Review Of The Transactions Of The Credit Mobilier Company And An Examination Of That Portion Of The Testimony Taken By The Committee Of Investigation And Reported To The House Of Representatives At The Last Session Of The Forty Second Congress Which Relates To Mr Garfield

Excerpt from Review of the Transactions of the Credit Mobilier Company: And an Examination of That Portion of the Testimony Taken by the Committee of Investigation and Reported to the House of Representatives at the Last Session of the Forty-Second Congress, Which Relates to Mr. Garfield The events of the late winter recall forcibly a declaration made more than twenty-two centuries ago, by a man who possessed a profound knowledge of human nature and society. In answering a grave charge made against his public conduct, he said he did not stand on equal ground with his accusers, for the reason that people listen to accusation more readily than to defense. This remark has sometimes been thought cynical and unjust; but there is much in our recent history that gives it force. In no period of the political life of this country has the appetite for scandal been keener, or its exercise less restrained, than during the last year. One of our most brilliant and influential journalists, in an address delivered a few days since to a convention of his professional brethren in Indiana, while speaking of the present tone of the press, used this emphatic language: The law presumes a man to be innocent until he is proved guilty. The press, not merely usurping the functions of the law in arraigning a man whom the constable has no warrant to arrest, goes still further, and assumes him, prima facie, to be guilty. After many weeks, if the case of the accused comes to trial, he is acquitted; the law makes him an honest man; but there is the newspaper which has condemned him, and cannot, with a dozen retractions, erase the impression left and the damage done by a single paragraph. It might not be becoming in a layman, who feels in his own case the force of this paragraph, to volunteer such a declaration; but it is quite proper for him to testify to its truth when thus forcibly stated. This paragraph from the address of the journalist finds a striking illustration in the history of the subject now under review. In the autumn of 1872, during the excitement of the Presidential campaign, charges of the most serious character were made against ten or twelve persons who were then, or had recently been, Senators and Representatives in Congress, to the effect that, five years ago, they had sold themselves for sundry amounts of stock of the Credit Mobilier Company and bonds of the Pacific Railroad Company. The price at which different members were alleged to have bartered away their personal honor and their official influence was definitely set down in the newspapers; their guilt was assumed, and the public vengeance was invoked not only upon them, but also upon the party to which most of them belonged. Credit Mobilier Investigation. By a resolution of the House, introduced by one of the accused members, and adopted on the first day of the late session, an investigation of these charges was ordered. The parties themselves and many other witnesses were examined; the records of the Credit Mobilier Company and of the Pacific Railroad Company were produced; and the results of the investigation were reported to the House on the 18th of February. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Review of the Transactions of the Credit Mobilier Company: And an Examination of That Portion of the Testimony Taken by the Committee of Investigation and Reported to the House of Representatives at the Last Session of the Forty-Second Congress, Which Relates to Mr. Garfield On the face of this agreement, the part to be performed by the Credit M obilier Company as a corporation was simple and unobjectionable. It was to advance money to the contractors and to receive therefor about ten per cent. As interest and commission. This explains how it was that in a suit in the courts of Pennsylvania in 1870, to collect the State tax on the profits of the company, its managers swore that the company had never declared dividends to an aggregate of more than twelve present. The company proper did not receive the profits of the Oakes Ames contract. The profits were paid only to the seven trustees and to such stockholders of the Credit Mobilier as had delivered to them the proxies on their Pacific Railroad stock. In other words, a ring inside the Credit Mobilier obtained the control both of that corporation and of the profits of the Ames contract. By a private agreement made in writing October 16, 1867, the day afte1 the triple contract was signed, the seven trustees pledged them selves to each other so to vote all the Pacific Railroad stock which they held in their own right or by proxy, as to keep in power all the members of the then existing board of directors of the railroad company not ap pointed by the President of the United States, or such other persons as said board should nominate. By this agreement, the election of a majority of the directors was wholly within the power of the seven trustees. From all this it resulted that the Ames contract and the triple agreement made in October amounted in fact to a contract made by seven leading stockholders of the Pacific Railroad Company with them selves; so that the men who fixed the price at which the road was to be built were the same men who would receive the profits of the contract. The wrong in this transaction consisted, first, in the fact that the stockholding directors of the Pacific Railroad, being the guardians of a great public trust, contracted with themselves; and, second, that. They paid themselves an exorbitant price for the work to be done; a price which virtually brought into their own possession, as private individuals, almost all the property of the railroad company. The six hundred and sixty-seven miles covered by the contract included one hundred and thirty-eight miles already completed the profits on which inured to the benefit of the contractors. (see Report of Credit Mobilier Committee No. 2. P. Xiii.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A narrative account of the twentieth president's political career offers insight into his background as a scholar and Civil War hero, his battles against the corrupt establishment, and Alexander Graham Bell's failed attempt to save him from an assassin's bullet.

Military career of James A. Garfield.