By Mr. STEWART: Q. Is that any more than a man who is competent to discharge the duties of that office in New York ought to have?-A. In my opinion, it is not. I told the chairman here the other day that you could not get any competent lawyer there for less than $10,000 or $12,000. By the CHAIRMAN: Q. How much does the judge get?-A. The judge gets an absurdity, three or four thousand dollars, and the result of that has been that when the district judgeship was vacant the profession had to go around begging lawyers who had private means to take the office. Q. Have you a good judge there now?-A. He is a good judge. He has private means. When the office was vacant the judges and the prominent lawyers got together and sat down and looked over the list of lawyers to select a fit man for the position, and the first consideration was to see whether the man had means which would enable him to take the office, and the next to bring pressure to bear upon the men selected to try to get them to become candidates. They did me the honor to try to get me to become a candidate, Judge Blatchford did. Q. But you would not consent?-A. I simply said that I did not think my make up was judicial. Q. Did Judge Blatchford agree with you in that?-A. Well, he did not file a dissenting opinion. [Laughter.] Q. Was it your opinion that your appointment as special assistant attorney-general, or special assistant district attorney, did not disqualify you from accepting employment in cases against the Government, and receiving fees for that service?-A. I did so consider. Q. Had you read in that connection section 366 of the Revised Statutes?-A. I do not remember it now. Q. Which provides that the special assistants to the Attorney-General and to the district attorney shall take the oath required by law to be taken by district attorneys, and shall be subject to all the liabilities imposed upon them by law ?-A. I remember that section, sir. Q. Is not the district attorney forbidden by statute from accepting any case against the Government, or representing any person in antagonism to the Government?-A. I don't remember whether he is or not. I don't recall that provision. Very likely he is, but I do not remember. Q. Would not you be under the same liability?-A. Well, sir, that is a matter of law which you must judge of for yourself. The CHAIRMAN. The district attorney would not be allowed, undoubtedly, to take any case against the Government or to prosecute any case in any Department against the Government and receive compensation therefor; and it might be a question whether a special assistant, who is by law made subject to the same liabilities, would not be also forbidden by the statute to do those things. By Mr. MILLIKEN: Q. Are you employed by the Government now as a special assistant attorney-general-A. No, sir; I never was a special assistant attorneygeneral. I was a special assistant district attorney. I was to have been appointed a special assistant attorney-general, but my commission was made out as a special assistant district attorney. By Mr. FYAN: Q. Were you not appointed a special assistant district attorney to go before the grand jury?-A. Subsequently I was by Mr. Corkhill, but that was an entirely different matter with which the Attorney-General had nothing to do. By Mr. MILLIKEN : Q. Do you occupy that position now?-A. No, sir; Mr Corkhill is out of office, and I am out of office ipso facto. Q. So you hold no position under the Government now?-A. No position, I am happy to say. By Mr. STEWART: Q. Your appointment was expressly for the star-route cases?-A. Yes, sir; for them and for nothing else. By Mr. MILLIKEN: Q. Has your employment in that connection ceased?-A. Yes, sir; I suppose there is no harm in my saying that the employment of all the counsel in the case except, perhaps, Mr. Ker, has ceased. By the CHAIRMAN: Q. When did that take place?—A. Within a week or ten days. By Mr. MILLIKEN: Q. How many cases connected with these star-route matters has the Government now pending?-A. There are now pending of the indictments probably thirty, speaking in round numbers. I do not know whether there can be said to be any civil suits pending or not. I don't think any civil suits have been commenced. I have tried to have some commence, but I do not think that any have been commenced. By the CHAIRMAN: Q. When did your employment cease?-A. Last week. Q. You state that all the counsel, except Mr. Ker, are now out of the cases?-A. Well, I know that Mr. Merrick is out of the cases. Q. What has become of the case of the United States vs. Brady and Kellogg? I thought Mr. Merrick appeared for the Government in that.-A. He did; but after the order of Judge Wylie in court the other day, Mr. Merrick ceased to appear, and has retired from all the casesnot on that account necessarily, but after that order it became clear that that Kellogg case was not to be tried substantially, or at all events properly tried. Mr. Merrick is out of the cases; that is a fact within my knowledge. By Mr. HEMPHILL: Q. Why are all the counsel out of the cases?-A. I am out of the cases because the Attorney-General-I have repeatedly asked to be allowed to go out, and I have some letters here on that subject which I may ask the committee to let me put in evidence; and Mr. Brewster finally wrote me a letter last week agreeing that I should go out. By Mr. MILLIKEN: Q. Was that in answer to a request on your part to be let out ?—A. No; not in answer to a request made at the moment, though I had previously made such a request. I will give you a history of that presently and will ask leave to read these letters. By Mr. FYAN: Q. Before you come to those letters let me ask you, was there ever an indictment prepared against Salisbury?-A. My impression is that Mr. Ker prepared indictments against all those parties whom the grand jury failed to indict. He did not perfect the indictments, but he got them all blocked out up to such a point that if bills had been found the indictments could have been completed within twenty-four hours, probably. Q. Was Salisbury included in those indictments?-A. My recollection is that he was, and yet I would not be certain-oh, yes; he was. Q. What was the reason that he was not indicted?-A. I cannot tell you. Q. Was it on account of the absence of any witness?-A. I do not think there was any witness on the Salisbury routes that was absent. Q. Do you know a witness by the name of Parrish?-A. No; I don't recall any such witness. I do not recall the absence of any witness that was essential. Q. You do not think he was a material witness?-A. He may have been a good witness; but on the Salisbury routes which we put before the grand jury we had all the witnesses that we wanted; in fact, I had some witnesses on the Pembina and Fargo route, and also on the Wells and Hamilton routes, that I did not put on the stand. Q. Were you here about the middle of June, 1882-A. Yes, sir. Q. Who represented Mr. Salisbury here?-A. Colonel Ingersoll. Q. Did not General McKibben?—A. I don't know General McKibben by sight, and I have never understood that he represented Salisbury. Q. Do you know that there were propositions made to Salisbury, or to McKibben, as his agent, that unless he paid a given sum of money by the 15th of June, this indictment would be presented to the grand jury and this witness Parrish brought on here?-A. I never heard of any such thing. If there was any such proposition made, it was made by somebody not then in the cases. Q. Were Cook and Gibson in the cases then?-A. They were not. Q. Do you know whether this indictment prepared against Salisbury was carried down to a certain part of this city and there presented to these parties, and they told that if this money was not paid by the 15th of June that case would be presented to the grand jury and this witness Parrish brought here?-A. There never was any indictment prepared by any one authorized in the case that was so taken, because Mr. Ker had an office in the Department of Justice, and the indictments were kept there very carefully, and unless there was infidelity- Q. Do you know that the money was paid on the 16th of June?—A. No, sir; I never heard anything about it until this minute. If Mr. Salisbury paid any money he was fooled. Q. Or if anybody paid it for him?-A. Or if anybody paid it for him. Q. You have no recollection of the witness whose name I have mentioned?-A. No, sir; no present recollection; but in the Salisbury cases that were before the grand jury, we had no deficiency of witnesses. Q. Then what reason do you give for not pressing the indictments? The Salisburys had a larger share in these routes than anybody else, hadn't they?-A. The Salisbury combination were understood to have had a large share, and I have no doubt they had, but Salisbury put for ward his stage-drivers, Luke Voorhes, and other parties. Q. Nominal parties?-A. Yes, sir; and, of course, in some cases where we were told that these men represented Salisbury, in point of fact they did not. Q. But your belief was that the Salisbury combination represented a large per cent. of the total interest in these routes?-A. Yes, sir; a very large per cent. They had, however, this thing in their favor: they were actual mail contractors performing the services themselves, while the Dorseys were mere speculators in mail contracts, proposing to make their profit by letting the contracts out to other parties. Q. If I understand you, it was not on account of the absence of any witness that there was a failure to indict Salisbury?-A. I never heard that it was because there was not any essential witness absent. Of course there may have been some witnesses that I never heard of who would have testified to actual corruption; but there was no one absent that I ever heard of whose absence would have made any difference so far as the indictment was concerned. Q. Then how do you account for the failure to indict Salisbury ?—A. Well, sir, I told you yesterday about the Vinita and Las Vegas route; and there is one thing that ought to be said which occurred to me after I went away. It may be that the grand jury were influenced somewhat by the petitions. There were a large number of petitions in regard to those routes, and while I do not recall the particular cases, it would be very extraordinary if among those petitions there were not letters and recommendations from Senators and Representatives, and the grand jury may have thought that although it was not wise to make the expedition, or to do this, that, or the other thing about the routes, yet that in view of those papers there was not sufficient evidence of corrupt intent. They may have thought so; I do not know. Q. You are speaking now of the grand jury of which Mr. Mitchell was foreman?-A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you immediately after the adjournment of that grand jury say that you were perfectly satisfied with their action, that there was perhaps one other case that should have been included, but that on the whole their action was satisfactory to you?-A. No, sir. I said that of the cases we presented to them, there was perhaps one in which they had been right in not indicting. By the CHAIRMAN: Q. What case was that?-A. The Soledad and Newhall route; and I think possibly I did say that I could see how by the absence of the witness of whom I have spoken they might consider the Vinita and Las Vegas case crippled, though I could not so regard it. By Mr. FYAN: Q. Were there a large number of witnesses brought from a great distance who were not used before the grand jury?-A. There were witnesses brought here on the Wells and Hamilton route, and also on the Fargo and Pembina route, who, I think, were not used. They were tendered to the grand jury, but it was found that they would testify to things as to which the grand jury thought their testimony would be merely cumulative, and, therefore, I think there were probably three or four witnesses in all who were not examined; that is my present impression. Q. Did you buy the mileage accounts of any of those witnesses at a discount-A. No, sir. I may say here- Q. Did you buy any of them at all?-A. Never. Let me tell you what I did: The Government, in its wisdom, has passed a law that there shall be no advances made to anybody. I was at one time $8,000 out of my personal pocket in advancing money to bring witnesses here, and for that money so advanced I had not a dollar of security. If any wit ness had not obeyed the subpoena and come here, I could not have got my money by any possibility, and always during the first trial I was out of pocket for advances to witnesses to pay their board bills, and so on, not less than $5,000; I never got a dollar interest on that money, and when Congress passed a bill increasing the witness fees of witnesses from west of the Mississippi River, and the witnesses had gone home, I remitted the amounts to them by money order or registered letter, and paid the expenses of transmission out of my own pocket, and have here the receipt for it. By Mr. MILLIKEN: Q. You mean that you remitted to them the increased fees?-A. Yes, sir; every cent of it, and paid the registration fees on the letters, and I have the receipts here. By Mr. FYAN: Q. That is the way you got possession of the scrip of those witnesses?A. I never got possession of their scrip; I never had any of it. Q. How did you get your pay?-A. I will tell you; for instance, there was a post-office inspector, Mr. Sharp, the present general inspector of the Post-Office Department, going from San Francisco up into Oregon to get witnesses, and I think I advanced out of my own pocket over $2,000 or $4,000 which was sent to him; he paid the witnesses sufficient for their traveling expenses to enable them to get here, and took their receipts; those receipts were sent to me; I held them here, and when the marshal was to pay the witnesses, they were paid upon my order, and I would give an order to pay the fees to the full amount, and would give one of the clerks in my office the man's receipt for the money that he had already had. Q. The receipts were turned over to the marshal as vouchers?—A. No, not those receipts; the marshal took a full voucher, but my clerk went with the witnesses when they drew their pay and got their $600 or $800, or whatever it was, they turned over the amounts they had already received; there was one man, however, that "beat" me-got the whole of his money and went West without paying me. Q. Do you say that this post office inspector of whom you speak was Inspector Sharp, of Saint Louis?-A. That particular inspector who went up into Oregon was Mr. Sharp; he is now chief of the inspectors; that money was simply advanced to him to pay the witnesses so that they might be able to come here. Q. And you think you advanced as much as $8,000?-A. I know that at one time I figured it up and it was as much as $8,000; some of the witnesses came from a long distance; there were witnesses from away up in Dakota and Montana, and they were quite numerous; I advanced money to be put into the hands of the different post-office inspectors to enable those witnesses to come to Washington. By Mr. MILLIKEN: Q. Why did you make these advances ?-A. The witnesses could not come here without it. They were mostly stage drivers and men engaged in that sort of business, who were unable to pay their traveling expenses for such a distance, and the statute provides that there shall not be any money advanced to witnesses. Money could be advanced to a bonded officer, but the trouble was that that bonded officer would not advance the money to the witnesses, and there was no way out of the difficulty except by raising the money outside. We were trying for some time, but when I sent out subpoenas for the witnesses to appear before the first grand jury, the question came up how we were going to get them here, and it was very clear that they could not travel those |