There is no question that in Liberia illegal voting is common. The election to which we have referred above was that of 1911; in 1901 Bishop Ferguson issued a charge to his clergy and lay members upon the subject of election evils in which the following words occur: “The corruptions and wickedness that have attended the last three or four campaigns are startling to all right-minded people, and, if continued, no prophet is needed to foretell the disastrous consequences that will inevitably follow. Election frauds, open-handed bribery, and the utter disregard of all moral restraints seem to be the order of the day. Those who at other times are recognized as Christian gentlemen, do not scruple on these occasions to perpetrate offenses that are condemned both by God’s law and that of the state. To procure the election of a party man, they lose sight of, or completely disregard, their standing in the Church, in society, or the social circle; and will stoop to do the meanest act. What is worse than all, is the fact that the evils have become so rife that it appears there are not to be found innocent citizens enough to punish the guilty under the laws of the land. And now, to my mind, the worst feature of the thing is the fact that the aborigines--our brothers just emerging from the darkness of heathenism--are either coming voluntarily, sought out and persuaded, or actually forced into this whirl-pool of corruption and wickedness. It is enough to chill one’s blood to think of the impression made on their minds, on their induction into civilized usages at such time:--jostled through a crowd of men,--ruffians now, though at other times Christian gentlemen--armed with deadly weapons of every description, they are made to swear that they are constitutionally qualified for the highest privilege of citizenship under a republican form of government.” Again in an Independence Day address given by Dr. Dingwall at Buchanan in 1910 were these words: “Ignorant and purchasable voters are ruinous to all other republics. Why not to ours likewise? At the polls the vote of a fool is counted one, and that one takes the whole of a philosopher’s to cancel it. Now in Liberia these are chiefly manufactured from the wild heathen, more than ninety-nine in a night. The privilege to take a few acres of land and register hundreds of nameless natives, or on election day to vote each hour the identical bushman, by simply christening him afresh for each occasion, is a dangerous weapon in the hands of politicians. This practice would have destroyed democracy, were these leaders even honest in purpose and patriotic in spirit.”