JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
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Not much has changed, except that now the Republicans being sent to prison are mostly white, but the political machines still control things.
Mr Harrelson was a successful black politician, that is until he fought back on Democrats whoengaged in election fraud to defeat him, using old Tammany Hall political machine tricks.
The lost congressman: What happened to Jeremiah Haralson?
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Democrats will still throw innocent men into prison and pretend it is all just and by the law when anyone with any common sense can tell they are despicable tyrants to their opponents.
Mr Harrelson was a successful black politician, that is until he fought back on Democrats whoengaged in election fraud to defeat him, using old Tammany Hall political machine tricks.
The lost congressman: What happened to Jeremiah Haralson?
Haralson won election to the Alabama Senate in 1872, defeating former Confederate Gen. Edmund Pettus. Haralson’s first year in the Senate was the most successful of his public career. He passed a bill in the Senate requiring the state to provide proportionate funding of schools. (A House version of the measure appears to have become law.) He also sponsored a civil rights bill that required railroad, ferry and hotel operators in the state to provide equal accommodations to those using their services. Democrats dragged debate over the measure out for weeks, but it passed the Senate 18 to 9 in early April 1873.
Senators watered down Haralson's bill after its introduction, and it failed to pass the House. But it enraged Bourbon Democrats — “Africa is still on the rise and Caucasia on the downgrade!” the Montgomery Advertiser yelled on April 6, 1873 – and gave Haralson an issue as he set his sights on Alabama’s 1st Congressional District.
... (Harrelson was finally defeated in a race against the local sherrif)
That day, Democrats closed several polling places where blacks voted, usually on flimsy pretexts. They bullied those trying to ensure a fair election. When Charles Harris, the poll watcher and Rapier supporter, tried to observe voting at one polling place, Shelley threatened to arrest him. Throughout the county, Democrats accepted the ballots they liked and threw out the ones they didn’t. The illiterate Republican poll inspectors Shelley appointed were powerless to stop them — and probably intimidated.
“I could not read; I had to take what they said for true,” Noah Moore, a black poll inspector, later testified.
By some accounts, Haralson would have narrowly won re-election if Shelley and his cronies had not thrown out ballots in Dallas County. But with the fraud, Shelley — who failed to win a single county in the district — got elected to Congress with 9,655 votes, less than 38% of the 25,000 ballots cast in the race. Haralson got 8,675 (34%); Rapier got 7,236 (28%).
In late November, Haralson challenged Shelley’s election, charging the sheriff with violence and fraud. He later testified before the Senate subcommittee. After hearing testimony from Haralson, other Republicans, and Democrats, the majority concluded that the election had been fraudulent.
Once again, Haralson challenged the election results. But the intimidation had sunk deeper into Dallas County since 1876. No one would take depositions from Haralson’s witnesses, or even swear them in to testify.
“The officers were all Democrats, and urged that if they were to perform this duty their business would suffer,” the New York Tribune reported.
A circuit judge, likely George Craig, finally agreed to take the depositions. Shelley responded by bringing indictments against Haralson, his attorney R.B. Thomas and other supporters, who were “thrown into jail until it was too late to take their testimony, when they were discharged.”
The threats forced Haralson to flee the state, with his family in tow. He moved back to Washington, where President Rutherford B. Hayes secured him an appointment as a night inspector of the Baltimore port.
...(Harrelson was arrested for not paying pensions to deserving blacks, despite the fact they all swore under oath that he did pay them)
The indictment was specific on dates and actions. Prosecutors appear to have had a host of documentation. The charges were brought by a “Pension Examiner Crutchfield” – possibly George Crutchfield, an agent based out of Memphis. (The 1900 Census shows that Lewis Osbrooks lived next door to several Crutchfields, though their relationship with the inspector is not clear.) The Daily Arkansas Gazette, which covered the trial, reported that “the government’s witnesses told a straightforward story which made things look dark for Haralson,” while hinting that Haralson’s defense, led by attorney Charles Waters, rested on a parade of character witnesses.
Waters may have had no choice. The court closed off other defense strategies. As the trial was about to begin on Dec. 6, 1894, Waters asked for a delay to allow Lenard Williams, a justice of the peace, to testify. Waters wrote that Williams, who was “seriously ill” in Pine Bluff, could confirm that Osbrooks signed the checks himself. Judge A.J. Edgerton, a former U.S. senator, denied the motion.
...
On Dec. 9, 1894, the jury, deliberating for just 15 minutes, convicted Haralson. Eleven days later, Edgerton rejected Waters’ motion for a new trial. When asked if he had anything to say before sentencing, Haralson stayed silent.
Then Edgerton threw the book at him. The judge sentenced Haralson to two years in federal prison and a $5,000 fine (roughly $150,000 today). It was the maximum penalty allowed under federal law.
It was also far out of proportion to the alleged $500 in dispute, and a contrast to other punishments handed down against convicted pension agents. Moore, the Buffalo pension attorney, got 18 months in prison and a fine of just $200. George Van Leuven, an Iowa pension agent convicted on 37 charges about a week after Haralson’s trial, got a presidential pardon the following October after Van Leuven claimed that he was dying from diabetes. (Iowa newspapers the following year reported that Van Leuven had recovered and found work as a traveling solicitor.)
Senators watered down Haralson's bill after its introduction, and it failed to pass the House. But it enraged Bourbon Democrats — “Africa is still on the rise and Caucasia on the downgrade!” the Montgomery Advertiser yelled on April 6, 1873 – and gave Haralson an issue as he set his sights on Alabama’s 1st Congressional District.
... (Harrelson was finally defeated in a race against the local sherrif)
That day, Democrats closed several polling places where blacks voted, usually on flimsy pretexts. They bullied those trying to ensure a fair election. When Charles Harris, the poll watcher and Rapier supporter, tried to observe voting at one polling place, Shelley threatened to arrest him. Throughout the county, Democrats accepted the ballots they liked and threw out the ones they didn’t. The illiterate Republican poll inspectors Shelley appointed were powerless to stop them — and probably intimidated.
“I could not read; I had to take what they said for true,” Noah Moore, a black poll inspector, later testified.
By some accounts, Haralson would have narrowly won re-election if Shelley and his cronies had not thrown out ballots in Dallas County. But with the fraud, Shelley — who failed to win a single county in the district — got elected to Congress with 9,655 votes, less than 38% of the 25,000 ballots cast in the race. Haralson got 8,675 (34%); Rapier got 7,236 (28%).
In late November, Haralson challenged Shelley’s election, charging the sheriff with violence and fraud. He later testified before the Senate subcommittee. After hearing testimony from Haralson, other Republicans, and Democrats, the majority concluded that the election had been fraudulent.
Once again, Haralson challenged the election results. But the intimidation had sunk deeper into Dallas County since 1876. No one would take depositions from Haralson’s witnesses, or even swear them in to testify.
“The officers were all Democrats, and urged that if they were to perform this duty their business would suffer,” the New York Tribune reported.
A circuit judge, likely George Craig, finally agreed to take the depositions. Shelley responded by bringing indictments against Haralson, his attorney R.B. Thomas and other supporters, who were “thrown into jail until it was too late to take their testimony, when they were discharged.”
The threats forced Haralson to flee the state, with his family in tow. He moved back to Washington, where President Rutherford B. Hayes secured him an appointment as a night inspector of the Baltimore port.
...(Harrelson was arrested for not paying pensions to deserving blacks, despite the fact they all swore under oath that he did pay them)
The indictment was specific on dates and actions. Prosecutors appear to have had a host of documentation. The charges were brought by a “Pension Examiner Crutchfield” – possibly George Crutchfield, an agent based out of Memphis. (The 1900 Census shows that Lewis Osbrooks lived next door to several Crutchfields, though their relationship with the inspector is not clear.) The Daily Arkansas Gazette, which covered the trial, reported that “the government’s witnesses told a straightforward story which made things look dark for Haralson,” while hinting that Haralson’s defense, led by attorney Charles Waters, rested on a parade of character witnesses.
Waters may have had no choice. The court closed off other defense strategies. As the trial was about to begin on Dec. 6, 1894, Waters asked for a delay to allow Lenard Williams, a justice of the peace, to testify. Waters wrote that Williams, who was “seriously ill” in Pine Bluff, could confirm that Osbrooks signed the checks himself. Judge A.J. Edgerton, a former U.S. senator, denied the motion.
...
On Dec. 9, 1894, the jury, deliberating for just 15 minutes, convicted Haralson. Eleven days later, Edgerton rejected Waters’ motion for a new trial. When asked if he had anything to say before sentencing, Haralson stayed silent.
Then Edgerton threw the book at him. The judge sentenced Haralson to two years in federal prison and a $5,000 fine (roughly $150,000 today). It was the maximum penalty allowed under federal law.
It was also far out of proportion to the alleged $500 in dispute, and a contrast to other punishments handed down against convicted pension agents. Moore, the Buffalo pension attorney, got 18 months in prison and a fine of just $200. George Van Leuven, an Iowa pension agent convicted on 37 charges about a week after Haralson’s trial, got a presidential pardon the following October after Van Leuven claimed that he was dying from diabetes. (Iowa newspapers the following year reported that Van Leuven had recovered and found work as a traveling solicitor.)
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Democrats will still throw innocent men into prison and pretend it is all just and by the law when anyone with any common sense can tell they are despicable tyrants to their opponents.
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