Chapter VIII: The Noontide (1)

In troublous times when tides and winds blew high,
And one stood peerless in the public gaze,
A sentinel upon the battlements
Of state, the babbling miscreants said, Go to!
Let us assail him!

James Abram Garfield was an honest man. You could not have known him and thought otherwise; you can not know the story of his life, and think him ever dishonored. His character was as clear as crystal; truth illumined his soul alway, and there the shadows of insincerity never fell.

Nevertheless, General Garfield could not escape the slime of the mud-slingers. Charges were made against him which, if true, would have made our Hyperion a degraded and filthy Satyr.

The time has come when Garfield’s character needs no defense. To-day the whole world believes in him. When the hurricane came he boldly and successfully vindicated himself. Then the people ratified his declarations by their suffrages. Finally, History has set her great seal upon the judgment in his favor.

The three principal accusations made against Mr. Garfield were in their day known respectively as the _Credit Mobilier Steal_, the _Salary Grab_, and the _De Gollyer Bribery_. A formidable array!

There was a time when the biographer of Garfield would have been forced to devote a volume to these charges in order to refute them. Now a few pages will suffice; and their chief purpose, indeed, must only be to show how Garfield himself treated them.

The charges all came upon him at once. When elected to Congress in 1872, for the sixth time, Garfield seemed to have a life estate in his office. Before the next election came, it looked as if he never could be elected again.

In the winter of 1872–3, came the Credit Mobilier exposure; early in ’73, followed the Salary Grab; and finally, in 1874, the De Gollyer scandal appeared.

These troubles were met in the only way that could have succeeded, and also in the only way possible to Garfield’s nature—openly and manfully. Writing to his friend Hinsdale, he said: “The district is lost, and as soon as I can close up affairs here I am coming home to capture it.”

While at Washington, in 1873, he prepared two exhaustive pamphlets—one entitled “Review of the Transactions of the Credit Mobilier Company,” and the other “The Increase of Salaries.” These papers, and the general discussions which were going on at the same time, threw much light on the subjects. But the opportunity was too good for politicians to lose, and it was only after a desperate struggle that Mr. Garfield was renominated and reëlected in 1874.

But the victory was gained, and from that time on the Reserve never ceased to grow stronger, year by year, in faith in General Garfield.

Instead of a reproduction of the extensive literature on these subjects, which political necessities alone occasioned, it will suffice here to quote from a speech which in brief covered the whole field. This address was made to his constituents, at Warren, O., on September 19, 1874. September 19—anniversary of Chickamauga, and of the day of his death!

* * * * *

The reply proper began thus:

“There are three things which I propose to discuss; two of them may
hardly be said to refer to my public career, one of them directly to
my official work. The first one I refer to is my alleged connection
with

THE CREDIT MOBILIER.

“There is a large number of people in the United States who use
these words without any adequate idea of what they mean. I have no
doubt that a great many people feel about it very much as the
fishwoman at Billingsgate market felt when Sidney Smith, the great
humorist of England, came along and began to talk with her. She
answered back in a very saucy way, and he finally commenced to call
her mathematical names; he called her a parallelogram, a
hypothenuse, a parallelopipedon, and other such terms, and she stood
back aghast and said she never heard such a nasty talking man in her
life—never was abused so before. Now people think they have said an
enormous thing when they say that somebody had something to do with
the Credit Mobilier. I ask your attention just for a few moments to
what that thing is, and in the next place to understand precisely
what it is that I am supposed to have had to do with it.

“The Credit Mobilier was a corporation chartered in 1859 by the
State of Pennsylvania, and authorized to build houses, buy lands,
loan money, etc. Nothing of consequence was done with that company
until the year 1867, when a number of men bought up whatever stock
there was in it, and commenced to do a very large business. In the
winter of 1867, Mr. Train came to me and showed me a list of names
and subscribers to the stock of the Credit Mobilier Company, and
asked me to subscribe $1,000. I should say there were fifteen or
twenty members of Congress on the list, and many more prominent
business men. He said that the company was going to buy lands along
the lines of the Pacific Railroad at places where they thought
cities and villages would grow up, and to develop them, and he had
no doubt that the growth of the country would make that investment
double itself in a very short time.

“That was the alleged scheme that the Credit Mobilier Company had
undertaken—a thing that if there is any gentleman in Warren who
would feel any hesitancy in buying, it would be because he didn’t
believe in the growth of the country where the business was to be
done. That stock was offered to me as a plain business proposition,
with no intimation whatever that it was offered because the
subscribers were members of Congress, for it was offered to many
other people, and no better men lived than at least a large number
of the gentlemen to whom it was offered. Some of them took it at
once. Some men are cautious about making an investment; others are
quick to determine. To none of those men was any explanation made
that this Credit Mobilier Company was in any way connected with a
ring of seven men who owned the principal portion of the stock and
who had contracted with the directors of the Union Pacific road for
building six or seven hundred miles at an extravagant price, largely
above what the work was worth. That was a secret held only by those
seven men who owned the principal portion of the stock. It is now
understood that Mr. Oakes Ames, who was the center of the company of
seven men, sought to gain the friendship of fifteen or twenty
prominent Congressmen with the view of protecting himself and the
Pacific Railroad against any investigations which might be made; but
it was a necessary part of his plan not to divulge that purpose or
in any way to intimate to them that he might draw upon them for
favors.

“Long before any such purpose was realized, long before any
pressure came upon Mr. Ames, most of the men who had been invited
to purchase that stock had either declined to purchase or had
purchased and realized, or had purchased and sold out. But in
1872, in the midst of the Presidential campaign, an article was
published in the public journals charging that sixteen prominent
members of Congress—Senators and Representatives—had sold their
votes for money or stock; that they had accepted bribes. You
remember that I was running for Congress in this district at that
time. When that news came I was away in the Rocky Mountains. I
came home, and the first day after my arrival at Washington I
authorized to be published a statement concerning what I knew
about the Oakes Ames business. A great many people suppose now and
say—and it has been repeated a hundred times in this district, and
especially in this town during the last two weeks—that Mr.
Garfield hedged and denied any knowledge of the Credit Mobilier
business, until finally the investigation brought it out. I repeat
that immediately on my arrival in Washington I made a statement to
the correspondent of the Cincinnati _Gazette_, of which the
following is a copy:

“‘WASHINGTON, September 15, 1872.

“‘General Garfield, who has just arrived here from the Indian
country, has to-day the first opportunity of seeing the charges
connecting his name with receiving shares of the Credit Mobilier
from Oakes Ames. He authorizes the statement that he never
subscribed for a single share of the stock, and that he never
received or saw a share of it. When the company was first formed,
George Francis Train, then active in it, came to Washington and
exhibited a list of subscribers, of leading capitalists and some
members of Congress, to the stock of the company. The subscription
was described as a popular one of $1,000 cash. Train urged General
Garfield to subscribe on two occasions, and each time he declined.
Subsequently he was again informed that the list was nearly
completed, but that a chance remained for him to subscribe, when he
again declined, and to this day he has not subscribed for or
received any share of stock or bond of the company.’

“Now I want my audience to understand that in the midst of that
storm and tempest of accusation, and only a little while before the
election, I started it and let it go broadcast to the daily press,
that I did know something about the Credit Mobilier; that I had on
two occasions discussed the matter; that I had taken it into
consideration, and that finally I had declined to subscribe; that I
never had owned or held a share; had never seen a certificate of the
stock. Now, I am not asking you at this moment, to discuss the truth
of that statement, but only to say that I stated it long before
there was any investigation talked of; that I never dodged or evaded
or denied having knowledge on the subject, but at the first declared
plainly and finally what I did know about it.

“When Congress met, Speaker Blaine and the rest of us whose names
were concerned in it, at once, on the first morning of the session,
demanded a committee of investigation to go through with the whole
subject from beginning to end. I want those gentlemen who talk about
Mr. Garfield being got after by committees of investigation to know
that no investigation into any public affair has been held in the
last three years in Washington that I have not helped to organize
and bring about. [Applause.]

THE COMMITTEE OF INVESTIGATION.

“Now what was the investigation? You will remember that before the
investigation had gone far a feeling of alarm and excitement swept
over the whole country that has hardly been paralleled in American
history. Some men whose names were connected with the charges of the
Credit Mobilier matter, shocked at the terrible charge of bribery
thrown at them, in the hurry of the moment so far forgot themselves
as to give equivocal answers as to whether they knew any thing about
the matter or not, and the impression was made throughout the
country that most of them had denied that they knew any thing about
it. The fact was that the country was settling down to the belief
that the whole thing was a mere campaign slander, and had no
foundation in fact. Looking at the subject from this distance, I am
inclined to believe that the impression left upon the American mind
is that the faults of those who were charged with buying stock was
not that they did any thing wrong in reference to the stock, but
that afterwards they prevaricated, or lied about it. Now, without
discussing any body else, I call you to witness that I stated at
once what I knew about it the first time that I knew the thing was
going the rounds of the newspapers. When the committee of
investigation came to make up

THEIR REPORT

there was one thing in that report to which I personally took
exception, and only one. I understand that a gentleman occupied this
room a few nights ago who undertook to make the impression upon his
audience that Mr. Garfield was found guilty of some improper
relation with the Credit Mobilier. Let me read you a sentence or two
from that report. The committee say:

“Concerning the members to whom he had sold or offered to sell the
stock, the committee say that they ‘do not find that Mr. Ames, in
his negotiations with the persons above named, entered into any
detail of the relations between the Credit Mobilier Company and the
Union Pacific Company, or gave them any specific information as to
the amount of dividends they would be likely to receive further than
has been already stated, viz., that in some cases he had guaranteed
a profit of ten per cent.... They do not find as to the members of
the present House above named, that they were aware of the object of
Mr. Ames, or that they had any other purpose in taking this stock
than to make a profitable investment.... They have not been able to
find that any of these members of Congress have been affected in
their official action in consequence of interest in the Credit
Mobilier stock.... They do not find that either of the above-named
gentlemen, in contracting with Mr. Ames, had any corrupt motive or
purpose himself, or was aware that Mr. Ames had any. Nor did either
of them suppose he was guilty of any impropriety or even indelicacy
in becoming a purchaser of this stock.’ And, finally, ‘that the
committee find nothing in the conduct or motives of either of these
members in taking this stock, that calls for any recommendation by
the committee of the House.’ (See pp. viii, ix, x.)

“In Mr. Ames’s first testimony he names sixteen members of Congress
to whom he offered the stock, and says that eleven of them bought
it, but he sets Mr. Garfield down among the five who did not buy it.

“He says: ‘He (Garfield) did not pay for it or receive it.... He
never paid any money on that stock or received money on account of
it.’ Let me add that the last grant to the Union Pacific Railroad
was by the act of July, 1864, and that Oakes Ames had nothing to do
with the Credit Mobilier till more than two years after that date.

“The point to which I took exception to the report of the committee
was this: the report held that Mr. Ames and Mr. Garfield did agree
upon the purchase of the stock, and that Mr. Garfield received three
hundred and twenty-nine dollars on account of it. I insisted that
the evidence did not warrant that conclusion, and rose in my place
in the House, and announced that I should make that statement good
before the American public; that I held myself responsible to
demonstrate that the committee was wrong; that although they charged
me with no wrong, they still had made a mistake of fact, which was
against the evidence and an injustice to me. Soon after, I published
a pamphlet of twenty-eight pages, in which I carefully and
thoroughly reviewed all the testimony relating to me. I have now
stood before the American people, since the eighth day of May, 1873,
announcing that the following propositions were proven concerning
myself: that I had never agreed even to take the stock of Mr. Ames;
that I never subscribed for it, never did take it, never received
any dividends from it, and was never in any way made a beneficiary
by it. Seven thousand copies of that pamphlet have been distributed
through the United States. Almost every newspaper in the United
States has had a copy mailed to it. Every member of the Forty-Second
Congress—Democrat and Republican—had a copy, and there is not known
to me a man who, having read my review, has denied its
conclusiveness of those propositions after having read them. I have
seen no newspaper review of it that denies the conclusiveness of the
propositions. It is for these reasons that a great public journal,
the New York _Evening Post_, said a few days ago that on this point
‘General Garfield’s answer had been received by the American people
as satisfactory.’ [Applause.] If there is any gentleman in this
audience, who desires to ask any question concerning the Credit
Mobilier, I shall be glad to hear it. [No response.] If not, would
it not be about as well to modify the talk on that subject
hereafter? [Applause.]

“Now the next thing I shall mention is a question purely of official
conduct—and that is a subject which has grown threadbare in this
community, and yet I desire your attention to it for a few moments.
I refer to

THE INCREASE OF OFFICIAL SALARIES,

one year and a half ago. First, what are the accusations concerning
me?

“There are several citizens in this town who have signed their names
to statements in the newspapers during that discussion, declaring
that Mr. Garfield had committed a theft, a robbery; that, to use the
plain Saxon word, he was a thief,—that any man who took, or voted
for a retroactive increase of salary, was a thief. In one of these
articles it was argued in this wise: ‘If I hire a clerk in my bank
on a certain salary, and he, having the key to my safe, takes out
five hundred or five thousand dollars more than we agreed for, and
puts it in his pocket, it is simply theft or robbery. He happened to
have access to the funds, and he got hold of them; so did Congress.
You can’t gloss it over,’ says the writer, ‘it is robbery.’

“Now, fellow-citizens, I presume you will agree that you can wrong
even the devil himself, and that it is not right or manly to lie,
even about Satan. I take it for granted that we are far enough past
the passion of that period to talk plainly and coolly about the
increase of salaries.

“Now, in the first place, I say to-night, what I have said through
all this tempest that for a Congress to increase its own pay and
make it retroactive, is not theft, is not robbery, and you do
injustice to the truth when you call it so. There is ground enough
in which to denounce it without straining the truth. Now if Congress
can not fix its own salary, who can? The Constitution of your
country says, in unmistakable words, that ‘Senators and
Representatives shall receive a compensation, to be ascertained by
law, and paid out of the National Treasury.’ Nobody makes the law
but Congress. It was a very delicate business in the beginning, for
our fathers to make a law paying themselves money. They understood
it so, and when they sent the Constitution out to the several
States, the question was raised, whether it would not be better to
put a curb upon Congress in reference to their own pay; and in
several of the States suggestions were sent in. When the First
Congress met, James Madison offered seventeen amendments to the
Constitution; and, finally, Congress voted to send twelve of the
proposed amendments to the country: one of them was this: ‘No law
varying the compensation of the Senators or Representatives in
Congress shall take effect until an election has intervened.’ In
other words, the First Congress proposed that an amendment should be
made to the new Constitution, that no Congress could raise its own
pay, and make it retroactive. That was sent to the States for their
ratification. The States adopted ten of those amendments. Two, they
rejected; and this was one of the two. They said it should not be in
the Constitution. The reason given for its rejection, by one of the
wisest men of that time, was this. He said: ‘If we adopt it, this
may happen; one party will go into power in a new Congress, but,
just before the old Congress expires, the defeated party may pass a
law reducing the pay of Congressmen to ten cents a day.’

“It will never do thus to put one Congress into the power of
another, it would be an engine of wrong and injustice. For this
reason, our fathers refused to put into the Constitution a clause
that would prevent back pay. Now it will not do to say that a
provision that has been deliberately rejected from the Constitution,
is virtually there, and it will not do to say that it is just to
call it theft and robbery for Congress to do what it has plainly the
constitutional right to do. I use the word right in its legal sense.

“Now, take another step. I hold in my hand here, a record of all the
changes of pay that have been made since this Government was
founded, and in every case,—I am not arguing now that it is right at
all, I am only giving you a history of it—in every single instance
when Congress has raised its pay, it has raised it to take effect
from the first day of the session of the Congress. Six times
Congress has increased its own pay, and every time it made the pay
retroactive. I say again, I am not arguing that this was right and
proper; I am only arguing that it was lawful and constitutional to
do it. In 1856, the pay was raised, and was made retroactive, for a
year and four months, and the member of Congress from this district
threw the casting vote that made it a law. That act raised the pay
by a larger per cent. than the act of last Congress. Joshua R.
Giddings was the one-hundredth man that voted aye. Ninety-nine voted
no. Joshua R. Giddings’s vote the other way would have turned the
score against it. That vote gave back pay for a year and four
months. That vote gave Congress nine months’ back pay for a time
when members would not have been entitled to any thing whatever,
because, under the old law, they were paid only during the session.
What did this district do? Did it call him a thief and a robber? A
few weeks after that vote this district elected him to Congress for
the tenth time. Have the ethics of the world changed since 1856?
Would I be a thief and robber in 1873, if I had done what my
predecessor did in 1856? In 1866, the pay was raised; that time it
was put in the appropriation bill (a very important appropriation
bill), a bill giving bounties to soldiers. It passed through the
Senate and came to the House; there was a disagreement about it.
Senator Sherman, of Ohio, had charge of the bill in the Senate, and
voted against the increase of pay every time when it came up on its
own merits, but he was out-voted. Finally it went to a committee of
conference, and he was made chairman of the committee of conference.
The conference report between the two houses was made in favor of
the bill. Mr. Sherman brought in the report, saying when he brought
it in, that, he had been opposed to the increase of pay, but the
Senate had overruled him. He voted for the conference report, voted
for the final passage of the bill. That bill gave back pay for a
year and five months. Was John Sherman denounced as a thief and
robber for that? Was Benjamin F. Wade called a thief and robber?

“At that time I was not chairman of the committee, and had no other
responsibility than that of an individual representative. I voted
against the increase of salary then; at all stages I voted against
the conference report, but it passed through the House on final vote
by just one majority. I don’t remember that any body ever praised
me, particularly, for voting against that report, and I never heard
any body blaming John Sherman for voting for it.

“Now, in 1873, the conditions were exactly the reverse. I was
chairman of the committee that had charge of the great appropriation
bill. There was put upon that bill, against my earnest protest, a
proposition to increase salaries. I take it there is no one here who
will deny that I worked as earnestly as I could to prevent the
putting of that increase upon the bill. I did not work against it
because it was a theft or robbery to put it on there; I worked
against it because I thought it was indecent, unbecoming, and in the
highest degree unwise and injudicious to increase the salaries at
that time. First, because they had been increased in 1866, and in
proportion to other salaries, Congressmen were paid enough—paid more
in proportion than most other officials were paid. Second, the glory
of the Congress had been that it was bringing down the expenditures
of the Government, from the highest level of war to the lowest level
of peace; and that if we raised our own salaries, unless the rise
had been made before, it would be the key-note on which the whole
tune of extravagance would be sung. I believed, too, that it would
seriously injure the Republican party, and on that score I thought
we ought to resist it. I did all in my power to prevent that
provision being added to the bill. I voted against it eighteen
times. I spoke against it, but by a very large vote in the House,
and a still larger vote in the Senate, the salary clause was put
upon the bill. I was captain of the ship, and this objectionable
freight had been put upon my deck. I had tried to keep it off. What
should I do? Burn the ship? Sink her? Or, having washed my hands of
the responsibility for that part of her cargo I had tried to keep
off, navigate her into port, and let those who had put this freight
on be responsible for it? Using that figure, that was the course I
thought it my duty to adopt. Now on that matter I might have made an
error of judgment. I believed then and now that if it had been in my
power to kill this bill, and had thus brought on an extra session, I
believe to-day, I say, had I been able to do that, I should have
been the worst blamed man in the United States. Why? During the long
months of the extra session that would have followed, with the evils
which the country would have felt by having its business disturbed
by Congress, and the uncertainties of the result, men would have
said all this has come about because we did not have a man at the
head of the Committee on Appropriations with nerve enough and force
enough to carry his bill through by the end of the session. The next
time we have a Congress, we had better see if we can not get a man
who will get his bills through. Suppose I had answered there was
that salary increase—‘That won’t do. You had shown your hand on the
salary question; you had protested against it and you had done your
duty.’ Then they would have said, there were six or seven sections
in that bill empowering the United States to bring the railroads
before the courts, and make them account for their extravagance.
They would have said we have lost all that by the loss of this bill,
and I would have been charged with acting in the interest of
railroad corporations, and fighting to kill the bill for that
reason. But be that as it may, fellow-citizens, I considered the two
alternatives as well as I could. I believed it would rouse a storm
of indignation and ill feeling throughout the country if that
increase of salary passed. I believed it would result in greater
evils if the whole failed, and an extra session came on. For a
little while I was tempted to do what would rather be pleasing than
what would be best in the long run. I believe it required more
courage to vote as I voted, than it would to have voted the other
way, but I resolved to do what seemed to me right in the case, let
the consequences be what they would. [Applause.] I may have made a
mistake in judgment; I blame no one for thinking so, but I followed
what I thought was the less bad of two courses. My subsequent
conduct was consistent with my action on the bill.

“I did not myself parade the fact, but more than a year ago the New
York _World_ published a list, stating in chronological order the
Senators and Representatives who covered their back pay into the
Treasury. My name was first on the list. [Applause.]

“I appeal to the sense of justice of this people, whether they will
tolerate this sort of political warfare. It has been proven again
and again that I never drew the back pay, never saw a dollar of it,
and took no action in reference to it except to sign an order on the
sergeant-at-arms to cover it into the general Treasury, and this was
done before the convention at Warren. I say more. Some of these men
who have been so long pursuing me, have known these facts for many
months. During the stormy times of the salary excitement, a citizen
of this county wrote a letter to a prominent official in the
Treasury of the United States, wanting to know whether Mr. Garfield
drew his pay or not, and received a very full and circumstantial
reply stating the facts. That letter is in this town, I suppose,
to-day, but those who have had possession of it have been careful
never to show it. I have a copy of it here, and if these men
continue lying about it, I will print it one of these days.
[Sensation and great applause. Cries of ‘Let us have that letter
read now, General Garfield.’] I will not give the name of the party.
The name I have not to whom it is addressed.

[The audience here absolutely insisted on having the letter read,
some demanding the name, and all positively refusing to allow the
speaker to proceed without reading the letter in justice to himself
and for the information of the audience.]

“‘TREASURY DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, June 9, 1873.

“‘_Dear Sir_: Your letter written early in May was forwarded to me
at Youngstown, where it could not be answered for want of accurate
data. When about to return to Washington, I searched for the letter
but could not find it. My recollection of its contents is that you
inquired as to the repayment into the Treasury by General Garfield
of the additional compensation due him as a member of the
Forty-Second Congress, under the provisions of the general
appropriation act of March 3, 1873.

“‘The additional compensation due General Garfield was drawn by Mr.
Ordway, sergeant-at-arms of the House of Representatives, and by him
paid into the Treasury as a miscellaneous revenue receipt. The money
was drawn by Mr. Ordway on the order of General Garfield. The
practice of the sergeant-at-arms is to take receipts from members in
blank in anticipation of the dates at which they are to become due,
and to pay their check on him by drawing the money from the Treasury
on those receipts. In this way he is, in a measure, the banker of
the members. General Garfield has signed such receipts month after
month at the beginning of the month, one of which was filled up by
Mr. Ordway and presented to the Treasury. At that time, I believe,
General Garfield was out of the city, but I happen to know that as
early as the 22d day of March this written order was delivered to
Mr. Ordway, viz: if he had not drawn any money from the Treasury on
his account to close the account without drawing it, and if he had
drawn it to return it. Mr. Ordway then informed him that it was
necessary for him to sign a special order on the Treasury if he
wished it drawn out and covered in, otherwise Mr. Garfield could
draw it at any time within two years; whereupon Mr. Garfield drew an
order for $4,548, payable to the order of Mr. Ordway, to be by him
covered into the Treasury. This was presented to the Treasurer and
the money turned over from the appropriation account to the general
account, so that no portion of it ever left the Treasury at all. It
was simply a transfer from the appropriation account to the general
funds of the Treasury.

“‘Very respectfully,
“‘ROBERT W. TAYLER.’”

“[Applause.]

“Question.—What was the date of the adjournment of Congress?

“General Garfield.—Congress adjourned on the 3d of March.

“Question.—What was the date of your letter?

“General Garfield.—The 22d day of March was the date of my letter.

“A voice.—Give us some of the De Gollyer matter.

“General Garfield.—We will take each particular thing at the proper
time and place. A note is handed me of which I will speak in this
connection. It is that during the debate Mr. Garfield answered a
question of Mr. Hibbard, of New Hampshire, who said, ‘How about this
plunder? How much plunder will it take out of the Treasury?’ And
that Mr. Garfield’s answer seemed to imply that he did not regard it
as plunder. I believe there has been as much said on that particular
reply of mine in connection with this salary business as any thing
else that has been said. Now I have already answered that in the
general remarks I have made this evening, namely, when a Democrat
from New Hampshire rose in his place and put a question to me,
inquiring how much money it would take out of the Treasury if this
salary act passed, and put it in the form of saying how much
‘plunder’ it would take, I did not at first notice that he used the
word ‘plunder,’ and I answered it would take a million and a half
dollars out of the Treasury. Then Mr. Dawes rose and said, ‘Did my
friend from Ohio notice the word ‘plunder?’’ Does he acknowledge
this to be ‘plunder?’ I then said, ‘No, I don’t acknowledge that
this is plunder. If any gentleman thinks that he is taking more than
is justly due him in his conscience, let him call it plunder if he
pleases.’

“Now, an attempt has been made to make it appear that Mr. Garfield
approved the salary act because he answered this man that he didn’t
regard it as robbery. I answer now, I do not regard it as robbery,
and never have.

“Now, one word more before I leave this question. I am glad the
American people rose up in indignation against that salary increase.
There were some unkind and unjust things said by the people in their
uprising, but they rose against it and rebuked it with a power and
might that has been of very great service to the country during the
last winter. It could not have been repealed but for the rebuke of
the people, and I could not have led as I did lead in more than
$20,000,000 reduction of public expenses, if I had not felt behind
me the weight, and help, and reinforcement of the indignation of the
people in regard to that salary increase. I say it was an indecent
thing to do, to increase the salary thus, and it was a great
conservative thing for the people to do to demand its repeal; and it
was repealed. But let us, in discussing it, deal with the subject
according to the truth. I now pause to inquire if any gentleman in
the audience has any questions to ask touching this salary, or any
thing concerning it? If he has, I shall be very glad to hear it.
[The speaker here paused, but no questions being asked, he proceeded
as follows:] If not, I pass to the subject my friend over yonder
seemed to be so anxious I should get to before I finished the last;
and here I approach a question that in one sense is not a question
at all, and in another sense it may be. I understand that several
persons in the district are saying that Mr. Garfield has taken a fee
for a so-called law opinion, but which, in fact, was something he
ought not to have done—which was in reality a kind of fee for his
official influence as a member of the Committee on Appropriations;
or, to speak more plainly, that I accepted pay for a service as a
kind of bribe, and that too, in

THE SO-CALLED DE GOLLYER PAVEMENT.

“Now, I have tried to state that in the broadest way, with the
broadest point forward. I ask the attention of this audience for a
few moments to the testimony. In the first place, I want the
audience to understand that the city of Washington is governed, and
has always been governed so far as its own improvements are
concerned, by its own laws and its own people, just as much as
Warren has been governed by its own corporate laws and authority. I
remember perfectly well what has been paraded in the papers so much
of late that Congress has full power to legislate over the District
of Columbia. Well, Congress has full jurisdiction over what is now
called the District of Columbia, and Congress could, I suppose, make
all the police regulations for the city of Washington; but Congress
always has allowed the city of Washington to have its city council,
or a legislature, until the present time. We have abolished it,
because we had a cumbrous machine. In the year 1871 a law was passed
by Congress creating the board of public works, appointing a
governor, and creating a legislature for the District of Columbia.
That act stated what the board of public works could do and what the
other branches of the District government could do; and among other
things, it empowered the legislature to levy taxes to make
improvements on the streets. The legislature met. The board of
public works laid before them an elaborate plan for improving the
streets of Washington, a plan amounting to six million dollars in
the first place, and the legislature adopted the plan and provided
that one-third of the entire cost of carrying out that plan should
be raised by assessing the front foot on the property holders, and
the other two-thirds should be paid by money to be borrowed by the
city government; in other words, by the issuing of their bonds. The
city government of Washington borrowed money and raised by special
taxation enough to carry on a vast system of improvement. When they
got ready to execute their plan one of the questions that came
before them was, What kind of pavement shall we put in? and in what
way shall we go about the business of letting our paving contracts?
In order to settle that question they wrote to all the principal
cities and found out all the methods pursued by them, and finally
appointed from leading officers of the army—General Humphreys, chief
engineer; General Meigs, quartermaster-general; the Surgeon-General,
and General Babcock of the engineer corps; and those four men sat as
an advising board, having no power but merely to advise. They took
up all kinds of pavement ever made; specimens were sent in; they
looked over the whole, and as a result recommended this: ‘We
recommend you, instead of letting this work be done by the lowest
bidder, with all the scheming “straw-bids” that may come in, to fix
a tariff of prices you will pay for different kinds of pavement, and
we recommend as follows: If you put down concrete pavement you had
better say you will pay so much per square yard for putting it down.
We have looked the cities all over and find that it is the proper
amount to pay; but for stone so much; for gravel so much; for
asphaltum so much; and for wood so much.’ Now, that board of public
works adopted the plan and that schedule of prices, and having
elected if they put those various kinds of pavements down, they
would put them down at those rates, they then said to all comers
‘bring in your various kinds of pavements and show us their merits,
and when we have examined them we will act.’

“Then the various paving companies and patentees all over the
country who had what they called good pavements, presented
themselves; but in almost all cases by their attorneys. They sent
men there to represent the relative merits of the pavements. A
pavement company in Chicago employed Mr. Parsons, of Cleveland, as
early as the month of April, 1872, to go before the board of public
works and present the merits of their pavements. Mr. Parsons had
nothing whatever to do with the question of prices; they had already
been settled in advance by the board. Mr. Parsons was marshal of the
Supreme Court at that time, and was just about running for Congress.
He asked the Chief Justice of the United States whether there was
any impropriety in his taking that case up and arguing it, merely
because he was an appointee and under his direction, and the Chief
Justice responded: ‘There was none in the world.’ He proceeded with
the case until the 8th day of June, when, for the first time, I
heard any thing about it. This was two days before the adjournment
of Congress. On that day Mr. Parsons came to me and said to me he
had an important case; he had worked a good while on it but was
called away. He must leave. He did not want to lose his fee in
it—was likely to lose it unless the work was completed; he must go
at any rate. He asked me if I would argue the case for him; if I
would examine into the merits of this pavement and make a statement
of it before the board. I said, ‘I will do it if I, on examination,
find the patent what it purports to be—the best wood pavement patent
there is, but I can’t do it until after Congress adjourns.’ Congress
adjourned two days later; the papers of patents were sent to me,
modeled specimens, and documents showing where pavement had been
used were forwarded to me. The investigation of the patents and the
chemical analysis representing all the elements of the pavement was
a laborious task and I worked at it as faithfully as any thing I
ever worked at. I did it in open daylight. I have never been able to
understand how any body has seen any thing in that on which to base
an attack on me. I say I am to-day intellectually incapable of
understanding the track of a man’s mind who sees in this any ground
for attacking me. I made the argument; there were two patents
contained in that pavement itself; there were some forty different
wood pavements proposed, and to carefully and analytically examine
all the relative merits of those was no small work. Mr. Parsons was
to get a fee providing he was successful, and not any if he was not
successful, and hence the sum offered was large—a contingent fee, as
every lawyer knows.”

This is enough to show Mr. Garfield’s relation to the De Gollyer affair. After some further discussion of it this Warren speech closed as follows:

“If no further questions are to be asked I will conclude with a few
general reflections on the whole subject.

“Nothing is more distasteful to me than to speak of my own work—but
this discussion has been made necessary by the persistent
misrepresentations of those who assail me.

“During my long public service the relation between the people of
this district and myself has been one of mutual confidence and
independence. I have tried to follow my own convictions of duty with
little regard to personal consequences, relying upon the
intelligence and justice of the people for approval and support. I
have sought to promote, not merely local and class interests, but
the general good of the whole country, believing that thereby I
could honor the position I hold and the district I represent. On the
other hand my constituents have given me the great support of their
strong and intelligent approval. They have not always approved my
judgment, nor the wisdom of my public acts. But they have sustained
me because they knew I was earnestly following my convictions of
duty, and because they did not want a representative to be the mere
echo of the public voice, but an intelligent and independent judge
of public questions.

“In conclusion, I appeal to the best men of the district—to men who
are every way worthy and every way capable to judge my conduct—nor
do I hesitate to refer all inquiries to those noble men with whom I
have acted during my public life. They have worked with me as
representatives during all these years, and know the character and
quality of my work. I have sought to make myself worthy of an
honorable fame among them, and have not sought in vain. They have
placed me in many positions of large trust and responsibility, and
in the present Congress I again hold the chairmanship of the
committee of the second if not the first importance in the House of
Representatives. I fearlessly appeal to the honorable members of the
present Congress, and of all the Congresses in which I have served,
to say if my conduct has not been high and worthy—the very reverse
of what these home enemies represent it to be. [Applause.] All this
time it has been a source of great strength and confidence to know
that here in this district there has been a strong, manly,
intelligent constituency willing to hold up my hands and enable me
more effectually to serve the country and honor them by my service.
While this has been true, a bitter few have long been doing all in
their power to depreciate my work and weaken my support.

“Mr. Wilkins.—You are rising too fast; they are afraid of being
eclipsed.

“Mr. Garfield.—In all this I have relied upon the good sense and
justice of the people to understand both my motives and the motives
and efforts of my enemies. On some questions of public policy there
have been differences between some of my constituents and myself.
For instance, on the currency question, I have followed what seemed
to me to be the line of truth and duty, and in that course I believe
that the majority of the people of this district now concur. Whether
right or wrong in opinions of this sort, I have believed it to be my
duty to act independently, and in accordance with the best light I
could find.

“Fellow-citizens, I believe I have done my country and you some
service, and the only way I can still continue thus to serve you is
by enjoying, in a reasonable degree, your confidence and support. I
am very grateful for the expression of confidence which you have
again given me by choosing me a seventh time as your candidate. It
was an expression which I have reason to believe was the result of
your deliberate judgment, based on a full knowledge of my record;
and it is all the more precious to me because it came after one of
those storms of public feeling which sometimes sweeps away the work
of a life-time.”

Aside from what has been here recounted, Garfield did not speak much on these unpleasant topics. Having put himself on record, he did not convict himself by protesting overmuch.

That he felt these things deeply one can not doubt. In a letter of January 4, 1875, written to B. A. Hinsdale, he said:

“With me the year 1874 has been a continuation, and in some respects
an exaggeration, of 1873. That year brought me unusual trials, and
brought me face to face with personal assaults and the trial that
comes from calumny and public displeasure. This year has perhaps
seen the culmination, if not the end, of that kind of experience. I
have had much discipline of mind and heart in living the life which
these trials brought me. Lately I have been studying myself with
some anxiety to see how deeply the shadows have settled around my
spirit. I find I have lost much of that exuberance of feeling, that
cheerful spirit which I think abounded in me before. I am a little
graver and less genial than I was before the storm struck me. The
consciousness of this came to me slowly, but I have at last given in
to it, and am trying to counteract the tendency.”

These efforts were successful; for prosperity and popularity returned to him; and even if they had not, General Garfield was not the man to acquire bitterness of spirit.

In fact, if there was one thing wherein Garfield was greater than any man in the illustrious group, whose names form a matchless diadem for the epoch in which he lived, it was in a sweetness of temper, a loftiness of spirit, the equal of which can hardly be found in secular history. His spirit knew no malice; his heart no revenge. A distinguished man who served with him in Congress, but who was not a great friend, told the writer that in this regard Garfield inspired him with awe. His conservative views made him many party enemies. Time after time these brilliant debaters—Farnsworth and the rest—would attack Garfield. No sarcasm was too cutting, no irony too cold. At times the speaker seemed to leave the quiver of ridicule without an arrow. When Garfield rose to reply, it was in a tone of calm discussion. He would proceed to the subject in hand in the friendliest and most earnest manner. No attack could provoke him to reply to personalities or invective. Never did he lose self-poise for a moment. It was said that a stranger entering the House after Garfield had begun his speech in answer to some most galling attack would never suspect that the speech was a reply to hostile and malignant assault.

The elections of 1874 having resulted favorably to the Democratic party, the Republicans found themselves with only a minority in the House in the Forty-Fourth Congress. Blaine lost his position as Speaker, and Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, presided. Committees were all reorganized with Democratic chairmen and majorities.

Garfield, after having been four years Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, now found himself near the foot of the Committee of Ways and Means, with a weighty group of Democrats above him on the list. During his last four terms, Garfield was a member of the House Committee on Rules. His knowledge of Parliamentary Law amounted to a mastery of the subject.

In consequence of this change, General Garfield, suddenly relieved of his usual large responsibility in the work of legislation, was turned into a comparatively new field of public life. Relieved of the real work of legislation, for the first time he had a good opportunity to observe how others would do that work.

A very brief season of such observation on the part of Garfield and his fellow-partisans was enough to make them dissatisfied with Democratic statesmanship. The new majority began to destroy what Republicans had spent so many years in building up. Then came organized opposition.

The first great collision occurred in January, 1876. This first Democratic House since the war was, very naturally, led by Southern members. Many late rebel generals had been sent to it. It was popularly named the Confederate Congress—the rule of rebel brigadiers. Of course, it was not long till they began to propose measures peculiarly favorable to themselves.

When, at the close of the civil war, the Southern States were restored to their right places in the Union, many of their citizens, guilty of treason, had lost their political privileges. By acts of legislation and presidential proclamations, most of these disabilities had been removed. Early in the Forty-Fourth Congress the Amnesty Bill was proposed, extending pardon to all ex-Confederates unconditionally.

It had been the policy of the Government to restore the South completely in this respect, as fast as it was expedient to do so; but this was, as yet, too sweeping a measure. The Republican leaders were opposed to it; and Mr. Blaine proposed an amendment, excepting Jefferson Davis absolutely and by name, and excepting seven hundred and fifty others until they should renounce their treason by taking the oath of allegiance to the United States. The friends of the bill would not except even Davis, and on this point there arose one of the most exciting debates ever held in Congress.