REVIEW.

The events of the late winter recall forcibly a declaration made more than twenty-two centuries ago, by a man who possessed a profound knowledge of human nature and society. In answering a grave charge made against his public conduct, he said he did not stand on equal ground with his accusers, for the reason that people listen to accusation more readily than to defense. This remark has sometimes been thought cynical and unjust; but there is much in our recent history that gives it force.

In no period of the political life of this country has the appetite for scandal been keener, or its exercise less restrained, than during the last year. One of our most brilliant and influential journalists, in an address delivered a few days since to a convention of his professional brethren in Indiana, while speaking of the present tone of the press, used this emphatic language:

The law presumes a man to be innocent until he is proved guilty.

The press, not merely usurping the functions of the law in arraigning a man whom the constable has no warrant to arrest, goes still further, and assumes him, prima facie, to be guilty. After many weeks, if the case of the accused comes to trial, he is acquitted; the law makes him an honest man; but there is the newspaper which has condemned him, and cannot, with a dozen rétractions, erase the impression left and the damage done by a single paragraph.

It might not be becoming in a layman, who feels in his own case the force of this paragraph, to volunteer such a declaration; but it is quite proper for him to testify to its truth when thus forcibly stated.

This paragraph from the address of the journalist finds a striking illustration in the history of the subject now under review.

In the autumn of 1872, during the excitement of the Presidential campaign, charges of the most serious character were made against ten or twelve persons who were then, or had recently been, Senators and Representatives in Congress, to the effect that, five years ago, they had sold themselves for sundry amounts of stock of the Credit Mobilier Company and bonds of the Pacific Railroad Company. The price at which different members were alleged to have bartered away their personal honor and their official influence was definitely set down in the newspapers; their guilt was assumed, and the public vengeance was invoked not only upon them, but also upon the party to which most of them belonged.

CREDIT MOBILIER INVESTIGATION.

By a resolution of the House, introduced by one of the accused members, and adopted on the first day of the late session, an investigation of these charges was ordered. The parties themselves and many other witnesses were examined; the records of the Credit Mobilier Company and of the Pacific Railroad Company were produced; and the results of the investigation were reported to the House on the 18th of February. The report, with the accompanying testimony, was brought up in the

House for consideration on the 25th of February, and the discussion was continued until the subject was finally disposed of, three days before the close of the session. The investigation was scarcely begun before it was manifest that the original charge that stock was given to members as a consideration for their votes was wholly abandoned, there being no proof whatever to support it.

But the charge assumed a new form, namely: That the stock had been sold to members at a price known to be greatly below its actual value, for the purpose of securing their legislative influence in favor of those who were managing and manipulating the Pacific Railroad for their own private advantage and to the injury both of the trust and of the United States. Eight of those against whom charges had been made in the public press, myself among the number, were still members of the House of Representatives, and were specially mentioned in the report. The committee recommended the adoption of resolutions for the expulsion of Messrs. Ames and Brooks, the latter on charges in no way connected with Mr. Ames or the other members mentioned. They recommended the expulsion of Mr. Ames for an attempt to influence the votes and decisions of members of Congress by interesting them in the stock of the Credit Mobilier, and through it in the stock of the Union Pacific Railroad. They found that though Mr. Ames in no case disclosed his purpose to these members, yet he hoped so to enlist their interest that they would be inclined to favor any legislation in aid of the Pacific Railroad and its interest, and that he declared to the managers of the Credit Mobilier Company at the time that he was thus using the stock which had been placed in his hands by the company.

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Concerning the members to whom he had sold, or offered to sell, the stock, the committee say that they "do not find that Mr. Ames, in his negotiations with the persons above named, entered into any detail of the relations between the Credit Mobilier Company and the Union Pacific Company, or gave them any specific information as to the amount of dividends they would be likely to receive further than has been already stated, [viz, that in some cases he had guaranteed a profit of 10 per cent.] * * * They do not find as to the members of the present House above named that they were aware of the object of Mr. Ames, or that they had any other purpose in taking this stock than to make a profitable investment. They have not been able to find that any of these members of Congress have been affected in their official action in consequence of interest in the Credit-Mobilier stock. They do not find that either of the above-named gentlemen in contracting with Mr. Ames had any corrupt motive or purpose himself or was aware Mr. Ames had any. Nor did either of them suppose he was guilty of any impropriety or even indelicacy in becoming a purchaser of this stock.' And finally, that "the committee find nothing in the conduct or motives of either of these members in taking this stock, that calls for any recommendation by the committee of the House." (See pp. viii, ix, x.)

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In the case of each of the six members just referred to, the committee sum up the results of the testimony, and from that summary the conclusions above quoted are drawn. In regard to me, the committee find: That in December, 1867, or January, 1868, I agreed to purchase ten shares of Credit Mobilier stock of Mr. Ames, for $1,000, and the accrued interest from the previous July; that in June, 1868, Mr. Ames paid me a check on the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House for $329, as a balance of dividends on the stock, above the purchase price and accrued interest; and that thereafter, there were no payments or other transac

tions between us, or any communication on the subject until the invesgation began in December last. (See Report, p. vii.)

I took the first opportunity offered by the completion of public business to call the attention of the House to the above summary of the testimony in reference to me. On the 3d of March I made the following remarks, in the House of Representatives, as recorded in the Congressional Globe for that day:

Mr. GARFIELD, of Ohio. I rise to a personal explanation. During the late investigation by the committee of which the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. POLAND] was the chairman, I pursued what seemed to be the plain path of duty, to keep silence except when I was called upon to testify before the committee. When testimony was given which appeared to be in conflict with mine, I waited, expecting to be called again if anything was needed from me in reference to these discrepancies. I was not recalled; and when the committee submitted their report to the House, a considerable portion of the testimony relating to me had not been printed.

In the discussion which followed here I was prepared to submit some additional facts and considerations in case my own conduct came up for consideration in the House; but the whole subject was concluded without any direct reference to myself, and since then the whole time of the House has been occupied with the public business. I now desire to make a single remark on this subject in the hearing of the House. Though the committee acquitted me of all charges of corruption in action or intent, yet there is in the report a summing up of the facts in relation to me which I respectfully protest is not warranted by the testimony. I say this with the utmost respect for the committee, and without intending any reflection upon them.

I cannot now enter upon the discussion; but I propose, before long, to make a statement to the public, setting forth more fully the grounds of my dissent from the summing up to which I have referred. I will only say now that the testimony which I gave before the committee is a statement of the facts in the case as I have understood them from the beginning. More than three years ago, on at least two occasions, I stated the case to two personal friends substantially as I stated it before the committee, and I here add that nothing in my conduct or conversation has at any time been in conflict with my testimony. For the present I desire only to place on record this declaration and notice.

In pursuance of this notice, I shall consider so much of the history of the Credit Mobilier Company as has any relation to myself. To render the discussion intelligible, I will first state briefly the offenses which that corporation committed, as found by the committees of the House.

HISTORY OF THE CREDIT MOBILIER COMPANY.

The Credit Mobilier Company is a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania, and authorized by its charter to purchase and sell various kinds of securities and to make advances of money and credit to railroad and other improvement companies. Its charter describes a class of business, which, if honestly. conducted, any citizen may properly engage in.

On the 16th of August, 1867, Mr. Oakes Ames made a contract with the Union Pacific Railroad Company to build six hundred and sixty-seven miles of road, from the one hundredth meridian westward, at rates ranging from $42,000 to $96,000 per mile. For executing this contract he was to receive in the aggregate $47,925,000, in cash, or in the securities of the company.

On the 15th of October, 1867, a triple contract was made between Mr. Ames of the first part, seven persons as trustees of the second part, and the Credit Mobilier Company of the third part, by the terms of which the Credit Mobilier Company was to advance money to build the road, and to receive thereon 7 per cent. interest and 2 per cent. commission; the seven trustees were to execute the Ames contract, and the profits thereon were to be divided among them, and such other stockhold

ers of the Credit Mobilier Company as should deliver to them an irrevocable proxy to vote the stock of the Union Pacific held by them. The principal stockholders of the Credit Mobilier Company were also holders of a majority of the stock of the Union Pacific Railroad.

On the face of this agreement, the part to be performed by the Credit Mobilier Company as a corporation was simple and unobjectionable. It was to advance money to the contractors and to receive therefor about ten per cent. as interest and commission. This explains how it was that in a suit in the courts of Pennsylvania in 1870, to collect the State tax on the profits of the company, its managers swore that the company had never declared dividends to an aggregate of more than twelve present. The company proper did not receive the profits of the Oakes Ames contract. The profits were paid only to the seven trustees and to such stockholders of the Credit Mobilier as had delivered to them the proxies on their Pacific Railroad stock. In other words, a ring inside the Credit Mobilier obtained the control both of that corporation and of the profits of the Ames contract.

By a private agreement made in writing October 16, 1867, the day after the triple contract was signed, the seven trustees pledged themselves to each other so to vote all the Pacific Railroad stock which they held in their own right or by proxy, as to keep in power all the members of the then existing board of directors of the railroad company not appointed by the President of the United States, or such other persons as said board should nominate. By this agreement, the election of a majority of the directors was wholly within the power of the seven trustees. From all this it resulted that the Ames contract and the triple agreement made in October amounted in fact to a contract made by seven leading stockholders of the Pacific Railroad Company with themselves; so that the men who fixed the price at which the road was to be built were the same men who would receive the profits of the contract. The wrong in this transaction consisted, first, in the fact that the stockholding directors of the Pacific Railroad, being the guardians of a great public trust, contracted with themselves; and, second, that they paid themselves an exorbitant price for the work to be done; a price which virtually brought into their own possession, as private individuals, almost all the property of the railroad company. The six hundred and sixty-seven miles covered by the contract included one hundred and thirty-eight miles already completed the profits on which inured to the benefit of the contractors. (See Report of Credit Mobilier Committee No. 2, p. xiii.)

The Credit Mobilier Company had already been engaged in various enterprises before the connection with the Ames contract. George Francis Train had once been the principal owner of its franchises, and it had owned some western lands; (Wilson's Report, pp. 497-8;) but its enterprises had not been very remunerative, and its stock had not been worth par. The triple contract of October, 1867, gave it at once considerable additional value. It should be borne in mind, however, that the relations of the Credit Mobilier Company to the seven trustees, to the Oakes Ames contract, and to the Pacific Railroad Company, were known to but few persons until long afterward, and that it was for the interest of the parties to keep them secret. Indeed, nothing was known of it to the general public until the facts were brought out in the recent investigations.

In view of the facts above stated, it is evident that a purchaser of such shares of Credit Mobilier stock as were brought under the operation of the triple contract would be a sharer in the profits derived by