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bach's accounts as deputy marshal were examined, and he was found to be implicated in a way that subsequently led to his indictment. The facts were unknown to the Department, never discovered, and never thought of, until his appointment had been made and he was in possession of his office. He was then indicted, and you know the rest of it. Q. From the sequence of those events, it would appear that the appointment of Strobach suggested to Booth to give the information to the Department?-A. It was entirely in consequence of that telegram the investigation was made. Mr. Bowman will tell you he was down there to investigate Osborn, not Strobach, and that he had no idea of pursu ing Strobach until he received this telegram directing his attention to the matter. Osborn was then out of office and Strobach had been ap pointed. The investigation was made, and it developed the facts for which he was afterwards indicted, and which were then for the first time discovered or thought of by the Department.

By Mr. STEWART:

Q. Strobach was acquitted, was he not?-A. He was acquitted on one bill. There were several other bills against him. Then there was a strenuous opposition and serious complaint made by him, and a violent outcry spread by means of the Associated Press all over the country, that Mr. Cameron had persecuted him; in consequence of which I detailed Mr. Blair to examine all the papers. As soon as the stenographic report of the trial containing all the evidence and all the proceedings, with the speeches of counsel and the judge's charge and all the papers came, they were given to Mr. Blair. I then sent him down to Alabama and he investigated the matter there, and he came back and made a report to me he was of the opinion that Mr. Strobach was guilty, and that it was the opinion there while he was marshal he could not be convicted. Mr. Blair also expressed doubt as to whether or not he could be convicted at any rate. He also said there was a question as to whether or not the trial upon that one bill did not virtually include in effect all the other bills. I then directed the papers to be sent to Mr. Bentley, of the Department of Justice, not giving him Mr. Blair's report, but asking him to make a report upon those papers as to what ought to be done. Mr. Bentley, without knowing Mr. Blair's opinion, gave a written opinion of his own that, in his judgment, Mr. Strobach was guilty and ought to have been convicted, and he suggested that perhaps there was some doubt as to whether or not he ought to be tried again, as there was a question whether or not one acquittal did not virtually in law avoid the other indictments. Then I sent the case to Mr. Maury, solicitor for the Department in the Supreme Court of the United States, the first assistant. He, not knowing what the others had done, gave a similar opinion. Then I gave the case to Mr. Solicitor-General Phillips and Mr. Simons conjointly, and they examined it and came to a like conclusion, but suggested that probably there had better be another trial, stating they were satisfied the man was guilty. After reflecting upon the matter, I finally concluded, as there was a doubt, I would, with considerable misgiving, dismiss the other prosecutions, to avoid expense and to give Mr. Strobach the benefit of the legal doubts in his case, and because it was clear to me while he was marshal there could be no conviction, and I did dismiss them, and that ended the proceedings. That is the history of the case.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. You reported all those facts, I believe to the Senate, at their re

quest?-A. The Judiciary Committee of the Senate called upon me for the reports of these gentlemen, with my findings, and I sent the Sen

ate the whole of them.

Q. Mr. Strobach's appointment was rejected by the Senate ?-A. It was rejected.

Q. Then there was no difference of opinion between you and the President with regard to the propriety of your course in that matter?— A. The President said if there was any persecution it ought to be stopped and the matter investigated. He did not like the idea of a man he had just appointed to office being prosecuted, and he wished me to have the matter investigated. I informed him of the reports that had been made, and there it rested.

Q. Did Mr. Bliss insist upon it that the appointment was a condoning of past offenses?-A. He did not use the word "condoning" or "condone" in a letter, but he wrote me a letter in which he maintained the doctrine that where the President had made an appointment, the subsequent prosecution of the person appointed was improper, no matter when the facts were discovered or known, and he did say to Mr. Cameron that the appointment condoned the offense, and he also said it in words to me. That is how I came to use the word in connection with this subject. Mr. Bliss acknowledged to me he had had a conver sation with Mr. Cameron upon this subject, in which he had maintained that doctrine, and I reprehended it and refused to listen to such a proposition.

By Mr. STEWART:

Q. I do not know what the object of this inquiry is, but Mr. Bliss, I suppose, had no official relations to that matter, one way or the otherno relations except as an individual?-A. He spoke as if speaking by higher authority, but really he had no more right to interfere with it than any other man you would meet in the street. He had nothing to do with it, and that made his act offensively intrusive and unmannerly. Q. So that it is a mere personal matter as regards Mr. Bliss. No man connected with the administration has entertained or expressed any such view?-A. I do not think there is any gentleman in the ad ministration who would have the hardihood to stand up and maintain such a doctrine. If he did, he had better prepare to leave office. I think public sentiment would put him out.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. Mr. Bliss's report in reference to the Ottman case has been brought to the attention of this committee; do you remember that report-A. I think you called my attention to it because Mr. Bliss made some allusion to it in connection with Mr. Cameron.

The CHAIRMAN. No; that was in relation to the case of Strobach. Mr. Bliss said in his testimony that he had told Mr. Ker that if the course of the Department of Justice was continued Brewster Cameron or some one must leave.

The WITNESS. Mr. Cameron reported to me that Mr. Bliss had said if these things were persisted in I would have to leave the Cabinet. They have been persisted in and I have not left the Cabinet. But they have not been persisted in any other way than a proper way. Where the guilt of persons nominated for office was not known to the Department at the time of their nomination and where it was discovered afterwards, they have been duly prosecuted according to law.

Q. Please explain now what action the Department took in reference to the Ottman case?-A. After I came into office I had a great deal of

débris to clear off that had been left on my hands in consequence of the condition of things after General Garfield was wounded. There was a mass of matter that had to be cleared out and I had to learn the routine duties of the office, of which I had no previous knowledge. At that time, shortly after I became Attorney-General, Mr. Bliss came to me and told me there was a case there called the Ottman case and stated there was a considerable sum of money withheld and either attached or in the keeping of the Government officials, money which the man had been charged with stealing, but that he had been acquitted.

Q. Did he say Ottman had been acquitted or that the jury had disagreed?-A. My impression is he said the man had been acquitted. I learned afterwards there had been a disagreement of the jury, but the impression Mr. Bliss left upon my mind was that there had been an acquittal. I do not think he meant to mislead me at all; I am sure he did not; but that was the impression I got from what he said. He said the money ought to be disposed of, that it should go somewhere, and somebody was entitled to it; that the Government had rested without acting for ten years. He came severaltimes to see me upon the subject. I inquired of the chief clerk about it and quite a mass of papers were laid before me. I had no time to examine those papers. Mr. Bliss seemed to be very anxious and earnest about it, and in consequence of that I said to him: "To whom shall I refer these papers? I cannot examine them. It is out of my power to examine them." He suggested that somebody should be appointed to take them in hand. I said, "Well, to whom shall I refer them?" I did not understand much about the machinery of the office at that time. As I know now, the proper person to have referred them to would have been the Solicitor-General, but if I had sent them to him then it would have delayed the matter, because he was at that time before the Supreme Court attending to his list there, and the object, as presented by Mr. Bliss with urgency, was to get rid of the case then. Mr. Bliss named several gentlemen, none of whom I had ever heard of, and as he named them he rejected them, saying, This one won't do for this reason, and that one won't do for that reason; and it ended by my turning to him and saying, "You seem to know all about this case; why cannot you take it up and examine it?" He said, after some momentary hesitation, he would do it provided he would be permitted to do it without compensation. I said, "Why cannot you be paid for your services? If you are going to render the service you may as well be paid." He said he would accept no compensation, but he would take the case in charge and examine it thoroughly for me, and let me know what there was really in it. After some time, not very long, ten days, two weeks, or, maybe, a month, he made a report upon the subject, and I accepted and adopted that report. It is all in the papers. I have not read them since the time, but I read them all then and approved his report, and that was the last I heard or thought of the matter. I took Mr. Bliss's action in the case, because I had confidence in him. Then, too, I knew he was an old district attorney and had large experience in matters of that kind, and I thought as this was an affair that had arisen out of a prosecution by the district attorney here, Mr. Bliss would be the most suitable man I could find to take charge of it. It was for these reasons I took him, and I accepted his report and adopted it, and believed I was doing what was right. I thought it was a proper thing to do on the facts as they were reported and the case stated by him in the report.

Q. Then you acted entirely upon the judgment and recommendation of Mr. Bliss?-A. I did, wholly. That is, I consulted no other person.

Nobody else spoke to me upon the subject. Mr. Corkhill wrote a letter, which is on record, in which he sustains the facts as found by Mr. Bliss

Q. You did not personally examine the details of the case?-A. I read all that Mr. Bliss wrote and reported about it.

Q. You knew what he stated in his report ?-A. As he gave it.

By Mr. STEWART:

Q. Have you any reason now to doubt the propriety of his view of the case?-A. Since I read in the newspapers what Governor Wells said here about the time of the beginning of this investigation, I do not think that if, at the time I was conferring with Mr. Bliss, I had known and believed what Governor Wells states, I would have confirmed Mr. Bliss's report.

Q. That would depend upon whether Governor Wells was right or whether Mr. Bliss was right, would it not?—A. Certainly; but I mean that what has been stated by Governor Wells would have persuaded me to stop and inquire further, and I would not have confirmed that report immediately, as I did. I would have inquired further.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. In what respect does Governor Wells's report differ from Mr. Bliss's-A. Governor Wells, I believe, denies some of the statements that Mr. Bliss makes.

By Mr. STEWART:

Q. What had Governor Wells to do with the case?-A. He was the prosecuting officer when this man Ottman was prosecuted, but at the time Mr. Bliss took up the case I was assured by all who were consulted as reported by Mr. Bliss, that there was really no chance of getting a conviction.

Q. And therefore, in that view of the case, Mr. Bliss contended that it would be wise and expedient, and best on the whole, to make that compromise?-A. I thought at the time it was a proper thing to do, and I have only had a doubt raised in my mind by reading what Gov. ernor Wells said, as to whether I would not have paused and inquired further before confirming Mr. Bliss's report.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. At the time you confirmed that report you were of the opinion that civil suits for the recovery of the money would not be successful?-A. Yes, sir; I was advised and I thought it was hardly possible to recover that money. If I had been advised or had thought there was a chance of recovering the money-any chance-I should have declined to compromise.

By Mr. STEWART:

Q. Mr. Bliss expresses the opinion now, does he not, that there was not any chance of recovering the money?-A. He said so to me at the time.

Q. Well, he so testified before this committee, I believe?-A. So I understand; I did not read his testimony.

Q. You have no reason to suppose that he acted in bad faith ?—A. No. I hope you do not think I said so.

Mr. STEWART. No, you did not.

The WITNESS. I said a little while ago, when Mr. Bliss told me the man had been acquitted, he did not mean to mislead me; I was very sure he did not.

The CHAIRMAN. If Ottman had been acquitted that would have been the end of the case, would it not?

The WITNESS. I have told you subsequently I found out he had not been acqutted. I mention that because I have a distinct recollection at the time the case was first presented to me, when Mr. Bliss told me the man had been acquitted, I wondered why the money had not been handed over; that puzzled me. I said to myself, "Here is a man acquitted. Why do not they give him the money?" But subsequently I ascertained he had not been acquitted, but the jury had disagreed, and that was the reason of the money being impounded.

By Mr. STEWART:

Q. Mr. Attorney-General, let me ask you a general question with reference to the conduct of the star route cases about which so much has been said-whether you have any reason to believe from any fact that transpired in the history of that prosecution, or anything in the conduct of Mr. Merrick or Mr. Bliss, that either of them omitted to do anything that he was required to do as a matter of duty, or did anything in violation of his professional duty and employment?-A. I would be very sorry to believe any such thing, and I do not believe it, from any knowl edge I have. I think they did their duty to the best of their ability. I was very much startled at one time, just before the first trial ended, by an interview that was published, purporting to have been had with Mr. Bliss at Alexandria Bay, which I did not believe. I thought it was some newspaper misstatement by somebody who had taken a great liberty with him, and I said so then. Shortly after that there was a letter published by Mr. Bliss, explaining that interview, which I thought was a very incautious letter, particularly as the case had not ended; but I never supposed, and I never was willing to believe, that Mr. Bliss had been guilty of any premeditated infidelity to the case.

Q. My question, of course, bears only upon the point of good faith. I did not mean to ask whether the counsel had not made mistakes. Any lawyer is, of course, liable to make a mistake, and if Mr. Bliss published any such letter as to the weakness of the case it would seem to have been a mistake.-A. I have answered you. I say I did not believe and would not be willing to believe that Mr. Bliss or Mr. Merrick had been guilty of any infidelity to the case, from any knowledge that I possess.

Q. You have already said that so far as the President is concerned he has never manifested any other disposition or desire than that the cases should be thoroughly prosecuted, and you have said that he told you he was ready to afford you any aid he could to see that justice was done.-A. Yes. When I went into office the first thing the President said to me was, he wished me to take especial charge of those star-route cases, he wished me to give them my especial and careful attention, and he would do any and all things that I should call upon him to do to assist me in having the cases thoroughly investigated and tried. And, from the beginning to the end, he has continued to act in that spirit, has always assisted me, confided in me, and strengthened me in everything I have done. I feel that the President's help and confidence have been of very great value to me in pursuing those cases. Q. Please state whether that attitude and conduct of the President extended to the Kellogg case.-A. Why, certainly. I said the starroute cases. I made no distinction between them. I hope you do not think I intended to make any.

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