USA > Iowa > Buchanan County > History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 133
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The committee do not find that Mr. Ames, in his negotiations with the persons above named, entered into any detail of the relations be- tween the Credit Mobilier company and the Union Pacific company, or give them any specific information as to the amount of dividends they would be likely to receive further than has been already stated. * *
In his negotiations with these members of congress, Mr. Ames made no suggestion that he desired to secure their favorable influence in con- gress in favor of the railroad company, and whenever the question was raised as to whether the ownership of this stock would in any way interfere with or embarrass them in their action as members of congress, he assured them it would not.
The committee, therefore, 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. * * * *
It ought also to be stated that no one of the present members of the house above named appears to have had any knowledge of the dealings of Mr. Ames with other members.
The committee do not find that either of the above named gentle- men, 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 becom- ing a purchaser of this stock. Had it appeared that these gentlemen were aware of the enormous dividends upon this stock, and how they were to be earned, we could not thus acquit them.
Mr. Poland is an able and learned man. There was within his easy reach ample material for a vigorous, dis- criminating, judicial disposition of the ease, which would have saved us further labor. It lacks all those qualities.
* Ames and James Brooks not included in the list referred to.
63
A CHAPTER ON SLANDERS.
It is feeble, and pervaded with a good-natured indiffer- ence; or worse, an easy-going laziness, in grasp, statement and argument, cruel and hurtful to a man whom he pro- foundly respected, and for whom he has expressed the greatest admiration. There is an unwritten history of statement and comment, by several members of the committee, bearing on this feature, cotemporaneous with the report, profitless to inscribe now.
At the first opportuity after the report was made, Gen- eral Garfield addressed the House, as follows:
I rise to a personal explanation. During the late investigation by the committee, of which the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Poland) was the chairman, I pursued what seemed to be the plain path of duy. to keep silence, except when I was called upon to testify before the com- mittee. When testimony was given which appeared to be in conflict with mine, I waited, expecting to be called again if anything was needed from me in reference to these discrepancies. I was not recalled; and when the committee submitted their report to the house, a consider- able portion of the testimony relating to me had not been printed.
In the discussion which followed here, I was prepared to submit some additional facts and considerations, in case my own conduct came up for consideration in the house; but the whole subject was concluded without any direct reference to myself, and since then the whole time of the house has been occupied with the public business. I now desire to make a single remark on this subject in the hearing of the house. Though the committee acquitted me of all charges of corruption in action or intent, yet there is in the report a summing up of the facts in relation to me which I respectfully protest is not warranted by the tes- timony. I say this with the utmost respect for the committee, and without intending any reflection upon them.
I cannot now enter upon the discussion; but I propose, before long, to make a statement to the public, setting forth more fully the grounds of my dissent from the summing up to which I have referred. I will only say now that the testimony which I gave before the committee is a statement of the facts in the case as I have understood them from the beginning. More than three years ago, on at least two occasions, I stated the case to two personal friends substantially as I stated it be- fore the committee, and I here add that nothing in my conduct or con- versation has at any time been in conflict with my testimony. For the present I desire only to place on record this declaration and notice.
The purpose thus publicly declared he executed, as we have seen, in the following May.
Obviously, if there was fraud in the alleged purchase of the Credit Mobilier stock, it must be in the point that it was purchased, or the alleged dividend was re- ceived, with the knowledge of the fraudulent arrange- ment between the Union Pacific Company and the Credit Mobilier, to which the purchaser, a member of the house, would thereby become a party. There is no pretense that here is a shadow of evidence that Mr. Garfield had the slightest knowledge, or any hint to put him on his inquiry as to the transactions between the two companies; Ames swore that he did not know of them. But the com- mittee did permit itself to say that he agreed to buy ten shares, but did not pay for them, that Ames held them for him, and out of the dividends he paid for the stock,
and that the balance, three hundred and twenty-nine dollars, was paid to Garfield by Ames, in a check on the sargeant-at-arms of the house.
Each of these statements General Garfield solemnly denied on his oath; and it is now alleged that, though he was guiltless of corruption in the purchase itself, he was guilty of the gravest crime known to the law, in the denial of the innocent purchase itself. Certainly this is the mest illogical of accusations. If General Garfield was innocent of wrong, why should he commit perjury to conceal it ? It is true, the committee appeared to disbelieve him; what it did do was to disregard his case, slur it over, couple it with another man's, and disregard the evidence. Not only do they seem to have disbelieved him, but they disbelieved Oakes Ames also, who at first swore that Garfield was entirely innocent, and found facts without evidence.
Not thus is this case to be dismissed. I am remitted to the dreary task of examining in detail the real and seeming proofs. The charge of perjury is to be proved by a weight of evidence equal to that of two men. The evidence of one man is met and balanced by that of the accused, is the rule of law and logic. I do not place this case solely on the basis of legal evidence, which is but the mass of human experience formulated into prac- tical rules for convenience and use. Let all sources of information be employed, which practical intelligence uses in dealing with common grave affairs. There really are but two witnesses, and a few side lights, which attend the transaction.
Oakes Ames is the sole source of inculpatory evi- dence. Ilis connection with the whole transaction at once compromises him so entirely, that it is a rule alike of experience and law, that full credit cannot be given him. He has knowledge, but his integrity is impaired. He who would entrap the people's representatives by half truths, and whole suppressions, is thereby gravely dis- credited.
Is it said that Garfield occupies the same position-is compromised and therefore discredited? That is the fact to be proved. Until his guilt is established his credit is unimpaired. He is a witness entitled to full credit. Oakes Ames, the thus impeached witness, and sole source of criminative evidence, is further, and more gravely, compromised. The man who makes different statements of the same matter, though one statement is not on his oath, so far discredits himself, that his state- ment ceases to be a source of full proof.
In his letter to McComb of January 25, 1868, he says he had sold to Garfield, of Ohio, twenty shares of stock at two thousand dollars. He swore before the committee,
64
LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD.
that there were but ten shares at one thousand dollars. The first statement was in writing, when the supposed transaction was fresh, when he was under an obligation to be truthful and accurate; the second, four years later, on his oath. Both cannot be true. The man who made them, is not truthful.
It is alike a rule of law and intelligence, that a man who deliberately swears that the fact to be proved does not exist, and then that the same fact does exist, thereby destroys himself as a source of information as to the existence of that fact.
The facts to be established were, that this same witness sold to Garfield ten shares of Credit Mobilier stock, and paid him as a dividend on it, three hundred and twenty- nine dollars.
On these points, I quote from the Poland Rep. at p. 28, under date of December 28th:
Q. In reference to Mr. Garfield, you say that you agreed to get ten shares for him, and to hold them till he could pay for them, and that he never did pay for them nor receive them ?- A. Yes, sir.
Q. He never paid any money on that stock nor received any money from it ?- A. Not on account of it.
Q. He received no dividends ?-- A. No, sir ; I think not. He says he did not. My own recollection is not very clear.
Q. So that, as you understand, Mr. Garfield never parted with any money, nor received any money, on that transaction ?- A. No, sir ; he had some money from me once, some three or four hundred dollars, and called it a loan. He says that that is all he ever received from me, and that he considered it a loan. Ile never took his stock, and never paid for it.
Q. Did you understand it so ?- A. Yes; 1 am willing to so under- stand it. 1 do not recollect paying him any dividend, and have for- gotten that I paid him any money.
The sum of this is, that he agreed to sell Garfield ten shares, but did not. Garfield did not pay for them, and never received from him, Ames, any dividend.
And so, later, on the same day, from p. 40, in answer to Mr. McCrary who recalled his attention to it.
Q. I do not understand distinctly your answer to Mr. Merrick's question as to how many members of congress received these dividends upon that stock, and what members did not receive it, among those you have mentioned .- A. I think that all who paid for their stock re- ceived their dividends up to the time this suit was commenced; that is my impression.
Q. Who received the dividends ?- A. Mr. Patterson, Mr. Bing- ham, James F. Wilson did, and I think Mr. Colfax received a part of them. I do not know whether he received them all or not. I think Mr. Scofield received a part of them. Messrs. Kelley and Garfield never paid for their stock, and never received their dividends.
Surely this is plain and direct.
I here interject a passage from the evidence of Mr. Durant from page 173, and then resume Mr. Ames. It will be remembered that these three hundred and forty- seven shares carried to Washington stood on the Credit Mobilier books in the name of Oakes Ames as trustee.
As to these I quote from Mr. Durant, on the fourteenth of January, speaking of this same stock:
A. The stock that s.ands in the name of Mr. Ames, as trustee, I claim belongs to the company yet, and I have a summons in a suit in my pocket waiting to catch him in New York, to serve the papers.
Thus threatened with another suit, to recover from him this very stock, all of which he had received back in his own right before this date, and was thus perfecting his title to it, through the pretense of a sale, as trustee, and a re-purchase in his individual right, on the twenty-second of January he went again upon the stand-this time for him- self, so far as Garfield is concerned, for it was only by a sale to him and a re-purchase that he could hold it. It is claimed that at this time he swore positively that he did sell Garfield the stock, and did pay him a dividend, in a check for three hundred and twenty-nine dollars. The payment of the dividend was the only proof of an actual sale. If he did so swear, in the face of his swearing above, with the exception of Judge Poland there is no human intelligence that will pretend to credit his state- ment, or call a fact proved because he swore to it. As a source of evidence he has ceased to exist.
My reader now understands the character and quality of the sole witness by whom it is said General Garfield is proved to have purchased Credit Mobilier stock, re- ceived a dividend, and is convicted of perjury, in depos- ing that he did not. The whole of that evidence in the least criminative I now lay before him-premising that General Garfield appeared before the committee and gave his evidence on the fourteenth of January.
Q. In regard to Mr. Garfield, state to the committee the details of the transactions between you and him in reference to Credit Mobilier stock .- A. I got for Mr. Garfield ten shares of the Credit Mobilier stock, for which he paid par and interest.
Q. When did you agree with him for that ?- A. That agreement was in December, 1867, or January 1868; about that time ; about the time I had these conversations with all of them. It was all about the same time.
Q. State what grew out of it .- A. Mr. Garfield did not pay me any money. I sold the bonds belonging to his one thousand dollars of stock at ninety-seven, making seven hundred and seventy-six dollars. In June I received a dividend in cash on his stock of six hundred dol- lars, which left a balance due him of three hundred and twenty-nine dollars, which I paid him. That is all the transaction between us. I did not deliver him any stock before or since. That is the only trans- action, and the only thing.
Q. The three hundred and twenty-nine dollars which you paid him was the surplus of earnings on the stock above the amount to be paid for it, par value ?- A. Yes, sir; he never had either his Credit Mobilier stock or Union Pacific Railroad stock. The only thing he realized on the transaction was the three hundred and twenty-nine dollars.
Q. I see in this statement of the account with General Garfield, there is a charge of forty-seven dollars ; that is interest from the July previous, is it ?- A. Yes, sir.
Q. And the seven hundred and seventy-six dollars on the credit
65
GARFIELD AS A FINANCIER.
side of the account is the eighty per cent. bond dividend sold at ninety- seven ?- A. Yes, sir.
Q. And the six hundred dollars on the credit side is the money dividend ?-- A. Yes, sir.
Q. And after you had received these two sums, they in the aggre- gate overpaid the price of stock and interest three hundred and twenty- nine dollars, which you paid him ?- A. Yes, sir.
Q. How was that paid ?- A. Paid in money, I believe.
Q. Did you make a statement of this to Mr. Garfield ?- A. I pre- sume so ; I think I did with all of them ; that is my impression.
Q. When you paid him this three hundred and twenty-nine dollars, did you understand it was the balance of his dividend after paying for his stock ?- A. I supposed so ; I do not know what else he could suppose.
Q. You did not deliver the certificate of stock to him ?- A. No, sir ; he said nothing about that.
Q. Why did he not receive his certificate ?-. A. I do not know.
Q. Do you remember any conversation between you and him in the adjustment of these accounts ?- A. 1 do not.
Q. You understood that you were a holder of his ten shares ?- A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did he so understand it ?- A. 1 presume so. It seems to have gone from his mind, however.
Q. W'as this the only dealing you had with him in reference to any stock? A. I think so.
Q. Was it the only transaction of any kind ?- A. The only trans- action.
Q. Has that three hundred and twenty-nine dollars ever been paid to you ?- A. I have no recollection of it.
Q. Have you any belief that it ever has ?- A. No, sir.
Q. Did you ever loan General Garfield three hundred dollars ?- A. Not to my knowledge ; except that he calls this a loan.
Q. You do not call it a loan ?- A. I did not at the time. 1 am willing it should go to suit him.
Q. What we want to get at is the exact truth. - A. I have told the truth in my statement.
Q. When you paid him three hundred and twenty-nine dollars, did he understand that he borrowed that money from you ?- A. I do not suppose so. -
Q. Have you any belief now that he supposed ?- A. No; only from what he said the other day. I do not dispute anybody.
Q. W'e want your ju-Igment of the transaction .- A. My judgment of the transaction is just as I told you. There was but one thing about it.
Q. That amount has never been repaid to you? You did not sup- pose that you had any right to it, or any claim to it ?- A. No, sir.
Q. Yon regarded that as money belonging to him after the stock was paid for ?- A. Yes, sir.
Q. There were dividends of Union Pacific Railroad stock on these ten shares ?- A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did General Garfield ever receive these ?- A. No, sir; never bas received but three hundred and twenty-nine dollars.
And that he has received as his own money? - A. I suppose Q. so ; it did not belong to me. I should not have given it to him if it had not belonged to him.
Q, You did not understand it to belong to you as a loan ; you never called for it, and have never received it back ?- A. No, sir.
Q Has there been any conversation between you and bim in refer-
ence to the Pacific stoc': he was entitled to ?- A. No, sir.
Q. Has he ever called for it ?-- A. No, sir.
Q. Have you ever offered it to bim ?- A. No, sir.
Q. Has there been any conversation in relation to it? A. No, sir.
Q. Has there ever been anything said between you and him about rescinding the purchase of the ten shares of Credit Mobilier stock ? Hlas there anything been said to you of its being thrown up, or aban- doned, or surrendered ?- A. No, sir ; not until recently.
Q. How recently ?- A. Since this matter came up.
Q. Since this investigation commenced ?-- A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you consider at the commencement of this investigation that you held these other dividends, which you say you did not pay to him, in his behalf? Did you regard yourself as custodian of these dividends for him ?- A. Yes, sir ; he paid for his stock and is entitled to his dividends.
Q. Will the dividends come to him at any time on his demand ?- A. Yes, sir, as soon as this suit is settled.
Q. You say that three hundred and twenty-nine dollars was paid to him; how was it paid ?- A. I presume by a check on the sergeant-at- arms. 1 find there are some checks filed without any letters or initials indicating who they were for.
The following memorandum referred to by witness as a statement of his account with Mr. Garfield, was placed in evidence:
J. A. G. [Garfield]. Dr.
I868. To ten sbares stock Credit Mobilier of A $1,000 00
Interest 47 00
June 19. To cash. 329 00
$1,376 00
Cr.
I868. By dividend bonds, Union Pacific railroad, $1,000,
at eighty per cent. less three per cent $776 00
June 17. By dividend collected for your account. 600 00
$1,376 00
Leaving these statements without further remark, save to note the corkscrew-y process of leading questions, I quote Oakes Ames from page 353, under date of Janu- ary 29th. He had found a bunch of old checks in the office of the sergeant-at-arms, which Judge Poland is talking up with him in a luminous way:
Q. lIere is another check upon the sergeant-at-arms of the same date, June 22, 1868: "Pay O. . A. or bearer three hundred and twenty- nine dollars, and charge to my account. Oakes Ames." That seems to have been paid to somebody and taken up by the sergeant-at-arms. These initial are your own ?-. 1. Yes, sir.
Q. Do you know who had the benefit of that cheek ?- 1 cannot tell yo11.
Q. Do you think you received the money on it yourself ?- A. I have no idea. I may have drawn the money and handed it over to another person. It was paid on that transaction. It may have been paid to Mr. Garfield. There were several sums of that amount.
Q. Ilave you any memory in reference to this check ?- A. No, sir; I have no memory as to that particular check. I found these checks in the package which the sergeant-at-arms gave me, and I find them on the sergeant-at-arms' books.
Q. You have some memory in regard to some of these men receiv- ing payment of their dividends ?- A. They all received payments of their dividends. There is no question of that in my mind. There may be in the minds of others.
Q. Is there any other gentleman here in congress who received three hundred and twenty-nine dollars dividend except those who have already been named by you ?-. 1. I don't think of any other. Q. In regard to Mr. Garfield, do you know whether you gave him a check or paid him the money? . A. I think I did not pay bim the money. He got it from the sergeant-at-arms upon a check.
66
LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD.
This is the check entire, placed by itself:
"JUNE 22, 1868.
"Pay O. A. or bearer three hundred and twenty-nine dollars, and charge to my account.
OAKES AMES."
From page 555 of this pitiful record, I quote this, and all there is on the dreary expenses bearing on this matter, still in the plastic hand of the amiable chairman.
Q. You think the check in which you wrote nothing to indicate the payee must have been for Mr. Garfield ?- A. Yes, sir, that is my judg- ment.
No! he did not think so-had not said he thought so. In the pitiful helplessness of his position, groping in darkness, he timidly ventured the suggestion, "It may have been paid to Mr. Garfield." Then, when the chair- man insisted that he thought so, he helplessly assents. The stupidity of the chairman was of that dense quality appalling to the gods. He assumes that Garfield must have been paid by a check, and this was it, -- notwithstand- ing Ames swore (page 25) that he thought he paid with money,-because this check had no possible mark or sign to show by whom, or for what, it was issued; and Ames assented. Here, then, in this aimless, nameless slip of paper resides the evidence which convicts Gen- eral Garfield of a purchase of stock, and of perjury to conceal the purchase. A word disposes of it. Turn back to Ames' account with Garfield, on page 241, to this item. "To cash [paid], $329. Against this payment stands the date, June 19, 1868. This check is dated June 22d, three days afterward. How could a check not drawn till the twenty-second of June pay a debt on the nineteenth of June? Had the dates coincided, or this check been before payment, some seeming warrant for the chairman's assertion might exist. The after date of the check is fatal to his case, and to him.
It is to be borne in mind that General Garfield, having made his statement before the court, was then bearing the burden of the Republic's great appropriations through the house. The statement that he had counsel before the committee is untrue. Judge Black, when there, was of counsel for McComb.
There was further so-called evidence from Oakes Ames. He several times early referred to a certain memorandum book, and finally produced extracts from it. He was at once required by the chairman to pro- duce it, which he did February 11th. The ground on which the committee received it is not obvious. Bearing in mind that the Garfield account, page 241, dates the pay- ment of the three hundred and twenty-nine dollars June 19, 1868, what corroboration does Mr. Ames receive from his tardy book? This is taken from page 450 of the report :
1868.
SATURDAY, January 2, 1869.
H. L. Dawes 600
Scofield 600
Patterson 1,800
Painter. 1,800
Wilson. 1,200
Colfax 1,200
Bingham 1,200
Allison 600
Kelley.
329
Wilson. 329
Garfield . 329
Q. You put down in this list what was to be paid to these men; it is not an entry of the payment you had actually made ?.- A. It is a list of payments to be made, and which were made in different ways, some in one way and some in another.
The entry is in a book for 1868. The list is dated January 2, 1869, and contains the names of the men to whom payments of dividends were to be made. Among them is that of Garfield, who, if ever paid, was paid months before.
Here is another of the entries from p. 453 Id .:
1868.
SUNDAY, June 31.
Checks on commerce, deposited with Sergeant-at-Arms .... .$10,000
P'd S. Colfax. 1,200
' James F. Wilson
329
" H. L. Dawes 600
" William B. Allison 600
" G. W. Scofield . 600
" J. W. Patterson 1,800
' John A. Logan 329
James A. Garfield
" William D. Kelley
329
" Henry Wilson
" John A. Bingham 1,200
I.200
Q. This entry, "Paid S. Colfax one thousand two hundred dollars," is the amount which you paid by this check on the sergeant-at-arms ?- A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was this entry upon this page of these various names intended to show the amount you were to pay or that you had paid; was that made at this date ?- A. I do not know; it was made about that time. I would not have written it on Sunday; it is not very likely. It was made on a blank page. It is simply a list of names.
Q. Were these names put down after you had made the payments or before, do you think ?- A. Before, I think.
Q. You think you made this list before the parties referred to had actually received their checks, or received the money ?- A. Yes, sir; that was to show whom I had to pay, and who were entitled to receive the sixty per cent. dividend. It shows whom I had to pay here in Washington-
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