stir to its deptlis the spirit of malignant comedy and bullyragism of Reed, a ineuiber of the Committee, who is most skilfully described by a Chicago paper as "Unit chc-erful idiot." Reed proceeded to deal with Gen. B?rlow, who had thus plainly stated his position and related his story, as if he were a candidate for the House of Correction, just dragged in by a super-oflicious policeman. W. E. Chandler was at Reed's elbow, prompting and nudging him, and giving additional emphasis to the insults that were hurtlinji in the air of the Committee room. Reed can be suave .enough; nobody ' tliinks of flenying him that power; but that was not the role he chose in this inquisition interview with Barlow. He showed at the start his determination to browbeat the witness because he was a Republican who had looked into the case sufflciently to become satistied that Tilden was elected, and also had the courage to say so. This kind of procedure, instead of having any damaging effect on Gen. Barlow, reveáis the animus of Republicanism; exhibits the very core and spirit of the party ; shows that the only rule allowed by it is that no opportunity shall be lost which can be turned to the party's advantage. And that members of the party who shall be found guilty of the outrage upon it of pursuing truth to its source, regardless of the effect it may have on the party's fortunes, is to be pilloried, cropped, branded, and held up to perpetual derision. It is the two Chandlers who lay down such a code of party moráis a this, and none of the rest say nay to it. Reed's tactics, in truth, let out the tactics of his party during the pendency of the electoral canvass. Tliey testify as directly as anything can that the Republican managers were sworn t o win at any hazard; and they were most outrageously supported and supplemented by Grant in besieging the Capital with the forces of the army and navy vvhile Congress was engaged in discharging the plain duty required of it bv the supreme law of the land. -