The First "October Suprise"

I am reading "Dark Horse, the Suprise Election and Politcal Murder of President James A. Garfield" , by Kenneth D. Ackerman. I nearly fell off my chair while reading about an event that happened two weeks prior to the 1880 election. A Democratic tabloid published a FAKE letter, trying to hurt the Republican nominee for president James A. Garfield. They investigated it themselves
and finally admitted the letter was fake two months after the election!

On October 20, 1880 The New York Truth (ironically the New York Times in 1880 was a Republican instrument), published the "Morey Letter", a handwirtten note supposedly written by Republican nominee James A. Garfield. The letter printed on the Truth's front page was intended to damage Garfield's standing with Pacific West voters and laboring men in the East.

Immediately Democratic Congressman Abraham Hewitt, and Democratic Senator and National Chairman William Barnum said it was authentic and begain distributing it nationwide. In true TERRY MCAULIFFE style, Barnum said, "It is General Garfield's handwriting. Denial is worse than useless." The tabloid stood by its story.

Garfield of course denied, but checking to make sure a subordinate in his DC office had not written something in his name, he had his staff check. Garfield had never heard of H.L. Morey of Lynn, MA, for whom the letter was supposedly written, and the views in the letter clashed with his own.

19th century bloggers noticed that the alleged letter misspelled Garfield's name, the signature didn't match Garfield's, and a quick investigation found no such H.L. Morey in Lynn, MA. The letter was written on House of Representative stationery at a time when Garfield was in Ohio.

Garfield did respond 3 days later, but the damage was done. Many newspapers ran copies of the two letters side by side, so readers could compare the handwriting. The GOP offered $5k reward for the forger's arrest. Several days later Kenward Philp (whose ghost told Dan Rather to run with his story) a writer for the Truth was indicted, but a court never convicted him.

On January 4th, 1881, two months after the election, the The New York Truth acknowledged that the letter was indeed a fake. By 1884 the publication ceased to exist, its reputation ruined by the affair.

We can all hope the same thing happens to CBS News.