§:
£ºść.
§§
-: ** §:
ãº
§º
sº -
º
£ 4-3 3 **** *ś
jºš.33% § Tºš
º:
§: * : ºº::
trº **
... • * > *
*º-3;
§ “s.<
****
...” :
§
§§º. ** $ºx,
ãº. º º
sº
*}º º § §: §: º
&#s
$-
:
§
&
*:Sº sº...º.
$º º
<º
º:
*::::::-.
*
.º. º § º
2 sº, c 3-ºxº §§
ºf ºve § §§
*...* § ºś
*** . P : *. :º
*::::::::::: : - , 2 -- *::::::A;
3. f*- : *. - - - - - - **: <º:
* ... " -- . . .” *~ *...* < ---- - .* - * yº. ** -.
* 22. * . “... . . : -
* 2: ... º.º.º. *. - * :
c. …º.º. 3.; ** *~
- -, *, * ... . * * ** ..
* *
• * . .
? & *
º
- 3&
*: §.
:
2.3
..º.º.º.º. tº gº.g., , ºr
..º.º.º.º.º. ºf º ºs
:*::..., º g --- 2:3.3°
- •"
.* - S.
& . »
- - - we - * *
** s - .**
º *ś $º wº - - ~~ - - -
§: - sº . . . . - * > . . . . . s - . . - - * ... 1 ... ** - - , - ... • -. • * : ,
- §§ § §§º . - . . . . .” * . . . . .*. . . " . . (.. * , … " - - & -
º ###: : > * - • 3. - w x: - - - *- - -
§§ º §: §º.33; • , , w …” -. 3, ... . ." § "… ." . . . ,” . . . .", × ... • * *-
º ~ § §§§: .. •x 2 : - ' * A. - * * * f , “ - • tº - Af • º
º: $ § Fº x** * - * - * * * …' * *. -- A. • * *3. r * *&
; - #ſºft: * *— — . . . . .* - * * , ----- *. -- - - -- ...?.
§§ # . - $3 §: gº- * * . .* “x * - *- .-- - - - * * º 4-r -- • * : *:: º,
º º - c #-sº …' ***, * : * , , & ~. - .# * ...” - 8 * , - - - - & - * … :
*; • .* sº • * ** :- -> _* --- - - -. • * * - • -- " . . . . . "
º * * **, * - - --- -. . … ~ * ^. - - * * * * *
** : . . . • * * = * *.*.* - - ‘. . . . . * *:
x * * * * - ~. - - - * : * , ºr
s.-- . . . . . • . “. . . - 2 * * - -- - * - - ‘. .”
- *. • . . . . *- « - -- .* - - - ^- - ** * ,
. . . . .” • - -, - -- r * - -- - - ** :
; *::::::::::: § :::::::::::: # , º .# • .r- * > -- - *. & *** * * -, *, *t ºr
a sº; º jº.º.º. +. * * : *s - - - - * - - * - OF THE Y. * ... - " 3. - *** - . . . . . . **
ºt - º : º: § - *... … . . ~ -- . . . . . . . * , . . ~. . . . ..º.º.º.º.º.º.
º º -** - - - w - *
§º. ºv- - # - º: -- - - -*
• 3.4% &^"A- .. *:::... z.
º : ;
*
$º's ºl. 3 º'
Tºº $...ºf
.*.*... º. º.º.º.º.º.º.
: ; º
*.
Yº::
*** {<
º * *- - - §§A.Ş
ºß - # 3::$º:
:::::::: { t
::::::::::::$$$. -: * * * ºś. ? * * - *- - -
§§ - : .* ºf Tº §: º:3: *T*. . . . . . ; , - sº, * > . . - * - * - - . . .” - §
* * **** *::::::::::": sº • ' ". . ~~. - -, * * * * * - • - • - - -- - ... ". . . *F,
§: - - ::::::::::::::::::: - * • …” * $º
º d §§§ §:::::::: º, º sº - a- -- . - - - - .." -- - - - ... 3 , $: '...”.
'º.; - §§ º º ###### §: §. x- - < x • * - - - * ~ * - - - v. - §º. 3 º'.
tº sº. * * - - - - *- - - -
§.3...º. º; #3 gº • *.* * -- - - - - •. == < - *.
tº gº S.E. † $º:::::::iº #: º: , ; *ś - - -
§§§º #############". * ... " , - -- ...” - - . - -, * * * ** -r - - r $. . . .º.º.º.º.
§§§ . º º: §::::::::::-}{::::::::::::::::: ‘. . . . . . . * * •, - - Nº. -, - - - - - s Ǻš.
º §º-ººººº. - . . . V. :########, ; § . . . . . . . . - ~. * --- - * £ºgº.º.
- º: §§ § :::::: . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - * - - .*.*.***
- 2: s'. trº: - º - - - - - . . . • * , ~ * - • ‘ r * - * * * . . .
* ºr ºf c-A-- '- º §§":"...": - t’ - . . . . . 3 . • . . . - . -
} §:###: - 1. * & . .” - - - ... • –
tºº. ***
5-sº-
º
:::::::::::
;::::::
§§
§3::::::::::
* §:::::::::::
•s. * *****
£4" tº
º §
º::::::::::::::
# º:::::
# * * * * *
“w.º.º. º.
.#3;
§§;
fºr $* **
§
º:*
sº º
*
º#
$º .
...”.”
s
A
w
;
:
§
;
§
º§
§
ºr**
º
:
º:
§
cAMBRIDGE
£rinted at the ſtillergipe ºregg
. . . . 1883 * * - - ſº
º
#
* -
s::::::::::::::::::
3. i. §
-**
º:
--
};-
>
:
*.
3.
*:
s:
;
s
r.
sg
;
*
t
* *
: & §
++ 3:--
: *3
$
3.
**** ***. *
àº's * x !
:::::::: '-
§ºr ... * ;
Jºº...? º |
§§: • *. i
*****
. . . .3°º
§
sº
:
* **
**
}*.
;'i
#
† ::::::::::::::: ;
*.*.*.*.*.*&#: :
#####. : - *.
; : * *** *** *.*&#3 3. - . .
§::::::::: ºš *
ºff.:*:::::::::::::: tº: ~ -
tº: º $, º& - - - *
3&tº i:#; • * - -
Zºº: - - ~ *- , §
Y’ 3” “ . . . . r . . - - - ^- • , , , “. .
- * * - - ~. - -, .* - *. ... - * - 3 -
§ 2 - . . . . . > *. *, - - , *,
•. *** ***, , , ; - - ar
- Sºlº : - **** . . . . . * * * *- sº *. - * x
...”... … ..! §: “ ~ : * - * J
; * 3: º, • * * * * * * > . . - - * -
# - 2 . .” - - - - ^. -
** * . º - - - - - - -
*:: # ** - * . - - * - - 3.
* * * *-*.* .* *. ^. - - • * . -
::::::: 3. §§ -- . . . - .2 . " -- - -
jº :::::::: §§ *: º, ... . . . * -. * - > * , :
§: 'º'; * § r 3 *... - • * * - * * , - .
* - *ºzº, * -. - --- - - M- -
&# * * * §§§º: & - * * , - ^s. ‘. - -
**** º: - *- : * , - < * - -- & * - -
#:
**
#
#
:
§:
.
.*
--
* …"
:
-
*-
*
-
.*
x; .*. “: . . . . -- º • ***. … . . . - * -- - -
r: $: ** *...** - . . . . . . * - . . . . . . ~ : " . , .*. ...'...' .*- - - --> - *~- - *>
s:::::::::: : - * -- . . ~ $2.,’º.33, ." § , -": ". . … - ---, -y, ** is ." * * * x, - * 5 - - - - .
§º: ... • & “.34: , ; *...s.. . . . . . . .”. - : .* * - - 2 . . ser - ** * ~. * - Šs
* ºx3 . . .” - : * ~ ***. - , "...; º'- ~ * > . x > - • *, * - *. '. - . . * > ... ;-º-º-º: 4.
*::::::::: - ... … 2 * . . . . * : * - - … . . ." •, °, t … ****
S.* --
ºrt wº - * ..sºmº- - -º- ****
i
|




















































































































- **-----.
------------------
**:----
Eſſºſººººººººººººº ſººſ ſººſ Rºſti
=№xxxxxxxxxxx.rſ
Tumnummmmmmmmmm IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIImmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!
Eſ
* -->| • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ^ ■
■
=№'S√ſ.$（）¿№ſſºſ
„E，·§§§fffffft
.*;..x .….…*3%%%%"）！?
{|
}$Ñ\，{
HIIIf
N
... 2
ºf.
ºff. J.
& J.
wº, ºr
F
ce º ºr e º ze e º ºs e º ºr sº º ºs ºr ºr sº sº º
Innittºrn intrºlltunintuitit
º
[I]
FT O
See a
P
GI
W
THIE
TV)-c. S.
|; ’ſ, ’ .E=0
|--~ ：--
;};łº:•Fe
}& aeſſ-0
-º-№s. №== C
º Cº. º ºs º & sº ºr sº tº º ºs ºm e s - * ~ * * * * * * * * * * * *ſa º ºs º ºs º ºs º as sº e s = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
źni
ſe ſ s ≠ a√∞
*
airlilitiuintuitiºn hillinitial
Willin
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ~ *
initiºnilunmiſtinitiºninuºu
ſº dº tº º sº
Iliffºr
ve-
Einºr.
ÎÏÏĪĪĪĪĪĪĪſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſiſſiili
Ev.
5
º
C
º
º
[...]
O
Q
º
C
ſº
C
D
§:
5]










































OAKES AMES
Ø ſhiemoit
witH AN ACCOUNT OF THE DEDICATION
OAKES AMES MEMORAL HALL
AT NORTH EASTON, MASS.
Movember 17, 1881
CAMBRIDGE
49rintet at the ſtibergitle ºregg
1883
OAKES AMES.
-O-
OAKES AMES, the eldest son of Oliver and Susannah Ames, was
born in Easton, Massachusetts, on the tenth day of January, 1804.
His father moved from Bridgewater in the previous year, attracted
by the abundance of water-power for manufacturing uses in the re-
gion of Easton, which formed the heads of the Taunton River. There
the son passed his boyhood and youth, acquiring a district-school educa-
tion, and assisting his father in the workshop and on the farm. About
the age of sixteen he enjoyed the more liberal advantages of a few
months' instruction at Dighton Academy; and after that he became
the faithful apprentice of his father, until he was afterwards his fore-
man and chief reliance. He was possessed by nature of a large and
athletic frame, which laborious industry developed and matured, so
that when he reached manhood he was fully prepared to engage with
vigor in the pursuit in which he had been trained, and which was to
be the engrossing one of his life.
The first of the name, William Ames, emigrated from Burton, in
Somersetshire, England, to Braintree, in Massachusetts Colony, in
1635. His only son was John Ames; his fourth son was Thomas
Ames; his eldest son was Thomas Ames; his second son was John
Ames; his youngest son was Oliver Ames; and his eldest son was
Oakes Ames. On the maternal side, he was fifth in the line of
descent from Rev. Urian Oakes, one of the earliest presidents of
Harvard College, from whom he took his Christian name. Susannah
1
2 Memoir.
Angier, the mother of Oakes Ames, was a descendant of the famous
Dr. William Ames, the Francker Professor, whose daughter Ruth,
coming to Massachusetts with her mother and brother in 1637, mar-
ried Edmund Angier, of Cambridge ; whose son, Rev. Samuel An-
gier, married Hannah, daughter of President Urian Oakes, of Har-
vard University. Their grandson, Oakes Angier, a law student under
the elder President Adams, became the father of Susannah Angier,
who in April, 1803, became the wife of Oliver Ames.
The repressing influence of the war of 1812 on his father's business
— which was the manufacture of shovels— was not without its effect
on the mind of the youth, as the crushing disasters of 1837 also left
their permanent impress on his mature manhood. The observation
of the former helped him to a thorough understanding of the latter.
He enjoyed the paternal confidence from the beginning; and on
emerging from his minority, he naturally assumed the superintend-
ence of the manufacturing works, and his course of life thereafter was
established. From being overseer in the growing works he gradually
became his father’s main dependence, and with his wife he continued
to live in the same house with his parents until they died.
The simple and undeviating rules in the establishment were indus-
try and integrity; to these everything was made obedient. The son
Oakes was possessed of great quickness of apprehension in all things
pertaining to the business. He drove, but was never driven by it.
He developed inventive powers of a high order, and exhibited supe-
rior capacity to administer affairs. All that he did advanced the inter-
ests of the establishment. He inspired more and more the movement
about him. He answered promptly the call of every emergency.
Having reached the age of sixty-five, the father, in 1844, withdrew
from all further active participation in the business, turning it over
absolutely to his sons Oakes and Oliver, from which date the firm
bore the name of Oliver Ames and Sons. Five years later followed
the discovery of gold in California, and two years after a similar dis-
covery in Australia. The first event, by causing a new and sudden
Memoir. 3
distribution of population, imparted a stimulus to the building of
railroads, and practically inaugurated a new era. The stir pervaded
all circles and was felt in all branches of business. This unexpected
planting of a modern people on the distant Pacific shores was what
gave birth to the conception of a railway across the continent. The
expansion of the manufacturing business of Oliver Ames and Sons
from that time became rapid and largely profitable. Mining, railroad
building, emigration to newly opened territory, and the multiplication
of public works united in giving it an impetus that speedily raised it
to a high rank in industrial importance. The same spirit of enterprise
which became a commanding characteristic of Oakes Ames in after
years conspicuously displayed itself during this portion of his business
life. He confronted the brief but fierce financial storm of 1857 with-
out disturbance, and all went smoothly and successfully with him for
years to come. The growth of the business may be somewhat under-
stood from the statement that since those days one thousand tons of
iron, two thousand tons of steel, and five thousand tons of coal pass
yearly through the hands of five hundred workmen into the great
works, appearing again in the form of those indispensable implements
which are not to be separated from the march of civilization.
The gathering clouds of civil war in 1860 caused an anxious search
everywhere for the right men to meet the impending calamity. Oakes
Ames, true to the Puritan instincts which were his inheritance, had,
with other men in Massachusetts, come first to the rescue of Kansas
in her hand-to-hand struggle for free institutions, and in a sectional
conflict could be relied on to throw his whole weight into the same
scale. The newly-formed Republican party in 1860 unanimously
named him in convention for Councilor from the Bristol district, and
he was chosen with scarcely any opposition. Thus; without any solic-
itation on his own part, he became one of the cabinet officers of Gov-
ernor Andrew, who relied on him as he did on few other men around
him in that gloomy and threatening period. None were more gener-
ous than the famous “War Governor’’ of Massachusetts in acknowl-
edging the value of the service he then rendered.
4 Memoir.
The war for the Union was dragging on to the close of its second
year, with no visible symptoms of a successful issue, and men of tried
character were needed in the government as well as recruits for the
army. The national existence was involved in the careful composi-
tion of Congress almost as much as in the operations in the field.
Requests came to Oakes Ames from all sides to consent to become a
congressional candidate in the Second District. Governor Andrew
himself was personally urgent. Members of the Council joined their
appeals to that of the Governor. Friends and neighbors felt a fresh
hope kindle, in the possibility that he would represent them in the
national government. There were several members of the party who
aspired to the place ; but when, a week before the convention, his as-
sent was known to have been obtained, the majority of them with-
drew from further contest. The intelligence was carried at midnight
by one of his warmest supporters to a well-known citizen of the dis-
trict, who, roused from his bed and summoned to the window to re-
ceive it, exultingly exclaimed in response, “That settles the question
in the Second District l”
Enthusiasm immediately pervaded the district. On the informal
ballot in convention he received two thirds of all the votes cast, and
on the next ballot was nominated with unanimity. The popular vote
by which he was sent to Congress was flatteringly large, and accom-
panied with numerous expressions of public confidence besides those
strictly political. Thus entering the thirty-eighth Congress, he con-
tinued to be reëlected to the succeeding four Congresses, serving ten
years altogether, with an acceptability to his constituents that was
felt by him to be his most satisfactory reward. During these ten
years in Congress he was a member of the several committees on
Manufactures, on the Pacific Railroad, on Revolutionary Claims, and
on Roads and Canals. His views met with an attentive hearing, and
carried with them admitted weight. He enjoyed the personal confi-
dence of President Lincoln in a large degree, who listened eagerly
to his suggestions and advice, and relied on his judgment. He was
Memoir. 5
reckoned in the group of leaders who gave shape to the legislation of
the time, among whom he held an undisputed place for the soundness
of his counsel and the steadiness with which he held his opinions.
The sentiment of patriotism was deeply seated in his nature. He be-
lieved in the unity of his country to the end. He aimed to be as
faithful a public servant as he had always been citizen. He desired
service before all things.
As a member of the Committee on Railroads, he became interested
in the government project of building a road to the Pacific. On the
first day of July, 1862, Congress passed an act authorizing and mak-
ing provision for the construction of a railroad and telegraph line
from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. It was a practical ap-
peal to the patriotism of the capitalists of the Northern States. The
commissioners named in the act met in the following September, and
the subscription books were opened, but not a dollar was subscribed.
A little more than a year later enough was pledged to authorize the
election of a board of directors, which barely preserved the life of
the corporation. Congress passed a second act in July, 1864, more
liberal than the first, increasing the number of shares, doubling the
grant of land, authorizing the company to issue mortgage bonds to
the same amount as the government bonds, and making the latter a
second instead of a first mortgage on the road. It likewise offered
to withhold only one half of the money which the road might earn
for the government's transportation, instead of the whole.
No further legislation was had on the road's behalf prior to its com-
pletion. It had now been incorporated two years, and in the lan-
guage of Oakes Ames himself, as one of the railroad committee, it
was “in great danger of breaking down.” The only practical result
of this new offer by Congress was the contract with Hoxie, in the fol-
lowing month, to build one hundred miles of road westward from the
Missouri River. Six months demonstrated his inability to execute his
contract. The company began to discover that individual contractors
were not to be relied on to do the work, -that consolidated means
alone were equal to it.
6 Memoir.
It was at that time that Oakes Ames was approached from one
side and another, being well known to favor the road as a member of
the railroad committee, to persuade him to take hold of the matter
himself. He then did not own a single share of the stock. Men of
influence, in Congress and out, with President Lincoln himself, urged
him, to the limit of importunity, to enlist in the undertaking. Presi-
dent Lincoln declared the government would do better to give its
bonds to the company than to go without the road. He assured Mr.
Ames that by building this road he would become the remembered
man of his generation.
After nearly a year of solicitation of this kind, and patient delib-
eration on his own part, he decided to assume the herculean task.
He had a just appreciation of the difficulties he was to encounter be-
fore he entered upon its execution. He was not a man to engage in
such an unparalleled undertaking rashly.
The Credit Mobilier of America, a corporation organized under the
laws of Pennsylvania, had assumed the Hoxie contract on the 15th
of March, 1865, and at once entered on its performance. But it was
not long in discovering, in its turn, that it was unequal to the under-
taking. The obstacles were overwhelming. The premium on gold
was one hundred and fifty; the first mortgage bonds of the company
were unsalable; the government bonds themselves had no fixed
value, were payable in currency, and could be sold with not much
less difficulty than those of the company; transportation of building
material was slow, difficult, and extremely high; the cost of labor
was extravagant; and there were no signs of public confidence in the
ultimate building of the road, or in its builders ever being remuner-
ated.
At this stage Oakes Ames entered the Credit Mobilier company,
and, with the aid of a few associates, brought up the amount of paid
subscriptions, by the autumn of 1865, to two and a half million dol-
lars. The railroad company appealed to the construction company to
build the road, satisfied that it could do nothing of itself. The latter
3.
Memoir. 7
corporation did assume the Hoxie contract of one hundred miles, and
completed it by October, 1866. Two parties soon developed within
the Credit Mobilier company, their purposes being wholly dissimilar:
one party desiring simply to make all the profit possible from the
construction of the road; the other party resolved to make their
profits out of the ultimate value of the road itself. The latter was
headed by Oakes Ames. This internal conflict resulted in the stop-
ping of all further contracts, and in the dissipation of the company’s
funds.
The capital stock was increased fifty per cent., although it was an
act attended with much difficulty. This was early in 1867. But
without a definite contract it was obvious that all would run to
waste. Neither party would recede from its position for some time.
At last the contest ended in a compromise. Oakes Ames was al-
lowed to take a contract. It was to be his, and not the company’s.
Up to the date of the Oakes Ames contract, the Credit Mobilier
company had constructed two hundred and forty-seven miles of road,
using up all its capital, and making but two six per cent. dividends.
The Oakes Ames contract was for building six hundred and sixty-
seven miles of road. It was dated August 16, 1867. The rates per
mile varied. Engineering and equipments of every description were
to be paid for by the contractor.
Two months later, October 15, 1867, Oakes Ames made an assign-
ment of this contract to seven trustees, who should build the road
instead of himself. They were to take his place in everything.
The profits of the contract were to be paid over to the individual
holders of stock in the Credit Mobilier. The Credit Mobilier stock-
holders were to give irrevocable proxies to the trustees to vote on
six tenths of all their Union Pacific stock, and the Union Pacific
stockholders were all to approve the contract. And it was on this
contract that the road was built and turned over to the Union Pacific
Railroad Company early in 1869.
It is admitted by all parties that Oakes Ames was the only person
8 Memoir.
who could at that time have taken such a contract. He made no
promises, and none were exacted of him. “Of course I must have
associates,” he said, “but no man shall be wronged; none shall be
deprived of his rights. I am an honest man, and I will see that every
man is protected.” It was determined that the individual stockhold-
ers of the Credit Mobilier company should have the profit, rather than
the Credit Mobilier as a corporation. He meant that the enterprise
should become a substantial one rather than that its value should end
with its execution.
With this transfer of his contract the work of Oakes Ames really
began. He gave to it all the energies of his nature. For himself he
invested a million dollars in the enterprise, and put his entire fortune
to the hazard. He personally addressed all his friends to induce
them to join him, -men of standing and influence, capitalists of all
grades, those in Congress and out of it. He went so far as to offer to
guarantee to many the full value of the stock they might purchase,
with ten per cent. interest. He was ready to venture everything, so
fixed were his determination and his faith. He asked no one to take
a risk which he was not willing to take more largely himself.
The road was constructed, and mainly through his exertions and
sacrifices. It was completed seven years earlier than the terms of the
contract required. From that date onward the government was a
gainer, in the expenses of transportation, of millions of dollars annu-
ally. While the work was in progress, its builders overcoming the
most formidable obstructions, both physical and financial, the coun-
try looked on in incredulous wonder. The repeated applause of
the press stimulated the public admiration to a very high degree,
although it had little effect in increasing the sale of the company's
bonds when the proceeds were most needed. With its triumph-
ant completion it was universally felt that the union of the States
was indeed indissoluble. The immense advantage to the country
began to be seen almost immediately. The popular applause was
now as enthusiastic as the general confidence had before been re-
Memoir. 9
strained. The tide had turned, but the result did not come without
a world of effort, unsparing and unremitted. That it should have
been succeeded, four years later, by one of those inconsistent and all
but inexplicable reversals of the public judgment which furnish the
episodes of human history, was as wholly unexpected as it was unrea-
sonable.
Thus was the Credit Mobilier given the credit of having built the
Union Pacific, though it was its stockholders, and not the organization
itself, who achieved the task and reaped the profits of their hazardous
investment. So far as that organization was concerned, it had served
its purposes, and would have ceased almost to be remembered ex-
cept by its stockholders. They had done the work, and done it
well.
The whole subsequent trouble arose from the dissensions within it
as a corporation, which have been already referred to. The men who
had formerly held back, refusing to go any further, seeing what vigor
had suddenly been imparted to it by the introduction of new energy,
suddenly forgot their old reluctance to share in its responsibilities, and
came forward eagerly to demand what but a little time before they
had refused on any terms. The idea possessed some minds that this
was a new quarry, from which to extract large personal profits on
such pretexts as were most convenient. A government inspector, as
early as 1867, refused, unless he was paid twenty-five thousand dollars,
to report on the sections of the road it was his official duty to exam-
ine; and without his report, the government, of course, declined issu-
ing its bonds to the company, and the work of construction was hin-
dered accordingly. There was a spirit abroad that is best described
by the offensive term blackmail. Progress and profit soon began to
collect all the birds of evil omen in quest of prey. If a govern-
ment inspector demanded pay for performing his plain official service,
what might not be expected of others whose claims were not more
substantial? There were lobbyists, too, always on hand to whet their
greedy plans on any project that contained the promise of profit, and
10 Memoir.
they were able to organize hostility in all forms, the sole object of
which was purchase for its removal.
There was a bold and concerted attack on the Union Pacific Com-
pany in New York in the spring of 1869, about the date when the
construction company turned the road over to the railroad company,
to obtain control of the company through the orders of state courts,
whose judges afterwards found their places in the legislative and popu.
lar opinion. The conspirators were resolved to get forcible possession
of a franchise which had been made greatly valuable in spite of their
opposition; they were inspired by revenge and envy together. The
offices were seized under cover of legal procedure. The safes were
forced open and a number of bonds abstracted. The clerks, however,
managed to secrete and secure most of the books, which were surrep-
titiously carried over to Jersey City, out of the reach of the New York
courts. The Union Pacific Company received a foul blow at that
critical period of its opening activity that left it almost a ruin. For
the first time it applied to Congress for relief. All it asked was au-
thority to remove its office from New York to Boston, and the request
was readily granted.
There was one other untoward experience, and a wholly unex-
pected one, through which it was called to pass. In the face of the
plain contract which the railroad company had made with the gov-
ernment, the Secretary of the Treasury ruled that the government
had a right to retain the whole of the money it owed the company for
transportation, instead of one half only. The basis for such a decis-
ion was that the accumulating interest on the government bonds held
by the company warranted the application of all the company's
money to its payment which the government held in its hands. The
Attorney-General supported this decision of the Secretary in an opin-
ion that, to this day, is pointed to by lawyers as phenomenal for its
misinterpretation and illogical conclusions. For the second time the
railroad company went to Congress to obtain the authoritative ex-
pression of its opinion in a matter that hardly seemed to admit of dis-
Memoir. 11
pute; and Congress, in 1871, reversed the ruling of the Secretary by
a special act conforming to the plain terms of the company’s contract
with the government, and directed the Secretary to pay over to the
company the one half due it for transportation service, which was ac-
cordingly done.
Those who were in the construction company being also in the rail-
road company, they found it necessary for some time after the road
was finished to keep it in operation by drafts on their own resources.
They were millions of dollars in debt, and the road must be operated
in order to guarantee them ultimate relief. The withholding of half
the road's government earnings at such a time was a highly obstruc-
tive item in their experience. It likewise had the effect to depreciate
the value of the company's securities for a time, and thus to cramp
proceedings seriously. This decision of the Treasury, so soon set
aside by Congress, embarrassed the finances of Oakes Ames to such an
extent that he felt compelled to appeal to his creditors for their indul-
gence. It was the first time in his life he had been driven to such an
extremity. They granted his request, however, with generous prompt-
ness and unanimity, and he subsequently cleared himself from his
temporary embarrassments by meeting every one of his renewed
promises as they matured.
But it was the McComb suit that was the parent cause of the
trouble, which, by finally being made to take a political coloring, cul-
minated in a panic in Congress during the short session of 1872–73.
McComb caught the spirit that was in the air when the road was
progressing so rapidly to completion, and saw what he thought was
his opportunity. He set up a claim to the right to receive twenty-
five thousand dollars’ worth of Credit Mobilier stock, which he as-
serted was due to a friend on account of the subscription made for
him early in 1866. McComb, though a member of the Credit Mobi-
lier, was not of the Oakes Ames party that controlled that company
in the matter of the Oakes Ames contract. A correspondence, wholly
of an explanatory character on one side, took place between Mr. Ames
12 Memoir.
and Colonel McComb in relation to the distribution of the stock. The
former was more particularly anxious to convince McComb that he
had not kept certain stock for himself, but had placed it with men of
standing and influence, and in So judicious a manner that it would
give all possible breadth to the status of the railroad company, and
impart to it a truly national character. Without any consciousness
of using language that could be subjected to misconstruction, he ex-
plained that he had placed such stock where it would do most good. .
It was a plain man's plain way of speaking. It was these few brief
letters of Oakes Ames to a harassing claimant, written only to try
to satisfy him that all had been done fairly and justly, that, by mali-
cious misconstruction, inflamed by party passions in the time of a
general election, were used for the purpose of wrecking public reputa-
tions in the expectation of political advantage. It was a baseless cause,
passing through a highly colored medium, that produced such insen-
sate results. It was a strange episode, that could hardly occur again
in our political history.
After pressing his claim to no purpose, seeing that the work of
building the road had at last been seriously entered upon, in the latter
part of 1867 McComb brought suit. This suit, while the completed
road was getting into profitable operation, he kept alive until 1872.
In that year his counsel came to the Ames party with proposals for
a settlement. The claim was still made for twenty-five thousand dol-
lars’ worth of stock. It was repudiated, as it had been before. Then
McComb's counsel suggested the possibility of the publication of
Oakes Ames's letters to McComb, which were written for the very
purpose of explaining away the grounds of his claim. The idea con-
veyed was that the members to whom Oakes Ames admitted that he
had assigned shares of Credit Mobilier stock could be disgraced by an
exposure of the fact. The one who threw out such a suggestion of
course knew the methods to be resorted to for that purpose. Among
the names referred to were those of well-known members of Congress,
whom it was thought that neither Mr. Ames nor his associates would
Memoir. 13
permit to be subjected to such dangerous chances. The calculation
was that, rather than incur a risk of such a character, they would
pay the McComb claim.
But they had reckoned without their host. Wholly unconscious
of wrong, either in deed or intention, Oakes Ames turned aside the
menace with a smile. Had he been engaged in a wrong act, he
would naturally have made haste to cover it up in the only manner
in which it could be done. He would have settled the McComb claim
from his own pocket. His associates, too, in that case, never would
have let the matter proceed to extremities. They knew that Oakes
Ames was incapable of doing an improper act, and therefore they felt
that he had nothing to express in his correspondence that would
imply it. The claim was resisted again, and the threat of exposure
was executed.
It is unnecessary to discuss the alleged validity of McComb's claim
thus set up to two hundred and fifty shares of Credit Mobilier stock,
with an addition of half as many more on account of the fifty per
cent, increase of the company’s capital. Enough that he, with other
stockholders, subscribed an agreement with them all to transfer sixty-
five thousand dollars' worth of the capital stock to such parties as
T. C. Durant and Oakes Ames “have agreed upon and designate, –
say, to Durant parties thirty-seven thousand dollars’ worth, and to
Ames parties twenty-eight thousand dollars.” This agreement also
shows that Mr. Ames paid the par value of the shares to the company.
In spite of this agreement, however, McComb persisted in his hostil-
ity to the company, and at length commenced suit against it and its
officers to recover three hundred and seventy-five shares of its stock
to his individual use.
McComb filed affidavits, in the summer of 1872, in a Pennsylvania
court, that the stock he claimed had been set apart by the Credit
Mobilier for Mr. Ames, expressly to distribute among members of
Congress, in order to give them interest enough in the road to secure
their legislative assistance when it should be needed. He also alleged
14 Memoir.
that Mr. Ames had received it for that purpose, and for that purpose
had distributed it; that it was a corrupt distribution, because he had
sold the stock to members of Congress at a price much below what it
was worth, and thus bribed them with the prospect of profits. He
gave a list of Congressmen to whom he stated that the stock had been
transferred on these favorable terms, which list he asserted Mr. Ames
had himself furnished him; and he filed, along with his affidavit, cer-
tain letters which he said he had received from Mr. Ames, in which
the proof of a corrupt use of the stock was stated to be conclusive.
It is established that when, at last, McComb's counsel proposed to
one of Mr. Ames’s associates to settle for one hundred thousand dol-
lars the latter asked Mr. Ames if he had ever attempted to influ-
ence any member of Congress by a sale of the stock below its value;
and that the latter denied the imputation in the most strenuous man-
ner, maintaining his integrity and challenging the scrutiny of the
world. He declared he had never written to McComb any such let-
ters as the latter claimed to have in his possession, and none which
were fairly capable of a corrupt construction. These letters were
even offered to be surrendered to Mr. Ames, if he would come to
some terms of settlement. But he knew that as McComb had no
claim whatever for stock, so he could have no letters of his that could
incriminate him.
The letters were made public in a New York journal of extended
circulation, on the 4th of September, 1872, with all the arts of prac-
ticed sensationalism. It was while a presidential and a general con-
gressional election was pending. It is difficult to account for the
excitement that at once ran wild through the country according to
any rules of reason or morality. The members of Congress whose
names were involved seemed to have been terror-stricken. The fire
thus kindled broke forth in a flame. There must have been a maze
of transactions in which Congressmen were engaged that would not
bear exposure, in order to suddenly precipitate such a storm. There
would never have been so much fear, if there were not a great deal of
Memoir. 15
undiscovered guilt. Besides this, a check had been administered to a
long course of general profusion by the growing public disfavor. The
newspapers found this new charge the very fuel they wanted for
feeding the flames of popular disapprobation, and they made it go as
far as it would.
It was alleged, in order to carry out the idea of corruption, that
the Credit Mobilier stock had made enormous profits. It was reck-
lessly charged that Oakes Ames had distributed thirty thousand
shares of stock as bribes, having a value of nine million dollars. The
records of the Pennsylvania court in which suit was brought were
spread before the public, -how obtained has never yet been explained;
and leading public men were spoken of as if they had been bribed
to do legislative favors for the road. All was suddenly tumultuous
uproar. As the loud echoes of party passion multiplied, the low voice
of reason grew silent altogether. It was all consternation within
and accusatory aggressiveness without. No one knew the extent to
which the rest were either guilty or innocent. There was political
advantage to be gained on one side at the cost of political ruin on the
other. The party seeking control naturally abated nothing of the ran-
cor or recklessness of the charges brought against its opponent. The
party in possession contained an inconvenient number of leaders, who
were not specially inclined to make haste to set up a mutual defense.
There was little real community of sentiment except in relation to
the party seeking their defeat.
And there was a spirit abroad that was disposed to sit in judgment
on the character of past legislation A reaction was fast setting in
from the flush times of the past few years. The day of general reck-
oning was near. All sorts of scandals in official life were being dragged
to the light. Hardly any one connected with the government knew
his precise status in a time when all things were reeling. A reign of
terror had begun. In the circles of power no one could say whether
he was safe or not. The atmosphere was heavy with the taint of evil
rumors. Characters never suspected of impurity suffered from the
16 Memoir.
prevailing spirit of detraction. If it was the incoming of the wave of
reform, it promised to be one of destruction only. The inspiring mo-
tive of that political campaign never had its parallel in this country.
It was a campaign of detraction and malice, terrorism and panic.
When Congress met in December, it was impossible for the dom-
inant party to ignore these fearful assaults on its reputation. An
investigation by select committee was at once ordered by the House
of Representatives, and entered upon with little delay. The excite-
ment raised by the political canvass was thus continued by Congress.
Parties ranged themselves strictly on this issue of bribery. One did
not scruple to employ any weapons that would bring discomfiture to
its opponent, even though it destroyed the highest reputations; the
other was ready to confess to an almost equal degree of unscrupu-
lousness in adopting measures of self-defense. The one difficult thing
to do was to elicit the truth, and the whole truth. But for the trans-
parent honesty of one man in Congress, it is questionable if the facts
had ever been brought to the light just as they were. That man was
Oakes Ames. Solicited and urged as he was to sustain the contradic-
tory statements of the panic-stricken men about him, he never for an
instant swerved from the path he had followed without deviation all
his life. No member of Congress could rely on him to testify what
was not strictly true, though it were to save him from political ruin;
he would not have done it to save himself. It is above all things
singular that such a man could be suspected of corrupt practices, and
condemned on the charge of having pursued them.
The Poland committee was directed to discover if any members
had been guilty of bribing or receiving bribes; the Wilson committee
was appointed to discover if the government had been defrauded.
The popular clamor forced open the doors of the committee-rooms,
that the proceedings might be in the face of day, and nothing be hid-
den from the public eye. It was enough that it was charged that the
people had been cheated in the construction of this railroad, and that
members of Congress had been bribed. It was the most difficult of
Memoir. 17
all problems to know how to appease this aroused popular sentiment.
The leaders of the party in power were confounded, hardly knowing
which way to turn. When they saw that the people would not suf-
fer an investigation to proceed with closed doors, they saw, too, that
it would not do to try to palliate the offense charged. They felt that
vindication now was not so easy as the offer of a sacrifice. In that
period of panic, when all hung on the testimony of one man, and he
incapable of untruth in any form, it occurred to them that in visiting
punishment upon him they would vindicate themselves, and destroy
the damning effect of his imperturbable veracity.
The trouble all came from the denials made by certain members of
Congress during the canvass that they had ever owned any of the
Credit Mobilier stock, or had anything to do with it. But for this
the storm would have blown over before Congress assembled. It is
scarcely supposable that McComb or his counsel could have counted
on so effective an ally for their purpose as this panic among congress-
men proved.
When Congress met in December, the excitement had not suffi-
ciently abated to allow the subject to rest for ever so brief a time,
and Speaker Blaine, calling Mr. S. S. Cox to the chair, took the floor,
and proceeded to review the matter, closing his remarks with a pro-
posal to appoint a special committee to investigate the charges against
members of Congress, and report thereon to the House. There was
not an objection raised to it. The resolution adopted by the House
read as follows:–
“Whereas, accusations have been made in the public press, founded on the
alleged letters of Oakes Ames, a Representative from Massachusetts, and upon
the alleged affidavit of Henry S. McComb, a citizen of Wilmington, in the
State of Delaware, to the effect that members of this House were bribed by
Oakes Ames to perform certain legislative acts for the benefit of the Union
Pacific Railway Company, by presents of stock in the Credit Mobilier of
America, or by presents of a valuable character derived therefrom ; therefore,
“Resolved, That a special committee of five members be appointed by the
2
18 Memoir.
Speaker pro tempore, whose duty it shall be to investigate and ascertain
whether any member of this House was bribed by Oakes Ames, or any other
person or corporation, in any matter touching his legislative duty.
“Resolved further, That the committee have the right to employ a stenog-
rapher, and that they be empowered to send for persons and papers.”
Without a day's delay the committee proceeded to its work. It was
composed as follows: Luke P. Poland, of Vermont, chairman ; Na-
thaniel P. Banks, of Massachusetts; James B. Beck, of Kentucky;
William E. Niblack, of Indiana; George W. McCrary, of Iowa. It
sat daily until about the middle of February, examining every person
who had any knowledge of the subject inquired into. Each member
of Congress who was charged with having had any interest in the
Credit Mobilier appeared and gave his testimony.
The unprecedented character of the whole proceeding did not then
impress Congress or the public as it did at a later period and when
the excitement was over; in that it was an investigation into the con-
duct of men for which the sitting Congress could not hold them re-
sponsible, and that, even if found guilty, they could not be punished
in a parliamentary, much less in a legal, sense. The offense, if there
was one, had been committed five years before, and could not come
within the legislative jurisdiction of a Congress which then had no
existence. No statement could very well make it more apparent that
the whole thing was the chaotic result of a political panic. The
plain unreasonableness of it in every view showed that the party in
the majority had silently predetermined to save itself from the effect
of a popular clamor by making a personal sacrifice. The leaders of
the time, who had clearly lost their heads, thought that the excited
public temper must be appeased, at any rate, and that it could not be
done so easily as by throwing all the blame — assuming that there
was any blame — on the mysterious Credit Mobilier and Oakes Ames.
A perusal at this day of the reported testimony before the commit-
tee is not calculated to exalt one's estimate of human nature when
found in conspicuous places. The denials which had been so freely
Memoir. 19
made by members of Congress, while the presidential and congres-
sional canvass was pending, their authors presumed would be upheld
by the statements of Oakes Ames before the committee. They had
not reckoned on the inconvenient factor of truth in the problem they
had themselves proposed for solution. There never were, in fact, but
two ways out of the difficulty: either they should have admitted out-
right, as a few did, that they had purchased Credit Mobilier stock,
which nobody would have questioned their right to do, or Oakes
Ames should have confirmed their denials by falsehood of his own.
They had yet to learn that of this he was incapable. Those who con-
fessed that they had bought the stock, and felt that no wrong was
done, were never afterwards placed under the ban of public condemna-
tion. It was the denial and the prevarication that wrought all the
mischief, by exciting suspicion from the first that the Credit Mobilier
was a machine for corruption, when it was a construction company
merely.
The Wilson committee was raised, to discover what connection the
Credit Mobilier had with the building of the Union Pacific Railroad,
and to see if the government had in any way been defrauded. The
final report of this committee showed a surprising misconception of
the whole business. The political excitement had confused this com-
mittee equally with the other one. It did not see that there was
no connection between the Credit Mobilier and the Oakes Ames
contract; that as a corporation it had never received anything from
that contract; that, except from the money paid it by the seven trus-
tees of the Oakes Ames contract, the Credit Mobilier had never de-
clared a dividend beyond the twelve per cent. One extending over two
years; that all the capital the Credit Mobilier ever had was sunk in
the construction of a section of the road; and that it was plucked by
its early managers, so that it had no power to do anything, fraudulent
or otherwise.
Nor did this committee see, either, how the government was re-
lated to the two Pacific roads. It appeared to think that the gov-
20 Memoir.
ernment had loaned them money from its treasury, when the fact
was that it had never advanced them one dollar, and had never been
asked to. It loaned them its credit, and that was all; and for that
loan they are still obligated, and are to-day engaged in the task of
providing for its repayment in full. The government loaned its notes,
in the form of bonds, which the Union Pacific builders sold from
time to time on such terms as they were able. The security for its
loan consisted of a second mortgage on the road. The committee re-
ported that the government could rightly declare the company had
forfeited its franchise. And they stated the profit of construction to
be nearly three times what it was.
They recommended that a suit be instituted against every individ-
ual who had ever received any of the dividends declared by the con-
struction company from the profits of construction. And a suit was
subsequently begun by the Attorney-General, obediently to this recom-
mendation, to recover in equity all the property which it was assumed
had been wrongly taken from the government. But in 1879 the
Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the decision of the
Circuit Court of Connecticut, declaring that there was “no right to
relief on the part of the United States founded on the charter con-
tract; ” that “the company has constructed its road to completion,
keeps it in running order, and carries for the government all that is
required of it; ” that “it owes the government nothing that is due,
and the government has the security which by law it provided. Nor
does the bill show anything which authorizes the United States, as the
depository of a trust, public or private, to sustain the suit.” The
Court argued thus: “The government made its contract and bar-
gained for its security. It had a first lien on the road by the original
act of incorporation, which would have made its loan safe in any
event. But in its anxiety to secure the construction of the road, - an
end more important to the government than to any one else, and still
more important to the people whom it represented, - it postponed
this lien to another mortgage, that the means might be raised to com-
Memoir. 21
plete it.” . . . “It is difficult to see any right which the government
has as a creditor to interfere between the corporation and those with
whom it deals.” . . . “We are unable, therefore, to see any relief
which the United States would be entitled to in a court of equity,
under this bill, on account of its contract relations with the defend-
ant.” . . . “A court of justice is not called on to inquire into the
balance of benefits and favors on each side of this controversy, but
into the rights of the parties as established by law, as found in their
contracts, as recognized by the established principles of equity, and to
decide accordingly. Governed by this rule, and by the intention of
the legislature in passing the law under which this suit is brought,
we concur with the Circuit Court in holding that no case for relief is
made by the bill, and the decree of that court dismissing it is accord-
ingly affirmed.” And this was what finally came of the Wilson com-
mittee's report.
In regard to the Poland committee, no witness appeared but
McComb himself to allege corrupt motives against Oakes Ames
His testimony stands without support in this particular. He pro-
duced the letters written him by Mr. Ames, which were explanatory
altogether and replies to his own, and gave them the only interpreta-
tion which suited his now notorious purpose.
On his own part, Mr. Ames denied ever having had such conversa-
tions with McComb as the latter testified to. He denied ever having
admitted to him the things alleged. He asserted in the most positive
manner of which he was capable that he had never entertained the de-
sign of influencing legislation for the Pacific Railroad by giving the
stock of the construction company to members of Congress. He
stated that whatever stock they had of him he had sold to them, as
he had to others, when it was below par, and when it was a difficult
matter to dispose of it at all; and that they purchased it solely on his
assurances that it would pay them a profit, sooner or later. He said
that such a thing as corrupting legislation was never in his mind, and
his statement was supported by the fact that the road wanted no
22 Memoir.
further legislation, for it already had all that was necessary. He ex-
plained that his letters to McComb were replies to the letters of the
latter, containing inquiries which he simply sought to answer. And
in order, if possible, to discourage further attempts to obtain posses-
sion of the stock claimed, he had aimed to convince McComb that
he was doing only what would result in the common benefit, and not
merely in that of himself personally.
And since the letters were written for the purpose only of satisfying
McComb, and thereby silencing his claim, they were expressed in
familiar and unguarded language, with no reference to their ever being
made public in any future contingency. They were always written in
haste, when business was urgent, and in the familiar strain in which
men address one another who are personally interested in the same
enterprise. He freely admitted that he had sold the stock of the
Credit Mobilier to members of Congress, but he declared that he sold
it for its stated price, and before the rise in its value took place.
This latter point formed the pivot on which the charge of bribery
turned ; for if he had not sold the stock to members of Congress for
less than its value, he clearly could have offered them nothing which
would furnish the least inducement for legislative action in his favor.
The resolution adopted by the House empowered the committee
“to investigate and ascertain whether any member of this House was
bribed by Oakes Ames, or any other person or corporation, in any
matter touching his legislative duty.”
The committee finally reported as follows: “Whereas, Mr. Oakes
Ames, a Representative in this House, from the State of Massachusetts,
has been guilty of selling to members of Congress shares of stock in
the Credit Mobilier of America for prices much below the full value
of such stock, with intent thereby to influence the votes and decisions
of such members in matters to be brought before Congress for action;
therefore, resolved, that Mr. Oakes Ames be, and he is hereby ex-
pelled from his seat as a member of this House.”
Here was clearly an attempt of a later Congress to purge or pun-
Memoir. 23
ish for a former one, – a thing unheard of till then. Before the dis-
cussion on this remarkable report closed, brief and hurried as it was,
as the last days of the session approached, the lawyers in Congress,
represented by the House Judiciary Committee, made a report in direct
opposition to the report of the investigating committee, declaring that
Congress had no right or power to expel a member for acts committed
prior to his election as a member of that body. This at last induced
the House to substitute the resolution to censure for the resolution to
expel. But the right to do the one was no better laid than the right
to do the other, for a subsequent Congress could not take cognizance
of the actions of the members of a previous one. There is no ques-
tion that Congress is free at any time to purge itself of offending mem-
bers, the right to expel being clearly implied in the right to admit;
but no offense committed by a member of a former Congress can be
imputed to a member of a subsequent one, even though it be the same
individual who is a member of both. Nothing goes to prove more
convincingly that Congress, during the session of 1872–73, was con-
fused by its fears and blinded by its selfishness, in committing an act
that is no more amenable to common sense than to common justice.
It voted to censure a member for what he was alleged to have done
in the past, before it existed ; it would not have been more senseless
to censure him for something which it apprehended he might, if he
should continue in congressional life, do in the future.
The charge brought against Oakes Ames was bribery. The only
question at issue, then, is this : Was the charge of bribery sustained 2
The committee itself says it was not. All the facts and circum-
staces show it was not. There was nothing and no one to sustain the
charge but Mr. McComb; and against his testimony was that of the
accused, flatly contradicting him at every point. Congress at least had
no good reason for preferring to believe the former to the latter.
“In his negotiations with these members of Congress,” say the
committee, “Mr. Ames made no suggestion that he desired to secure
their favorable influence in Congress in favor of the railroad company;
24 Memoir.
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.”
And the committee also say that they “ have not been able to find
that any of these members of Congress have been affected in their
official action in consequence of their interest in Credit Mobilier
stock.” They were obliged to admit this, even while recommending
his expulsion under the investigation of the charge of bribery; and
this was the gist of the whole matter. So that, while finding Oakes
Ames not guilty of the charge preferred against him, they found that
he deserved expulsion the same as if he were.
That is all the logic or sense there is to be found in this most re-
markable of reports from a congressional investigating committee.
It was punishment without guilt ; nay, worse, it was punishment in-
flicted by the judge after admitting the innocence of the accused.
Such a maze of conflicting, unreasonable, and cowardly feelings as
led to a result otherwise so unaccountable, is not to be threaded either
by analysis or conjecture. A verdict of this sort stands against those
who find it rather than against the one sought to be overcome.
Not only were the committee unable to discover any act of bribery,
but the facts and circumstances all render it impossible. Even if
the verdict had been otherwise in this respect, it would not stand
unsupported by the facts; the two certainly cannot contradict one
another. And the pivotal, the vital, fact in this accusation is the one
that relates to the date of the sale of the Credit Mobilier stock to mem-
bers of Congress. If it could be made to appear that the stock was
sold them below par after it had greatly appreciated, that would be
the end of it; there could be no more defense. But it appeared that
all the contracts made by Mr. Ames with members for selling them
the stock were made prior to any dividends being declared, and on
his personal assurance only that the investment would be a profitable
one. As for the allegation of McComb that the stock was given to
members, that never received serious attention from any side. The
Memoir. 25
testimony of those who took it was decisive on that point. It is there-
fore of the first importance to know when the sales to members were
actually made.
All who had the stock testified to having purchased it immediately
after the opening of Congress in the session of 1867–68. That was
before it had reached par. The first dividend was declared on the
12th of December, 1867, and paid January 3, 1868. It was that
dividend which gave an impetus to its market value. Now when did
Congress actually assemble that winter 3 Ordinarily it would have
been on the first Monday in December. But there was an adjourn-
ment of the former session from a late day in the summer to the 21st
day of November. The adjourned session thus ran into the regular or
short session, and to all intents became a part of it. So that, by the
testimony of the purchasing members themselves, it was during the
latter part of November and the early days of December that Mr.
Ames held his conversations with them respecting the purchase of the
stock. Not one of them testified that he had bought it after the first
dividend was declared. Mr. Ames likewise charged all of them inter-
est on the stock at its par value from the July previous. This little
circumstance alone disposes of every suggestion of bribery, and goes
to prove both a sale and the price. For who, it may be asked, ever
before thought of taking interest on a bribe 2 Or what person sought
to be corrupted ever before consented to pay it 2
It is a remarkably singular circumstance that all parties should have
entirely forgotten the fact of this extraordinary adjournment of Con-
gress in 1867, owing to the political excitement of that period. It was
never alluded to in the testimony either of Mr. Ames himself or of
the members involved; which also goes to show how much a matter of
the past, in relation to the Congress of 1872–73, the whole transaction
was. Had this single fact been recalled while the investigation was
pending, it would have fixed the question of the stock’s value at the
time of its sale beyond further dispute. As a matter of fact, however,
the stock was offered freely at par, after the opening of the adjourned
26 Memoir.
session on the 21st of November, and there were few or no buyers,
and it was sold at less than par, at that.
The testimony is unvarying that it was before there was any rise
in its value that the stock was sold to members of Congress, and at a
time when it could not be sold at par in the market. Mr. Ames
offered it as a good investment only, and they took it because, and
only because, they confided in his integrity and superior business judg-
ment. They took it at par and interest from July. He did not
promise them any dividends, for at that time it could not be foretold
when one would be declared. It was all indefinite, and the situa-
tion was a wholly speculative one. There was a strong opposition to
making the first dividend at the time it was declared ; and not for
Some time afterwards was there an upward movement in the stock.
Then it was that Mr. Ames called on the Credit Mobilier Company
to issue to him the stock which he had thus agreed to deliver, and for
which he had long before paid the cash from his own pocket. It was
with this issue, and this delivery according to contract, the McComb
trouble began, after a dividend had finally given an impetus to the
market value of the stock. The motive was selfishness, and the
means were misrepresentation. The letters of Mr. Ames to McComb
about this time were merely an explanation in answer to the latter's
demands, as has before been stated.
The stock was issued to Mr. Ames because he had paid for it; and
he delivered it as he had agreed to do. He delivered it after it had
begun to appreciate, when it was worth much more than when he
sold it. Would any but a truly honest man have done such a thing?
Was a man who did do it the one to offer bribes, even allowing that
they could be made serviceable; which, in his case they notoriously
could not, and, according to the report of the investigating commit-
tee, they certainly were not ? .
The testimony of the inculpated members was read as it appeared
with excited interest from one end of the country to the other. The
reputations of a number of leading public men were involved, but it
Memoir. - 27
is now apparent that they would not have been if they had not them-
selves displayed the timidity which gave rise to the popular suspicions
of guilt. Their solicitude to cover up or deny their transactions natu-
rally created the impression that the transactions themselves were
wrong. No wrong would have been imputed but for this. It might
have been charged that they had been guilty of an indiscretion, or
even an impropriety, but no one would have thought of going further
than this against them.
But if there was fault, it was not that of Oakes Ames altogether.
As soon as the Credit Mobilier stock began to rise in value, he was
besieged by members who claimed that they had previously agreed to
take it of him, and now demanded its delivery. Many of them never
would have come to him for it at all but for its rapid appreciation.
They had been offered opportunities to take it, but the only answer
they made was that “they would see.” This pressure of claims
placed Mr. Ames in a position in which he found it difficult to decide
what to do, and still not prejudice the standing of the company and
the road. He had, therefore, to draw the line between such engage-
ments as were known to be positive and those which were uncertain
and contingent. It was this state of things with him that must sup-
ply the interpretation to at least his first letter to McComb, which
aimed to show the latter that the writer was not favoring himself or
any particular section of the country in his distribution. He wrote
thus: “You say I must not put too much in one locality. I have
assigned, as far as I have gone, to four from Massachusetts, one from
New Hampshire, one Delaware, one Tennessee, one Ohio, two Penn-
sylvania, one Indiana, one Maine, and I have three to place, which I
shall place where they will do most good to us.” McComb had com-
plained that Mr. Ames might have disposed of the stock among his
own personal friends, and the latter sought to satisfy him that he had
distributed it in a way to represent, so far as possible, the entire coun-
try. His language was that he had “assigned ’’ it. He was a man
who used plain words, and sought for nothing more than to convey his
28 Memoir.
real meaning. When he employed the term “assigned,” he merely
intended to say that he had decided to divide up the stock as after-
wards described, and primarily with a view to having the influential
men of all sections alike feel a personal interest in the road; and
such men were the Representatives in Congress. The three thousand,
which he said he should “place where they will do most good to us,”
he contemplated such a disposition of as would benefit McComb's
interest in the Pacific road equally with his own. This free and un-
guarded style of expression in a business matter is the very best
evidence of honesty, and cannot justly be interpreted at variance with
the recognized character of the writer.
Respecting the question of the purchase of stock of such a char-
acter by members of Congress, little need be said; but the occasion
justifies the production, in this place, of the statement of at least one
member, which is taken from the Poland committee report. He
says, “I had no idea of wrong in the matter. Nor do I now
see how it concerns the public. No one connected with either the
Credit Mobilier or the Union Pacific Railroad ever directly or
indirectly expressed, or in any way hinted, that my services as a
member of Congress were expected in behalf of either corporation,
in consideration of the stock I obtained, and certainly no such 'ser-
vices were ever rendered. I was much less embarrassed, as a member
of Congress, by the ownership of Credit Mobilier stock than I should
have been had I owned stock in a national bank, or in an iron fur-
nace, or a woolen-mill, or even been a holder of government bonds;
for there was important legislation, while I was in Congress, affecting
all these interests, but no legislation whatever concerning the Credit
Mobilier. I can therefore find nothing in my conduct in that regard
to regret. It was, in my judgment, both honest and honorable, and
consistent with my position as a member of Congress; and as the
investment turned out to be profitable, my only regret is that it was
no larger in amount.”
There was no disgrace attached to a statement like this; if all the
Memoir. 29
rest had made a similar one there could have been no cause for scan-
dal; and it manifestly is the essence of injustice to make one man,
who has committed no fault, bear the burden which others would
properly have to carry for themselves. If he might build the Pacific
Railroad, though a member of Congress, what could make it any
more questionable for them as his copartners and coöperators ?
The debate that followed, to the final substitution of the resolution
of censure for that of expulsion, was compressed into a space of time
unjustly disproportioned to the gravity of such action as was pro-
posed. But the session was to end on the 4th of March, and with
it the ten years’ congressional career of Oakes Ames terminated also.
Many of the leading members and the most impressive speakers par-
ticipated in the debate. The evidence accompanying the report of the
investigating committee was too voluminous for any one to read with
care and mentally digest ; hence the debate became more dramatic
in its spirit than judicial, and was not greatly calculated to advance
the cause of justice reasonably and dispassionately. The House ap-
peared far more anxious to emerge from the cloud it found itself
involved in than to decide rightly on a question of punishment where
no guilt could be demonstrated. The speakers were many of them
eloquent and forcible, but the common reason had been dethroned for
the time by the panic wrought by political clamor, and safety was
eagerly sought at the cost of justice and truth. To this day, there
has never been heard a voluntary defender of the action of Congress
at that time. It is recorded but to excite the universal wish that it
might be forgotten.
We shall proceed to recite the leading points of two of the ablest
and most impressive of the speeches delivered on the floor in defense
of Mr. Ames. They are that the committee only apprehended that
there might be in the future, in some indefinable shape which could
not be anticipated, some legislation proposed or done, which would be
hostile to the Pacific road ; and Mr. Ames so desired to interest mem-
bers of Congress as to stimulate their activity and attract their atten-
30 Memoir.
tion to the subject. The alleged intention of Mr. Ames to influence
the members who purchased this Credit Mobilier stock was in no
instance communicated to them; whenever they asked if the owner-, ..
ship 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 did not find that members had any other purpose in
taking the stock than to make a profitable investment. They were
not able to find that any of these members of Congress were affected
in their official action by their interest in the stock. Mr. Ames was
not charged with urging any one to take the stock; on the contrary,
it was proved that several members who did take it themselves
made the first advance, either by asking his advice about an advanta-
geous investment, or in some other way that finally led to their
purchasing it.
The actual statement of the committee, then, is briefly this:
first, that he bribed his friends; second, that they did not know they
were bribed; third, that they were not affected by the bribe; and,
fourth, that neither he nor the persons bribed knew what those per-
sons were to do, or to abstain from doing, in consideration of the
bribes. Yet he is found guilty of bribery because he made these sales
of stock. One person alone can no more commit bribery than one
person can commit a conspiracy; it takes two parties to do it. Nor
can there be bribery unless the person bribed is to do or to abstain
from doing something. It is absurd, the idea that a member may
bribe a fellow member of Congress by making him a present or doing
him a favor, without in any way notifying the latter what he expects
him to do or not to do, but that he is only apprehensive that at some
indefinite time in the future something may occur which may preju-
dice his interest, when he may need the assistance of his friend.
A man does not usually bribe his friends, those who are already
committed to his side of the case and in favor of his interest. Bribes
are given to men to convert them, to change them. They are
offered to those who are disinclined, in order to prevail on them to do
Memoir. 31
what the briber desires them to do. The committee say in their re-
port that all these parties who invested in this stock were already the
friends of this railroad company. Mr. Oakes Ames is an old man ; a
self-made man of character, of reputation beyond impeachment wher-
ever he has been known; a man of large enterprise, of great wealth,
but whose fortune has been carved out by himself; a man who
shouldered a responsibility which no other man in the country could
be found to shoulder; a man who embarked in a great enterprise,
from which other men and capitalists shrank, his entire private for-
tune.
He has been a member of Congress for many years, and what new
thing has he done that was not known to all before? What has
transpired during this Congress, in relation to the doings of Mr. Oakes
Ames, that was not sufficiently patent years ago? Everybody in
Congress and out of it, who knew anything about the Union Pacific
Railroad, knew of the existence of the Credit Mobilier, — knew that
Mr. Oakes Ames held that stock, and it was said he was making large
profits. What new thing, what new iniquity, what crime, should
make all this excitement 2 Is the Credit Mobilier stock any more
wicked and iniquitous now than it was four years ago? We all knew
he held it then, and it was allowed to pass; but now, when he is within
seven days of bidding good-by to this hall, when he is within one
week of taking his final departure from Congress, it is proposed, in
the very last days of his political and congressional life, to expel him.
For what? For selling Credit Mobilier stock which he held years
ago, and which we all knew at that time that he owned.
Oakes Ames, said the other speaker, is a man so truthful that to
save himself he would not tell a lie, when the committee now say if
he would only lie he would be safe. We have not the right, consti-
tutional or legal, to expel any member for a crime alleged to have
been committed by him five years ago, before his election to this
House. Besides, the laws provide for the punishment of crime. At
the hour when nearly one half of this Union was struggling to over-
tº
32 Memoir.
throw the other, when the earth resounded to the tramp of armed
men in the field, in the darkest hour of our fortunes, Oakes Ames
came forward, and placed down eight hundred thousand dollars as his
subscription, to send the railroad across the continent that should
hold the East and West together, because he had seen the North and
South struggling to separate. It may have been done from motives
of patriotism or motives of gain. He trusted his country’s future, and
his act was patriotic ; and if to do good to his country and mankind
was his motive, he did well, and no man has the right or the power
to say it was not well.
If there is a man in the House who will rise in his place and say
that he does not in his heart believe Oakes Ames is an honest and
truthful man, he is yet to be discovered. Every one believes sub-
stantially every word of his testimony. The committee itself has cer-
tified to its truth. He kept debit and credit with those who allowed
him to be the trustee of their property in his simple way, but kept it
with an accuracy that shows more of truthful honesty than the ac-
count-books of the most resplendent counting-room in the land.
His own story is that he was brought into this Pacific Railroad
after a great deal of persuasion, when all other capitalists faltered,
with his brother; and that they then went forward with the enter-
prise, asking for no legislation in behalf of the road, and expecting
none. The legislation providing for the subrogation of the bonds of
the United States to those of the road was had in 1864, before the
Ameses had anything to do with it. He took stock in the road, and
he agreed with some of the best men in the country to go into a cor-
poration for the purpose of building this road, foreseeing that its mag-
nitude might swamp any individual contractor. They tried Mr.
Hoxie on three hundred and twenty-seven of the easiest miles of the
road, and he failed to carry out his contract; and they organized the
Credit Mobilier to construct the remainder.
Holding the stock of the Credit Mobilier merely is not to be al-
leged against him as a crime. He made no concealments of his part
sº
Memoir. 33
in it. In 1867 and 1868, everybody in Congress knew that he, a
member of Congress also, was a holder of that stock. His constitu-
ents all knew it. Instead of seeking to conceal anything, he became
the recipient of unstinted praise for his great enterprise and public
spirit. His financial judgment was trusted and confided in. His ad-
vice was asked and followed in investment matters, and none thought
of wrong. There was no guile in him. He embarked his all in this
undertaking, and before he was done it broke him down. The
catastrophe he might have apprehended was just what inspired him
to interest certain men, then in Congress and out of it, in the stock,
that they might be watchful to see that no wrong was done to the
road, and through the road to the government. And for this he is
charged with bribery. Nevertheless, the committee expressly declare
that nobody was bribed by Oakes Ames.
“I have known him long and well,” the speaker concluded. “I
have known him when he was a member of the Council of Governor
Andrew, and aided him in troops to save the country. He went for-
ward side by side with the illustrious War-Governor of Massachusetts,
in those great measures which filled our armies and carried on our
war, trusted, honored, and beloved. I have known him since. I have
seen him when bankruptcy and ruin fell upon him because he had
taken part in this great national work. I have seen him crushed
down to earth with obligations and debts not incurred for himself, but
in the service of his country; and yet such was the force of his hon-
esty and integrity of character that each and all of his creditors gave
him extension of credit, and every one has been paid to the uttermost
farthing. It is to his credit that he had to absent himself from your
committee while investigating his honesty, to go home and do the
last act of an honest man by paying up the last dollar of his extended
debt. Such is Oakes Ames.”
During the excitement of the canvass of the previous autumn,
though not a candidate himself, Mr. Ames issued an explanatory cir-
cular to his constituents, which deserves mention in this particular
3
34 Memoir.
place. He openly styled the charges of bribery “infamous.” He
said they were made against him and some of his associates in Con-
gress “by Henry S. McComb, in a suit against the Credit Mobilier,
in the State of Pennsylvania, for the purpose of obtaining money
wrongfully from the company, - as every one of the stockholders be-
lieved then and believes now. All the executive officers of the com-
pany and several of its largest stockholders, including myself, have
answered in said suit, long since, under oath, that the charges were
entirely false; that not a single share of the stock of that company
was ever given to any member of Congress, directly or indirectly, by
me or any one else, to my knowledge. I now reiterate and reaffirm
the statement, with the further declaration that I never gave a share
of stock of that or any other company, directly or indirectly, to any
member of Congress. These sworn statements of myself and these
other gentlemen, made and filed in the same suit, lying side by side
in the same record, could have been published with the charges, had
it suited the political purposes of the ‘New York Sun.” I am will-
ing to set the sworn declaration of any one of these individuals, of
the highest character and reputation, against the affidavit of McComb,
wherever he is well known, with no fear of an adverse opinion of the
integrity of any one of them as against him. And the list of names
given by McComb, as indorsed on my letter and published, was
written by himself, as he stated when under oath at the hearing in
Pennsylvania. He had no authority from me for making any such
statement.”
Mr. Ames further said that he did not own a share of stock in the
Pacific Railroad until 1866; and that “this charge, that a distribu-
tion of the stock of the Credit Mobilier in 1868 bribed members of
Congress to procure the passage of an act in 1864, is too absurd to
be credited.” “I may have done wrong,” he added, “in my efforts
to aid this great national enterprise ; if so, I am unconscious of it. I
have always regarded it as among the most creditable and patriotic
acts of my life.”
Memoir. 35
These extracts from his circular in the autumn before fitly introduce
his defense before the House, when he confronted the accusing com-
mittee in the presence of that body. The latter was a calm, compre-
hensive, well-considered statement of the whole matter, and was read
with great impressiveness of delivery by the clerk. Narrative, argu-
ment, and appeal are welded together in it as in the forge of a large
and strong mind. It was, of course, the speech of the session.
He laid before the House a detailed history of the construction of
the Union Pacific Railroad, which has already been recited in outline
to the reader. He asserted at the outset that “it was universally
esteemed not only a measure of sound policy, but a scheme appealing
to the patriotism and loyalty of the capitalists of the United States,
as the instrument whereby a future separation of the Pacific from the
Atlantic States would be rendered forever impossible.” The two acts
of Congress in 1862 and 1864 are described in all their provisions.
The two roads are sketched as running a race across the continent,
each building five hundred miles in a single season, “through a desert
country, upon a route beset by unparalleled obstacles, and at a neces-
sary cost largely in excess of the most extravagant estimates.” Presi-
dent Lincoln is described as “urgent that Congress should not withhold
the additional assistance asked,” and as “personally advising the
officers of the company to go to Congress for such legislation as would
assure the success of the enterprise, declaring it a national necessity,
and recommending them to apply for additional concessions, ample to
place the construction of the road beyond a peradventure.”
He recited the history of the different contracts, and their succes-
sive failures; showed how a construction company came to take it up;
detailed the all but crushing obstacles to its progress; and stated the
facts of his first connection with the company, of his contract, and its
subsequent assignment. The peculiar state of affairs during 1867
was briefly portrayed. The company, he explained, had no reason to
apprehend unfriendly or hostile legislation : every department of the
government manifested friendliness; and “the whole country was
36 Memoir.
loud in demonstrations of approval of the energy and activity
which we had infused into the enterprise.” “Heads of departments
and government officials of every grade, whose duties brought them
in contact with the affairs of the company, were clamorous for in-
creased speed of construction, and never lost an opportunity of ex-
pressing approval of the work, and urging it forward.” He said it
had never entered his head that the company would ask for or need
additional legislation; and a public man would have been reckless
of popular opinion who would have started a crusade against an or-
ganization — meaning the Credit Mobilier construction company —
“whose praises everywhere filled the press, and were on the lips
of the people.”
He showed that no legislation affecting the company’s interests was
asked for three years and a half after the sales of the stock by him ;
and then it was only in settlement of a purely judicial question, which
was designedly sprung upon it in a critical time of the road's for-
tunes. Describing the difficulties of the work as it proceeded, he said
it might well be regarded as the “freak of a madman,” if it were not
true that it challenged the recognition of a higher motive, namely, “the
desire to connect my name conspicuously with the greatest public work
of the present century.” He comes then to the charge of bribery that
had been brought against him. If it were true, he said it must rest on
three facts, all of which should be satisfactorily shown in order to jus-
tify the extreme measures proposed by the committee: First, the stock
must have been sold so much below its true value as to conclusively
“presume the expectation of some other pecuniary advantage in ad-
dition to the price paid.” Second, the stock must have been of a
character to create in the purchaser and holder “a corrupt purpose
to shape legislation in the interest of the seller.” Third, some dis-
tinct and specific matter or thing should be alleged and proved, which
was to be brought before Congress, and on which the votes of mem-
bers were sought to be influenced. Each one of these facts, essential
to prove bribery, he elaborately and effectively confronted with argu-
Memoir. 37
ment and disproof. He showed that railroad men of great financial
strength declined instantly to take the stock when offered them at
par, on account of the enormous risks. That was proved to the com-
mittee itself. He demonstrated, from every one of and from all the cir-
cumstances of the case, that the ownership of the stock by no means
necessarily created in the holder a personal and pecuniary interest in
procuring favorable legislation by Congress; when the Oakes Ames
contract was completed, “the interest of a holder of Credit Mobilier
stock in the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and everything per-
taining to it, was at an end.” In other words, “the stipulations of
that contract and the cash profits derivable therefrom were the end
and the beginning, the centre and circumference, the absolute meas-
ure of the pecuniary interest of a holder of Credit Mobilier stock in
1868.” *
He suggested the parallel inquiry, How many railroad presidents
and superintendents had given free transportation to members of
Congress over their respective roads? The case, he insisted, was not
affected by the dimensions and value of the gratuity.
“For the first time in the history of any tribunal,” said he, “this
body has before it an alleged offender without an offense.” He said
he stood charged by the committee with the purpose of corrupting
certain members of Congress, while it declares them to have been un-
conscious of his purpose, and does not, either, indicate the subject of
the corruption. The purpose to corrupt is inferred, where the effect
of corrupting could not possibly be produced, and where no subject
for corruption existed.
The question of the jurisdiction of the House was briefly touched,
the theory of a “continuing offense” being critically analyzed. He
examined the letters written to McComb, to show that it was entirely
impossible to infer from them the motives attributed to him by the
committee. He showed that he secured his share of the Credit Mo-
bilier stock, of which McComb did not complain till after it began to
be valuable, in order to fulfill his contracts of sale to others. “It
38 Memoir.
would have been a breach of faith in me,” he asserted, “to have
asked or taken a price in excess of the par value, notwithstanding it
may have, in the mean time, advanced.” In performing the obliga-
tions he had incurred, he said that “no distinction was made between
members of Congress and unofficial friends; ” he sold the stock to
both alike at its par value, in accordance with the agreement. And
when McComb objected to his receiving so large an amount, and en-
tered upon a struggle to prevent it, he said he “naturally addressed
to him such arguments and considerations as in his [my] judgment
would make the deepest impression on his mind.” Inasmuch as they
both had a common interest in the prosperity and success of the road,
he urged upon McComb that he had “so disposed of the stock as to
enhance the general strength and influence of the company, for whose
welfare his solicitude was not less than my own.”
He demanded that his letters to McComb should be “tried by the
test of casual and confidential letters, often written hastily, and under
circumstances and surroundings entirely different from those in the
light of which they are interpreted.” They were “framed for a spe-
cific purpose and to accomplish a particular end.” Their “collateral
and incidental bearings were not reflected upon and deliberately
weighed.” They were “flung off hastily in the instant press of busi-
ness and the freedom of that personal confidence ordinarily existing
between parties jointly concerned in financial schemes or enterprises
of public improvement.” Few are the men, he declared, who could
emerge from such an ordeal completely free from the suspicion of
fault.
He declared, therefore, “in the broadest sense of which language
is capable,” that he had no other views than the ones named, in
writing those letters; that never did he imagine for an instant “that
from them could be extracted proof of the motive and purpose of cor-
rupting members of Congress; ” and that he never entertained such.
He alluded to “the insignificant amounts of stock” sold to each mem-
ber with whom he had dealings; to the proven fact that he never
Memoir. 4. 39
urged its purchase; to the entire want of secrecy in all the transac-
tions. He referred in justice to the record of his past life, spent “in
the prosecution of business pursuits, honorable to himself and useful
to mankind; ” to his reputation, “hitherto without stain : ” all which,
he protested, should “overcome and outweigh charges solely upheld
by the unconsidered and unguarded utterances of confidential business
communications.”
The profits of construction had been immensely exaggerated. The
actual cost of building the road was about seventy million dollars;
the actual profit on this expenditure less than ten million, estimating
the securities and stock at their market value when received in pay-
ment. For twenty years the ordinary method of building railroads
had been through construction companies; few had been built in any
other way. A profit even of fifty per cent. on the Union Pacific con-
struction would not be objected to by any one who thoroughly knew
and appreciated the circumstances. So far as he was concerned
pecuniarily, he said it would have been better if he had never heard
of the Union Pacific Railroad. When it was completed it found
itself about six million dollars in debt, the burden of which fell upon
individuals, himself among the number. This and the necessity of
keeping the road in operation finally culminated in losses in excess of
all profit derived by him from the construction of the road.
He showed what immense sums the government had already received
from the road by the saving in the cost of transportation. At that
time it had been in operation for four years, and no complaint had
been heard from any quarter of a single failure to faithfully perform
its obligations to the government in any respect. The figures by which
he demonstrated the present and future advantage of the road to the
government were eloquent with their convincing expression. All
this, said he, is solid gain, involving no consequential element, and
susceptible of exact computation. “When the rails,” he added,
“were joined on Promontory Summit, May 10, 1869, the Pacific and
the Atlantic, Europe and Asia, the East and the West, pledged them-
40 Memoir.
selves to that perpetual amity out of which should spring an inter-
change of the most precious and costly commodities known to traffic;
thus assuring a commerce whose tide should ebb to and fro across the
continent by this route for ages to come.” “A region of boundless
natural resources, lately unknown, unexplored, and uninhabited, dom-
inated by Savages, has been reclaimed, hundreds of millions added to
the wealth of the nation, and the bands of fraternal and commercial
union between the East and West strengthened beyond the power of
civil discord to sever.”
And he most solemnly and impressively concluded his powerful
argument in the following words, which those who reverence the
character and are grateful for the services of Oakes Ames are fond
of frequently repeating: “These, then, are my offenses: that I have
risked reputation, fortune, everything, in an enterprise of incalcula-
ble benefit to the government, from which the capital of the world
shrank ; that I have sought to strengthen the work thus rashly
undertaken by invoking the charitable judgment of the public upon
its obstacles and embarrassments; that I have had friends, some of
them in official life, with whom I have been willing to share advan-
tageous opportunities of investments; that I have kept to the truth,
through good and evil report, denying nothing, concealing nothing,
reserving nothing. Who will say that I alone am to be offered up a
sacrifice to appease a public clamor, or expiate the sins of others?
Not until such an offering is made will I believe it possible. But if
this body shall so order that it can best be purified by the choice of a
single victim, I shall accept its mandate ; appealing with unfaltering
confidence to the impartial verdict of history for that vindication
which it is proposed to deny me here.” *
The conclusion of this speech was the signal for the transmission of
congratulatory messages in writing from the galleries of the House
and outside to Mr. Ames, accompanied by the most emphatic assur-
ances that he had made a thorough and triumphant vindication of his
course. It was an hour for him crowded with emotion. He bore up
Memoir. 41
through the whole debate, which lasted three days, with the fortitude
and self-control that mark conscious integrity when beset with diffi-
culties; but when, in one of the speeches offered in his defense, allu-
sions were made to his honesty, to the struggles in life that had made
him strong, to the business integrity that had never received a stain,
to the openness of his transactions with members in relation to the
stock, and to the steady consistency which stamped his whole testi-
mony before the committee with the indelible marks of truthfulness,
his stout heart, that had sustained his nerves throughout the pro-
tracted trial without a sign of agitation, suddenly gave way before the
flood of feeling that for the moment overwhelmed it, and he buried
his face in his hands and wept. The features that had not relaxed,
except in smiles of kindliness and charity, through the tedious weeks
of the trial, were now hidden from the public gaze while the momen-
tary paroxysm of emotion passed over them. The revived memories
of his patriotic association with Governor Andrew in council, at the
outbreak of the civil war; the fresh recollection of the generous kind-
ness shown him in the shock of business adversity, which the mistaken
course of the government itself had precipitated; the reminder of
the profound and universal esteem in which he was held by those with
whom he had had commercial relations; and the thoughts of the home
where he was known only to be treasured in love and affection, broke
over the gates of his habitual self-restraint, and made the temporary
spectacle eloquent in its appeal for the suspension of passion and panic,
that justice and truth might rule the hour.
The effect of the general debate was to make it clear to most minds
in the House that a resolution of expulsion would fatally miscarry;
and when a member from California moved to substitute for it a reso-
lution of censure, it was carried by a vote of 115 to 110, 15 not vot-
ing, and the substitute was adopted by a vote of 182 to 36. Twenty-
two members did not vote, while many of those who voted against
substitution did so because they thought that there ought not to be
passed so much as a resolution of censure. The report of the inves-
42 Memoir.
tigating committee was presented to the House on the 18th of Feb-
ruary, and the vote of censure was passed on the 28th. It was but
four days to the expiration of Congress, and the final termination of
the public life of the man thus rebuked.
The resolution adopted reads thus : ——
“Resolved, That the House absolutely condemns the conduct of
Oakes Ames, a member from Massachusetts, in seeking to procure
congressional attention to the affairs of a corporation in which he
was interested, and whose interest directly depended upon the legis-
lation of Congress, by inducing members of Congress to invest in the
stocks of said corporation.”
Mr. Ames occupied a seat on the floor directly in front of the
Speaker, where he could be seen by all, when the vote was taken.
He sat motionless during the proceedings, his countenance deadly
pale, awaiting the result. It was a moment to be likened only to that
of destiny. The impassive appearance but poorly concealed the work-
ings of the spirit within. He thought of his past life of industry
and honor; of the unparalleled service he had done for his country, at
the urgent solicitation of its prominent men and patriots; of the
record of public censure which was to be his only reward at the hands
of a partisan and panic-stricken Congress; and of the deplorable
attempt to take from the legacy he hoped to leave to his posterity and
his country its richest element, — honor; and it would have been an
anomaly in the constitution of human character if the force of all
these considerations together were not positively appalling. The sus-
taining consciousness of unfaltering integrity, never questioned up to
the very close of his life until it was questioned by the selfish coward-
ice of mere politicians, only made the suffering of his spirit the more
aggravated. The very solitariness of his thoughts, an old man as he
was, too, added to the pitiful features of the picture.
And the poignancy of the suffering could not but have been all the
greater, instead of being alleviated, from the subsequent eagerness with
which those who had just censured him crowded around him, with ex-
Memoir. 43
tended hands, seeking in a consistent spirit to palliate the gross wrong
they had done by confessing the political necessity that forced them
to it. At last, then, the true motive of the whole proceeding stood
disclosed. It was not, said they, that they condemned him, but they
feared for themselves the condemnation of their constituents. Ought
a verdict thus obtained, and morally worthless by the open admission
of those who rendered it, to stand as the permanent record of the
opinion of Congress and the country?
What a mockery of justice, what travesty of truth, to thus proclaim
to the world, and to record the proclamation as a part of the history
of the time, the infamy of a fellow-being whom they voluntarily ad-
mitted to be innocent And there were those among this censuring
majority, too, who gave their votes of condemnation with no reference
whatever to the merits of the case, but solely with future political
expectations in view. It would all appear to be a practical and a
heartless illustration of human depravity, in comparison with which
the sin charged against their victim is whiteness itself. The analyst
of human morals must be puzzled to find the fit expressions in which
to clothe his judgment of conduct that so baffles all power of formu-
lation.
The resolution of censure was not an honest and adequate verdict
in the case, either, in any sense. It utterly failed to meet the re-
quirements of the situation. It went wide of the original charge.
It was insinuating, insincere, and sinister. It contains imputations
where findings alone are to be tolerated. Intent is hinted where only
fact was the matter for inquiry. The sales of Credit Mobilier stock
are condemned on account chiefly of an apprehended wrong that was
liable to spring from them. Those who made up this faulty and
false judgment could not comprehend that the real motive of the man
who sold these small amounts of stock to members of Congress was
not to influence legislation, plain as the testimony and the circum-
stances combined to make that appear, but one of sympathetic kind-
ness mainly, the natural expression of a generous man towards his
44 Memoir.
accepted friends, the instinctive desire that they should become the
sharers, to at least a small extent, of his own prosperity. One who
served with him on the railroad committee in 1864 says that when Mr.
Ames called upon him afterwards, and asked him to join with himself
and others in “lifting ” this enterprise out of its embarrassment and
try to carry it through, he urged the patriotic consideration of its im-
mense benefit to the nation, and the great credit which those who
should be instrumental in its completion would receive from the whole
American people. The mercenary motive and the corrupting spirit do
not dominate the one who sets off such large considerations by his own
deliberate action.
In any review, however hasty, of this ill-starred business, it can
escape the attention of no one that Oakes Ames had but one accuser,
namely, McComb ; that his testimony was not only unsupported, but
positively and solemnly contradicted by the one he sought to destroy;
that any comparison of the value of their opposing testimony involved
a comparison of their characters, which left the scales in a strikingly
uneven relation ; that McComb's interpretation of the letters written
him by Oakes Ames is rendered wholly worthless by the transparency
of his motives both in bringing suit and in publishing the letters; that
the entire movement, in using the McComb letters at that particular
time, was a piece of party strategy, skillfully planned and calculated
and maliciously executed; that it was made just when it was for the
very purpose of leaving the narrowest possible margin of time in
which to explain and clear up the charges brought ; that it was ex-
pected a fusillade of denials by Congressmen, East and West, would
rout the partisan skirmishers who were feeling for future political
position along the front of their enemy; that the excited feelings at-
tending a general election wanted but little to kindle them into a
flame; and that the casting of this fire-brand aroused a class of coward
fears that speedily caused an outbreak of party consternation. From
that time to the close of the canvass, it was but the prelude to the
unparalleled scenes in the investigating committee-room and on the
floor of Congress.
Memoir. 45
The remarkable feature of the case was that in no quarter was
Oakes Ames less esteemed than before, and that he was regarded more
highly than ever where he was known. It was so singular a fact as
to be almost phenomenal in human experience that the real truth of
the whole matter would never have been known but for his intrepid
telling of it; the only faltering, if such it can be called, which he
manifested being shown in order to screen others from the effect of
their own falsehoods or prevarications. But when he saw that they
not only denied, but defied, he hesitated no longer in giving up what
he would have preferred to withhold for their sake, and disclosed
the entire transaction to its bottom detail. After all, the condemna-
tion of Oakes Ames by Congress could never have been compassed
except by the use of his own testimony. It was in consequence of
telling the plain truth, and the whole of it, that he received the pub-
lic censure of Congress, of those who denied what he affirmed. Those
whom he exposed came off unscathed, while Congress likewise refused
to believe them. By accepting his testimony as the truth and using it
for his condemnation, Congress cleared those who contradicted it, and
censured him. If it was to give his testimony the preference, the
(simplest form of logic would lead to the one conclusion that they
should have been equally condemned with him in the first place, and
doubly condemned for venturing to deny the truth as Congress saw
and accepted it.
There is sufficient unreason in this legislative episode to amount to
stultification. Never has there been a similar scene recorded in our
history. And nothing contained in it all is justified by the passing
years; nothing remains of its memories to furnish the slightest real
satisfaction; nothing appeals to the readers of our political history at
that time to excite either gratification or pride, but the undeviating de-
votion to the truth which exalts the name of Oakes Ames to the high-
est level as an unpretending teacher of public morals. The path he
took through that trackless bog, in the surrounding darkness, is lumi-
nous to-day. The lesson impressed by the whole trial is the permanent
46 Memoir.
supremacy of honesty of character. It was not Oakes Ames who
went down before that storm of passionate fear, but those who dared
to deny what Oakes Ames affirmed. It was he who was censured;
it was they who were condemned.
He left the scene of his triumphs and his suffering at the end of the
session, never to return. The hurt he had received from thankless
hands lacerated his heart. The native ruggedness of his exterior may
have led those who administered it to believe that he came off harm-
less from the desperate political game they had been playing, using
him for a pawn; but they evidently knew little of the deep and ten-
der feeling which that exterior inclosed, – the deeper and tenderer
because of its undemonstrative habit before men.
His neighbors and townsmen at his Easton home determined to
testify their abiding faith in his honor and their just pride in his
fame, though a score of Congresses had done their best to becloud
the one and rob him of the other. They therefore arranged to give
him a sincere welcome home on his arrival. It was originally in-
tended that it should be a strictly local affair; but his friends
throughout the Second District broke over all such restraints, and
joined heartily in the demonstration. The exercises included a pub-
lic reception in the school-house, given by the Ameses to the town, and
a few appropriate speeches; the one which of course excited the chief
interest being that of the recipient himself of these tokens of popular
confidence. In that brief response he said, – .
!
“I have, as you are aware, been the principal subject of abuse for the past
six months. The press of the country has been full of what is called the
Credit Mobilier scandal. The whole offense, if offense it can be called, is in
selling sixteen thousand dollars of stock to eleven members of Congress, at the
same price I paid for it, and at the same price I sold the stock to others; and
if the parties purchasing the stock had simply told the truth, and said they had
a right to purchase it, that would have been the end of it. But from the fact
of their denial, the public suspected there must be something criminal in the
transaction; and to find out what the crime was, Congress appointed a commit-
Memoir. 47
tee to inquire if Oakes Ames had bribed any member of Congress. The result
was the appointment of the notorious Poland committee. That committee was
engaged nearly three months, and the result of all its labors was to badly dam-
age the character of some men high in office for truth and veracity. But the
object of the committee, to see if Oakes Ames bribed any member, was admit-
ted ‘not proven;' but that committee made the wonderful discovery that I was
guilty in selling stock for less than it was worth, but the parties taking the
stock and keeping it were very innocent; and that I had the extraordinary
ability to give men a bribe without their knowing it, and to do they did not
know what. That's the sum and substance of the Credit Mobilier, which has
kept the country in a state of excitement for the past six months.”
His speech was received with the hearty applause which told of the
perfect accord of listeners and speaker, and was immediately followed
by the familiar strains of “Home, sweet Home,” by the band. It
was a joyous occasion for the neighbors and friends of Oakes Ames,
who felt that they had got him back among themselves once more,
where he was to stay. To him it must have been one of the most
satisfactory scenes of his long life; even more so, when he searched
the corners of his heart, than the driving of the golden spike that
joined the Union and Central Pacific Railroads in a single line across
the desert and the mountains.
To a friend in Boston, not long afterwards, who had sought to
rally him on his congressional experience somewhat, he remarked,
“I have got home among my friends. They know me, and I mean
to stay.” His stay, however, was lamentably brief. The tremendous
strain on all his powers which the building of the Pacific Railroad
had wrought was more than doubled by the wholly unexpected expe-
rience of the past winter, and the two together undermined the stock
of strength that remained after so prolonged and severe exertion.
Without doubt, he would have confessed that the construction of the
road itself had not cost him one half as much of his actual life, its
substance and its vigor, as the struggle of a winter with an insensate
Congress had done.
48 Memoir.
A number of the merchants and business men of Boston were
making preparations to offer him a complimentary dinner, at which
suitable public expression would have been made of the high esteem
and unshaken confidence in which he was held, as well as of the pro-
found admiration felt for the consummate achievement with which his
name was always to be associated. But their intention was forestalled
by the event that followed with so brief a warning.
He was stricken with paralysis, complicated with pneumonia, on
Monday, the fifth day of May, and after lingering until the following
Thursday was released from all earthly burdens and responsibilities
forever. His end was wholly peaceful. Surrounded by his family,
whom he individually recognized up to the closing day of his exist-
ence, he passed quietly from the scene of his activities to enter on
those not yet disclosed to human vision. He died, as he would have
wished to die, at home, his family about his bedside, in an atmos-
phere that breathed only affection. All felt that he had at last found
rest; that his great and kindly heart was no more to be disturbed by
the contentions of ingratitude and the treachery of untruth.
The tidings of his unexpected death flew to all parts of the coun-
try with electric speed, causing an outpouring of spontaneous regrets
everywhere at his departure as a serious national loss. His eminent
qualities as an American citizen were universally conceded. His
inestimable services to the nation were confessed. All hearts mani-
fested the sorrow they so profoundly felt. The same journals that had,
for partisan reasons, seen fit to assail him with an unceasing stream
of vituperation ceased from their accustomed strain, and joined with
the rest in paying tribute to his great character. The magical stroke
of death seemed to be necessary to silence the uproar of passion
which party pursuits had shamelessly evoked. In that dread presence
the tongues of thoughtless calumny were hushed. An appeal had
been most unexpectedly taken from weak human judgment to that
which searches every heart.
He died on the eighth day of May, 1873, in the late evening, and
Memoir. 49
was buried from his home, in the same ground where the remains of
his ancestors repose, on Sunday, May 11th. The funeral services
drew a large concourse of people, numbering fully three thousand,
among whom were the leading citizens of the State and conspicuous
representatives of every department of life. The scene could not
fail to impress one profoundly with a sense of the silent power of his
name and character. The exercises were simple, as befitted the one
over whose clay they were held. The address of the ministering
clergyman, Rév. Rush R. Shippen, was strikingly appreciative and
beautifully appropriate, conveying to the minds of the great collection
of listeners such an estimate and summary of the worth of the man
whom all had come to honor, though departed, as would remain a
permanent record in their memories.
“He was true to the great questions of the time,” remarked the
reverend speaker, “and was through life a loyal advocate and an
adherent of the cause of temperance and freedom. With ample
means for luxury, preserving a Puritan simplicity in his home and
habit of life, and by precept as well as by example leading the way
from extravagances of the hour that tempt so many beyond their
means, and preserving that republican and majestic simplicity of the
older generations, he met men on the level of simple manhood; never
cowering to the lofty, and never despising the lowly. With no aristo-
cratic ways of speech or manner that repelled the common man, but
meeting all men with a simple justice, taking them as they were, his
distinguishing characteristic was his massive mould and stature, that
made him a mighty worker in the world’s affairs.”
“Friends are more sensitive,” said he, in closing, “to the mistakes
of friends than any outsiders can be, but they only ask that the man
shall be taken in the largeness of his purpose and the largeness of the
services which he has rendered. When we are close to a mountain,
we see sometimes only the small seams and fissures on its surface;
but when we recede, we see it in the true perspective, and can raise
our eyes to its summit; and then we see it in its grander and more
4
50 Memoir.
majestic proportions. I say solemnly to-day that when the clamor of
the hour has passed the American people will better recognize the
grandeur of his services to them; and, for myself, I anticipate that
verdict of the coming time. When I remember how the wealth and
the resources and the civilization of America have been indebted to
him, I willingly and gladly pay, this day, my tribute of gratitude to
his memory.”
A meeting of the Directors of the Union Pacific Railroad Company
was held in Boston on the 25th of June, 1873, at which the accom-
panying resolution was unanimously adopted : —
“Resolved, That intelligence of the death of Hon. Oakes Ames, a mem-
ber of this Board since 1870, has been received by us with profound sor-
row, and we desire to express and put on record our high estimate of his
strong, manly character, and our deep sense of his especial usefulness to this
corporation. We esteemed him for his far-sighted enterprise, resolution, pa-
tience, cheerfulness, and sterling integrity. His interest in the Union Pacific
Railroad commenced long ago, and his good offices to the company can hardly
be overestimated. He had faith when all was doubt; courage when courage
was needed ; resources when others had none. In the darkest period of war
and financial distrust his indomitable spirit urged forward the building of this
road and sustained its credit. In its behalf he carried great burdens of care
and debt. Now that all those cares have ended, the popular voice entitles
him ‘Builder of the Union Pacific Railroad.” We sincerely mourn the loss
of a friend so true, an associate so trustworthy, and a citizen so valuable to
his State and the nation.”
At a meeting of the stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad
Company, held in Boston on the 10th of March, 1875, the following
resolution was unanimously passed: —
“Resolved, That in honor of the memory of Oakes Ames, and in recogni-
tion of his services in the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, to
Forbes Albertype—Boston.
M O N U M E N T
IN MEMORY OF OAKES AMES AND OLIVER AMES,
Erected by the Union Pacific Railway Company at Sherman, Wyoming Territory, - the highest point reached by its
railroad. Base, 60 feet square. Height, 60 feet. Summit, 8,350 feet above level of the sea.

Memoir. 51
which he devoted his means and his best energies with a courage, fidelity, and
integrity unsurpassed in the history of railroad construction, the Directors are
requested to take measures, in coöperation with such friends as may desire to
contribute, for the erection, at some point on the line of the road, of a suitable
and permanent monument.”
Oakes Ames was one of the characteristic products of New Eng-
land, and, bred among his native surroundings, could not have been
other than he was. A man of primitively simple habits; a man of
deeds rather than words; a man of and with the people; ambitious
without accompanying egotism; frank and fearless; rugged yet kind;
of plain personal address that might be thought homely; whose writ-
ten expressions were pithy, condensed, and forcible with meaning;
with no suspicion of exclusiveness about him; the last marked repre-
sentative of the sturdy Puritan race; patient as the laboring ox under
his self-imposed burdens; one who radically believed in the dignity as
he did in the abiding worth of labor, he built up his fame as he did
his fortune, on the broad base of useful service. His friendships were
tenacious and strong; his affections were deep and warm ; and under
a rugged exterior he carried the heart of a child.
It is not easy to speak even in measured terms of the unparalleled
achievement of his life, without seeming to employ the phraseology
of exaggeration. So vast a conception it is rarely given to a single
human being to carry alone. The combining of the numerous and
powerful forces necessary to its successful execution of itself indicates
the operating presence of a man possessed of the largest powers in a
state of perfect discipline. Nothing less than an ambition inspired
by exalted patriotism could have defied, singly and collectively, the
difficulties that multiplied as the work advanced. No recital of them
in their minutest details could place the reader of them in the full
possession of their hostile significance. Ordinary men they would
have led to believe that the undertaking had been prohibited by both
man and nature; him they only stimulated to grander endeavor, as if
he actually gloried in proving the strength of his purpose in a contest
52 Memoir.
from which others retreated at the outset. That it is not too much
to say of Oakes Ames that he was the builder of the Union Pacific
may be shown by simply withdrawing his name from the company of
his associates; it will at once be seen who it was that imparted to
them the courage, who aroused in them the energy, and who steadily
held them up to the high level of persistency by which all was at last
achieved.
What this road to the Pacific means for the country is not to be
cast in even partial estimate at the present time. As years and a
succession of generations are needed to furnish the proper perspective
to the magnitude of the enterprise, so are they also necessary to any
approximate statement of its actual import and value. The latter
will go on increasing in a ratio which cannot be fixed. The present
saving to the government in the item of transportation, great as it is,
will appear trivial by the side of the reclamation of the trackless desert
to the footsteps of civilization, the planting of smiling towns and cities
in solitary wastes, the expansion of productive human industries into
the unbroken silence of nature, the creation of uncounted communities
of happy homes, and the indissoluble union of the crowded populations
of opposite shores. It needs the prophetic eye to disclose all the
varied fruits of this great enterprise, which awaited only the coming
of the chosen man. Unquestionably, he saw in imagination a large
part of this grand living panorama, and he longed to associate his
name for all coming time with the achievement that was to make it
wholly reality. He must have seen farther than ambition alone al-
lowed him. He could not have been satisfied with the view which
any hopes of mere profit held up before him. He looked into the
distant future, and beheld busy generations peopling the wilds he had
penetrated as their pioneer. And his heart must have dilated with a
satisfaction too deep for speech at the thought of what his fellow-men
would ever gratefully remember that he had done.
In an encomium of him delivered in the House of Representatives,
Senator Dawes, then a Representative, used the following language:
Memoir. 53
“I have a colleague who has adorned his calling through a long life of
industry; who has carried greater loads upon his shoulders, and
worked out greater problems in the development of the resources of
this country, than any man connected with any material interest or
enterprise in the whole United States.”
“A grateful nation will yet rear his monument; and its inscrip-
tion will be, THE BUILDER OF THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD.”
Does not Massachusetts, among whose first citizens he will ever
rank, and on whose reputation for far-reaching purpose and coura-
geous enterprise he has conferred imperishable lustre, owe it to herself
to procure the effacement of the stigma which rests on her name as
well as his own, and the substitution in its place of a public recogni-
tion of services which were of the first order of practical patriotism 2
Does not the country, at length possessed of the marvelous achieve-
ment which was mainly the fruit of his brain, now realize that the
reward for such services is not cowardly rebuke, but proud acknowl-
edgment and admiring appreciation?
ſ.
，
（~~~~） –
|（~~~~ ~~~~ （_）~~
§），：
№.
Forbes Albertype—Boston.
*
OAKES AMES MEMORIAL HALL
NORTH EASTON, MASS.

DEDICATION OF THE OAKES AMES MEMORIAL HALL.
To the filial devotion of the sons of the late Oakes Ames is due
the erection of the visible testimonial to their honored father's mem-
ory, which stands in bold relief upon its base of solid rock in North
Easton. It contains, in the public uses for which it was constructed,
the living germ which will secure for its expression the perpetuity to
which all architectural effects are directed. A monument to the First
Citizen of the town, it stands in the daily sight of his fellow-citizens,
and is virtually open at all times for their occupancy and service. Its
walls will, so long as they stand, be clothed with recollections of the
sterling virtues of his simple but strong character.
The structure at once impresses the eye of the beholder with a
sense of grandeur and beauty in harmonious combination. It is most
significantly placed on the edge of a ledge of native rock, which pre-
sents on one side a bold and rugged face, and stands at a high eleva-
tion above the road and but a little distance from it. So commanding
is the natural position and so imposing is the structure, it has been
well compared in its external effect to an ancient castle. An octag-
onal tower rises at the corner of the mass of rock, which is the most
precipitous. The edifice exposes its side to the road, and, excluding
the tower elevation, is ninety-six and one third feet in length. For
its entire length it is ornamented with an arcade, supported by five
arches. The structure above this arcade is pierced for windows, which
56 Dedication.
admit light to the main hall, and a roof with a steep pitch, covered
with red tiles, completes the description of the outline of the edifice.
The material used in the construction is the native granite of North
Easton, pinkish-gray in color, which is employed in the first story,
the second being finished in handsome brick. The trimmings, which
are generous, are of brown stone. The arches of the arcade are sup-
ported by columns, with carved capitals. Over the front dormer-
window, wreathed with sculptured foliage, appears a monogram
formed of the letters “O. A.,” and about the frieze which orna-
ments the beautiful tower with its elaborate carving are to be distin-
guished the twelve signs of the zodiac.
Short and easy flights of broad steps of brown stone and granite
offer an inviting ascent to the Hall, finished at their outer edges with
brown stone curves. The entrance is by the arcade, which has a
width of twelve feet, and within which is inscribed on a tablet of
stone these words: “This building was erected in memory of Oakes
Ames by his children.” Through the hall-way the passage on the
left is into a hall thirty-two feet by eleven, or directly forward into a
smaller room. The stairs to the upper hall are placed in the tower,
and likewise conduct to the roof hall, which is devoted to Masonic
uses. The main hall is on the second story, and is fifty-nine feet in
length, and forty-seven feet in width, and twenty feet in height. The
stage, which is not included in the dimensions of the main hall, meas-
ures twenty-six feet by eighteen. The windows are of stained and
plain glass, four on either side of the hall. The inner walls are in
harmonious coloring, producing a bright, cheerful, and thoroughly
agreeable effect. The cost of this noble edifice was sixty thousand
dollars, and its construction throughout proceeded without regard to
the amount of expenditure under the original plan of the architect.
The public dedication of this building was finally appointed for
November 17, 1881, and a large number of prominent and distin-
guished men, citizens of other States as well as of Massachusetts, were
invited to be present and participate in the ceremonies. The occasion
Dedication. 57
thus became a memorable one in a larger than a strictly local sense.
The absent would be more easily numbered than those who were
present. The gathering was a notable one for Massachusetts. Be-
tween four and five hundred men, chiefly public men and men of dis-
tinction, came down to North Easton from Boston in a special train,
including a large representation of the Legislature of the State, which
had made an early adjournment in order to give members an oppor-
tunity to be present, among whom were the President of the Senate
and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. There were also
present the Governor of the State, members of Congress from the dif-
ferent districts, the city officials of Boston, railroad men, merchants,
bankers, members of the legal and clerical professions, and, in fact,
the representatives of every leading business, profession, and calling.
There were present, too, the men who had been most closely associ-
ated with the late Oakes Ames in his business enterprises, whose
names are known in connection with the same from one end of the
country to the other. -
The dedication involved the formal presentation of the edifice to
the town of Easton, for its public use forever. Within its walls the
citizens were thus chartered to hold their public meetings for deliber-
ating on their common interests and welfare ; to assemble for purposes
of intellectual enjoyment and cultivated recreation; and, on all neces-
sary occasions, to utter the town sentiments and opinions, with the
authority of an independent civil organization.
The towns-people lined the road from the railroad station to the
Hall, to welcome with respectful silence the arrival of the dis-
tinguished men who had come to do honor to the memory of their
famous fellow-citizen. There was no attempt to move in procession
to the Hall, but the visitors naturally formed an unbroken line, and
at once repaired to the scene of the day's exercises. *-
These were begun by Mr. A. A. Gilmore, the chairman of the day,
by requesting Rev. William L. Chaffin, of North Easton, to offer
prayer, which he did as follows: —
58 JOedication.
“O God, our Heavenly Father, may we not be unmindful that now, as
always, we are in thy most holy presence; and may the thought that Thou art
with us here sanctify our purpose and feeling, so that we may engage in this
service in the right spirit; so that whatever we do may be done as unto
the Lord. And may all the words of our mouths and the meditations of our
hearts be acceptable in thy sight.
“We praise thee, O God, with thankful hearts that Thou hast bound us
together by strong and enduring ties of love and friendship, which time and
death cannot destroy, and which, because Thou art, and because Thou hast
created them, are the surest prophecy of our immortality. We praise Thee
that we are permitted to come together here this day, animated by a common
sentiment; not to pay homage to wealth, or power, or worldly success, but to
unite in a service of honored and affectionate remembrance of the man in
whose name this building, the tribute of a devoted filial love, has been erected.
May his image be fresh in our recollection, so that he may seem to be with
us, looking into our faces, clasping our hands with warm greetings of friend-
ship, and speaking words of cordial and equal good-will to all, of whatever
station and condition. If it is permitted those who have died but who live
evermore, O God, with Thee, to look down upon the scenes they once loved in
this world, we rejoice that his heart is made glad by this great gathering of
his friends who meet here in his honor to-day.
“May their respect and love, the respect and love of so many of those
who knew him best, do something to right the grievous wrong of the past;
and now that the passions and fears and sordid self-interests of that time
are silenced, do Thou, O God, dispose the minds of men to candor and jus-
tice. *
“Most graciously, O God, be present with us and bless us in our service
this afternoon. Wilt Thou bless the filial love that prompted this fitting me-
morial. Wilt Thou bless this gift which for years and generations to come will
be a means of real benefit and pleasure to people here; and, as they gather in
this place, may there come to them from time to time tender thoughts of him
in whose honor these walls have been upraised.
“O God, wilt Thou bless us all. Bless us now, and bless us forevermore.
Amen.”
The chairman then said, “Ladies and gentlemen, to me is as-
Dedication. 59
signed the delightful privilege of bidding you welcome to the village
of North Easton, the home for more than half a century of Oliver
Ames, senior, and the life-long residence of his sons, Oakes Ames and
Oliver Ames, where they were all and always honored, respected, and
loved. We are assembled here to-day to dedicate to the memory of
Oakes Ames this edifice, the gift of his sons to the town of Easton,
and I now have the pleasure of introducing to you one of those sons,
our fellow-townsman and public-spirited citizen, the Honorable Oliver
Ames.”
As Mr. Ames came forward, he was greeted with hearty and long-
continued applause. He addressed the assembly in the following
words : —
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, - The building in which we are assem-
bled is erected in honor of our father, the late Oakes Ames, to stand as
a monument to his public services and to his private worth. This, the
Oakes Ames Memorial Hall, we dedicate to-day to the use and for the
benefit of the people of Easton. To you,” — addressing Mr. Lewis
H. Smith, chairman of the Board of Trustees, – “the trustees ap-
pointed to receive and care for the building, we now present the keys,
trusting that the building will prove a source of pleasure and conven-
ience to the good people of the town.” (Loud applause.)
Mr. Smith responded as follows for the trustees: “The trustees,
to whose charge you have entrusted this Memorial Hall, accept your
noble and generous gift in behalf of the town of Easton. We offer
to you our most sincere and hearty thanks. We shall highly prize
this building for its own sake, for the new beauty it gives the town,
and for the valuable uses it will serve. But we shall prize it more
highly yet because it is a worthy memorial of a man whom we all
delight to honor, — your beloved father and our fellow-townsman, the
HONORABLE OAKES AMES.” (Applause.)
The band enlivened the exercises with a musical performance, after
which the chairman called for the reading of the letters received from
a number of distinguished public men and business associates of the
60 Dedication.
late Oakes Ames, which service was performed by Hon. Charles W.
Slack, of Boston. He prefaced the reading with the accompanying
remarks : —
“My humble share in this happy occasion arises from the fact that, at the
request of the sons of our honored and deceased friend, I conducted a portion
of the correspondence which led to this delightful gathering to-day. I have
to say that there were received some sixty or seventy letters in response by
eminent men all over the country; and although I do not intend to read any-
thing like even a fair proportion of these letters, they all breathe the same
generous and appreciative estimate of the distinguished man who has passed
away, and who hereafter is to be remembered in this elegant hall.”
Extracts from a number of these letters will be found at the close
of the present narrative.
The chairman, after the reading, came forward, and introduced to
the company his Excellency, Governor Long, as “the Governor and
Governor-elect by a large majority,” who was received with the hearti-
est demonstrations of satisfaction. The Governor spoke in the follow-
ing strain : — *
“What a tender New England feeling is in the legend, engraved in letters
of stone, which met our eyes as we entered these doors “This building was
erected in memory of Oakes Ames by his children.” One hardly knows
whether such a splendid edifice reflects more credit upon the father to whose
memory and in honor of whose great enterprise and public spirit it has been
reared, or upon the sons who have exhibited such generous measure of filial
love and piety. They have done well also to invite to a share in their trib-
ute those who represent the Commonwealth, the federal government, the
town, and so many departments of public industry, and who, by their presence
here in this large, intelligent, and distinguished gathering, pay almost a more
striking tribute to the brave spirit who has gone.
“Oakes Ames sat in the council of John A. Andrew, and helped him fight
the good fight for freedom. Transferred to the national councils, it was the
power of his will and genius that conquered the snows and peaks of the Rocky
Mountains, and put an iron girdle round about the American continent in
Dedication. 61
forty minutes. It was a gigantic work, which hardly any other hand was
strong enough to undertake, and to which to-day no man who knew him
doubts that he brought also the patriotic purpose of binding closer the Union,
the peril of which he had just seen, and putting it still more rapidly forward
on the road of its mighty development. And here, too, at home, behold these
memorials of his benevolence which stand all around us in this his native
town, bequeathed by him to his sons in that spirit of enterprise which is their
richest and best inheritance, and consummated by them in these comfortable
homes of labor and this magnificent town hall, as also by his brother Oliver
—par mobile fratrum — and that brother's family in this graceful church and
public library; all these buildings standing together as close, and devoted
as truly to the public good, as the generous families whose public spirit has
erected them. How significant What a compendium of American history are
these wondrous American lives | – the early struggles; the common-school
education ; the apprenticeship to an humble trade ; the blacksmith's swinging
arm ; the best pride of New England blood and ancestry; the institution of
special lines of manufacture and art; their steady enlargement; the out-
growth then of larger purposes; the growing interest in the public weal and
progress; the respect won from fellow-citizens; the elevation to high place
and opportunity; the ultimate conquering of fortune ; and the crowning
achievement of success and a name. It is a tribute, as are this occasion and
building, not to American wealth, but to American Worth and American
growth.
“Yet let me turn again and congratulate the sons who, mindful at once of
good taste and of utility, have paid this tribute of their filial affection and
gratitude to the father, whom none could know as they knew him, and
whose heart, if ever the sorrows which fall on all weighed it down, found
life worth living in their love and in a loyalty which, surviving the grave,
holds no trust so sacred as the honor of his good name, – the father's mem-
ory, - the memory of him who, remembering his own boyhood, determined
that ours should lack no help that he could give it; who stood to our youth
the very soul of honor and nobility; who led us by the hand; who taught us
our first lessons; whose heart, as now so well we know, yearned toward us
with so much hope and pride and longing ; the greeting smile of whose face
and the clasp of whose hand come back to us in dreams; and whom death
62 Dedication.
even takes not from us, but only the more clearly reveals to us as the truest
friend we ever knew We cannot all erect to a father's memory such a mon-
ument as this. With most of us it is a modest headstone, and the green turf
wet with our tears. But we can all share in the feelings that have given
birth to this magnificent memorial: not a cumbrous and curious obelisk, fan-
tastically cut with characters that time shall shatter and future ages be unable
to decipher; not a cold, forbidding mausoleum, suggestive of death and decay,
and rotting into the earth; not a monumental arch, to which the idle creep-
ing ivy clings, and through which howl the barren winds, but a great hall,
warm with life and activity, for the meeting of townsmen and free citizens,
where the public interest, which so stirred the heart of Oakes Ames, shall
have voice; where the welfare of the people shall be promoted; where thrifty
industry shall send its representatives; where refining amusements shall de-
light them; where orators shall speak, and song and music swell ; and where
he and his sons shall still live for years to come in the hearts of the people of
their native town, and in the larger and more enlightened life to which his
and their works have so largely contributed.” [Applause.]
After the applause with which the speech of Governor Long was
received had subsided, the chairman introduced to the assembly “one
of the illustrious sons of Massachusetts, to whom has been confided
many trusts, both State and National, all of which he has discharged
with conspicuous fidelity and ability, Honorable George S. Boutwell.”
He was received with very warm demonstrations of welcome, and pro-
ceeded to speak as follows : —
“I think myself fortunate, Mr. President, and ladies and gentlemen, that
for a period of about twenty years I enjoyed, first the acquaintance, and then
the friendship, of Mr. Oakes Ames. And again I think myself fortunate that
now, after several years more have passed since the day of his death, I am able
to join with his family, his townsmen, the chief magistrate and principal officers
of the Commonwealth that he always venerated, and for a time represented, in
that just tribute to his character, his service, and his memory which, for a
moment, was denied him by an excited and, in some respects, misdirected pub-
lic opinion.
“He was born to an inheritance of active business. He accepted its duties
- Dedication. . . . 63
and administered its trusts with a manly fidelity and comprehensive intelli-
gence which advanced yet higher the already honorable name of his family.
“He came to active life when great fortunes were less frequent than they
now are, but associated with his brother, Mr. Oliver Ames, almost equally
well known. [Applause..] His house acquired vast wealth for the time,
and established a credit whose limits were not marked by the boundaries of
States. In the use of that wealth he was liberal and wise in private and pub-
lic charities and contributions, and generous to excess in the aids he extended
to business associates and acquaintances. He was tolerant of hostility, for-
getful of injuries, and persistent in his friendships. Of men of wealth and
capacity for action he was among the first, and conspicuously he was the fore-
most in measuring the necessity and in comprehending the feasibility of estab-
lishing railway communication between the valley of the Mississippi and the
Pacific Ocean. Whatever may be said of the generous endowment made by
the government in aid of that undertaking, whatever credit may be accorded
to his associates, – and much credit is justly due to them, - there will yet
remain the fact that until Mr. Ames assumed responsibility there were no
clear indications that the work would be completed. [Applause..] Upon his
own broad shoulders he laid the weight of that vast enterprise, and he
assumed, and for months and years he carried, responsibilities and met obli-
gations altogether beyond the capacity of ordinary men. The magnitude of
the undertaking may be measured and the honor of success in it may be
estimated by the circumstance that, since Mr. Ames and his associates showed
the way to the Pacific Ocean, corporations and men plethoric with superfluous
wealth have struggled through long and weary years to overcome the obstacles
they found in their path.
“No other public measure, advanced and completed by private enterprise
and capital, has contributed as much to the prosperity of the United States as
the construction of the railway to the Pacific Ocean. Our population has
thereby been increased by immigration, the area of agriculture extended,
towns and cities created on both sides of the continent, and the mountain bar-
rier to harmony and union broken down. So essentially did Mr. Ames con-
tribute to these results that their history cannot be written without honorable
mention of his name.” [Applause.]
“I am now about to introduce to you,” observed the chairman, in

64 Ledication.
continuation of the exercises, “a gentleman who, like “The Atlantic
Monthly,” is “devoted to literature, art, science, and politics,’ and I
also understand that he knows a little of theology, - Rev. Edward
Everett Hale.”
The announcement was greeted with an emphasis of approbation,
and Rev. Mr. Hale came forward, and responded in the following
remarks: —
“It seems to me, Mr. President, that perhaps the fittest thing I can say
will be to speak of a single detail of his life, – the detail in which, as it hap-
pened, I made his personal acquaintance. But when I look at the young
men whom I see at the other side of the room, men whose hair is not as gray
as those I see in front of me, I am well aware that I speak of a condition of
things and a time which to these young men may seem unintelligible. I
knew him first as I knew his brother, in the direction of the Emigrant Aid
Company, - a company formed to direct the movement of New Englanders to
Ransas. Generally, with us, emigration is left to take care of itself. This
company, therefore, was one of the most remarkable exceptions to the whole
policy of this country. It really led to the beginning of the civil war, and,
as I believe, led to the victory in that war. But people did not think so
small of it then, young men, as we do now. At the moment when the terri-
tory west of Missouri was thrown open to emigration, it was a wonder here
what devil of devils opened up the subject of the national cause of slavery
again, when it had been set at peace so entirely in the Southern interest. The
hands of the North were tied, they were chained, when Ransas and Nebraska
were all of a sudden thrown open to emigration, Northern or Southern. We
know now what threw open Kansas. It was the selfishness of a few hundred
planters in Western Missouri, but we did not know it then. Those men who
ruled the country, Jefferson Davis and the rest, could never understand, they
did not understand until the day when war began, why rich men like Oakes
Ames and Oliver Ames, like Martin Brimmer and Amos Lawrence and Will-
iam Claflin, and like gentlemen who are sitting here around me, men far off
in Eastern Massachusetts, in comfortable life, should care whether there was
a “nigger' more or less in Kansas or in Nebraska. It was a thing you never
could drive into their heads that we had any concern in that matter.
Dedication. 65
“All through that country this little Emigrant Aid Company, in which Mr.
Ames was a Director, was represented as a gigantic corporation, with five
millions of capital. This was at a time when it would have been found diffi-
cult to raise even five dollars it needed for its expenditure, if it had not been
for such men as he, willing to draw his checks to the treasurer's order.
[Applause.] Through all that time there was this mystery of mysteries, why
anybody here should interest himself about this matter; not merely why
those young men of Northern blood could go to distant Kansas to die in the
battles of freedom, but why there was a force behind them here that sent them
upon their way. Well, sir, you and I know why it was, for we know what
was the secret of this good, true, pure man's life.
“I am told, every now and then, as one man dies and another, that that man
is the last of the Puritans. I am glad to say I do not think he was the last
of the Puritans. . I hope I am looking at a good many young Puritans stand-
ing round the hall, who know that the first thing in life is to keep their bodies
pure, and that it is only the pure in heart who see God. [Applause..] But
it is perfectly true that Oakes Ames was one of those men. [Applause.]
“This great name of Ames was not a name to be remembered for oratory
only. It was not to go down to posterity with the remembrance alone of
Fisher Ames, the kinsman of our friends, and of that matchless eloquence of
his in the hall of Congress, -an eloquence so great, you know, that his associates
adjourned over one night because they knew they were under the fascination
of the man, and they were afraid to vote until they had slept upon his speech.
It was not to go down to posterity connected with the great life work of
any who preceded him; but the name of Ames was forever to be associated
with that patriotism which acts for the right wherever the right has a field or
a purpose. It was that which brought him into what men called a hopeless
cause. What was a little corporation handling $30,000 to do against the
matchless organization which upheld slave labor and slave-holding industry
through the South P. It had the power of omnipotence; that was all. [Ap-
plause.] It had the power of eternal right; that was all. It had such men
as he, who believed in the right, first, second, last, and always. It had in him
one of the Puritans to back it. God be praised, it had more than one.
“I say it was in that dark hour that I made this man’s acquaintance first, and
you who hear me know that the disposition he showed then, the willingness to
5
66 Ledication.
spend fortune, to spend time, to spend health, and to give life at last, to carry
forward what was right, was the leading element of his character. It ran all
the way through his life. Yes, he knew how to spend money as well as any
man. He knew what could be secured with money as well as any man, but
always there was the question, What can I do with it 2' ‘Why has God
given it to me?’ ‘What is the great moral purpose which can be advanced
in this or that expenditure ?'
“Since these invitations were extended to us, and I knew we were to have
the good fortune of being here together to-day, naturally my mind has run
back to many interviews with him upon matters in which he was always curi-
ously interested. These things, as your Excellency knows, were apt to be
intertwined with the subject of education everywhere. It was not simply this
town of Easton that he wanted to have well provided with schools, but the
education of the whole country was a matter very near to his heart, and he
took broad and large views of the method of that education. He was used
always to converse about it, and you found him acquainted with the subject
in details where you had not expected it. I have fancied there was something
in the very mature of the business which he followed, bringing him into rela-
tion with working men of all parts of the country, as some men of New Eng-
land are not brought, which gave him a broader view of the necessities of the
country than all New England men of business habitually entertain. Of this
I am quite sure: that while he always desired to promote such local interests
as these which make him remembered at North Easton, his large-heartedness
did not stop here, nor with this town, or this county, or this Massachusetts.
His interest extended to the whole United States of America, which he was
determined to bind together, and make strong and enduring forever. [Ap-
plause.]
“Among the sarcasms of a dark day, which has been alluded to, when
men who were in all regards his inferiors were bent on destroying his reputa-
tion, one casual phrase of his was cited with many a bitter sneer, and in the
cruel levity of defamation it became a sort of proverb. It was said that he
said of some expenditure of money of his own that he ‘placed it where
it would do most good.' [Applause.] I dare say he said that. It would
be quite like him to say that. I could not but think to-day, as I came
down here in the train, that, whether it was spoken in jest or in earnest,
any man might be proud to have spoken it, unconsciously, spontaneously,
Ledication. 67
as a thing of course. I wish to God, sir, that it might become a sacred
proverb in our lives. Your Excellency knows, I think, that I shall leave no
fortune to my children. I shall leave to them a memory of poor abilities, but
of certain gifts that God has given me (for God has given certain gifts to all
of us). And certainly I shall ask nothing better than to have carved upon
the slate stone above my head, ‘Such gifts as God gave him he placed where
they could do the most good.' [Applause.] That is the Puritan’s wish and
it should be the Puritan's epitaph.
“As for these various currents of opinion which have been alluded to, I am
afraid too much has been said of them already. This is but the drift seaweed
that floats here and there upon the current. A man is affected by it, uncon-
sciously perhaps, if he is fool enough to read the newspapers; the chatter of the
gulls above our heads, which are now diving for a fish, now fighting for a bit
of cork upon the water, and always undertake to teach us, in language which is
too apt to be unintelligible, what they think of virtue and truth and honesty.
“I see that bit of history so often that I take from it but one lesson ; for,
as it happens, I pass the weeks of summer at the seashore near Point Judith.
We have a wide outlook over the sea there, but there, as in the rest of life, it
, often happens that a dense fog settles down over sea and shore, and a man
sees nothing. He must walk by faith. Nay, it will happen that a southerly
storm shall set in and all the stores of heaven shall be unlocked, the winds
shall tear up the waves and the waves shall tear up the sands, so that even
the curves of the beaches shall be altered, and the breaches in them by which
the proud waters make their way to the sea. But after such a commotion of
the elements, the wind shall come round into the northwest, and the sky shall
be clear blue without a cloud, and the eye can pierce into the infinite. You
walk down upon the beach to find the piles of seaweed which were flung
upon it by the gale, to find that those howling gulls are blown off you know
not where. The channels in the sand are changed. The currents of the
water are changed, but, Mr. President, there is one thing which is not changed.
There is one rock, and that is always there. [Applause.]
“Our friend, the architect of this building, whose deserved praises are on
every lip to-day, has fully understood the history of the life which this hall
is to commemorate, and has fitly expressed it in visible symbol. As we en-
tered by that grand stairway, buttressed as it is on the eternal primitive rock,
it was impossible not to think of the great inscription which is the motto of
68 Dedication.
our friend’s life, and which for all such lives was written down more than
eighteen hundred years ago. It was of such men as he, and such a life as
his, that it was written, ‘The rain descended and the floods came and the winds
blew, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.” Those words are the
inscription for this hall.” [Applause.]
“There is but about an hour left for the remaining exercises,” said
the chairman, “before the train leaves. I have seven gentlemen on
my list of speakers, besides some others I would be glad to call upon ;
and in order to enable those seven to remodel their speeches and cut
them down a little, we will call upon the band to play a few minutes.”
[Laughter and applause.]
An excellent selection formed the ready response of the band, at
the end of which the chairman continued as follows : —
“The next gentleman whom I shall introduce to you is one who
enjoys the privilege of having free passes over all the railroads of the
Commonwealth, which is a source of great joy to those who get them,
and of corresponding disgruntlement to those who fail, - Judge
Thomas Russell.”
That gentleman, on presenting himself to the assembly, was greeted
with prolonged applause, after which he proceeded with the accom-
panying address : —
“MR. PRESIDENT AND FRIENDs, – I gladly take this opportunity to join
in the chorus of praise of this magnificent building, and of the great and good
man to whose memory it is dedicated. This building is not the first proof on
this spot that public spirit and munificence may pass by inheritance from fa-
ther to son. Nor are these the only good qualities transmitted by descent.
The workshops in the valley and the elegant structures above are testimonials
to the worth of the simple, manly virtues which are the granite foundations of
New England life. Industry, frugality, patience, integrity, - these were the
patrimony of the first Oliver Ames, and he gave them unimpaired to his chil-
dren. [Applause.] It is among my earliest recollections that I was brought
here by my father to see what one determined, upright, unaided man could
do. We hear of men who dare to call a spade a spade. There are too many
Dedication. 69
men who dare to call a shovel that which is not a shovel. Oliver Ames, was
not such a man. A Boston merchant told me that he made a wagon jour-
ney of a thousand miles in South Africa, and among all the Boers and Bush-
men and half-breeds — and some of those half-breeds have proved very stal-
wart of late — he never found men so ignorant or kraals so small that they
did n’t have and appreciate Ames's shovels. To them the mystic letters “Oli-
ver Ames & Sons' meal honest materials and faithful work. It was more
wonderful because they were not used to it. From another quarter they re-
ceive guns that go off at the wrong time and at the wrong place; rum that
will neither cheer nor inebriate (that would n’t trouble any of this family);
knives that will not scalp, — no, not even scalp a railroad ticket. [Laughter.]
It is pleasant, in this age of shams, to know that at the Cape of Good Hope,
in Australia, in New Zealand, at the ends of the earth, and in the farthest isl-
ands of the sea, this old Massachusetts brand, – this Old Colony brand, -
stands all the world over for thorough work, tough as ash and true as steel.
[Applause..] Remembering the part which spade and shovel play in civilizing
the earth, an honest implement of this kind seems to be a fit emblem of prog-
ress. And our friend, with his faithful brother, took a first rank among the
leaders of industrial enterprise.
“The story of the Pacific Union Railroad has been often told, but it will
always be a new wonder that this stupendous scheme was fashioned during
the stress of a civil war that threatened the existence of our government.
As I think of Oakes Ames leaving his war-work at the State House, and plan-
ning in the midst of defeats for this great triumph, – setting his will against
the strength of the Rocky Mountains, and his faith above the fears of mill-
ions, – I am reminded of a grand passage from John Milton (which I will not
quote), in which he speaks of the beleaguered city of London, with its rivers
blockaded, the enemy daily threatening its walls, yet with its people studying,
discussing, inventing things never discussed or invented before; showing con-
fidence in their cause and contempt for the enemy like that of the Roman, who
paid full price for the land on which the besieging force of the invader was
encamped. So did our friend risk his fortune to improve and adorn the re-
public, which seemed to many stricken unto death.
“And then we recall those other words of Milton, which need little change
for application to-day, and I say to our departed friend as Milton said to his
friend, –
70 Dedication.
“‘Thou chief of men,
Whom through a cloud not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To high success thy glorious way hast ploughed.
Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war.’ [Applause.]
“This hall needs no further adornment; but if anything ever should be
added, let it be an historical picture of that scene when Abraham Lincoln, hav-
ing signed the contract for building the road, threw his right arm across the
broad shoulders of Oakes Ames, and exclaimed, ‘Your name, Mr. Ames, will
live longer in history than mine.’ That was too much ; for as long as our
race honors faith and loves simplicity and admires devotion, so long will the
name of Lincoln be remembered and honored among men. [Applause..] But
it is true that, while generation after generation of travelers shall pass the
summit of the Union Pacific, they will see the calm features of the two broth-
ers, as they look down forever upon their mighty work; and they will see not
only a memorial of the men, but a memorial of the faith and confidence which
the people of America had in those men.
[To Mr. Ames.] “Your father afterward fell upon evil days and evil
tongues, but among those who criticised him and those who betrayed him —
among all who knew him, friend or foe — there was not one man who be-
lieved that Oakes Ames ever had or ever wished to have in his purse one dis-
honest dollar. I recall the day when George B. Upton turned from the bul-
letin board — George B. Upton, as upright a merchant and as true a man as
ever lived—and said to me, “Judge, Oakes Ames has been condemned, and
you or I, if we had it, would trust him with uncounted gold to-day.” The
basest of the base never dared to doubt his personal honor. [Applause.]
“I have gladly added my feeble tribute to the precious offerings of the day.
But our eloquent friends will permit me to say that the complete eulogy of
your father cannot be given in the absence of the man who knew him best and
loved him most. We shall not know all that could be said of Oakes Ames,
because Governor Andrew is silent in the grave. It is something to remem-
ber of a departed friend that he gained and kept the confidence of Abraham
Lincoln, the love of John A. Andrew.” [Applause.]
The chairman : “I have now the pleasure of introducing to you
Hon. Robert R. Bishop, President of the Massachusetts Senate.”
Dedication. 71
After the applause had subsided, President Bishop spoke to the as-
sembly as follows : —
“MR. PRESIDENT, - How well this massive structure represents the char-
acter of the strong and noble man it commemorates you know. He was the
true product of a New England town, and his sons have built in his honor a
house for the town, a gathering-place for independent men in the business of
self-government, a home for the town meeting, as the fittest memorial to speak
of him to coming generations. He has many memorials. Many honors rest
upon his name and upon his career, — rest as the sunlight rests through the
windows of the building which his sons have given as a crown upon his name
and his memory. This town which he loved ; the neighboring city, so full of
the great power of his business activity; the State, whose institutions he
cherished ; the arms of steel which, both in a commercial and political sense,
bind the nation together and render it inseparable, laid across the continent
by his indomitable will, his steady faith, and his unflagging perseverance, and
over which, from the top of the highest peak of the mountains, his face and
that of his noble brother, carved in medallion, are soon to look, - all speak
his worth, and tell with reverence of his memory.
“But no one, and not all of these memorials, not even though erected by
the pious hands of affection and watched with the tender care and solicitude of
children, are his truest and fullest monument. Better than these is the con-
sciousness which we have of the worth and nobility of character of Oakes
Ames. His proudest and most perfect monument is in our hearts, in our deep
sense of what he was. When we think of his massive mould in heart and
spirit no less than in body, of his strength and simplicity, of his inflexibility
and patience amid great undertakings and the heaviest difficulties; when
we remember the amplitude of the unselfish works accomplished by him for
mankind, we say of him, -
“‘Such was our friend; formed on the good old plan,
A true and brave and downright honest man.’
“Such a monument will indeed endure. Every memento which affection
can rear may pass away; the most enduring work of human skill to his mem-
ory may perish; from the tablets on the Sierras his lineaments will crumble
and fade and disappear ; while continually in the generations to come
72 Ledication.
“‘Death will mould in calm completeness
The statue of his life.’” -
[Applause.]
The chairman next presented Hon. Charles J. Noyes, Speaker of
the House of Representatives, who made the following address : —
“I am grateful, Mr. President, for the opportunity to participate on this
occasion. I cannot hope to add much; I come only to lay a single flower upon
the altar of grateful remembrance. Nor do I rise in any spirit of ambitious
panegyric. This noble memorial, erected by filial affection, and dedicated in
loving friendship, with simple ceremonies, is far higher service. These ear-
nest faces of friends and neighbors are a tribute more eloquent than any pos-
sible speech of mine. Nay, this lovely New England village, so typical of
all that is best in our New England life, utters to-day testimony beyond any
phrase my lips can coin. How its very industry recalls the active life on
which all our thoughts are centred How the past returns unbidden | The
mighty engine-throb seems but the pulsation of his tireless spirit; the forge-
glow but the flash of his unconquerable zeal; the town itself but the vision
of his sublime faith peopling the trackless wilderness, and covering those
mighty western slopes with happy homes. [Applause.] p
“I rejoice in this beautiful memorial of filial hearts to the father. I rejoice
that hereafter it is in some measure a testimony to the illustrious citizen. As
years roll on, the men and women who gather within these walls for instruction
or amusement will find ample source of inspiration and encouragement in the
manly character, brave endeavor, and sublime heroism of him to whose mem-
ory they are dedicated. To the people of North Easton it will be a perpet-
ual lesson of noble daring and lofty achievement. And yet Oakes Ames
needs no monument such as this. No towering dome, no fretted arch, no
frescoed wall, no chiseled stone, is required to perpetuate the story of his
life. No architect can plan or science build a nobler memorial than that his
faith made possible. The great highway of commerce which to-day spans the
continent and links two oceans is a monument to his zeal, his devotion, his
heroism, his unalterable belief in the future of the republic. Many have left
footprints along the beaten path of life, but few have made a more enduring
impression on the growth and achievements of our age than he to whom, with
Dedication. 73
\
loyal gratitude, we this day help dedicate these walls. In the service of great
purposes be ours a patience as calm, a fortitude as stern, and a faith as sublime
as his.” [Applause.]
3.
“I have now the pleasure of introducing to you,” continued the
chairman, “a gentleman who for several years, and all during the
war, was a pastor of Mr. Ames, – Rev. C. C. Hussey, of Billerica.”
The presentation was heartily applauded, and Mr. Hussey ad-
dressed the assembled multitude in these words: —
“I should exhibit a poorer taste and poorer judgment than I really think I
have, if I at this time detained this audience more than a very few minutes.
I am very glad to be with you, friends, on this occasion; and if I had the
time I would like to turn this gathering, for a very few minutes, into a sort of
reunion of family and friends, and speak of some of the things that of course
would come uppermost in my mind to-day.
“We have heard almost entirely of Mr. Ames’s public life. It is the friends
who stood with him, side by side there, who have spoken mostly. The brief
word I have to say is in a different direction. Something more than twenty
years ago I came here as the first settled pastor of the society now worship-
ing in the elegant church, the gift of Mr. Ames's brother, Hon. Oliver Ames,
of whom I like to speak, of exceeding precious memory to many of you, and
certainly to my own heart. It was a day of small things then. It was a day
that tried men's souls. We were just entering on the war of the rebellion,
and I remember how we stood side by side in that old hall. Some of you re-
member it. It had no plastering, and was quite unlike this in its appoint-
ments. But if there was no plastering on the walls, you worked hard, you of
this family, and you of this village; and I well remember how this brother
and the younger members of the family stood side by side with every effort,
not only to bless and save the country, but to do all that could be done to
heal the wounds of thousands and tens of thousands who were suffering in that
time.
“Our friend had his humorous side. I well remember the first time I met
him socially after I came here. Some one said, ‘I understand, Mr. Ames,
that you heard something like seventy-five ministers before you asked Mr.
Hussey to remain with you, and I think that was rather complimentary to Mr.
74 Dedication.
Hussey.' We were sitting on the sofa, and Mr. Ames, in his kind, familiar
manner, put his hand on my knee, and said, ‘Oh, no, no ; that was not it at
all. But you see we had heard a good many ministers. . We had got tired,
and were glad to take anybody that came along then.’ [Laughter.]
“I well remember, and I like to speak of it here, the noble stand that Mr.
Ames took for the cause of temperance. [Applause..] I remember his ex-
ample, the influence of his life, and the atmosphere that surrounded him. I
am glad to know that his principles have descended as a patrimony in the fam-
ily, and bless the village and bless the country to-day. [Applause.] I re-
member one incident, and ask you to excuse the tenderness of it, if it touches
your hearts as it did mine. One night I went into the office, and as I sat
there Mr. Ames looked up at me with a very significant expression, then put
his hand on his forehead, and said, ‘Mr. Hussey, I begin to feel a pressure
there.” That was the beginning of the end, and I went home and said to my
wife that at last the strong man, so strong in very many respects, had begun
to break and begun to bow. But, friends, I think to-day not of the bending
and bowing and breaking, but of the getting ready to pass on to a higher and
grander life, where all clouds that gathered about him here were to be dis-
persed and are dispersed, as they will be below. The real gold of that char-
acter will come out without alloy, revealed on high, and also revealed and
finally read and known of all men. *
“It is a good work that you have done. Think of it, — children building a
monument to a father's memory ! It is not every father's memory that we
want to build a monument to, and it is not every family that wants to build
monuments to its own honored name that has the ability; fewer, perhaps,
have the disposition : but here they are all combined. You have done a
graceful and noble thing, and we are all glad to come and rejoice with you on
this occasion, and find this building so nice in all its appointments, which will
stand not only as a monument to Oakes Ames’s memory, but will stand here
as a thing of beauty and a wonderful educator in this community.
“We sometimes hear it said there is danger in our country in the tendency
of property to gather into a very few hands. But there are two sides to that.
When I look over this village, and recall how it was when I first looked at it,
and see what it is to-day in its outward appearance, the business that has
sprung up here and which blesses the people, and think that this is the prod-
uct of the accumulation of property in a few hands, then I see the other side
Pedication. p 75
of this matter, and I say the main point is what kind of hands the property
gets into. If it can get into the hands of people who build halls and churches,
such people as I am proud and grateful to reckon among my former parish-
ioners, or such as I reckon now among my present parishioners, then I feel it
is well, and the country is safe so long as it has that sanctifying influence.
“To the people of this community I address this last additional word : You
have these objects of beauty and taste amongst you. Live up to them. Open
your minds and hearts to all their grand, elevating influence; and so live as
to make these things a joy and a blessing forever.” [Applause.]
The chairman next introduced Mr. Henry B. Blackwell, who spoke
as follows : —
“MR. CHAIRMAN AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, - For nearly forty years
I have had the honor and the pleasure of knowing the brothers Oakes and
Oliver Ames. We have heard to-day how their reputations stand in the in-
terior of Africa. I cannot go quite so far from home as that, and yet when
I first knew them, living as I did in Ohio, I was about as far from the place
where we stand to-day, measured by time, as this now is from San Francisco;
and, measured by difficulty of access, a good deal farther. I remember a
good many ups and downs in the currency of the country, but there is one
thing which has known no ups and downs since that time; for then, as now,
the Ames shovel was legal tender in every part of the Mississippi Valley.
[Applause.]
“I have but a few words to add to those we have heard this afternoon.
In order rightly to estimate the mental and moral greatness of the man whom
we meet to honor, we must remember the circumstances under which his work
was done. In this reconstructed Union, in the enjoyment of peace and pros-
perity, we have almost forgotten the condition of the country when Oakes
Ames entered public life, less than twenty years ago. The moral agita-
tion against slavery had culminated in rebellion and civil war. It was the
dark and dreary hour dreaded by Thomas Jefferson and foretold by Daniel
Webster, when States discordant and belligerent were involved in fratricidal
conflict. In that crisis, Providence raised up a galaxy of patriots and states-
men equal to an unparalleled emergency. As I recall those leaders, many of
whom we knew, - Lincoln, and Sumner, and Andrew, and Chase, and Sew-
76 Dedication.
ard, and Stanton, and Fessenden, and Grant, and Greeley, and many more, —
I count among these historic names, equally valuable and indispensable, those
of Oakes and Oliver Ames [Applause], the builders of the Union Pacific
Railway, the pioneers of a reconstructed Union and a continental civilization.
“That great national highway had become a military and political necessity.
The Pacific slope, peopled largely from the South, was separated from us by
almost impassable barriers, by desert plains and snow-clad mountains. The
population was disaffected, and liable at any moment to join the ranks of se-
cession. Yet year after year Congress sought in vain for the men and the
means to do the work. When President Lincoln said to the brothers Ames,
“It is necessary for the Union that this railway should be constructed, they
subscribed liberally ; and still it was not built. Years passed. The struggle
deepened. A company had been formed, but it failed to command public con-
fidence. Lands were granted, but they were unsalable. The credit of the
United States was tendered, but it was doubted. When the Credit Mobilier
Construction Company broke down, when the work was apparently at an end,
and the enterprise in danger of being abandoned, Oakes Ames came forward
and took on his own shoulders that terrible contract of forty-seven millions of
dollars; risked his whole fortune, risked his position, risked his health, risked
everything. And why P Not to make money, for men of his wealth who
want to make money never take risks. It was because he was willing to give
up his money, his life if necessary, for the sake of the country he loved. [Ap-
plause.] What other motive could he have had? He was a man past middle
life, possessed of an ample fortune, rich beyond the dreams of ordinary men.
He was out of debt and out of danger, the head of a prosperous business. He
had social standing, political position, and a future without a cloud. He risked
them all. He never asked a single favor from the government. He kept
faith with friends and foes. He was as frank and open as the day. When,
by his indomitable energy, the road was completed, and the legitimate fruits
of fame and fortune were assured, he stood like a rock, refusing to let his
associates be plundered, and thereby became the mark of private malice and
political detraction. [Applause.] •
“All that is past. A grateful nation already does him justice. The high-
est legal tribunals of the country have rendered their verdict in his favor. To-
day a thousand citizens of his native State meet in the village of his birth, to
join his children and his children’s children in paying tribute to his memory.
Dedication. 77
“In the great future which is opening before us, when this country shall
have become the undisputed leader of the world, - with every improvement,
with every discovery, with every reform, moral and material, which the civil-
izing influences of society will develop, — fresh lustre will be added to the
name and the fame of the man whom we commemorate.
“In the great success of his life Oakes Ames had a worthy partner, — his
brother, Oliver Ames. Nothing could be more beautiful than the coöperation
of these two brothers, so different, yet so gifted in the high qualities of leader-
ship. I like to think of them together. They were necessary to each other.
Each added qualities that the other lacked. Oakes Ames had that daring,
that genius of progress, which led him to feel that
“‘He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desert is small,
Who fears to put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all.”
Oliver Ames had that imperturbable sagacity which acted as a balance-wheel
upon the executive qualities of his brother and made the combination invinci-
ble. They were like David and Jonathan, lovely and pleasant in their lives,
and in their death they were not long divided.
“In conclusion, let me say that when wealth is consecrated, as this man
consecrated his, to the highest purposes of the State and of civilization we
shall cease to fear that large fortunes are dangerous to the republic. We
shall measure greatness by a new standard, and go on in the march of prog-
ress under the leadership of our men of property,
“‘Till the war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle flags are furled
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.’” [Applause.]
“I shall next call upon Colonel Jonas H. French,” said the chair-
man, “and if he speaks over five minutes he will hear the mallet
come down; and I shall call upon Rev. R. R. Meredith to close the
exercises.”
After the applause was ended, Colonel French came forward, and
indulged in the following remarks : —
“MR. PRESIDENT, - I have not remodeled my speech. Our friends who
have just spoken followed your suggestion, and remodeled their speeches,
78 Dedication.
doubtles, by adding a few sentences while the band played. [Laughter.]
But, sir, this is a gladsome day, and we are here to rejoice. Years ago, the
silver cord was loosed and the golden bowl was broken, and we deposited in
your graveyard all that was left of Oakes Ames. We are glad, sir, to-day to
join in paying honor to that man whom all of us have occasion to love and to
honor. We dedicate this beautiful structure to the manifold virtues of that
man; and we who have come here dedicate it as a monument of the undying
love and ceaseless affection of his sons. [Applause.]
“I can only, in the moment left me, speak of Mr. Ames as a business man;
and as such he was an unquestioned leader of men of peculiar power. You,
his associates, well know the struggle that came of the building of the great,
transcontinental railroad. You know what he endured. You know how
much of a martyr he was to that great work. I say, well may we do honor
to his sons, who are carrying out to-day with courage and intrepidity the
great work of which these men—for their names are inseparable— were the
pioneers.
“I would tell you, if I had the time, of what belongs to this great family, and
how much honor we should award to it. We believe this: that they are en-
titled to be regarded as the pioneers of the railroad interest of the country;
and with their names, those of their sons should be united. I can only offer
you, in this brief time, the salutations that we owe to our friends, the sons of
Oakes Ames, and extend to them our heartiest and sincerest congratulations.”
[Applause.]
The Rev. Mr. Meredith then came forward, on being personally
announced as the last speaker, and addressed the assembly in these
words : —
“MR. PRESIDENT, -When the invitation came to me to be present on this
most interesting occasion, I sat with it a few minutes in my hand, and let my
mind run back over the history of the past years; and in a few moments
after that review I said, “Oakes Ames needs no such monument to perpetuate
his memory among a grateful people.” When I came down here to-day, and
looked at these buildings of industry, of beauty, of culture, and of religion, I
said, “Oakes Ames does not need an additional memorial. Deeds are his best
monument.’ And yet, though this does not seem to be needed, our hearts
Dedication. 79
have told us all that it is a very admirable, exquisitely beautiful, and touching
act of remembrance on the part of his children. It gives me, as it gives you,
the greatest pleasure to join with them to-day in the exercises, which are now
closing, of consecrating this building, as one of the speakers has said, to be a
crown of light that shall lead this people gratefully to remember the good and
wise and brave man who has gone from earth.
“I have said I am glad to be here. I am glad for another thing. I am glad
that so many words have been so fitly spoken on this occasion that it is not
necessary that I should detain this audience a single moment longer.” [Ap-
plause.]
At this point, the chairman declared the public exercises closed.
TRIBUTES TO OAKES AMES.
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS RECEIVED.
FROM SECRETARY BILAIN.E.
“I knew your father well, having been a member of the House of Repre-
sentatives the entire period of his service in that body. He was distinguished
among his associates, both in and out of Congress, for solidity and uprightness
of character, for sterling sense, for sound judgment, for extraordinary energy,
and for manly courage. He was a model of simplicity and sobriety in his
habits of life, had large wealth without pride of purse, and always had the
quickest and kindliest sympathy with young men in their early and difficult
struggles. He embodied in himself the Charity which suffereth long and is
kind, which envieth not, which vaunteth not itself, which is not puffed up.
“He enjoyed the profoundest confidence of those who knew him best, and
your filial devotion to his memory does honor to yourselves, and gives pleas-
ure to his wide circle of surviving friends.”
FROM EX-SECRETARY WILLIAM M. EVARTS.
“I am obliged to be in Washington, or it would give me pleasure to join
with his sons and neighbors and friends in the country at large in the honor
to be paid his memory by the dedication at North Easton, on the 17th inst.,
of the Memorial Hall which the pious affection of your brothers and yourself
has erected in honor of Oakes Ames.
“I knew Mr. Oakes Ames's sterling qualities and his public spirit, and had
great respect for them.” -
FROM SENATOR HENRY L. DAWES.
“Mr. Ames was indeed a great man, and accomplished in his life-time a
great work. He built his own monument, which will outlast the marble and
the brass fashioned to keep others in mind. While others were fighting bat-
tles for the unity of the nation, he bound it into one with iron bonds which no
Letters. 81
force can break asunder. We rightly crown with laurels the hero who led
our armies to victory, and I rejoice that the nation is not forgetting him who,
with no less courage or hazard, by the arts of peace achieved a victory more
grand and far reaching in its consequences than was ever won over men on the
field of battle.
“What more fitting tribute could be paid by his sons to that strong insight
of Mr. Ames into the source of our strength as a self-governing people than a
Memorial Town Hall, that Parliament House of the American democracy in
which the love of liberty was first nursed, and in which it has since grown
strong. The town-meeting is the life-blood of the republic, and in it are
reared the rugged, liberty-loving men like Oakes Ames, who are ever ready to
stake all to build it up and bind it about, that it may abide forever.”
FROM EX-GOVERNOR ALEXANDER. H. Blu LLOCK.
“I recall with pleasure the intimate acquaintance I formed with Mr. Oakes
Ames, when he served in one branch of the government and I in another,
under the administration of our mutual friend, Governor Andrew. I well
knew then, and I like now to remember, his signal efficiency in the patriotic
enterprise of placing Massachusetts strongly in the field in the early days of
the war. I saw him but seldom afterwards, but I could not overlook the
great national service he rendered in the construction of that vast public work
which has proved a tie of union of the States, and a promoter of our common
prosperity. In the complex movements and combinations incident to that un-
dertaking, circumstances arose which, in certain particulars, brought his mo-
tives under a misconstruction which I have at all times believed to be unjust.”
FROM EX-GOVERNOR WILLIAM CLAFLIN.
“My acquaintance with your honored father began early in the antislav-
ery contest, when bold, large-hearted, conscientious men, from the business
walks of life, were greatly needed to encourage and sustain the movement.
“His name was a tower of strength, and his counsel was always sought on
all difficult questions. Nor was counsel alone obtained.
“His time, his talents, and his means were freely given to the cause. He
was a leader amongst men.
“Those who knew him in those days of trial cherish his memory with af-
6
-82 Letters.
fectionate remembrance, for they constantly witnessed his love of justice, his
devotion to humanity, and his earnest desire to promote every good work.”
FROM EX-GOVERNOR WILLIAM B. WASEIBURN.
“For nine consecutive years, during the most trying period of our country's
history, it was my privilege to be most intimately associated with him. The
longer I knew him, the more I admired his grand and noble qualities. The
last twelve years of his life were most faithfully devoted to the public service
of his State and country. During this period, he was called to fill many re-
sponsible and trying positions, and in none of them was he ever found want-
ing. So conscientious was he that he never would allow private business to
interfere with the faithful discharge of his public trusts. It is not my purpose
to follow his public career or to enlarge upon the special qualities of his char-
acter; but I have often thought that in his indomitable energy and will, in his
strong self-reliance, and in his rapid march to success he displayed one of the
grandest types of the American character.”
FROM EX-GOVERNOR WILLIAM GASTON.
“I am happy to have an opportunity of expressing my great respect for tho
character and memory of the late Hon. Oakes Ames. By his great energy,
courage, and ability, a very important public work was brought to a success-
ful completion ; and I think his services were of such a character as to justly
entitle him to the respect and gratitude of his countrymen.”
FROM EX-GOVERNOR THOMAS TALBOT,
“It is indeed fitting that such a memorial building should be erected to one
whose services to the State and nation were so eminent. But he has quite as
enduring a monument in the memory of those who witnessed the gigantic ef-
forts which led to the completion of the enterprise which bound together with
indissoluble bonds the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific. This alone
should be sufficient to keep his memory green in the hearts of the people of
the nation.”
FROM EX-GOVERNOR, ALEXANDER. H. RICE,
“How much in keeping it is with the large-hearted liberality of the Ames
family to supplement the noble enterprise of their deceased father with the
Letters. 83
gift of a Town Hall to their neighbors and fellow-citizens! I heartily con-
gratulate you on so meritorious an achievement. I knew Mr. Oakes Ames
well, and had the best opportunities of watching his public career ; and I be-
came an admirer of the grandeur of his enterprise, the clearness and sagacity
of his perceptions in large undertakings, and I believe in the purity of his mo-
tives in his intercourse with all men. He was a noble specimen of American
manhood; and no catalogue of the great and deserving men of his generation
will be complete that does not contain the name of Oakes Ames.”
FROM HON. ARTEMAS HAL.E.
“The infirmities incident to an age of almost a century must be my excuse
for not accepting your kind invitation to the dedication of the Oakes Ames
Memorial Hall.
“I should be much gratified to be there and witness the ceremonies of the
occasion; but more particularly to show by my presence my high apprecia-
tion of the character of Mr. Ames, and my disapproval of the injustice done
him by the House of Representatives of the Thirty-Eighth Congress. He
rendered very essential services as a member of Congress; and his agency in
the construction of the Pacific Railroad was deserving of a statue rather than
a vote of censure, which was a disgrace to that body, and ought to be, and I
hope will be, expunged from its journals.”
FROM BION. SAMUEL J, TILDEN.
“The monument of filial piety by which the sons of the late Mr. Ames pro-
pose to perpetuate the memory of the virtues and usefulness of their father
does them honor. While it will be in itself a public benefaction, it will tes-
tify to future generations that the public and ennobling sympathies of the fa-
ther were most appreciated where he was best known, and that they survive
in his descendants. . . . It would gratify me to join with his old neighbors
in paying even that feeble tribute of respect to the memory of one who has a
title to rank among his country's benefactors.”
FROM WIENDELL PHILLIPS.
“I am very sorry I cannot be present and pay my tribute of respect to one
of the most honest, patriotic, devoted, and far-sighted men that Massachusetts
has lent to the national councils in our day.
84 Letters.
“While he stood head and shoulders above all her Representatives in fur-
thering the material interests of the nation, he was equally distinguished
above most of them by his clear view of what honor and justice demanded of
us, and by his manly, outspoken, and self-sacrificing efforts to make that the
law of the land. I held him always in special honor, and felt it a privilege to
call him my friend, admiring his sturdy and straightforward honesty of life
and purpose as a type of what a true man in a republic should be.”
FROM HON. JOSIAH QUINCY.
“I regret that I shall be unable to attend the dedication of the Oakes Ames
Memorial Hall at North Easton, to express personally my appreciation of the
energy that connected the Atlantic and Pacific States, and thus secured their
federal union to future generations.”
FROM FRANKLIN HAVEN, ESQ.
“It was my good fortune to enjoy a pleasant acquaintance with your re-
spected father during the last twenty years of his life, and thus to acquire, as
I believe I did, a true and an appreciative knowledge of his character.
“If I were with you to-day, I should ask permission to state my entire con-
fidence in the great simplicity, the integrity, patriotism, and philanthropy of
his character. sº
“That he was endowed with a large business capacity, courage, untiring
perseverance, and indomitable energy is attested, beyond all question, in the
successful achievement of a great and magnificent public enterprise.”
FROM BION. MARSHALL P. WILDIER,
“It was my good fortuno to be acquainted with the father of Mr. Ames
more than fifty years ago, and who, had he lived to this time, would have been
one hundred and two years of age. He was a man of enterprise, dignified yet
courteous in manners, and of the strictest integrity of character from princi-
ple ; and what was not common then, he was a professed temperance man.
In a word, he was of the type of a true Christian gentleman.
“It has also been my privilege to know Oliver Ames, Jr., his third son, to
whom the public is indebted for many beneficent acts, and on whose tomb I
would this day drop a flower, in grateful remembrance of his usefulness and
excellence of character.
Letters. 85
“Nor would I forget, on this day of consecration, the sons of these noble
men, who have conferred and are conferring honor on our Commonwealth and
blessings on their fellow-men.
“Long may the beautiful edifice which you are now to dedicate stand as a
memorial, not only of the man whose name it bears, but also of a family which
is so worthily represented in the annals of New England history.”
FROM HION. BENJAMIN F. BluTLER,
“Nothing would give me greater personal satisfaction than by my presence
to testify my regard for him as a man, my great appreciation of his character
as a statesman, and my admiration of his brave and enterprising spirit, which
gave to this country the Union Pacific Railroad. Without him, I am of the
confident belief that that great link which binds the East and the West to-
gether, in the bond which we all trust will never be severed, would not have
been made within this generation, if at all. Other interests might have pre-
vented it in the future: It required all the necessities of the war, all the aid
the government could give it, to make the construction of the Union Pacific
Railroad a plausible enterprise ; and it became a possible enterprise only be-
cause his large-hearted and brave spirit led him to take upon himself the act-
ual burden of the undertaking.
“It is easy to criticise after the fact, but whoever will put his mind back to
the hour when Oakes Ames loaned many millions of honestly earned money
to do that work will, upon an examination of the conditions, I am certain,
come to the same conclusion that I have.
“With an energy never faltering, with a directness never swerving, with
a faith never failing, he stood behind it, pushing it forward with the belief
that it was as necessary for the unification of the country as was the success-
ful termination of the war itself. -
“Supposed political necessities and fears of newspaper attacks caused cer-
tain men, who, if they had had half of Mr. Ames's courage and one quarter of
his honesty, would have scorned to do such a deed, to attempt to protect them-
selves by interposing him as a shield between them and acts which were only
wrong because the denial of them was a confession of that implication, and
which, if, as in the case of some of them, they had been courageously avowed,
would never have made a ripple even upon the turbid stream of political
strife. He almost alone stood by his convictions and his acts, and told both in
86 Letters.
a plain spirit of simple honesty, which was convincing to the mind of every
true man of the purity of both his intentions and his doings. - -
“My relations to him as his colleague made me entirely familiar with the
whole subject. Untouched myself by any accusation, I could and did form
an unbiased, and the lapse of time and course of events convince me an accu-
rate, judgment of Oakes Ames, as one of the best, most unselfish, most up-
right, and most brave and true of all the public men I have ever known.”
FROM HON, JOHN SHERMAN, SENATOR OF UNITED STATES FROM OHIO.
“It would have given me great pleasure to have accepted your invitation,
and in this way shown my respect for the important and valuable services ren-
dered by him to his country and State. I knew him well at the time he was
bearing the heavy load of the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad,
when but few of his detractors would have had the courage to take his place.”
FROM HON. WILLIAM P. FRYE, SENATOR OF UNITED STATES FROM MAINE.
“Imperative engagements prevent my acceptance of your invitation, but I
cannot decline without declaring that in my opinion Mr. Ames is entitled to
this recognition of his work by his friends ; ay, more, that the American peo-
ple might well unite in such a memorial to enterprise, public spirit, and hon-
esty. I say this, gentlemen, not unmindful of any of the history of the past
twenty years, nor forgetful of my participation in any of its events.”
FROM HON. GEORGE B. LORING, UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF AGRI-
CUI,TURE.
“He was a kind and cordial friend to me, and always encouraged me in
every attempt to defend the right and to accept the most humane doctrines of
government. So long as untiring enterprise and great comprehension and
large capacity for affairs, unceasing industry and high and honorable purpose,
are admired and respected, his name will be borne in grateful remembrance.”
FROM Ex-GOVERNOR EDWIN D. MORGAN, OF NEW YORK.
“I regret that my engagements here are such as to prevent my acceptance
of your very kind invitation: otherwise it would give me much pleasure to be
present upon the occasion of so appropriate recognition of the eminent services
of the Hon. Oakes Ames in developing the resources of the country and in
letters. 87
establishing facilities for its commerce; and to whom, more than to any other
man, the country is indebted for the early completion of a railroad to the Pa-
cific, thus binding forever with an iron chain those new, rich States and Ter-
ritories to our older civilization.”
FROM COL. FRANCIS H. PEABODY, OF KIDDER, PEABODY & CO., OF BOSTON.
“I should be glad to be one in any testimonial of respect to your father, —
one of the most honest and brave men I ever came in contact with. It is a
pleasure to me to remember that I took every opportunity to proclaim my
opinion of him at a moment when he was living and suffering from cruel in-
justice.”
FROM ISAAC. H. BAILEY, OF NEW YORK.
“Not only is this tribute of filial affection an admirable conception, but the
name of Oakes Ames deserves to be held in grateful remembrance by the
American people as one of the country's benefactors. His far-reaching fore-
cast projected, and his tireless energy carried into successful operation, one of
the grandest enterprises of the century. In common with many of his con-
temporaries, he did not escape the noisome breath of clamor ; but all who
knew him can bear witness to his disinterestedness, sincerity, and truthfulness.
His life was simple and pure, his disposition benevolent, his conduct irre-
proachable; and no word of eulogy that has been or will be pronounced over
his ashes will exceed the measure of his worth.”
FROM EDWARD ATKINSON.
“The time will surely come when it will not be left to his sons and other
relatives, or even to his personal friends, to erect a monument by which his
memory may be perpetuated.
“As time goes on, full justice will be done to the grand work which he ac-
complished; and his name will go down in history as one of the men who, in
an age of danger and difficulty, conferred upon this country one of the great-
est benefits. He was one who aided, perhaps as much as even those who com-
manded armies, in maintaining the union of these States.”
FROM JUDGE JOHN A. CAMPBELL, OF NEW ORLEANS.
“I should have had pleasure in testifying the respect I had for your honor-
able father; and also my appreciation for the vigorous character, the compre-
88 Letters.
hensive and enlarged views, the untiring industry, the probity and simplicity
that distinguished him.” J.
FROM HON. HARVEY JEWELL.
“I had occasion to have quite frequent intercourse with Oakes Ames at one
period of my professional life. No man whom I ever met inspired me with a
higher idea of business intelligence, and above all of the utmost integrity and
probity, than did he. As I respected him while living, I revere his memory
when dead, and I believe the American people owe to him more than any
man for the advantages which it seems to me his energy and sagacity have
given them.”
FROM HON. J. F. FARNSWORTH, OF ILLINOIS.
“I knew Mr. Oakes Ames well, having served many years in Congress with
him, and have great respect for his memory; for in these elements of char-
acter which constitute genuine human greatness — energy, courage, sterling
integrity, and truth — he was certainly the peer of any man.”
FROM HON. B. W. HARRIS.
“For his courage in undertaking, and his perseverance, in the face of oppo-
sition, in carrying to successful ending, enterprises of such magnitude and vast
national importance, our country owes him a debt of gratitude. His best and
most lasting memorial will be the memory of his great actions, his pure life,
and great integrity.”
FROM HON. M. P. KENNARD, SUB-TREASURER.
“I promise myself the pleasure of attending, and shall be satisfied if my
presence can testify, even thus remotely, to my warm regard for the memory
of him whose name it bears, as one who was always sincere in his friendships,
and a generous, unselfish, and public-spirited citizen.”
FROM GOV. N. G. ORDWAY, OF DAKOTA TERRITORY.
“The stupendous public and private enterprises with which the name of
Oakes Ames will stand indissolubly connected are monuments to his energy,
fidelity, and greatness, which misrepresentation can never obscure.”
letters. 89
FROM HON. JOSIAH. G. ABBOTT.
“I knew and had great respect for your father, and shall be most pleased
to be present at the dedication of so fitting a monument to his memory.”
FROM B. B. JOHNSON, ESQ., UNITED STATES MARSHAL’s OFFICE, DISTRICT
OF MASSACHUSETTS,
“I was in Washington from March, 1863, to July, 1869, and volunteered
to assist the Massachusetts State Agent during the terrible influx of the
wounded into the hospitals of Washington. I was thrown much in contact
with the various Congressmen. I had occasion to need funds often that the
State did not furnish, to relieve the wounded. Your father visited two of the
hospitals with me—“Amory Square’ — several times, and said, “When you
need money call on me. Don’t let any poor fellow suffer, if you can help it.”
He slipped twenty-five dollars into my hands then, and other sums frequently
afterward, not waiting to be asked, but himself seeking to know the wants.
His unostentatious, his genuine generosity, his words and conduct, always im-
pressed me with the feeling, ‘He is one of God's noblemen.’”
FROM HON, JOHN E. SANFORD.
“In the community where his life was spent, there is little need to speak of
his integrity as a man of business, or of his public spirit and influence as a
citizen. All knew and remembered him as a man of large views, noble im-
pulses, and generous sympathies. Whatever the cause or the measure, he was
always to be counted on the right side. They remember, too, with grateful
pride, his long and conspicuous service in the important public trusts which
they again and again committed to his charge, and the great public works to
which he devoted himself with a breadth of view, an absorbing faith and
courage, a personal force, a self-sacrifice and success, for which there is hardly
a parallel in the annals of private or public enterprise.
“But it is not for what he did, more than for what he was, that they who
knew him best love and honor his memory. Oakes Ames was an honest
man,—straightforward in purpose and action, trustworthy in deed and word.
The warp and woof of his nature were such that he could not be otherwise.
There was no background to his character on which the sunlight could not be
turned.
90 Letters.
“We justly assign a high place on the record of meritorious and honorable
service to those who, with lofty and unselfish aim, with large ability, and with
a mind conscious of rectitude, have labored and accomplished much for their
fellow-men. Such is the place which Oakes Ames is entitled to fill,— not
only in the affectionate memories of his neighbors and former constituents,
but in the opinions of all who rightly estimate his life and character, as a
man and a public benefactor.” º
FROM HON. SAMUEL N. ALDRICH, OF MARLBORO.
“His name and memory should be honored by all true Americans.”
FROM SIDNEY BARTLETT, Esq.
“Mr. Bartlett regrets that he shall not be able to be present at the dedica-
tion of the Memorial Hall, which they (the Messrs. Ames) have erected as a
token of their filial regard for one who will be long and justly remembered as
a public benefactor.” -
FROM HON. ALBERT BOW RER,
“Oakes Ames, as a great and unselfish projector and patriot, is a part of
the history of the country. The charming simplicity and purity of his life,
his exceptional enterprise, conspicuous integrity (never doubted by those who
knew him), — these, and other endearing qualities of mind and character,
caused the appreciative to love and honor him. He was a man,—not an
eighth, nor a sixteenth. When he saw the necessity of rapid communication
between the Atlantic and Pacific, he put his great energy and fortune to the
accomplishment of it.”
FROM CHARLES BREWER, ESQ., OF JAMAICA PLAIN.
“I regret that my health and lameness, as well as my age, – seventy-
eight, — will not permit me to accept your kind invitation.
“Oakes Ames, was an old and respected friend, with whom I had very
pleasant associations in our business matters; and I cherish his memory as
one who was noted, among the merchants of Boston, for his high sense of
honor and for his strict integrity throughout his business life. As a friend, I
mourn his loss and his pleasant manners and cheerful smile.” -
Jétters. . 91
FROM WILLIAM ENDICOTT, JR., Esq., of Boston.
“I should be glad to show by my presence that the falsehood of members
of Congress and the misrepresentations of the newspapers did not lessen my
respect for your father, whom I have always regarded as the victim of gross
injustice.”
FROM THOMAS DANA, ESQ., OF BOSTON.
“Allow me to express my admiration of the filial love and devotion of the
children of that great man, Oakes Ames, who did so much for the material
progress of America, and of whom all her people should be proud.”
FROM LION. JOHN F. DILLON, LATE JUDGE UNITED STATES DISTRICT Court,
* NEW YORK.
“All persons who knew Mr. Ames, and all who had data for forming a
judgment, knew him to have been a man of solid worth and sterling qualities.
His career was one of usefulness not only to the immediate community in
which he lived, but also to the country at large. . . . He did not, indeed,
escape detraction, but his name and memory have survived it; and the public
judgment concerning his career is as gratifying to his friends as it is encour-
aging to all persons who are unjustly assailed.”
FROM HENRY WILLARD, PRESIDENT OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD
COMPANY.
“I will avail myself of this opportunity to tender my tribute of admiration
to the undaunted spirit, energy, and enterprise of him in whose memory you
have erected so becoming a monument in his Massachusetts home. Being
myself now engaged in directing the construction of another railroad line
across the continent, I can the more thoroughly understand the difficulties that
lay in the way of the original Pacific Railroad enterprise, so many years ago,
and which, but for him, would never have been successfully overcome.”
FROM BION. GEORGE P. SANGER.
“I hold in very high respect the memory of your father and his great ser-
vices to the country, and regret that I cannot be present at these commemora-
tive exercises.”
92 Letters.
FROM BION. P. EMORY ALDRICHſ.
“It would afford me great pleasure to be able to accept the invitation, and
to unite with other citizens in paying respect to the memory of one to whom
the whole country is indebted for its most magnificent railway, uniting the
two oceans, and binding all the intermediate States in an indissoluble bond.”
*
FROM HON, JOHN B. ALLEY.
“I can most truly say that I have never met a man whose life was more
in obedience to what he believed the principles of justice and right demanded
than was that of my late honored friend. I am grieved to say that he passed
away in the midst of his usefulness, under the sting of a grossly unjust public
censure, occasioned by one of those unaccountable delusions which sometimes
take possession of the public mind in moments of passion and excitement, in
which facts and argument are powerless to convince. . . . For his present
vindication, it need only be said that the stockholders of that great corpora-
tion, which he was accused of wronging, by an unanimous vote have erected
to his memory, upon the summit of the great range of mountains over which
the Union Pacific Railroad passes, a large and costly monument, as a reminder
to coming generations of their appreciation of his gigantic efforts and stainless
honor in all his dealings with the government and themselves, in pushing to
its full completion this immense enterprise.”
FROM HON. E. S. TOBEY, POSTMASTER OF BOSTON.
“I regret that, in consequence of an absence from the city for several days
past, an accumulation of duties will deprive me of the privilege of uniting with
you and your guests in perpetuating the memory of one who has rendered
such eminent service to our country, and without whose indomitable energy
and intelligent enterprise the establishing of the Union Pacific Railroad would
still be a project to be accomplished in the indefinite future. The influence
of this grand enterprise alone on the commercial prosperity of our country,
and in strengthening the political ties between the States on the Pacific coast
and those on the Atlantic shore, cannot be adequately estimated.”
Letters. 93
FROM SIDNEY DILLON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD.
“It would give me the greatest pleasure to be present at this meeting, and
participate in the ceremonies in honor of the memory of my respected and
esteemed friend; and while I may be absent in person, my heartfelt sympathy
will be with you.
“I trust that the hall thus dedicated may be enjoyed for many years to
come by the people of North Easton, and serve to keep fresh the memory of
one who deserves the highest praise and respect of all.”
FROM S. DEANE, ESQ., OF WASHINGTON, D. C.
“It gives me great joy to observe that you mean to build into the very
structures of your town enduring memorials of the noble character and manly
virtues of your father. In this way you will fix lasting marks to tell the
future student and coming generations of the man who, in his time, did great
things, and left a memory rich in all that is worth being emulated or praised
in a civilized and Christian community. And so men will come to weigh
aright all that slanderous tongues may have said; the wicked utterances will
fade away in the better understanding the coming generations will surely have
of the great and good man, whose memory is to be perpetuated in this new
structure.”
FROM SENATOR. S. C. POMEROY, OF KANSAS.
“I have wondered if a little incident which fell under my own observation,
while your father was a resident at Washington, would be of value and inter-
est to you. The incident is as follows: When the Union army, repelling the
threatened attack on Washington, near the close of the late war, was en-
camped in the neighborhood of Silver Springs, near the Blair Place, it took
for its subsistence the crops, provisions, and animals of a farmer in the neigh-
borhood, and left him destitute. This so affected him that he lost his reason,
and was taken to the asylum near Washington. The mother of this family
likewise became prostrated with sickness.
“Under these circumstances, the eldest child, a girl of some sixteen years,
came to Washington, bringing the papers which the army officers had left at
the house. Her object was to collect the money due from the government.
She applied to the Hon. Oakes Ames for advice and assistance. She asked
94 Iletters.
him if she should employ a lawyer to collect it. Mr. Ames looked at her
papers, and answered, ‘No, you can collect it yourself, and save the expense.”
She hesitated, saying she did not know how, or where to go. “I will go with
you,” was his instant reply. So he walked with the poor girl all the way to
the War Department, where he introduced her to the proper officer. The
case was examined, and in due time the money was paid.
“Encouraged by an act of such kindness, she called again upon Mr. Ames,
seeking to procure employment from the government, to support the family,
as she said. She was asked if she could not teach school, and answered, ‘I
have not finished school myself;” and it would take a whole year before she
could get through, and she could not now have money to go any further.
Mr. Ames asked her how much it would cost in money for her to go through
and become qualified to teach. She answered, fully one hundred dollars, and
that she could not think of. “But if you had the money, would you go
through and teach school P’ he inquired. ‘Oh, I should be glad to,” was her
ready reply. Mr. Ames gave her the needed one hundred dollars on the spot,
and with a heart swelling with gratitude and eyes filled with tears she bade
him good-by.
“I watched the course of this young girl until, after graduating, she taught
the school in her own neighborhood. At length, desirous of larger compen-
sation, she applied to General Spinner, who gave her an appointment in the
Treasury Department, and, so far as I know, she is still employed there.
Her father died in the asylum. She and her mother managed to support and
educate the family of several younger children, she specially taking upon her-
self the task of giving a college education to one of her promising brothers.
“The blessings of many, ready to perish, will follow the memory of the
man who gave timely and generous aid to such destitute ones, without osten-
tation or display.” º
FROM Hon. HoseA M. KNOWLTON, OF NEW BEDFORD.
“I should take great satisfaction in assisting, so far as I could, in a cere-
mony, the object of which is to honor the memory of one whom in his life-
time I so much respected for his sturdy and manly character, and of whose
record and work, as a citizen of Massachusetts, I am so proud, as the late
Hon. Oakes Ames.” . ..
Letters. 95
* →
FROM HON. E. C. MONE, OF STOUGHTON, MASS.
“Impressed on my mind early in life are the sterling qualities and virtuous
character of Oakes Ames. His patriotism, sound principles, vigorous and
active life, endeared him to all who knew his worth personally.”
FROM JOHN C. S. HARRISON, Gover NMENT DIREctor OF UNION PACIFIC
RAILROAD, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA.
“It is with profound regret that I have to express my inability to join in
doing honor to the name of a man towards whom I always entertained feel-
ings of the greatest respect. -
“Your father was my friend, and that relation — a relation which always
brings to the surface the flaws and imperfections of baser natures — but em-
phasized the nobility of his character.
“Generous, charitable, loving, Mr. Ames had all the kindly virtues, and be-
sides he was true as steel. You do well to honor his memory, but he needs
no monument to perpetuate his virtues. What he did for his country and
humanity will do even more to keep alive in the hearts of his countrymen an
imperishable record of his great qualities than the Memorial you have erected
to his memory.”
FROM HoN. ALPHEUS HARDING, OF ATHOL, MAss.
“It would afford me much pleasure to testify by my presence the profound
respect I entertain for the character of the man, and my appreciation of the
magnificent work he accomplished for the country he loved and served so
well.”
FROM HON. CHARLES ALLEN, JUDGE SUPREME COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS.
“It would give me great pleasure to attend the dedication of so worthy a
Memorial of so remarkable a man as your father, and thus pay my tribute of
respect to his merits and memory; but a great pressure of present occupations
will render this impossible.”
96 8 Jetters.
FROM WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, JR., of Boston.
“A much-maligned man was your lamented father, and I should have been
glad to testify by my presence my respect for his memory. Your filial vindi-
cation of him elicits my cordial sympathy.”
FROM A. S. WHEELER, ESQ., of BOSTON.
“I knew Oakes Ames for many years, and I had entire confidence in his
uprightness, integrity, and purity of purpose.
“That confidence was never shaken, and when he died.I felt that we had
lost an honest man ; and it has been my hope that his memory should be win-
dicated from the cruelly unjust aspersions cast upon him in his life.”
FROM DELANO A. GODDARD, LATE EDITOR BOSTON DAILY ADVERTISER.
“I did not have any personal acquaintance with your father, but I believed
in him and respected him, and should be glad, if I could, to express it by being
present next week.”
FROM ROBERT DRAPER, OF CANTON, MASS.
“I can assure you it will give me great pleasure to be present at the dedi-
cation of such a noble and worthy tribute of affection, and to listen to a just
estimate by able and candid minds of the character and stature of one whose
true measure has never yet been taken by the American people.”
FROM Hon. Joseph DAvis, of LYNN, MAss.
“I believe Oakes Ames was one of the great benefactors of the age. The
great enterprise of connecting by rail the two extremes of our common coun-
try was largely due to his energy, his wealth, and his executive ability; and I
believe the country is already recognizing his worth as a man, and is placing
him high as a public benefactor.”
FROM GEORGE TRITCH, OF DENVER, CoLoRADo.
“I should have taken great pleasure to aid by my humble presence in
doing honor to the memory of one of the few of nature's noblemen.”
Letters. - 97
FROM E. W. WILLARD, OF NEWPORT, R. I.
“I have great respect for the memory of your father, to whose integrity of
purpose and untiring devotion the country is so largely indebted for the grand-
est enterprise of the age.”
FROM C. B. H. FESSENDEN, OF NEW BEDFORD, MASS.
“I should heartily join in any expression of honor to the memory of one
who ventured so boldly and periled so much for the nation, and whose real
worth is being surely, though tardily, recognized by his countrymen.”
FROM COL. THOMAS W. PIERCE, OF BosTON.
“He was both great and good, and made his full contribution to the enter-
prises and the progress of this great and growing country, and I delight to
honor his memory.”
FROM COL. HOMER. B. SPRAGUE, PRINCIPAL OF GIRLs’ HIGH SCHOOL,
BOSTON.
“I heartily sympathize in your intention to honor the memory of that good
and true man, your father, in whom I never lost confidence, not even when
the shafts of calumny flew thickest around him. His name is recorded in
lasting characters as one of the benefactors of America, worthy of the love
and honor of all men.”
FROM REV. L. H. SHELDON, OF ANDOVER, MASS.
“I shall most gladly avail myself of your invitation to renew old friend-
ships, and also to do honor to one whose virtues and unselfishness and enter-
prise were proverbial. It is a noble sight, when worthy sons, favored by Prov-
idence, do honor to such a sire. May Heaven bless this memorial offering !”
FROM WILLIAM B. STEVENS, PRESIDENT GLOBE NATIONAL BANK, BOSTON.
“I knew your father long and thoroughly in business, and always loved
and respected him as a true man. In the darkest hour, I always defended
him to the best of my ability, whenever and wherever I heard him attacked.
I honor his memory now with my whole heart.”
~$-
98 Letters.
FROM COL. WILLIAM BORDEN, OF NEW YORK.
“I knew your father well and intimately, and esteemed him highly for all
his noble and generous traits, manifested in so many and varied ways, and
with hand as open as the heart, that surely none could know him but to love
him.”
FROM JOHN T. TERRY, OF E. D. MORGAN & CO., NEW YORK.
“It is especially gratifying to me to know that you have fulfilled this act
of filial duty toward one who was so justly honored and respected by all who
knew him intimately ; and I beg to add that all who did know him knew
an honest man, as well as one who was unselfish to an extraordinary degree.
His memory will always be revered by your obedient servant.”
FROM REV. W. W. MORRISON, PRESIDING ELDER. M. E. CHURCH, PROVI-
DENCE, R. I.
“Mr. Oakes Ames was a first-class man, and has left many evidences of
his business energy and large-hearted generosity to stimulate and bless the
present and the rising generation.”
FROM SAMUEL LITTLE, OF BOSTON.
“The memory of Oakes Ames will be always cherished by me. As a
young man, just entering upon business life, I was indebted to him for many
acts of kindness; these never ceased until his death. My business intercourse
with him extended through many years, with the greatest esteem for his noble
heart and sterling character.”
FROM CHIEF JUSTICE LUDELING, OF LOUISIANA.
“I regret that I cannot be present to unite with those who will meet to
honor the memory of one whose fame will live when those who calumniated
and persecuted him will only be remembered for their cowardice and ingrat-
itude.”
FROM C. E. VAIL, OF BLAIRSTOWN, N. J.
“I have so high an esteem for the memory of your father, and so keen a
sense of the injustice done him by those who should have been his friends
(not to speak of others), that I shall gladly avail myself of the privilege of
being present at the dedication of the Oakes Ames Memorial Hall.”
Letters. 99
FROM SAMUEL TUCKERMAN, OF ST. LOUIS, MO.
“I would gladly be present to aid in honoring the memory of a really great
and good man, whom I ever regarded with deep respect, and never can forget;
but am here with my family, beyond the Mississippi, to fight for fortune and
advancement denied me in the East.
“Pray receive, with my thanks, the expression of my sympathy in the un-
Sullied and increasing fame of your distinguished relative.”
FROM HON. FRANK MOREY, M. C., OF LOUISLANA.
“I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with him both in public life
and in business association, and in common with many others similarly associ-
ated I learned to respect him as a man of broad views and great grasp of
mind. The nation, even more than his family, would do itself credit in erect-
ing a monument to his memory for the great work, national in its character,
which, had it not been for his energy, indomitable will, and courage, would
never have been able to accomplish the national results at that time so desir-
able in the cause of the Union. -
“The reader of history in the future will realize, even more than this gen-
eration can comprehend, how essential to national urity was the building of
the Pacific Railroad at the time when it was built ; and will do justice to the
memory of those patriotic and courageous men who staked their fortunes on
its success when the Union cause looked dark and gloomy.”
FROM HON. GINERY TWICHELL.
“The resolve offered in the Massachusetts Legislature in favor of expung-
ing the resolution of censure upon your father, Oakes Ames, meets my
hearty approval. While that resolution was under consideration he changed
his seat in the House of Representatives for one adjoining my own. On ac-
count of the feeble state of his health at that time he was often absent, and I
was thus in a position to render him my friendly services, to become familiar
with his affairs, and to acquire a more intimate knowledge of the man and the
circumstances of the case than many others. Several members who voted to
censure him told him, in my presence, that they had voted against their con-
victions to satisfy public clamor and their constituents. I hope that Congress
will nullify a vote of such a character by expunging the resolution that rests
**
100 Letters.
on it, and thus do justice to the memory of an honest man; for I think I have
the evidence of the honesty of Oakes Ames.
“I knew his actions and motives in regard to the Credit Mobilier stock.
He made no discrimination in its sale in favor of such members of Congress
as took it, but disposed of it to all parties at a uniform price. With that
stock I had nothing to do ; but I had other business transactions with him, in
which he proved to be more than honorable. I once bargained with him for
a parcel of real estate in Brookline, which I was to have for $4,500, in case
he sold it at all. It was sold by his agent, in his absence, for $6,000. He
was not legally bound to me; but, with his usual magnanimity, directed his
agent to pay me even the whole purchase-money, or to institute proceedings
to recover the estate for me, if I desired to secure it. g
“I recall another instance of his integrity. A quantity of iron, which he
had imported for use in his business, and insured, having apparently been
injured by wet and rust, the insurance company had the damage appraised,
and paid him $2,500 as the result. But on coming to use the iron, he discov-
ered that there had really been no damage, and he voluntarily refunded the
money.
“Oakes Ames needed only to be known in order to be appreciated. That
justice may be publicly done his memory is my most sincere wish.”
FROM HON. J. B. GRINNELL, OF IOW.A.
“I knew Oakes Ames well for nearly twenty years, though I had no pe-
cuniary transactions with him. I regard him as one of the greatest citizens
of our common country and an incorruptible patriot. He was possessed of a
comprehensive mind for affairs, and his heart expanded with the widest and
warmest sympathies. That his name was tarnished by a thoughtless political
cowardice, and that the stain will in good time be effaced, I as little question
as I do that truth is eternal. Oakes Ames was of strictly temperate habits;
so schooled in economy that, while in Congress, he chose a comparatively in-
expensive mode of life, in order to save money to devote to charity.
“In Iowa, no name wears more honor than his, for he periled his fortune
to build the first railroad across our State. And when an attempt was made
to stigmatize our Senator-elect, James F. Wilson, by charging that he had
been bribed by Oakes Ames, the people of the State scouted the very sugges-
tion of such a transaction, and indorsed the character of Ames by triumphantly
sustaining Wilson.
|
Letters. 101
“On my leaving Congress, Mr. Ames, as a friend, offered me Credit Mo-
bilier stock at its market value. If his purpose had been to influence legis-
lation, my successor and those in Congress should have been the selected
recipients of his favors. Not one member only, but no less than ten members
of that Congress which wrought such an injustice have declared in my hearing
that the act was a foolish concession to popular clamor. The late William E.
Dodge, of New York, openly declared it to be “cruelty,’ and added that, if it
were necessary, he would consider it an honor to share his last dollar with
Oakes Ames. In the darkest hours of the war Mr. Lincoln was heard to say,
‘The proffer of money by Wadsworth, Taylor, Dodge, and the cheer of the
broad-shouldered Ames, who imperils his own credit to help the government,
reassure me.” In New York and at Alexandria, Mr. Ames repeatedly broke
up the rings that were formed for the purpose of buying condemned material
at a low price. On two different Saturdays I accompanied him to Alexandria
on a patriotic mission, when the threats of the conspirators were so numerous
and loud that Secretary Stanton thanked him personally for the service, telling
him that he had been in greater danger from assassination than the soldiers
were of death in battle. -
“As a legislator, no man's opinions were more eagerly sought or highly
prized than his, particularly in currency and revenue matters. Mr. Conkling
would say, ‘This you understand, Ames; others do not.’ Mr. Thaddeus
Stevens, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, on all doubtful matters
counted on Oakes Ames to save a measure or kill it, though he never made a
motion or a speech. It is known who, in the darkest hours, drew the largest
checks to keep the loyal party in power; it was thoroughly accordant with
the broad views and the herculean labors of the real builder of the Union
Pacific Railroad, facilitating gold-mining, saving millions annually in the
movement of troops and their supplies and in appropriations for the Indian
Department, and, more than all, binding the Pacific coast in new and perpet-
ual allegiance to the East.
“In the financial extremities of the Union Pacific I have known Mr. Ames
to borrow money from Senator Grimes and others at ten per cent. interest,
with a pledge of half the profit on the stock used as collateral to his name.
Gen. John A. Dix, after years of effort to enlist capital, as the president of
the Union Pacific, gave over in despair, until Oakes Ames came to the rescue;
and he frequently asserted that the work done by Oakes Ames was of greater
102 Letters.
importance to the country than the Erie Canal, and that his name would be
placed in history beside that of De Witt Clinton. I could multiply facts and
incidents, but they would only be in corroboration of that opinion which un-
derlies the rising spirit that would do even justice, though tardily, to a great
name which has been causelessly aspersed.
“If I am a prejudiced friend, it is in part owing to the fact that Oakes
Ames once penciled a memorandum promise that at some future day he would
begin the founding of a professorship in Iowa College with a gift of six thou-
sand dollars; but he died heart-broken and without money. Then there came
a notice from his executors that ‘ there is no money, but the wishes of father
will be sacredly respected when we are able, without reference to legal con-
siderations.” They were respected, when Hon. Oliver Ames sent the college
six thousand dollars, with interest. And this is the secret of a partiality for
that kind of blood, reflecting both the honor and the generosity of a noble
father. Who that saw the brave old man going home to die, wounded in the
house of his professed friends, was not profoundly moved? For one, – and I
feel that in this sentiment I am not alone, – I would make a journey on foot
from my Iowa home to Washington, and there toil for a whole year, to see
tardy justice done to the fame of this man, who forgot himself in his devotion
to his country.”
FROM WILLIAM. S. EATON, ESQ., OF BOSTON.
“I had bought a note signed by Thomas Douglass, I think for about five
thousand dollars. Shortly after, I met Mr. Oakes Ames on State Street, and
asked him about Douglass’ standing and credit. He answered cautiously,
saying that the product of your works was so large that you had to take some
risks which might not be first-class, in Örder to distribute your manufactures
widely; but that he thought Douglass was good, and was a regular buyer
from you. I asked him what he would buy the note for, describing the one
I held. He named a rate, and I accepted it. He said, ‘Well, I cannot take
it now, as I am just going away for several days, but will come to your office
and get it when I return.”
“Before he returned Douglass failed. A week after, your father came in
and asked for the note. I said, ‘Douglass has failed, and I have no claim on
you for the amount.” He replied, “He had n’t failed when I agreed to take
the note. Take off the interest, and I will give you a check.’ And he did so.
Letters. 103
I have told this story to many of our merchants, and do not find one who
knew your father who is at all surprised at it ; which shows the estimate in
which he was held by his fellow-citizens.”
FROM AARON. S. REID, ESQ., OF NEW YORK.
“I knew your father intimately for many years, my acquaintance dating
back, perhaps, before your birth. I know of no man whose memory I hold
in greater esteem, for he was to my mind the embodiment of truth and honor.
When his word was passed it could be depended on as much as his bond; and
in all his dealings I invariably found him honorable and just. I could narrate
to you many incidents which confirmed in me the great respect I had for
him, but will mention only two. *
“I met him one day during the war, at a time when I supposed he was
elsewhere ; and on my expressing surprise at seeing him in New York, he
told me there was going to be a sale of old iron by the government; he was
going to protect the government from speculators, and to see that fair prices
were realized. This regard for the interests of the government, at a time
when so many were grasping all they could, was to me a striking proof of his
great patriotism.
“At another time, after I had been utterly ruined through the effects of the
war on my Southern customers, I met him on the street. He inquired what
I was doing. I told him I was doing nothing, but thought I could get busi-
ness if I had the capital. He said in reply that he had no idle money at the
time, but that if his notes for $10,000 would be of any benefit to me they
were at my command. Perhaps the amount named was $20,000. The finan-
cial condition I was then in made the offer one of great generosity, — one I
shall always remember, as friends in adversity are always scarce. But that
was his opportunity.”
FROM GAMALIEL BRADFORD, ESQ., OF BOSTON.
“I remember perfectly when Mr. Ames was offering the Credit Mobilier
stock, with all the government grants and privileges, freely on State Street,
at ninety-five cents on the dollar. I knew that one of our oldest and most
distinguished bank presidents declined to buy it on the ground of excessive
risk in building a railroad through such a country; and that one of our
richest private bankers, after a whole morning of explanation from Mr. Ames,
*
104 - Letters.
refused on the same ground to have anything to do with it. I know that Mr.
Ames, merely to oblige a business friend, gave him, when he took some of the
stock, a written agreement to take it back at the holder's option at any time
within four months. I heard one of the largest railroad builders and presi-
dents in the country say, at a public dinner given him by his associates, that
the Union Pacific was a noble enterprise, and would enrich their descendants,
but that it was too big for him to go into. *
“I myself bought of Mr. Ames at ninety-five per cent, such an amount as
I could afford to lose, as I thought it an even chance whether I did or not.
“The fact is the public were so exasperated by the numerous reports,
whether true or false, of secret intrigue and corruption that they pounced on
the first scapegoat which presented itself. In such cases it usually happens
that the great rascals cover up their tracks, and the innocent, or least guilty,
fall as victims. The very simplicity of Mr. Ames’ famous phrase, “to put it
where it would do the most good,” is conclusive to my mind, knowing him as
I did, that he had not the faintest conception of the construction which would
be placed upon it. As an ambitious man, he had, besides the idea of making
money, that of connecting his name with the most splendid material achieve-
ment of the century. To find himself, after the work was completed, regarded
by Congress as a criminal was too much. I have never doubted that he was
killed by act of Congress as completely as if that body had condemned him
to steel or poison.”
FROM BION. MARSHALL P. WILDER.
“I rejoice to learn that there is to be an application to Congress to wipe
out from its records that most unwise, unjust, and cruel censure of your
honored father, and I beg the privilege of adding my name and influence (if
I have any) to blot out this most improvident act of our national assembly,
which otherwise must forever be a disgrace to American history.
“It was my privilege to have been well acquainted with him (in fact, with
his father and his brother Oliver), and I know of no more upright or worthy
men in our community for consistency of character, integrity of heart, or
kindness of disposition. It is therefore a foul stain of ingratitude on the
escutcheon of our nation’s fame to allow this censure of a most benevolent
and patriotic deed to exist in the records of its proceedings.
“Oakes Ames was one of the greatest benefactors of our age When we
Letters. 105
think of his benefactions to mankind in opening up across our continent a
great highway for the nations of the world, and the gratitude which will for-
ever live in the hearts of mankind for this wonderful, act, we feel that his
memory and worth will be honored and cherished while benevolence is appre-
ciated, or worthy deeds shall have a place in the heart of man. Oakes Ames
is dead! but as time advances posterity will more and more be grateful for his
great benefactions, and will give him a place among those philanthropists
whose labors and names shall live when monuments shall have crumbled into
dust.”
FROM HON. EFFINGHAM H. NICHOLS, OF NEW YORK.
“I see that a resolution has been introduced in the Legislature of Massa-
chusetts, requesting their Representatives in Congress to initiate measures,
with a view to expunge from the minutes of the House of Representatives
the vote of censure passed in March, 1873, on your honored father, the late
Hon. Oakes Ames.
“The extraordinary reports which were made in February, 1873, by the
two committees of the House, known as the Poland Committee and Wilson
Committee, are matters of history. The one found Mr. Ames guilty of brib-
ery and recommended his expulsion. The other directed the Secretary of the
Treasury (in face of law) to retain all the money earned by the Union Pacific
Railroad Company for government transportation, and also directed the
Attorney-General to bring an action at once against the Union Pacific Rail-
road Company and the stockholders of the Construction Company, called
the Credit Mobilier, for the purpose of determining, first, what frauds, if any,
had been committed; and, second, what profits had been made, and whether
the same should not be paid to the United States. Time has shown that both
these reports had their origin in public clamor and popular prejudice, and
were without a shadow of foundation, as respects either facts or law.
“As to the report of the Poland Committee, the House was convinced that
the committee had gone too far, and a vote of censure was passed in the place
of expulsion.
“The report of the Wilson Committee was adopted, and in due time the
matter came before the courts of the country. In an action brought by the
Union Pacific Railroad Company, that company recovered the transportation
money unjustly withheld by the Secretary of the Treasury; and in the action
106 Letters.
brought by the Attorney-General against the Company and the Stockholders of
the Credit Mobilier (which action was brought in the District of Connecticut,
where all the defendants were obliged to appear and answer, no matter where
they resided), it was decided, and on appeal the decision confirmed, by the
Supreme Court of the United States, that there was no ground upon which
the United States could establish any claim whatever against any of the de-
fendants. *
“Fortunately the action of the Wilson Committee was comparatively harm-
less, except as to the costs and expenses to which innocent parties were sub-
jected, and the financial embarrassments which grew out of the delay incident
thereto. The calm and considerate action of the courts stood in strange con-
trast with that of a committee of politicians, swayed and governed by public
clamor, popular prejudice, and personal considerations. -
“Not so with the action of the Poland Committee. The wrong which they
initiated was then and there consummated, and a vote of censure passed upon
one of the most honest, sincere, frank, and far-seeing of public men.
“It was my privilege to know the Hon. Oakes Ames well, and to be on
terms of comparative intimacy with him for many years. He was a man of
great simplicity, a man of sterling integrity, a man of the strictest econ-
omy in all matters relating to himself, but liberal and broad-gauged in all
matters appertaining to the public welfare and the well-being and happiness
of his friends and associates. Bribery and corruption never entered his
thoughts. As respects any legislation in reference to the Union Pacific Rail-
road Company, there was no motive for bribery. All the necessary acts of
Congress in reference thereto had been passed. The road was completed in
1868, and from July 2, 1864, to the date of the censure in March, 1873, no
act of importance in relation to the Union Pacific Railroad Company was
passed, or attempted to be passed, except the act of December 20, 1867,
authorizing the removal of the Union Pacific Railroad office from the city of
New York to Boston.
“It was not till 1865 that Mr. Ames became interested in the construction
of the road. He was urged to take part in it. The work to be accomplished
was great. History furnished no parallel. The Rebellion had disturbed
finances, and securities were at a large discount. Both materials and labor
were commanding high prices. There was still danger that we might lose
our possessions on the Pacific Coast. In comparison with it the Appian Way,
Letters. 107
extending from Rome to Brundisium, a distance of about 350 miles, the con-
struction of which exhausted the Roman Treasury, paled into insignificance.
“The motive that actuated Mr. Ames could not have been other than the
satisfaction of taking part in a great public work of incalculable importance
to the government and country. In August, 1867, he undertook the task of
completing the road, and in time he accomplished it. It cost him his fortune;
nay, more, as it proved in the end, it eost him his life.
“When I consider these facts, and recall your honored father and that kind-
ness of heart and simplicity of manner which so endeared him to his friends
and associates, I have grave doubts about the propriety of the resolution in-
troduced in your Legislature, to which I have referred. I would rather read
in the public enactments of the Legislature of the old Commonwealth of Mas-
sachusetts, the State where he was born and lived and died, resolutions ex-
pressing their faith and confidence in their late fellow-citizen, Oakes Ames,
and commending his example to the on-coming generations as that of a great
public benefactor; and leave to the House of Representatives of the United
States to volunteer such action, as respects its records, as time and a recurring
sense of justice shall dictate.
“The same public clamor which existed in the days of Pontius Pilate has
ever since been sounding down through the centuries, and in its progress
demanded many a victim among the great and good.
“Your father has left an honorable name — a name which will live in his-
tory when the granite monument to his memory and that of his brother, on
the summit of the Rocky Mountains, shall have crumbled to dust, and tho
names of his calumniators shall have been forgotten.”
-002
520
23-
[JR
MUTILATE [ARD
§§ PRINTED IN U.
• S.A.
*:::sº---------------
DD NOT REMOVE
*.
------------~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ : ----
· （~~~~
- --*----- '%.- " …
… - *: ,- ---* --** •::: *...* -‘… • → «º •· · · · *. . · • e· · · · --&-e^*
<！--º-:-， -----“，· · · · · · · · · ·-----* * * *--~~~~&&！, :）--º-º-º----• • ► *******...~.~~~~- → wę4;
*、、、。。--~~~~）;~~~~）. ：-） ---- ~~« …*、、''' „ “. .-·* * ., ！
2* ··- - -· · ·--· ·.
* *===<<==ă: ， ...，-3，-，=***
fº































































§:
º
§.
§º
f.
§
$.
§
§ §: