On September 25, 1889, Bovina readers of the Delaware Standard, a prohibitionist
newspaper published in Walton, likely read with great interest the following
letter:
Political Corruption
in Bovina, The people of this town have just had a wonderful exhibition of the
G.O.P. machine matters of conducting a political caucus. A fellow townsman of
good moral character and a member of the M.E. Church, presented himself as
candidate for member of Assembly. Opposed to him was a candidate from a
neighboring town, who by good Republican Authority is represented as drunken
and licentious. Our town’s man urged the fact of his being a resident of the
town, and his good moral character as strong reason why he should receive the
support of the fellow partisans. Christianity, morality and good government, by
supporting the popular candidate, and gave him their hearty support.
The last of the
Favorites canvass in this town is variously estimated at from $300 to $700, and
the result of the faithful work that had been done was seen in the very large
caucus that assembled in the 14th inst when Boodle received 114 votes, and
morality, 72.
In the evening
following the caucus a small party of young voters flushed with the success of
the afternoon, and somewhat under the influence of electioneering whisky (of
which it is said there has been an ample supply during the campaign) decorated
the place of business of one of our citizens with old boxes, barrels and
agricultural implements, and made “night hideous” with terrible blasphemy.
Remember these things
occurred, not in the benighted Democratic cities of the Empire State, but in
Moral, Republican Bovina, and under the auspices of the great party of
temperance and morality.
To the honor of some
of our Republican friends in our town be it said, they do not approve of the
above described methods. The need of a new and clean political party becomes
daily more apparent.
Forewarned the Prohibition party.
X
This unsigned letter was followed on October 4 by this one:
Mr. Editor: The last
‘Standard’ informs us that our former article, ‘Political Corruption in
Bovina,’ although partly omitted by an oversight of the compositor perhaps,
still contains enough unpleasantness to the Republican candidate for assembly
to cause him to serve a Writ on the Editor of the Standard…Every statement in
the article is based on stories circulated by members of the would be
assemblyman’s own party. If they are not true we are very sorry that he should
be slandered in his own political household. But that they believed to be true
by Republicans seems quite evident from the fact that many of the best men of
the party in this town, men who have always voted the Republican ticket, have openly
declared that they will not support this candidate, and the reason they give in
nearly every instance is his immoral character. Many of the stories in
circulation affecting his personal character are scarcely fit to be whispered
in a dark corner, much less to appear in public print….”
The writer of these letters remained a mystery for about two
years, but the target of the letters was clear – James Ballantine of Andes.
Ballantine had served several terms as the Town of Andes Supervisor and decided
in 1889 to make a run for the assembly. At the Delaware County Republican
caucus on September 14, 1889, Ballantine was chosen to be the county’s candidate
for the Assembly. As noted in the second letter, Ballantine almost immediately
sued the editor of the Delaware Standard,
Rev. W.H. Howie, for libel and slander.
These letters led to some newspapers, including the strongly
Republican Walton Reporter, to suggest that Ballantine should withdraw. On
October 9, the Delaware Gazette published a letter dated September 30 and
addressed to W.T. Black and David Liddle, the two Bovina men chosen as
delegates to the Republican county convention, highly critical of their vote,
not so much for Ballantine but for how they voted for County Judge. The authors
of the letter said that these delegates were to vote for John A. Kemp for
judge, but they instead voted for A.H. Sewell.
The authors accuse the two men of being in the pocket of
“Little Jim,” aka James Ballentine: “If little Jim carries the people of Bovina
in his vest pocket, we want to know it. If his despotism has reached a point
where the Republicans of what was once called the banner Republican town of
Delaware county can no longer elect two delegates and have them vote as they are
instructed… then the sooner they realize [they] are no longer free to express
their choice on any political question, the better. If he really
owns them, body and soul….then we respectfully move that Bovina be stricken
from the list of towns, and hereafter this place shall be known as North Andes!
Respectfully, Many Republicans.”
Some of the area newspapers turned on the Walton Reporter,
accusing it of hypocrisy, claiming that the reason the paper would not support
Ballantine was because he refused to give them $500 they requested to give him
their support.
In the meantime, W.T. Black and David Liddle responded to
the letters in the Delaware Express (unfortunately, copies of this issue cannot
be located so we don’t have the text of the letters). The Delaware Gazette (a
Democratic newspaper, by the way) was critical of their “feeble effort to
convince the people of Bovina that they did not sell them out on County Judge…”
They noted that “’Uncle Jock,’ little Jim’s high priest, swore before they left
Bovina they should not carry out the instructions of the caucus.” ‘Uncle Jock’
followed them to Delhi to ensure that they voted for Sewell, not Kemp for
County Judge.
‘Uncle Jock’ may have been old John Hilson, who emigrated to
Bovina from Scotland in the 1850s. Unfortunately, because critical issues of the Delaware
Express and Delaware Republican are not available, we really can’t get the full
story of the issues related to this caucus, including confirming the identity of 'Uncle Jock.'
In the end, James Ballantine was elected to the State
Assembly by a slim margin, defeating Bovina native Isaac H. Maynard. As
reported in the Hancock Herald, “James Got There, But Oh, It was a Lively
Tussell!” There was an issue over
ballots in Sidney that were printed on the wrong paper. If these had been
disqualified, the election would have gone to Maynard, but in the end it didn’t
change the result. Maynard in the end announced he would not contest this,
given that from all appearances, thought the ballots may have been printed
wrong, the intention of the voters using those ballots was clear. “I can only
say that under no circumstances would I accept a certificate of election at
your hands unless it clearly appeared that I had a plurality of the votes cast
for the office…An honorable defeat is always to be preferred to victory with
dishonor.”
So Ballantine was elected. He did not drop his lawsuit
against the editor of the Delaware
Standard, however. In the next installment, more will be revealed about the
lawsuit, including the author of the original letter.
