Bonaparte Defines Theft

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 13, 1912:
Roosevelt's Attorney General Discourses on Stealing an Electoral College.
Special to The New York Times.
    BALTIMORE, July 12.—Former Attorney General Bonaparte has replied tartly to a letter asking him to tell the difference between stealing a convention and stealing an Electoral College. The correspondence follows:
             Elkton, Cecil County, Md.
The Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte.
    Dear Sir: Would you please tell a plain, green countryman what the difference is between stealing a convention and trying to steal an Electoral College?
    And how a gentleman who has posed as a purist in politics can square his conscience with himself in condemning the former and advocating the latter? Tours truly.
            CHARLES H. NEUDECKER.

Here is the retort coteous:

            Baltimore. Md., July .11.
Charles H. Neudecker, Esq., Elkton, Cecil County. Md.
    Sir: Stealing is stealing, whether its subject matter be a convention, an Electoral College, or a purse, and any one, guilty of stealing or of justifying stealing or of trying to confuse the consciences of his neighbors as to the guilt of stealing by sophistry and impertinence is an unworthy citizen and a dishonest man.
    I hope a plain, green, countryman is neither too plain nor too "green" to understand the foregoing statement.
 A Presidential elector has no right to vote for a man as President whom he believes to have stolen a purse, a nomination, or anything else; nor has he any better right to vote for a man whom he believes to have received anything stolen with knowledge of theft.
    Had such a man obtained the nomination fraudulently and from a packed convention, containing many more pretended delegates not entitled to sit in it than the majority whereby he was chosen, I should have deemed it my duty as a good citizen to do everything in my power to prevent his election, including retention of my place on the ticket, if that seemed an appropriate means to the last-mentioned end. I remain. Sir, yours respectfully,     CHARLES J. BONAPARTE.