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.]