me, as he has said all the way through, "I want this work to be done as you are doing it, in the spirit in which you are doing it; I want it to be done earnestly and thoroughly. I desire that these people shall be prosecuted with the utmost vigor of the law. I will give you all the help I can. You can come to me whenever you wish to, and I will do all I can to aid you." And he did so all the way through, without a moment's hesitation-always stood by me and strengthened me and gave me confidence. I went to the President about this matter of Mr. Corkhill's removal. I did not like the thought of removing Mr. Corkhill. The charge against him was only of a general character. Then, again, I regretted very much that he was not in the cases-not that Mr. Corkhill as an individual was not in the cases, for I knew but very little about him, but that the district attorney here was not engaged in the prosecutions. I thought he ought to take command of them. But it seemed that Attorney-General MacVeagh and the counsel had distrusted him from the beginning, and had refused to give him a position in the cases, and he complained very bitterly to me he had been excluded in a way that touched his honor and humbled him. The President said to me, "If you say this gentleman ought to be dismissed, dismiss him. You are to be the judge of that, and I will respect your judgment." Mr. Corkhill had just then been doing some very useful and, I thought, very effective work as district attorney in the Guiteau case; that case was unfinished, and I thought-I am not merely giving you my thoughts now-I not only thought but said that it would be a very unfair thing and a very impolitic thing to put him out of the district attorneyship when he was in charge of that case, which was one of national importance. The President agreed with me about that, and we both paused and hesitated about removing him. His removal was demanded to take place upon or before a given night; it was claimed it was necessary bills should be signed before the statute of limitations would run. Mr. Ker had that idea in his mind, and he, in conjunction with Mr. Bliss, came to see me and told me that Mr. Corkhill would refuse to sign the indictments when they were presented to him, and would put them in his pocket, and the practical result would be that the statute of limitations would have run. I had to act with promptitude, and I went to Mr. George F. Edmunds and conferred with him. I came away from the conference with the President authorized to have Mr. Corkhill removed and another person appointed, and I went to confer with Mr. Edmunds. I had a personal acquaintance with him and had a high esteem for him, as every person has who knows him. Then he was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, and would have to pass upon the act of removing Mr. Corkhill and appointing his successor, and for those reasons I went to confer with him upon the subject. We talked the matter over, and he agreed with me it would be a very harsh and a very impolitic thing to put Mr. Corkhill out at that time and under the circumstances. Mr. Edmunds also thought the district attorney ought to be in charge of the prosecutions if possible, but agreed with me that, as he had been theretofore excluded, it was too late to talk about that. Then, in conversation, I said, "I will have to obtain somebody to help Mr. Bliss, and I must have some one very soon ;" and Mr. Edmunds suggested Mr. Merrick should be selected and employed by me as an assistant. I had already considered that subject, and I agreed with him. Mr. Merrick was selected for the reason that it was considered a proper thing to disassociate the cases from all political feeling, and to select a prominent Democrat to appear in them for the Government with the other coun

sel already employed, so there could not be any charge of anything being done that was not known to all parties, and so that the prosecutions should be manifestly in the interest of the public and not of any party. Then I wrote Mr. Bliss a note, in which I was a little guarded about suggesting the employment of Mr. Merrick, because, out of a proper feeling of courtesy and delicacy, I did not want to put anybody in the cases without the entire assent of Mr. Bliss, believing that to do so would be both discourteous and impolitic. Mr. Bliss came to me and said he was well pleased to take Mr. Merrick. Mr. Merrick was absent from the city in Chicago. I telegraphed him, and upon his return he came to see me, and Mr. Bliss accepted him at once. Mr. Merrick considered the matter for a little while, a day or two, and then consented to accept the employment, and Mr. Bliss proceeded to instruct him in the cases. Before this, Mr. Bliss came to me and said," I am in a puzzle about the pleadings in these cases; I cannot draw them; I have not the proper facility at it, and I have not the time." I replied, "Select somebody, and whoever you select I will employ." He came back again and said, "I thought I had a man in New York, but when I come to reflect I am satisfied he will not do, and I wish you would select some suitable person." I thought a little while, but I then recalled only one person I believed was sufficiently skillful as a criminal draftsman, and that was Mr. Ker, who had been assistant district attor ney in Philadelphia, and had made considerable reputation there in connection with some very important bills he had drawn and that had met with open public approval of the court and the profession. I knew, too, that he was a faithful, diligent man. I was not intimate with him. I knew him and knew his reputation for respectability, industry, and integrity, and particularly for an aptitude for drafting criminal pleadings. I sent for him and he came, and, upon reflection, I concluded to employ him for another reason. He was a Democrat, and I preferred to commit the preparation of the pleadings in these cases to the hands of a Democrat, because party feeling was running quite high, and as the object of the Department was to conduct those prosecutions in the public interest and not in any way for party purposes, I was determined that if the pleadings should prove to be defective in any way, there should be no room for charging they had been made so intentionally from a desire to protect any of the parties indicted. Therefore, I employed Mr. Ker to draft the pleadings, and he immediately took charge of the matter, came to the Department of Justice, had rooms assigned to him and worked there for weeks with great indus try and perseverance, oftentimes till late in the night. I sent for Mr. Corkhill and told him exactly where he stood, and said to him, "It is in my power now to remove you on the spot." As I have already said, he complained with a good deal of feeling of the treatment he had received, and pledged me his honor that he had never thought of doing anything except his duty to the Government in connection with the cases. He did say that if he had been treated in a more considerate manner he would have been better pleased to have been out of the cases than in them, because he had personal relations with some of the defendants, and it would have been an unpleasant thing to have had to proceed against them; but, notwithstanding that consideration, he would have proceeded against them. He said that some of them were people once of high character and high official position with whom he had enjoyed close relations, but that would not have deterred him from performing his duty, and he then said to me, "Mr. AttorneyGeneral, if you will produce those bills of indictments to me, instead

of caviling over them as you have been told I would, I will put my name to them on the spot, in obedience to your command; and if at any time in the course of the proceedings you find me or hear of me doing anything which indicates that I am not faithful to the Govern ment, I am willing to be removed. I want to be tried by you and am willing to abide your judgment, and I am deeply in debt to you for your kindness to me in this instance." I said, "Wait," and I sent up-stairs where the bills were being prepared, and ascertained that they were nearly done, and at a very late hour in the night they were brought down to me. I handed them to Mr. Corkhill, and without a word he put his name to them then and there, that very night. That ended the transaction-that part of it. Mr. Bliss continued in charge of the cases as managing and controlling counsel, going before the grand jury, as I was informed, marshaling and arranging testimony, and working in the cases with diligence and energy, and, I thought, with considerable aptness. Mr. Ker prepared the indictments, as I have told you. Afterwards he went into court, and I was surprised to find him in court taking part in conducting the cases. My impression was, when he was first called to Washington to be employed in the cases, that he would only prepare bills and then appear in court to maintain the legal propriety and fitness of the bills for their purpose, in case any point of legal dispute should arise, any point that might be raised or any issues that the defendants might make in law, and after that he would retire. But the cases went along, and I found that he was appearing in court, and when I asked Mr. Bliss about it he said Mr. Ker had a knowledge of the details of the cases; that be, Mr. Bliss, was obliged frequently to be absent from court for a considerable time before the grand jury, and it was essential to keep Mr. Ker in the cases, because Mr. Merrick could not get along alone against ten or eleven counsel, and that there must be somebody to help him, and he had concluded to keep Mr. Ker. That was the way Mr. Ker came to be retained in the cases. He drifted into the conduct of the cases in court, but he was selected by Mr. Bliss for that purpose, with the concurrence of Mr. Merrick, as I was told, and he was actually engaged in that business for a week or ten days, or perhaps two weeks, before my attention was directed to the fact. When I observed it I asked Mr. Bliss about it, and he told me what I have stated, and I assented to Mr. Ker's continuing to take part in the proceedings in court. In a letter from Mr. Bliss, dated May 14, 1883, I find this passage, which justifies what I have said:

Ker, as you know, was brought into the case for his ability as a draftsman, and has justified your selection. He naturally remained so long as his indictment was to be defended, and so long as others were to be drawn. He has, naturally, drifted into the trials, and has been very useful, especially in the pending trial. Merrick has been essential as able local counsel. As for myself, the knowledge of the facts and papers I acquired in the genesis of the case has been of value.

Now, Mr. Chairman, if I am discursive, check me, and bring me back to the point; do not let me talk too long.

Q. Please state the circumstances under which Mr. Bliss left the starroute cases, and the amount of compensation which you agreed to pay him from time to time.-A. You will find my correspondence upon that subject in this Senate document No. 156. Mr. Bliss continued in the cases until about the time the Kellogg case was to be tried, when I concluded Mr. Merrick ought to leave the case, because there was a charge that he was influenced by malicious feelings toward Mr. Kellogg. Mr. Kellogg himself was very open in his denunciation of Mr. Merrick, as H. Mis. 38, pt. 2-54

having prompted the prosecution against him from malicious motives. I knew that was not true, because Mr. Bliss had told me Mr. Merrick knew nothing about the case when it began, but that it was developed in the course of the investigation and hearings before the grand jury, and had said that he, Mr. Bliss, had been accused by his friends of pushing the case a little too strictly, and Mr. Merrick had nothing to do with it. Mr. Merrick was very earnest in his desire to have the Kellogg case tried, upon the faith of what he had learned as to what Mr. Walsh could prove and what Mr. Price could testify. Mr. Woodward also was very earnest upon the subject. When Mr. Merrick left I requested Mr. Bliss to leave also. Mr. Merrick had often offered to leave, but I had retained him because I believed he had some influence over Mr. Walsh, and probably he could persuade Mr. Walsh in some way to come back here and testify when the case came to trial. I thought, too, that he had knowledge of the case that was valuable, and it would be important to keep him. Mr. Walsh was proclaiming by his published letters all the while that Mr. Bliss was favoring Kellogg and was hostile to him, Walsh. Mr. Bliss also was disinclined to remain in the case. He was willing to stay if required, but he did not desire it, and he was disinclined to pursue the case, I thought, and I therefore considered it better, both on account of the saving of expense and for other reasons, to part with both the counsel. Mr. Merrick wrote a letter announcing his withdrawal, and I wrote a note to Mr. Bliss, stating I would dispense with his services, and he retired. He sent a bill to the Department in the latter part of 1883 and insisted upon its being paid. It was for $9,200. It was for services down to November 19, 1883. The bill was approved by the Auditor of the Department and passed over to the Comptroller's Office, and the Comptroller called upon me to have Mr. Bliss apportion his bill. You will find the correspondence on the subject in this Senate document. Mr. Bliss resisted that. He said the Comptroller desired that the bill should be apportioned between two fiscal years, and to this he resolutely objected, but it was evident from the face of the bill the services had been rendered within the two fiscal years, and yet he resisted the Comptroller's demand. You will find in his letter very urgent complaint about it, and he was importunate to have the bill paid in the present fiscal year and was not pleasant-indeed I thought he was very uncivil about it. However, I tried to placate him. I wanted to have peace with everybody in the case, and did not wish to have our relations disturbed, but I gave him to understand in a letter that it was a matter of indifference to me in what fiscal year the services were paid, but that I could not rule the Comptroller, I could not regulate his judg ment, and the judgment of the Comptroller was the judgment of the law upon the subject, and, therefore, the apportionment ought to be made. After resisting the requirements of the Comptroller in the way I have described, he did apportion $4,700 of the bill in the last fiscal year and $4,500 in the present fiscal year. I was away at New Orleans arguing a case for the Government, and the Solicitor-General paid Mr. Bliss $2,500 out of the amount which he then said was due for the present fiscal year. When I came home and investigated the bill it struck me it was a very pe culiar thing Mr. Bliss should be charging for services in the present fiscal year. I did not see where the services were rendered, except some service in the Kellogg case and some in the matter where Mr. Spencer was arrested and brought here to be punished for contempt of court in avoiding the subpoena. I called upon Mr. Bliss by letter to explain it. Most of these services, which I assumed had been rendered in the last trial of the Dorsey case, had been rendered in the last fiscal year

Mr. Bliss took issue with me, and was very angry and cross in his letters upon the subject, and almost refused to answer my inquiry. It ended in his giving me this statement (all of which appears in his letters) that he had gone to New York, and had taken the papers of the untried star-route cases-the criminal cases-and had inspected them there in his office with a view to determining what ought to be done with them in the future, and that the charges for services in the present fiscal year, which came to $4,500, were for that service. Upon the 11th of February I wrote a letter to Mr. Bliss, which is published in this Senate document, in which I said I could not allow those charges; I never had authorized him or anybody else, at that expensive rate of compensation, to take those papers to New York and examine them; that I had not yet determined there was a necessity for it; if the papers were to be examined in that way the other counsel ought to have done it with him, and they might, with like propriety, have done it alone as he had, and if they had each done the work in the same way that he alone had done, I would have a very extravagant bill to settle at the rate at which he charged for his services, and, in short, I must decline to allow the bill. After this letter of mine dated 11th February, refusing to allow this charge, upon the 18th of February, Mr. Bliss made a restatement of his case. His letter making the restatement is also in this Senate document. In that restatement, instead of putting $4,700 of his bill in the last fiscal year, as he had done in the first apportionment, he put $6,400. He changed his whole apportionment and brought over a portion of the amount from the present fiscal year to the last fiscal year. After he had my letter of the 11th of February, on the 18th of February he made the amount due him on the last fiscal year to be $6,750, done by him evidently to escape the effect of my ruling rejecting his claim for these services said to have been performed by him in New York. This correspondence occupied some time, and Mr. Bliss complained very bitterly of the delay and wrote me very rude letters about it. I thought he had received a large sum of money from the Government, and could afford to wait until I could fully investigate the matter. I gave it to different officers of the Department, whose duty it was to make such investigations, and they investigated it and made reports to me. I then took it up myself, and made it the subject of a special finding, and here is a copy of that finding taken from the record, which I will ask to have appended to my statement. You will read I there told him he had done a very improper thing; that it was experimenting with the Department; that he, in the first place, had made his apportionment deliberately; that he knew what services he had rendered in the last fiscal year, knew all about it, yet he had now changed the amount from $4,700 to $6,700, the practical effect of which would be to avoid my ruling of the 11th of February. I told him I thought, and believed, he had been overpaid, and that I would not allow that account, and Í did not. He then, at or about that time or a little before that time, presented a special, distinct, account of $2,000 and some odd for serv ices, as he said, rendered in the Spencer case and the Kellogg case, and I reduced it, as you will discover in the report I have handed you That is all I have to say about that question of compensation. I have here a sort of tabular statement which you may have for your record. [The statement here referred to will be found among the papers appended to this testimony of the Attorney-General.]

Q. That account is still unadjusted?-A. There is $4,700 due to him on last year's account. It is unpaid.

Q. But allowed?-A. Yes, sir; it is allowed. He claimed to make it