that it was pretty certain to come out on the trial, and it is not likely that there would have been a conviction after that. Let me state now how I came to know about these facts. The Attorney-General sent Mr. Kellogg to me in New York last spring to talk with me, and he told me of this whole transaction about the warrant.

By Mr. VAN ALSTYNE:

Q. That was before the trial?—A. Before the trial. I sat down the same afternoon that Mr. Kellogg talked to me and reported by letter all that had passed to the Attorney-General. I came on here the next week and told him of these statements, and remarked that they were very extraordinary and ought to be investigated. I went down to the Post-Office Department and saw Mr. Lyman, and saw Judge Ela, the Sixth Auditor, and went over the whole thing and wrote a report, and suggested that I did not want to judge Mr. Price, but that if we were going into court-at that time I did not know whether I was going into court or not, though the Attorney-General had required me to make an affidavit in the Kellogg case in order to arrest Walsh-I suggested that if we were going into court with those two witnesses-Walsh, who had kept away so that the judge had said he did not know what was wanted of such a witness except his papers, and Price with this record behind him-I thought there was not much chance of a conviction.

Mr. LYMAN. Price executed a bond of indemnity to secure the Government?

The WITNESS. Yes; the money did not go out of the Treasury. The original draft was not paid to Price; it was paid to the cashier or runner of a bank in New Orleans; and among his papers they found the receipt, but not the original warrant; the original warrant has never been found. Q. Did you know of those facts at the time you objected to Price being accepted as a witness?-A. No, sir; I merely mention the facts now to show that I had the conviction that Price was in all sorts of rascality connected with the Post-Office Department, and that my idea was well founded.

By Mr. MILLIKEN:

Q. Have you changed your mind on that point?-A. No, sir. Then, beyond that, I did not think we were getting enough from Price for his immunity. We had got one man under indictment and were going to let him go, and, with the statute of limitations staring us in the face, and the other difficulties in the way, I thought we had enough to contend with. Now, as to the statute of limitations, I had looked to see if I could find any cases bearing upon the question; for instance, whether, when a note was given for an existing debt (the nearest thing to this case that I could imagine), the statute could be alleged to run from the time the overdue debt existed, or from the time when the note matured. I did not find much that amounted to anything in that connection, but I found some Western or Southern decisions which I thought bore upon the case, some one way and some the other, and it seemed to be a doubtful question as to when the statute of limitations would run. Ker says that I assigned no reason why Price should not be accepted as a witness, or why Kellogg should not be prosecuted, except Mr. Merrick's politics. Now that is not true, and I do not think Mr. Ker meant to be so understood, but that seems to be the way that I read his testimony, which appears on page 551 of your record. The reference to politics came up in this way: I said to Mr. Merrick, "Are you not allowing yourself to be warped by the fact that you have not only had an earnest

Mr.

and almost personal controversy with Mr. Kellogg, when you were en gaged as counsel against him on the question of his right to a seat in the Senate, but also by the fact that you believe him to be a scoundrel, and the fact that your political feeling comes into the matter-are you not allowing yourself to be warped in that way?" Mr. Merrick said that he bore that all in mind and had been guarding against it, and had been very careful. I don't know whether I said it or not, but I did not believe that Mr. Merrick could free himself from his political influence in that respect; and I was influenced in that judgment in a measure by this: Either then or subsequently the point came up that the prose cution of Mr. Kellogg would change the Republican majority in the Senate, and then there arose the suggestion: "He will be indicted, but we will not try him until after he goes out of the Senate ;" and I think I said, I know I at least felt strongly, that if Mr. Kellogg was guilty enough to be indicted for violating the laws of the United States, he was too guilty to be deliberately left to make new laws for the United States during the remainder of his term. The idea of indicting him and then deliberately arranging to leave him in the Senate during his term of office seemed to me an absurdity.

Q. Did you suggest that it was a very serious thing to interfere with the safety of a United States Senator in that way?-A. No, sir.

Q. Neither to the counsel nor in the grand jury room?-A. No, sir. A colored member of the Hutchinson grand jury said something about its being a serious thing to indict a United States Senator, and I replied that it was, but that Senators might be guilty as well as other people.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. Did you yourself consider the political effect of his indictment?A. No, sir; probably I did not, because I say frankly I knew perfectly well that he could not be tried or convicted before his term would expire.

Q. I mean in the sense of withholding or persuading the other coun sel to withhold the prosecution?-A. No, sir. There has been some reference to Mr. Kellogg being my friend. I never knew him until he walked into my room with this letter from Mr. Brewster. I had seen him going out of Mr. Cook's office, but I did not recall him. I never was any friend of his. I never had anything to do with him in any matter except this. Once subsequently he stopped me in the street, and once he spoke to me in the cars, and then there was this call which he made upon me in New York.

By Mr. VAN ALSTYNE:

Q. That is, you have had five interviews with him in your lifetime?— A. Yes, sir; and never any interview except when he came to me and wanted to talk to me about this matter and I wanted to get rid of him.

Q. Did you suggest to your associates anything about the political effect of having Mr. Kellogg indicted?-A. I suggested it no further than this, that in talking with Mr. Merrick, I said to him that if Kellogg was indicted people would say it was done through him (Merrick) in consequence of his political hostility to Kellogg. This was in conversation between Mr. Merrick and myself. Do not understand that there was anything offensive about it at all. It was as pleasant and kindly as could be; no offense given or taken on either side.

Q. Did you suggest to anybody that he should consult Mr. Chandler with regard to the political effect of this indictment?-A. Not there. Q. That did not weigh in your mind at all?—A. I did not mean that

it should. I am an earnest Republican, but I did not mean that it should.

Q. At least you did not manifest it to any one?-A. No, sir. If any. body took that inference from anything I did or said, they took a wrong inference. We adjourned that conference with the understanding that Mr. Woodward's pumps were to be put on to Price. I understood and I still believe that it was part of that arrangement that when Woodward got that additional statement, we were to be again brought together and have a chance to examine it, because the views I entertained had been accepted by the others so far as to agree that the first statement of Price was not sufficient to justify his acceptance as a witness, and I considered that it was a part of our understanding that I was to have an opportunity to see the new statement after it was obtained by Mr. Woodward. I went to New York and when I came back on the 2d of January-I think, Monday-I was met by a lester from Mr. Woodward saying that he was directed by the Attorney-General to inform me that Price was accepted as a witness.

Q. Did you understand at the conference with the Attorney-General that any one of the counsel were to see him again with reference to the acceptance of Price -A. I thought we were all to be brought together again to see him and to confer about it.

Q. You did not understand that that conference at the AttorneyGeneral's house was a finality ?-A. No, sir; I was confident that it was not, aud I say that I am confideut now that that was not the understanding, because there was an admission practically on the part of the other counsel that Price's first statement was not sufficient, and I understood that we were to see his new statement, which was to be obtained by Mr. Woodward.

By Mr. STEWART:

Q. That might be true, and yet you might leave the final decision to the Attorney-General ?-A. Certainly.

By Mr. VAN ALSTYNE:

Q. Was it not the understanding that the question, whether you should proceed further with the indictment of Kellogg was to be left entirely with the Attorney-General ?-A. Of course the Attorney-General had the right to do anything he chose about it.

Q. But was not that the agreement?-A. No, sir; my understanding was that that was not the agreement; my recollection was very clear about it. When I came back and found this state of things I felt that, directly or indirectly, faith had been broken with me, and I am frank to say that I thought that Mr. Merrick had somehow or other been concerned in it, that my associates had got from the AttorneyGeneral, in my absence, this determination to use Price, and that it had been done with a definite purpose, and I was pretty wrathy about it. I wrote a note to Mr. Merrick to say that I should not be in court that day, and intimated or stated the reason. My recollection would be that there came back a note to me from Mr. Merrick, and that I replied to that. I then went down to the Post-Office Department, and after the court adjourned Mr. Merrick came in. We had a conversation, in which I did not intimate to him that I thought there had been any underhand work, because I did not want to be offensive, but it was obvious that Mr. Merrick thought I had that idea, and therefore, in the course of the conversation, he told me distinctly that he had had nothing to do with the determination. He stated that he understood that our meeting at H. Mis. 38, pt. 2———46*

the Attorney-General's house was to be final so far as the counsel were concerned, and that the determination of the question was to be left to the Attorney-General alone. I said that I did not understand anything of the sort; that I did not understand that that meeting was final; that I thought we were to come together again after the new statement was obtained from Price; that I still maintained that opinion, but that, whether I did or not, if this decision had been given by the AttorneyGeneral without any special disregard of me, why that ended the matter. So I went into court next morning, having been out of court but one day.

Q. Did you urge as one of the reasons for your view that the statute of limitations had run against the offense, as you understood it ?—A. Not distinctly that the statute had run, as I understood it, but I urged that it was a question of the statute of limitations.

Q. Explain what you mean by that.-A. Well, it was very clear that the statute of limitations had run, provided you dated the offense from the time when the postal drafts were alleged to have been delivered to Kellogg. It was equally clear that it had not run if you dated from the time when the drafts had matured, and the question as to which period the statute was to be taken to cover was a question about which, as I thought, there was considerable to be said on both sides. I will be frank about it, and say that my impression was that upon an indictment properly drawn you could establish the view that the statute of limitations ran from the date of the payment of the money, provided Price's testimony was consistent with that, if Price's testimony was that he agreed with Kellogg to give him so much money, and then gave him those drafts on which the money was subsequently received; but if, on the other hand, Price's testimony was that he agreed to give Kellogg the postal drafts, and Kellogg took them with all the uncertainties hanging over them-for instance, with the contingency that the service might be cut off, and that therefore he would get nothing-if Price's testimony was to that effect, it seemed to me that the statute would run from the receipt of the drafts. There were various questions of that kind. I looked the matter up, and I think I made quite a brief upon it. My general idea was that Price would have testified so that the statute would not have barred the indictment.

The CHAIRMAN. I think if you will refer to page 209 of our record you will see that in your former testimony you took a different view. The WITNESS. I have a memorandum here that in some portion of my previous testimony I made a mistake as to the statute of limitations; that I expressed the opinion that the statute had run. I find the memorandum here before me, referring to page 210 of the record of this committee. I was wrong in saying that it was a settled thing that the statute of limitations had run as against Kellogg at that time, but we thought it had. In point of fact, the statement was that it might be claimed that it had run, and we had more or less discussion about it; but I cannot say how much detail was gone into on that question.

Q. Then there was no question at the time the Hutchinson grand jury was in session as to whether the statute had run?-A. At that time the statute had not run on either view of it. We got that grand jury reconvened, so as to get an indictment before the statute would run. It would run on the 1 th, I believe.

Q. Before it would run on any feature of the case?—A: Yes, sir. And now, as I am talking about that, let me say that Mr. Ker is mistaken in stating that he prepared any indictment for the previous grand jury in which the name of Kellogg was concerned.

Q. You mean the Hutchinson grand jury?—A. Mr. Ker says that he prepared one for the March grand jury. He says that twice over. I think that is an inadvertence on his part, because he is asked then how he got Kellogg's name, and he says he got it from the papers. Now, you will bear in mind that there never were any Government papers that contained Kellogg's name. The only papers that had it were those that Walsh produced, and Walsh's testimony is direct and affirmative that he did not produce those before the Mitchell grand jury.

By Mr. STEWART:

Q. Did not Kellogg sign a request for expedition, and did not his _name appear upon that?-A. It possibly did. If there was any member of Congress from the West or Southwest who did not sign such requests, he ought to be brought out as a curiosity.

Q. Did General Logan sign auy?- A. I don't remember.

Q. Did Mr. Springer?-A. I suspect that Mr. Springer's name can be found on some of the papers.

The CHAIRMAN. I think not.

The WITNESS. On the Dorsey trial we were met by the fact that these requests were brought in signed by many distinguished gentleinen, Secretary Teller and Senator Bowen and General Sherman and others. Those papers were brought in, piles of them, and part of the force of the claim made by the other side was in the fact that Brady appeared to have acted upon the strength of the requests of these legislators, whose wisdom and integrity was to be presumed.

By Mr. VAN ALSTYNE:

Q. What you mean is this, that when Mr. Ker says that he drew that indictment against Brady and Price and Kellogg, and submitted it to you, he is in error?-A. No; I say that he could not have drawn such an indictment for the March grand jury. Undoubtedly when the grand jury was reconvened, the time was short and the indictment was then drafted as Mr. Ker has described, and undoubtedly it was destroyed when the Hutchinson grand jury refused to indict.

Q. But at that time Brady and Price had been already indicted, and do you say you were going to couple their names again in a new indictment against them and Kellogg?-A. I do not know how that may have been, but you will see that there was no official paper that bore Kellogg's name on it from which he could have been indicted, and Walsh had not produced his papers or talked with the Government counsel at the time Mr. Ker drew his indictments for the March grand jury; 80 that Mr. Ker must be in error about that.

Q. Is it not a fact that your evidence upon that subject is more the result of argument in your own mind than recollection of a fact?—A. Of course 1 can have no personal knowledge of what Mr. Ker actually did. Mr. Ker may have drawn the indictment. I can only say that I never heard of an indictment with Kellogg's name in it being drawn for the March grand jury, and I do not believe that there was any.

Q. But you say that more as a matter of argument than as a matter of remembrance?-A. No; I remember that I never saw any such indictment, and never heard of it.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. Mr. Ker requests me to ask you whether Mr. Woodward did not prepare a brief for the March grand jury, on which Brady and Price and Kellogg were to be indicted ?-A. No, sir; I saw no such brief. There was never any such brief that came to my knowledge.

Q. You have stated that in discussing the propriety of accepting Price