Philadelphia Inquirer, February 20, 1900View transcription
POLICE TAKE A HAND AT THE PRIMARIES
Mayor Hatch's Men in Blue Forcibly Removed a Ninth Ward Precinct Board
Anti-Hatch Candidate in the Seventh Ward Withdrew to Prevent Trouble!
Camden Republicans held their primary elections last evening. Candidates for City Council, Justices of the Peace, Aldermen and Constables were chosen. There was a hot fight in the Ninth ward, where Mayor Hatch's policemen took a hand in the game in order to help out Lewis H. Leigh, the Mayor's Councilmanic candidate. In the Second precinct there were three vacancies in the primary board. The power to fill these vacancies was vested, under the party rules, in Frazier Baker, ward committeeman of that precinct. He was absent through illness, but sent a letter naming three men to fill the vacancies.
City Committeeman Edwin Hillman claimed the right to fill the vacancies in the absence of Baker and he named John Harris, Harry Moffett and George Emory to sit with James Scanlin, the only primary officer present. This did not suit the supporters of the Mayor's candidate, and they set up a separate ballot box.
The board named by Committeeman Hillman continued to take ballots until Chief of Police Foster, Captain Stanley and a squad of officers arrived and ordered them out of the polling place. They refused to leave and the police forcibly ejected them. Moffett held on to the ballot box. The Leigh faction cast their ballots in the other box. The City Committee will be asked to throw out the votes for Leigh, who claims to have carried the ward by 302 majority.
The contests in the other wards were tame. The threatened trouble in the "bloody" Seventh did not materialize, as City Committeeman John Carmany, the anti Hatch candidate, withdrew to save the official heads of several petty office holders. Isaac V. Bradley, who was backed by the Hanson faction, was nominated without opposition.
In the Eleventh ward William B. Carter defeated William Keaser by over 100 majority, and in the Twelfth ward Councilman Theodore Leas received 306 votes and William Kiesele 48.
The slated Councilmanic candidates in the other wards were nominated without opposition, as follows: First ward, Robert Smith; Second, E. G. Locke; Third, Harry Silvers; Fourth, William Z. Gibson; Fifth, Benjamin Lawton; Sixth, Edwin Stevens; Eighth, Benjamin E. Mellor; Tenth, William B. Cannon.
Philadelphia Inquirer, February 20, 1900 — page 2Philadelphia Inquirer, February 20, 1900 — page 3
Mayor Hatch’s Men in Blue Forcibly Removed a Ninth Ward Precinct Board
Anti-Hatch Candidate in the Seventh Ward Withdrew to Prevent Trouble!
Camden Republicans held their primary elections last evening. Candidates for City Council, Justices of the Peace, Aldermen and Constables were chosen. There was a hot fight in the Ninth ward, where Mayor Hatch’s policemen took a hand in the game in order to help out Lewis H. Leigh, the Mayor’s Councilmanic candidate. In the Second precinct there were three vacancies in the primary board. The power to fill these vacancies was vested, under the party rules, in Frazier Baker, ward committeeman of that precinct. He was absent through illness, but sent a letter naming three men to fill the vacancies.
City Committeeman Edwin Hillman claimed the right to fill the vacancies in the absence of Baker and he named John Harris, Harry Moffett and George Emory to sit with James Scanlin, the only primary officer present. This did not suit the supporters of the Mayor’s candidate, and they set up a separate ballot box.
The board named by Committeeman Hillman continued to take ballots until Chief of Police Foster, Captain Stanley and a squad of officers arrived and ordered them out of the polling place. They refused to leave and the police forcibly ejected them. Moffett held on to the ballot box. The Leigh faction cast their ballots in the other box. The City Committee will be asked to throw out the votes for Leigh, who claims to have carried the ward by 302 majority.
The contests in the other wards were tame. The threatened trouble in the “bloody” Seventh did not materialize, as City Committeeman John Carmany, the anti Hatch candidate, withdrew to save the official heads of several petty office holders. Isaac V. Bradley, who was backed by the Hanson faction, was nominated without opposition.
