ngly. Then
the forgers have simply the problem on hand to avail themselves,
either directly through the bank of issue or elsewhere of this genuine
$5,000 draft, which is certainly not a hard task for the men who have
successfully performed the harder one.

CHAPTER XXII

A FAMOUS FORGERY

The Morey-Garfield Letter--Attempt to Defeat Mr. Garfield for the
Presidency--A Clumsy Forgery--Both Letters Reproduced--Evidences of
Forgery Pointed Out--The Work of an Illiterate Man--Crude Imitations
Apparent--Undoubtedly the Greatest Forgery of the Age--General
Garfield's Quick Disclaimer Kills Effect of the Forgery--The Letters
Compared and Evidences of Forgery Made Complete.

Very few cases have arisen in this country in which the genuineness of
handwriting was the chief contention, and in which such momentous
interests were at stake, as in the case of the forged "Morey-Garfield
Letter." It was such as to arouse and alarm every citizen of the
republic. A few days prior to the presidential election of 1880, in
which James A. Garfield was the Republican nominee, there was
published in a New York Democratic daily paper, a letter purporting to
have been written to a Mr. H.L. Morey, who was alleged to have been
connected with an organization of the cheap-labor movement. The
letter, if written by Mr. Garfield, committed him in the broadest and
fullest manner to the employment of Chinese cheap labor. It was a
cheap political trick, a rank forgery, and the purpose of the letter
was to arouse the labor vote in close states against Mr. Garfield. It
was also a bungling forgery. We present herewith facsimiles of the
forged letter and one written by Mr. Garfield branding the Morey
letter a fraud.

[Illustration: THE MOREY-GARFIELD FORGERY.]

[Illustration: LETTER WRITTEN BY GARFIELD.]

The Morey letter was evidently written by an uneducated man. Here are
three instances of wrong spelling that a man of Mr. Garfield's
education could not possibly make. The words "ecomony" and "Companys"
in the eighth line and "religeously" in the twelfth line give evidence
of a fraudulent and deceitful letter at once.

The misplacing of the dot to the "i" in the signature to the left of
the "f" and over the "r" is a mistake quite natural to a hand
unaccustomed to making it, but a very improbable and remarkable
mistake for one to make in writing his own name. Another noticeable
feature in the Morey letter is the conspicuous variations in the si