have read that." "Well," said he, "in the light of subsequent events I feel that I did you great injustice there, but I hope you won't have any feeling about it." I said, "I have no special feeling. Of course I can see that, taking the average man as you have come in contact with him, you had formed probably about a proper estimate." Said he, "That is just about it." Now, thought I, here is a man who has done me a wrong, and done it publicly, and who admits the wrong. Why not, then, make the reparation as public as the injury? I felt that he was not acting manly with me; not doing as he ought to have done; but I let it pass. Without concluding the examination of the witness the committee adjourned. WASHINGTON, May 11, 1884. JOHN A. WALSH recalled and further examined. By the CHAIRMAN: Question. When the committee adjourned I believe we were approaching the time when you were to appear before the third grand jury?— Answer. Yes, sir. Q. Please state whether you did appear before that grand jury, who was the foreman of it, and what was done there.-A. Some events occurred prior to my appearing before the third grand jury which, I think, had better be stated in chronological order before I come to what took place before the jury. Q. Very well; please make whatever statement you desire of those matters.-A. For example, I referred yesterday to libels that were printed in two papers. In that connection I might state that one of those papers, the Critic, was owned by Thomas J. Brady, ex-Second Assistant Postmaster-General, and the other paper, the National Republican, was owned by Mr. George Bliss, Secretary of the Navy Chandler, and other friends. By Mr. STEWART: Q. Other friends of yours do you mean?-A. Well, I thought I would leave that blank. I might say, however, friends of the Administration. So that the spectacle was presented of a gentleman engaged as a representative of the Government in prosecuting certain defendants, while at the same time the paper of which he was part owner was denouncing the prosecution and abusing the witnesses for the prosecution. By the CHAIRMAN: Q. Do you know what interest Mr. Bliss had in the Republican at that time-A. I understood that he, with twenty-nine other gentlemen, friends of President Arthur, purchased the paper, each putting in $1,000. Q. How much was Mr. Bliss's interest?-A. One thousand dollars, as I understood. Mr. Bliss commenced negotiations with Mr. Brady for the purchase of Brady's interest in the paper about the time the prosecutions began. Q. What was Brady's interest?-A. I think he held a controlling interest-just a fraction over a controlling interest of the stock. On account of this arrangement Mr. Bliss was probably imbued with General Brady's prejudices against me. I think that is evidenced by his going into print on the subject as early as February, 1882, as I have shown you he did. Prior to my being served with a subpoena to appear before that grand jury several letters were addressed to me by Mr. R. T. Merrick, Assistant United States Attorney-General, calling upon me to come here and testify. Necessarily I had to answer them, and further, I had necessarily to state what were my objections to appearing. I think, Mr. Chairman, that in justice to me, and as tending to show the condition of things at that time, I may properly ask to be permitted to file those letters as a part of the record here. I do not wish to take up the time of the committee in reading them all, but I read one of them yesterday. Q. Those letters state your reasons for refusing to appear or for desiring not to appear?-A. Yes, sir. Q. And those reasons are, in substance, that the attorneys on the part of the prosecution or some of them, were not acting in good faith?—A. Yes; Mr. George Bliss. I did not speak of any other attorney. The CHAIRMAN. I suppose the letters may be filed. The letters will be found at the end of this testimony. Mr. Merrick, in response to my complaints of the non-prosecution of these people who had libeled me, did tell me to go to Mr. Corkhill, then district attorney, and file my papers with him. I am referring now to the libels upon me in the matter of the Benner claim, a libel uttered by Mr. Dickson and printed by these papers. I told Mr. Merrick that I did not think there would be any action taken in the matter. Indeed, I said, "I do not know that I want Mr. Corkhill to prosecute the cases. Mr. Corkhill is a very amiable gentleman, a very pleasant man no doubt, but he has very friendly relations with those gentlemen, and I do not think he will ever sit up o' nights to prosecute them." "Well," said Mr. Merrick, "give him the papers, and I will talk with him and tell him that it is his duty to prosecute them." Well, I gave Corkhill the papers. Five or six weeks elapsed (I was here at the time) and Mr. Corkhill did nothing, and finding that he was doing nothing about it I sent for the papers; I told my attorney, Mr. Thomas, to go and get back the papers. I had given Mr. Corkhill the original papers in the Benner matter. The papers were turned over to Mr. Thomas very cheerfully, I believe, and he sent them to me in New York. Of course, as I have said, that was the result I expected. I did not expect Corkhill to prosecute, and I did not want him to prosecute, those parties anyhow, because I thought he was not the man to do it; but later on Mr. Corkhill, moved probably by something that Mr. Merrick had said to him, wrote me the following note: 1 OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY OF THE UNITED STATES, Mr. JOHN A. WALSH, Care of Mr. E. H. Grandin, 11 Wall St., New York: SIR: I herewith enclose subpoena for you to appear before the grand jury, one having been sent to the U. S. marshal and returned not found." Please accept service thereon and come as soon as you can. Very respectfully, GEORGE B. CORKHILL, I can best tell you how I treated that by reading the indorsement which I made upon it. Letter from Corkhill, dist. att'y, dated May 29, 1883. No answer necessary to this; as the absurdity of his appearing before a grand jury to prosecute for slander, etc., such friends of his as Dickson et al. is so patent that comment is unnecessary. I felt that the Government was going through the Pickwickian operation of turning me over to Corkhill, who had never been intrusted with any share in the prosecution of the star-route cases, and I objected to that; I thought that my services to the Government entitled me to the very best counsel. I wanted the expensive counsel, the $100 a day men. [Laughter.] I did not think Corkhill was a good enough counsel to prosecute the matter, so, of course, I paid no attention to his letter. Now, prior to these letters to Mr. Merrick, I addressed a letter to the Attorney-General in November, 1882. I set forth in that letter what had occurred in the grand-jury room on my second appearance. I stated it as briefly as I could. I called the attention of the Attorney-General to what I conceived was Mr. Bliss's lack of faithfulness to the Government. To that letter I received no response. Later on I thought I would write the President, and I wrote him a letter inclosing the one that I had written to Mr. Brewster. I received no reply to that. Then I wrote the letters to Mr. Merrick, referring in them to this letter to the President. The reading of those letters will develop the fact that I set forth in them what Mr. Bliss was doing, and begged that his proceedings should be looked into. That was not done. I have here first the letter to Mr. Brewster, the Attorney-General, and next the letter to the President. I suppose I can put them in. By the CHAIRMAN: Q. Those letters relate to the good faith of Mr. Bliss in the matter of the prosecution of the star-route cases?—A. Oh, yes. Mr. VAN ALSTYNE. It seems proper that the letters should be admitted, if they conveyed information on this subject to the AttorneyGeneral and the President. The WITNESS. They conveyed it to everybody. I have done my duty in the matter. If some other people have not done theirs, owing to total depravity or "professional etiquette," that is not my fault. Mr. STEWART. It would seem to be entirely proper that the letter to the Attorney-General should be put in evidence here, but it appears to me that there may be some objection to putting in the letter to the Presi dent. The Attorney-General was the responsible law officer of the Government; if this matter belonged to anybody it belonged to him, and if there was any issue of any sort between a Government witness and any of the prosecuting officers, probably the Attorney-General would be the proper authority to appeal to; whereas the President could not say anything in the matter. By the CHAIRMAN: Q. Did you reiterate substantially in the letter to the President the facts which you had stated in the letter to the Attorney-General ?—A. I set them forth very much more fully in the letter to the President. Mr. VAN ALSTYNE. There is one other consideration. If this letter, by its statements of facts, tends to inculpate the Attorney-General, perhaps he should have extended to him the comity of exculpating himself, because it has been stated here that Mr. Bliss was brought into the prose ecution of these cases by reason of his relations with the Chief Magistrate. It does not appear Mr. STEWART. I do not think that is any reason. that Mr. Bliss was appointed by President Arthur or at his suggestion or request. He was appointed really by the former Postmaster-General and Attorney-General, and I think it is going far enough to put in the communication to the Attorney-General. Of course, viewed in any light, the letter is entirely an ex parte statement. It is merely a statement of what Mr. Walsh conceived to be the true situation at that time. I think there can be no impropriety in putting in the letter to the Attorney-General, but I do not think the communication to the President is in the nature of any evidence that we ought to consider or receive. The CHAIRMAN. Of course a letter simply addressed to the President would not commit him to anything. I suppose if we look into the matter it will appear that the President simply referred the letter to the Attorney-General. Mr. STEWART. Yes; but the President cannot say anything as to what he did; we are not a committee appointed to investigate the President of the United States; we are investigating the Department of Justice, and anything that falls within the scope of that Department, from the Attorney-General down, properly comes within our jurisdiction. It is entirely proper for Mr. Walsh to communicate his understanding of the situation to the Attorney-General of the United States, and I think that any communication made to him on the business of the Department is proper evidence to be received by us. Of course every citizen has a right to address a communication to the Chief Magistrate. I do not question at all the propriety of Mr. Walsh's act in writing to the President, but I think the matter ought to stop there. It is nothing to us what he did. In other words, I do not see what bearing it has upon any issue that we are trying or investigating. It is a mere matter of gossip to state here what he wrote to the President. We have seen enough of Mr. Walsh to know that he understands tolerably well how to put his ideas together either on paper or orally, and it is quite apparent that he can state a very strong case without any great amount of effort. Now I think that if we put in his statement of the case to the Attorney-General and then his further statement, which we have already, that he addressed a letter to the President setting forth more fully his view of these matters, we ought to stop there. Mr. VAN ALSTYNE. Our investigation has taken a very wide range. It has been sworn to, I think, by one of the prosecuting officers in the star-route cases, and a late Attorney-General of the United States, that those prosecutions during some portion of their progress did not have even the moral support of the Administration. That is very well so far as it goes. Then I suppose the purpose of this evidence is to show that the Department of Justice has been derelict, and I think that perhaps, under all the circumstances of the case, it might be well enough to receive the explanation, or what may be presumed to be an explanation in part, with the allegation. By the CHAIRMAN: Q. Was this letter to the Attorney-General written on the date which it bears, November 3, 1882?—A. It was. Q. Are the facts stated in this letter true?-A. Undoubtedly, sir; to the best of my knowledge and belief. Of course I do not undertake to state anything else. I can best tell you how I treated that by reading the indorsement which I made upon it. Letter from Corkhill, dist. att'y, dated May 29, 1883. No answer necessary to this; as the absurdity of his appearing before a grand jury to prosecute for slander, etc., such friends of his as Dickson et al. is so patent that comment is unnecessary. I felt that the Government was going through the Pickwickian operation of turning me over to Corkhill, who had never been intrusted with any share in the prosecution of the star-route cases, and I objected to that; I thought that my services to the Government entitled me to the very best counsel. I wanted the expensive counsel, the $100 a day men. [Laughter.] I did not think Corkhill was a good enough counsel to prosecute the matter, so, of course, I paid no attention to his letter. Now, prior to these letters to Mr. Merrick, I addressed a letter to the Attorney-General in November, 1882. I set forth in that letter what had occurred in the grand-jury room on my second appearance. I stated it as briefly as I could. I called the attention of the Attorney-General to what I conceived was Mr. Bliss's lack of faithfulness to the Government. To that letter I received no response. Later on I thought I would write the President, and I wrote him a letter inclosing the one that I had written to Mr. Brewster. I received no reply to that. Then I wrote the letters to Mr. Merrick, referring in them to this letter to the President. The reading of those letters will develop the fact that I set forth in them what Mr. Bliss was doing, and begged that his proceedings should be looked into. That was not done. I have here first the letter to Mr. Brewster, the Attorney-General, and next the letter to the President. I suppose I can put them in. By the CHAIRMAN: Q. Those letters relate to the good faith of Mr. Bliss in the matter of the prosecution of the star-route cases?—A. Oh, yes. Mr. VAN ALSTYNE. It seems proper that the letters should be admitted, if they conveyed information on this subject to the AttorneyGeneral and the President. The WITNESS. They conveyed it to everybody. I have done my duty in the matter. If some other people have not done theirs, owing to total depravity or "professional etiquette," that is not my fault. Mr. STEWART. It would seem to be entirely proper that the letter to the Attorney-General should be put in evidence here, but it appears to me that there may be some objection to putting in the letter to the Presi dent. The Attorney-General was the responsible law officer of the Gov ernment; if this matter belonged to anybody it belonged to him, and if there was any issue of any sort between a Government witness and any of the prosecuting officers, probably the Attorney-General would be the proper authority to appeal to; whereas the President could not say anything in the matter. By the CHAIRMAN: Q. Did you reiterate substantially in the letter to the President the facts which you had stated in the letter to the Attorney General ?—A. I set them forth very much more fully in the letter to the President. Mr. VAN ALSTYNE. There is one other consideration. If this letter, by its statements of facts, tends to inculpate the Attorney-General, perhaps he should have extended to him the comity of exculpating himself, because it has been stated here that Mr. Bliss was brought into the prose |