in which you were employed, as to any influence having been brought to bear upon the operatives?-A. I was going to narrate an instance in which I was concerned, which was at a municipal election.

Q. We cannot go into that. Take the election of 1878, which was a severely contested election in Massachusetts. Do you yourself know of any instance where any man's vote was influenced by the dread or fear of loss of his employment?-A. Not personally. I was not present, but I have heard the accusation made and denied in a way that was not satisfactory.

Q. Let us have that instance.-A. This morning Mr. Thayer alluded to it, that it had been given common notoriety. It was in Mr. Vaill's factory. Mr. Vaill was accused of discharging a man because the man was a positive Butler man, and had expressed himself so to his fellowworkmen. Vaill afterwards said that he had discharged him because of his stealing alcohol. He said this in a little note that I cannot recollect the language of now, but I know it was worded in a very insulting manner against everybody who believed in Butler.

Q. Is Mr. Vaill a manufacturer in Worcester?-A. Yes, sir. I mention this instance because I know it was quite commonly known. There are lots of things I heard of during the canvass which I cannot now point out, as they have escaped my memory.

Q. The instance you speak of was one where the matter got into the newspapers and acquired public notoriety?-A. It was a matter of public notoriety in the city.

Q. We want to get at any cases that you may know of, so that we may investigate and follow them up.-A. Probably a gentleman will follow me upon the stand as to Manchaug, who knows that there was a man turned out of his tenement because of his political proclivities.

Q. What I desire to get now is your own knowledge. You were somewhat active in the canvass. Have you heard of any other cases which you consider so well authenticated that you would speak of them here, in which persons have been deterred from voting through fear of loss of employment, or have been discharged because of having voted or not voted?-A. I have heard of this species of intimidation in Whitinsville, but I do not know that I can particularize the case. I have heard of the employers of the county standing by the ballot box watching the employés as they came to vote. I cannot now give the names. As I said a while ago, if I had known that this thing was to occur I would have been prepared. I can now only tell you in a general way what I have been told, without giving the names of the parties.

Q. Then am I to understand that, with the single exception of this case of Mr. Vaill's, who was charged with discharging a man, you cannot give me any names ?-A. I cannot, with the exception of that of the corporation in Whitinsville.

Q. Do you know the name of the corporation ?—A. The Whitinsville corporation.

By Mr. BLAIR:

Q. Can you give the names in that case?-A. I cannot give the names, nor further than that the cases were those of some of the superintendents, and that one of them was called Whiting.

By Mr. PLATT:

Q. I understand you to say that there was very little intimidation in the city of Worcester?-A. There was not so much there as there was i towns. It is impossible that there should be so much. It is easier to bring to light the wrong doings of an employer there; it is harder to

cover them up, because of the public press and because of the number of the people who would become cognizant of them. In a factory town it is different. There is no newspaper there; the operative lives in a tenement belonging to the manufacturer; his wages are small; his wife probably works in the mill; his children probably work in the mill; and, if he is any way fractious, or opposed to voting in the way that these people dictate, his wife, children, and himself are turned out of the mill, out of the tenement, and out of the means of earning a livelihood.

Q. But I understand you are putting a hypothetical case, which we cannot inquire into or reply to ?-A. That may be.

Q. You had as many votes for Butler as you had for Gastin, or whoever was the Democratic candidate, in the year before ?-A. No; I do not think we had.

Q. Was not the majority in 1877 for the Republican ticket at the State election about the same as it was in 1878?-A. The majority was about as large as was that over the Abbott Democratic ticket, the Butler Democrats, and the Independents, but there was a larger vote cast in 1878 than in 1877; but mind you, as has been remarked this morning, money is a potent influence in these canvasses. There was but little money used in Worcester among the men who supported General Butler. The men who usually contributed their money to the campaign fund were as hostile to Butler as any men could be; and, if they spent anything, would spend their money for Talbot.

Q. I am not inquiring about the men who spent money on either side. You know the workingmen in Worcester-that is your home?-A. Yes, sir. I know them very generally through the State.

Q. Worcester is your home, and your associations have been with the Republican and Democratic workingmen there?-A. Yes, sir; I have associated some with both sides.

Q. If there had been in Worcester anything approaching to intimidation of workingmen there, would you not have been likely to know of instances of it?-A. Yes; I did at the time; and if I had known that there was to be an investigation, a month ago or six months or two years ago, I would have been able to substantiate the fact that there was such intimidation; but, not knowing that, and having paid attention to it only for the moment, I cannot, a year afterwards, or nine months af terwards, produce evidence of it, or give it, except as hearsay.

Q. If it had come to your knowledge prior to the election that any manufacturer had attempted to use undue influence upon the workingmen, would you not have used that in your speeches and made use of it with the people ?—A. We did. This case at the municipal election and the Vaill case were specified. I do not remember other cases.

Q. But you do not remember that you did hear of any other case?—A. I could not say now.

Q. And if, after the election, any case had come to your attention in which a man said that he had been discharged on account of the election, you would have made it public?-A. No; I could not say that I would after the election. I know this, that last year a number of men came to the headquarters and told me of a number of instances of intimidation, but I do not now recollect the men's names.

Q. You mean before the election ?-A. I meau before the election ; of undue influences brought to bear upon these men.

Q. Were those facts made public?-A. They were spoken of at our hall, among our men. Mind you, we had not a paper then published

The two papers there in Worcester were daily denouncing us as communists, as people who had a design upon the commonwealth.

Q. And yet those cases made so little impression upon your mind that you cannot now give us the names in those instances?-A. No, sir; I cannot now.

Q. Has it not been your experience in politics that the losing side. always gets up a good many stories of "bulldozing," if we may use the word, of intimidation and corruption, which really have not much foundation in fact?-A. I know that sometimes the winning side have to say those things. Sometimes, of course, they are said by both sides.

Q. Aside from that of this Mr. Vaill, have you heard of a single case that you can give this committee where a man was discharged, or claimed to be discharged, for having voted against Butler?—A. I cannot give the name to the committee, but, as I have told you time and time again, I could have given it if I had known at that time that this investigation would be made.

By Mr. BLAIR:

Q. You have had an opportunity to observe the operation of this Federal law within a few years?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. I suppose you are aware, then, that this law is designed to afford protection in just such cases as those you are complaining of?—A. Yes,

sir.

Q. Why do you not avail yourself of its provisions to punish the guilty parties in these cases of intimidation?-A. If the intimidation takes place before the election, it is very difficult to avail yourself of it.

Q. It would be all the same whether before or after. If it is intimidation by threat or inducement, or effort at corruption, it would be alike punishable.-A. Intimidation can be conducted so skillfully that it may be next to impossible to prove it.

Q. But you are hardly justified in saying that intimidation exists unless you know of it and can prove it, or unless you have facts to go upon. Your suspicion that these things do exist (which you may make use of for political effect) should never be the basis for a charge of crime, should it ?-A. That is true, but we have more than suspicion.

Q. Then, if you have more than suspicion, why have you not made your knowledge the basis of a charge under the law?-A. As I told you, we labor under the difficulty of having to testify some time after the occurrence.

Q. But these events were fresh at the time of the election, but, so far from gathering up the facts and making use of them, you have allowed them to lie dormant, and are not able now to recollect them yourself.— A. I cannot now.

Q. Then it would be useless to bring them forward as a reason for a change of this law, which is for your protection.-A. I am not finding fault with that law.

Q. Do you not think that it is necessary in many places?—A. In many places, no doubt.

Q. Do you not think that it is necessary here in Massachusetts, to reach just such places as you are speaking of?-A. Yes; if it will reach them.

Q. Do you not understand that General Butler himself is the author of this law?-A. That does not matter. I do not agree with General Butler in all his doings.

Q. But you do not find fault with the law itself, do you?—A. I am not here to find fault with that law.

Q. Then that is all right; I have found one citizen of Massachusetts who is in favor of the law.-A. I have not said that I was in favor of the law. I am not finding fault with it. I am not here to find fault with it.

Q. You have stated, that you know of no instance of actual intimidation in the State.-A. I have told you of the difficulty of even getting evidence if I should know of it, as I know it is difficult even to get men to go before the labor committee (as has been demonstrated time and again in my experience), from the terror that hangs over them.

Q. Have you known of any intimidation on the part of the Democrats or of men in favor of the election of General Butler at and before the governor's election in 1878?-A. The Democrats who had the power to intimidate were last year on the side of the Republicans; they were the Democratic tail to the Republican kite.

Q. You speak of the Abbott Democrats?-A. I speak of the Abbott Democrats.

Q. Who were they who were engaged in this process of intimidation in coalition with the Republicans?-A. I do not exactly say that. Their sympathies were with the other side.

Q. You do not know of any instance where the Butler Democrats actually intimidated anybody?-A. I know that the worst species of intimidation during the year was at the last convention by the Abbott crowd. The great trouble last year was, that the people who claimed to have all the virtue and intelligence of the commonwealth were on the Abbott side; and for that reason they accused the poor Butler side of being the bulldozers.

Mr. BLAIR (after an informal conversation in the committee upon the inexpediency of inquiring into the witness's reference to the State convention). I do not know of any reason why, if this gentleman knows of intimidation on the part of the Democratic State committee, he should not tell it.

The WITNESS (continuing his statement). It would not perhaps be criminal nor actual intimidation for an employer to call together his em ployés and lecture them upon their duties politically; yet I say it is cowardly, it is bulldozing; because the man who is thus talked to knows, particularly if the winter is a bad one and times are somewhat hard, that while he is merely talked to to vote in a certain way, at the same time his employer wants to force him to vote that way.

Q. Suppose that the employer says to the men, at the same time, that he has no objection to their voting with the utmost freedom and just as they choose, but undertakes to explain to them the political issues, so that their judgment may be convinced-is that wrong?-A. That is right.

Q. Do you know of any instance in which the employers did call their employés together, and, with a menacing shake of the head such as you have just given us, explain to the men that it would be to their interest to vote as they (their employers) voted?—A. It seems to me that an intelligent man, such as you are, Mr. Senator, could infer from the remarks or the equivocal testimony of the two gentlemen who were on the stand to-day what the purpose was.

Q. I am not asking you as to what other gentlemen testified to, but am asking for your knowledge. Their testimony is already a matter of record. Do you know of any instance where an employer did call his own employés together and did address them on the subject-matter of their voting at all?-A. Not personally.

Q. Then you need not make the statement as to what you have heard.

-A. There is the difficulty. I am hedged in, you see, somewhat, since what I know and feel to be true I cannot tell.

By Mr. PLATT:

Q. In your public speeches, did you not make it a point to address your remarks to operatives and workingmen ?-A. I addressed them as citizens.

Q. When you speak to them as a class you address them as workingmen?-A. No, sir; unless a meeting is called together-Oh, no; not at all. I see what you are driving at. If it is in a political canvass, I consider the operative the peer of the best Republican in the laud.

Q. So do I.-A. If it is a workingman's meeting for the purpose of talking of grievances that the workingman may have against an employer, then I may address them as workingmen.

Q. Did you not, in your political speeches in 1878, address your remarks to operatives particularly?-A. I called them my "fellow-citizens," I did not call them "operatives."

Q. The point is, did you not speak to them with reference to their relation to their employers ?—A. I quoted in my speeches to them from articles that I found in the New York Times and, for that matter, in the New York World, the conclusions of which, it seemed to me, pointed toward a monarchy; referred to some of the things that had been done in the interest of the moneyed class and of corporations, and commented upon the fact that the legislation in Massachusetts was controlled by the representatives of corporations.

Q. Did you not appeal to them especially to stand up for their rights as against their employers ?-A. That is, if the employers were wrong and they right, certainly I did; but not to stand up as operatives because they were operatives, against employers because they were employers. That would be demagogism, wholly.

Q. Then you were during the campaign, as I supposed, addressing arguments especially to the workingmen?-A. No, sir; my audiences were not selected because they were operatives.

Q. Not at all, but you addressed to them arguments which were especially applicable to workingmen?-A. I presume that in my speeches I did, as W. W. Rice did, make points that concerned and interested the workingmen.

Q. What I want to get at is this, whether you hold that the man who employs workingmen must not address them upon such subjects as he may think are of interest to them?-A. An employer has a right to address his fellow-citizens as I have, but when he gets up a meeting in the corner to lecture them, as I have known them to do, I do not think he is doing exactly that which is right.

Q. That was not the question. The question was whether you held it to be wrong for employers, either singly or in numbers, to endeavor to convince them by arguments simply as to their political duty, going no further than that.-A. Now permit me to answer you. If the em ployer knows that those men are conscientious in the sentiments that they hold and knows that they conscientiously differ with him, and if then he calls them together and talks to them in this way merely bocause he is determined to carry through his candidate, I say I do not think it is fair. He does not talk to them because he thinks he can persuade or alter them in their convictions, because, if that was his motive, why would he not have talked with them on the subject at some other time in the previous two or three years? No, he talks to them because an exigency has arisen with the coming of the election day, and