Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/480



A conspicuous case of a forged letter printed by an American paper purported to have been written by ex -President Cleve land in advocacy of the election of W. H. Taft in 1908, but the

forgery was quickly detected and the punishment of the forger swiftly followed. A forged letter of even more serious bearing had some years

earlier been planned to shipwreck the candidacy for the presi dency of J. A. Garfield. A letter that purported to have been written by him

to a certain H. L. Morey had opposed restric

tion on Chinese immigration and thus contradicted one plank in the Republican platform. It seemed probable that these views would seriously endanger his hope of election and that

this was the intention was evident from its being produced just prior to the election, although dated January 23, 1880. Mr. Garfield quickly denounced the letter as a base and very clumsy forgery and this denial of its genuineness was accepted as final.19 A forged proclamation that involved serious consequences to

several members of the press and to different individuals was one purporting to come from President Lincoln in May, 1864. It called for 400,000 additional troops between the ages of eight

een and forty -five and it appointed a day of fasting and prayer. Its design was to upset the stock market, advantage of which

could be taken by the promoters of the forgery. It was appar ently regular as regards its source and it was published by the Journal of Commerce and the World, other New York papers almost by accident escaping the trap set for them. These two

papers did everything possible to rectify the wrong done,20 but Delane, and Escott contrasts the carelessness of The Times in the matter with the infinite pains taken by Delane in ascertaining the facts behind a

letter sent him by his Paris correspondent in 1875. - Masters of English Journalism, p. 184 . 19 The New York Herald was specially active in securing the denial; see issues of October 23 and October 26, 1880 , and broadside issued by it. Full accounts are given in all the papers of the time. — The forger was arrested and held for trial. 20 Under date of May 23, 1864, Manton Marble wrote President Lincoln

explaining that the proclamation arrived late at night; that in the morning

when the facts were known every effort was made to retrieve the error; declared that the explanation exculpated the World and that the suppression

of the World and the Journal of Commerce was arbitrary, illegal, and uncon stitutional; and made a strong defense of the constitutional right of freedom of the press.