2: The _Nation_, October 3.]

[Footnote 1613: Appleton's _Cyclopaedia_, 1878, p. 623.]

To add to Democratic embarrassment the _Tribune_, in the midst of the
canvass, began its publication of the cipher despatches which had
passed between Tilden's personal friends and trusted associates during
the closing and exciting months of 1876.[1614] The shameful story,
revealed by the _Tribune's_ discovered key to the cipher, made a
profound impression. As shown elsewhere the important telegrams passed
between Manton Marble and Smith M. Weed on one side, and Henry
Havermeyer and William T. Pelton, Tilden's nephew, on the other.[1615]
Marble had called McLin of the Florida board an "ague-smitten pariah"
for having charged him with attempted bribery, but these translated
telegrams corroborated McLin. Moreover, notwithstanding Tilden's
comprehensive and explicit denial, it sorely taxed the people's faith
to believe him disconnected with the correspondence, since the corrupt
bargaining by which he was to profit was carried on in his own house
by a nephew, who, it was said, would scarcely have ventured on a
transaction so seriously affecting his uncle's reputation without the
latter's knowledge. "Of their [telegrams] effect in ruining Mr.
Tilden's fortunes, or what was left of them," said the _Nation_,
"there seems no doubt."[1616] Whatever of truth this prophecy
contained, the revelation of the cipher despatches greatly
strengthened the Republican party and brought to a tragic end Clarkson
N. Potter's conspicuous failure to stain the President.[1617]

[Footnote 1614: New York _Tribune_, October 8 and 16.]

[Footnote 1615: See Chapter XXVII., pp. 350, 351, note.]

[Footnote 1616: October 24, 1878.]

[Footnote 1617: On May 13, 1878, Congressman Potter of New York secured
the appointment of a committee of eleven to investigate alleged frauds
in the Florida and Louisiana Returning Boards, with authority to send
for persons and papers. He refused to widen the scope of the
investigation to include all the States, presumably to avoid the
damaging evidence already known relating to Pelton's effort to secure
a presidential elector in Oregon. The _Tribune's_ timely exposure of
the telegrams turned the investigation into a Democratic boomerang.]

The result of the October elections likewise encouraged Republicans.
It indicated that the Greenback movement, which threatened to sweep
the country as with a tornado, had been stayed if not fin