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About The Hesperian / (Lincoln, Neb.) 1885-1899 | View Entire Issue (April 23, 1894)
THE HESPERIAN A ROUND, UNVARNISHED TALE." THEY WANT THEIR RECORD KNOWN. first installment. Much indignation was aroused among the students of the University just before the local contest in February by the announce ment that someone, to the public unknown, had secured in advance of the contest the markings of one of the judges on manuscript. Suspicion attached at the time to what has of late become notorious as the "Johnston gang." The "gang" denied all knowledge of the matter, and went so far as to seek to throw the blame on the friends of some of the other contestants. But this was to no purpose. Many of the students have long suspected that something was wrong with the inside workings of the Delian contest of last year, and have believed that the man who engineered his name through to glory in that contest would resort to any means to make his calling and election sure in this year's local. They were right, as the facts adduced hereinafter will show. I make the following statement with no desire or hope to conceal or palliate the course I took in the affairs recited. The matter has of late been made the subject of frequent comment among the students and in the state press, and it is duo the good name of the general student body of the University that the matters herein set forth should come to light, that the facts should bo stated exactly as they are, and the seal of the disapproval of the students be sot upon them. Furthermore, I believe it a duty to myself to make this public statement of the case in order that the other parties concerned may not succeed in the attempt they have been and are making to put off on me the blame for all that was done and for much more than was done. They have been un sparing in their denunciations of myself, simply because 1 did not see fit to support Johnston for delegate in place of Fisher. They have not hesitated to impute to me the worst motives conceivable. They have denounced mo as a "blackleg," and applied to me the abusive epithets in which their vocabulary so abounds. I believe that the time has come when patience on my part has ceased to be a virtue, and over against their epithets and their insinuations I place, the following: AFFIDAVIT. State of Nebraska, Lancaster County. J C. L. Tallmadge, being first duly sworn deposes and says: Shortly before the local contest Mc Mullon was greatly worked up as to the probable outcome of the contest. Day after day he expressed fear that he might not win, and insisted time and again that I go out and see Professor Rakestraw, one of the judges on manuscript, and an old acquaintance of mine, and attempt to get his marks. At last I consented, and on Thursday afternoon, February 1,I went to Rakestraw's house, Thirtieth and R, and got his marks. Mr. Rakestraw supposed me to be a party authorized to receive the mark ings. He gave the markings to me un sealed and not in an envelope but on a separate sheet of paper wrapped in the manuscript. I took the markings to Adam McMullen the same afternoon at his room at Fifteenth and O, and he saw them. The same evening I returned the sheet of paper containing the markings to Mr. Rakestraw, told him they ought to be sealed, and it was sealed up by the professor, who had given it in the first place without asking whether the marks should be sealed, supposing all the time, 'that he was gizing them to a proper person. I then took the sealed envelope and mailed it to the president of