g ONEST GOVERNMENT 
 
 
 ( ]IGBNTIC CORRUPTION 
 
 whueoh: ? 
 
 BLAINE’S RECORD-MULLIGAN LETTERS-PAC 1 F I C 
 RAILROADS—THURMAN FUND¬ 
 ING BILL, &c. 
 
 By CHAS. S. WALLER, 
 CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
 \ 
 
 Jameson & Morse, 
 
 CHICAGO : 
 Peinters, 162-4 
 
 Clark Street. 
 
 1884. 
 
0 J 
 
 4 Honest Government or Gigantic Corruption, 
 ? Which ? 
 
 BLAINE’S RECORD—MULLIGAN LETTERS—PACIFIC RAIL¬ 
 ROADS—THURMAN FUNDING BILL, &c. 
 
 BY CHARLES S, WALLER. 
 
 Although partisan newspapers and professional politicians are 
 active in trying to conceal the fact, and the strong prejudices and 
 blinding influences of party zeal may keep many good men from see¬ 
 ing it, it is nevertheless true that the one important and vital question 
 in the present presidential canvass is that of official honesty, obedience 
 to law, and fidelity to the people, as against official dishonesty, disre¬ 
 gard for law, and a persistent and insidious robbery of the people. 
 The bold and unscrupulous use of money to control the votes of the 
 people’s representatives, and the actions of men in office to whom are 
 committed important trusts, have grown to be an evil of such colossal 
 proportions as to endanger not only the prosperity, but the liberties, of 
 the people. It is slowly yet surely sapping the foundations of our 
 government, destroying all regard for official integrity and public 
 virtue; and unless summarily dealt with and overthrown must result 
 in .great disaster and infamy to the whole nation. 
 
 Heretofore capital in the hands of corrupt men has been con- 
 ^ tented with the purchase of legislators,—municipal, state and national, 
 —for the purpose of obtaining exclusive privileges, and of setting up 
 vast money-making monopolies, but now, growing bolder by suc¬ 
 cess, our money kings aspire to the control of the government itself; 
 and we have the startling danger confronting us of the unchecked 
 ~ corruption and grinding power of such an oligarchy, through the 
 nominal presidency of their chosen, long-tried, and ever-faithful serv¬ 
 ant, James G. Blaine. 
 
 I propose to show in this paper, to those who desire to know the 
 truth, such facts as will clearly uphold the foregoing premises, and 
 make apparent to all good men the extreme danger to the country 
 which underlies the election of Mr. Blaine. The threatened danger is 
 from the great stock-jobbing, railroad-manipulating monopolists of the 
 country, to whom Mr. Blaine has always been subservient, and who 
 hold such overwhelming proofs of his venality and oft-repeated acts of 
 treachery to the people that he dares not now refuse to do the bidding 
 of those to whom he has thus irrevocably committed himself. 
 
 P23743 
 
2 
 
 In regard to the famous “ Mulligan letters, ” the exposures they 
 give have been extensively ventilated by the newspapers, and have 
 been commented upon with masterly ability and convincingness by 
 Mr. Carl Schurz in his great speech in the opera-house at Brooklyn. 
 I do not think it necessary, therefore, to dwell on this part of Mr. 
 Blaine’s record, except to show in passing that his actions throughout 
 in this matter are in themselves irresistible proofs of his guilt. Integ¬ 
 rity and concealment are not bosom friends, and conscious innocence 
 does not resort to falsehood. 
 
 At the time Mr. Blaine pretended to read these letters in the 
 House of Representatives he said: “I have now read those fifteen 
 letters, the whole of them. The House and the country now know all 
 there is in them. They are dated, and they correspond precisely with 
 Mulligan’s memorandum, which I have here.” Now, a comparison of 
 the two lists shows that they do not so correspond, as anyone who will 
 examine for himself will see. Several letters were read that were not 
 in the Mulligan package, as shown by the memorandum. Why did 
 Mr. Blaine add these? Several letters were omitted to be read that 
 are listed in the memorandum. Why did Mr. Blaine suppress these? 
 The inference is very plain. 
 
 Mr. Hunton, the chairman of the sub-committee before whom 
 Mulligan appeared as a witness, stated in his speech in the House of 
 Representatives that Mulligan testified that Blaine, in his effort to get 
 these letters from him, said, “with tears in his eyes, almost if not 
 quite on his knees, Tf you do not deliver those letters to me I am 
 ruined and my family disgraced’;” that he also threatened to commit 
 suicide; that Mulligan refused to give up the letters, replying: “Mr. 
 Blaine, I see by the evening paper that my testimony given to the 
 committee to-day is to be impugned, and in case my character and 
 testimony are assailed, I want these letters to justify me in my testi¬ 
 mony before the committee;” that Mr. Blaine asked, “Do you suppose 
 I am going to assail you?” and that Mulligan replied: “If you do not 
 assail me, others may, and my character is too dear to me not to vin¬ 
 dicate it if I can.” That Mr. Blaine then tried politics with him, and 
 asked Mulligan: “Are you content with your station?” to which 
 Mulligan replied that he would like to improve it if he could. Mr. 
 Blaine said: “Would you like a political office?” Mulligan replied 
 that he did not like politics, and did not care about it. Mr. Blaine 
 then asked how he would like a foreign consulship. Mulligan said he 
 would not like it. And after that Mr. Blaine said: “Let me see the 
 letters to peruse them,” etc. Mr. Hunton said in his speech that 
 Mulligan “ was a witness summoned from Boston; he did not appear 
 as a volunteer in the case; he came under the compulsory process of 
 the house.” (Congressional Record , Yol. IV., part 4, Forty-fourth Con¬ 
 gress, first session, pages 3,611, 3,612.) The first impulse of an 
 innocent man would have been to impeach the testimony of Mulligan. 
 
3 
 
 Blaine’s honor required this. Nothing short of it could possibly keep 
 the stigma of guilt from resting on him. If Mulligan spoke the truth, 
 Blaine was guilty. This is undeniable. If he did not speak the truth, 
 then why did not Blaine impeach his testimony? There was no other 
 possible way of clearing himself. He did not impeach the testimony 
 of Mulligan because he could not—he knew it to be true; this is mani¬ 
 fest. There was no escape , therefore, from conviction and permanent disgrace 
 if the committee proceeded with its investigations. To prevent this the 
 opportune “sunstroke” (so called) appealed to their humanity for 
 postponement. This delayed action until the session of Congress, then 
 near its close, terminated (as was easy to foresee), and thus further 
 investigation was postponed until the next session of Congress. That 
 the position of Mr. Blaine was such that he could not meet any further 
 investigation and remain unconvicted is apparent. And to avoid this in 
 future he must get out of the House of Representatives, which he did, and 
 has never returned. His actions throughout show a consciousness of 
 guilt, as reliable and certain in determining the fact as actual confes¬ 
 sion. Properly weighed they are confession; there is positively no 
 escape from this conclusion. 
 
 But there are other railroad channels in which Mr. Blaine found 
 opportunities to be useful besides the Caldwell transactions—channels 
 which have been more profitable to Mr. Blaine, and the understanding 
 of which is of more importance to the people, because of the deeper 
 and more permanent injury they have done them. I refer to his con¬ 
 nection with 
 
 THE PACIFIC RAILROADS. 
 
 The history, of these corporations shows them to be the boldest 
 and most powerful for evil, and therefore the most dangerous, which 
 this country has ever seen. 
 
 Indeed, there is no parallel in history to the haughtiness, the 
 overshadowing power, the reckless seizure of millions upon millions of 
 dollars, the startling corruptions, and the utter disregard of lq,w, of 
 honesty, and of public sentiment, which characterized the manage¬ 
 ment of these companies, as shown by Congressional investigations, 
 unless it be the atrocious acts of the British East India Company 
 under the heartless and mercenary rule of Lord Clive and of Warren 
 Hastings'. The robbery, however, in the one case, was of our own 
 people, while, in the other, it was of a ‘distant heathen nation. 
 
 It is a pity that the whole history of these iniquitous transactions, 
 the reports of Congressional committees, and the debates thereon, have 
 not been copied in extenso from The Congressional Record, and published 
 in a book, for the information of the people, that all might see the 
 growing evil of the times, the overshadowing danger to our free insti¬ 
 tutions, in the dishonest accumulation of vast sums of money, wrung 
 from the people through the connivance and partnership of their 
 trusted yet false representatives. 
 
4 
 
 I deem it of such great importance in the present issue that the 
 leading facts here referred to should be remembered at this time, that 
 at the risk of being tedious I will present some of them in as con¬ 
 densed a form as I can. 
 
 These roads (embracing the Union Pacific Railroad and the Cen¬ 
 tral & Western Pacific Railroad), were incorporated by act of Con¬ 
 gress, in 1862. A loan from the Government, of $55,000,000 of United 
 States bonds, payable in thirty years, was made to said companies, to 
 assist in the construction of said roads, besides a grant of alternate 
 sections of government land of five miles on each side of the road, ex¬ 
 cluding mineral and coal lands. By the act of 1862 the Government 
 held, for security on its loan, a mortgage “ on the whole line of the 
 railroad and telegraph, together with the rolling-stock, fixtures, and 
 property of every kind and description, and in consideration of which 
 said bonds may be issued.” 
 
 This mortgage would have about protected the Government in its 
 loan, being $27,500 per mile on the two thousand miles of road. 
 
 In 1864 an act of Congress was obtained allowing these com¬ 
 panies to issue $55,000,000 of bonds of their own, and give a first 
 mortgage on said roads, to insure the sale of said bonds and 
 their repayment, while the Government consented to give up the 
 first and take a second mortgage (on its own property, really, for its 
 bonds and lands more than paid for it all), to secure the heavy loan it 
 had made. In addition to this, the land grants to said roads were 
 doubled—ten miles on each side being given—and valuable coal lands 
 having in the meantime been discovered, the clause in the act of 1862, 
 reserving mineral and coal lands to the Government, was repealed. 
 In all the annals of Congress a more unwise and iniquitous bill than 
 this act of 1864 has never been passed. Of course it was brought 
 about by the boldest lobby influences, and stupendous corruption, the 
 extent and effect of which will be shown further on in this paper. On 
 the passage of this infamous bill 
 
 THE HON. E. B. WASHBURNE, 
 
 of Illinois, whose grand, life-long record of unbending and unimpeach¬ 
 able integrity is admitted by all, said in his speech in opposition to it: 
 
 “ We donated millions upon millions of the public lands to this company, 
 and advanced them our bonds, and if Congress had required less, than a first 
 mortgage it would, in my judgment, have been derelict in its duty. What is 
 it now proposed to do ? I demand that gentlemen shall look at it. Nothing 
 less than that the Government, with its liability of a hundred millions, shall 
 relinquish its first mortgage and subordinate its lien to the liens of all the 
 companies created for building the road (composed of the same persons whose 
 obligations the bill proposes to release). It is to subordinate the Government 
 to its own interests, raise money on the means the Government has furnished, 
 give a first mortgage for the security of that money, and have the furnisher 
 of that security, as a second mortgagee, obliged to pay off the first mortgage 
 before it can be in a position to take advantage of any security there might 
 possibly be in a second mortgage. Sir, on my responsibility as a representa¬ 
 tive, I pronounce this the most monstrous and flagrant attempt to overreach 
 the Government and the people that can be found in the legislative annals of 
 the countiy. * * * I warn Congress and the people of what will 
 
 be the result. ” 
 
5 
 
 And yet the bill passed; there were “ millions in it.” Mr. Blaine 
 voted for it, and worked for it. 
 
 In the United States Supreme Court is to be found the record of a 
 suit on appeal from the Federal Circuit Court for Kansas, brought by 
 Joseph B. Stewart against the Union Pacific Railroad Company, in the 
 year 1868, for his services as a lobbyist and agent. This suit was 
 preceded by a statement of the claim on which it was founded, con¬ 
 tained in a letter from Stewart to Perry (the President of the Com¬ 
 pany), dated April 23, 1868, in which he says: 
 
 “In compliance with your request, I will state that the total claims on me 
 for any portion of the Union Pacific Railroad (Eastern Division) Construction 
 Bonds, are as follows : 
 
 Thomas Ewing, Jr.10 
 
 - Blaine.15 
 
 C. T. Sherman.20 
 
 H. G. Grant. ..:. 4 
 
 J. P. Usher. 5 
 
 W. J. Keeler. 5 
 
 Total.59 
 
 I have settled with all the other parties. The three last named are to be paid 
 in full, as per orders. These were stipulated to be paid since the agreement 
 of the 6th of January, 1866, and are for distinct and specific considerations, 
 . But the Ewing 10, Blaine 15, and Sherman 20, are all subject to the 
 amount of deduction (about 20 per cent.) agreed on between Mr. Durant and 
 myself, before and at the time he ratified the settlement of 6th of January, 
 1866. I must then pay . . . Ewing 10, Blaine 15, Sherman 20.” 
 
 Thomas A. Greene, of St. Joseph, Mo., who had been Stewart’s 
 attorney in the Kansas suit, was called as a witness June 7, 1876, 
 three days before the adjournment of the House Committee of the 
 Judiciary, which partially investigated Mr. Blaine’s transactions with 
 the Fort Smith & Little Rock and the Northern Pacific Railroad Com¬ 
 panies, to testify before said committee. Shocked, as they must have 
 been, by the public disclosure of the facts resulting from the institu¬ 
 tion of this suit, it is to be supposed that the Union Pacific R. R. 
 Company would make every effort, and resort to any device possible to 
 shield the company from the imputed crime of having bribed a Con¬ 
 gressman and Speaker of the House, and that in this, the Speaker 
 himself, would play an active part. This was attempted, by an effort 
 
 to show that the “-Blaine” referred to in the copy of Stewart’s 
 
 letter filed in his suit, was not James G. Blaine, but his brother John 
 E. Blaine. To this end an old power of attorney was produced, signed 
 by the Speaker’s brother John to Stewart dated 19th May, 1863, in 
 which his brother says “that Stewart is fully empowered and author¬ 
 ized by me to settle my claims against the Leavenworth, Pawnee & 
 Western Railroad Company, bearing date May 3d, 1862.” What had 
 such “ claims ” of his brother, of that date , to do with the fifteen ($1,000) 
 
 “construction bonds” due to “-Blaine,” which were the subject of 
 
 “the settlement of the 6th of January , 1866,” referred to in the above 
 letter of Stewart to Perry? If John E. Blaine was meant in Stew¬ 
 art’s list furnished Perry, why would Stewart write it “-Blaine,” 
 
6 
 
 if he had a power of attorney covering this identical claim signed 
 John E. Blaine ? Another instrument was produced, the result of 
 a negotiation between Stewart and J. P. Usher, counsel for the 
 Union Pacific Railroad Company, dated October 3d, 1871, in which, 
 between them , it was “agreed in this case that John E. Blaine was 
 the holder of the bonds described in the pleadings in the cause as 
 the construction bonds of the defendant ” (to wit, the Union Pacific 
 R. R. Co.), that “said Blaine was the holder of the construction bonds 
 aforesaid in 1864.” This does not say that these were what John 
 called “???,y claims , bearing date May 3, 1862,” in said power of attorney, 
 but says that he was the “holder” (does not say owner) of said bonds. 
 The banks—made parties in this suit—were also “holders” of some of 
 these bonds, but not owners. For the weight and character of such 
 proof the whole of the testimony of said Thomas A. Greene before the 
 Committee of the Judiciary, in June, 1876, is referred to. In a part 
 of this testimony, Mr. Greene says: 
 
 “As a lawyer on the examination of the record, I was very much afraid 
 of the defense, that it was an immoral contract. * * I consulted Mr. 
 
 Joseph B. Stewart, and said to him I was afraid of that point, and that I did 
 not like the looks of Mr. Blaine’s name connected with the case.” * * 
 
 “My statement was, I did not like the looks of Congressman Blaine connected 
 with the case. ” * * “ The conversation took place while Mr. Blaine was 
 
 in Congress.” * * “He (Stewart) never denied that Congressman Blaine 
 
 was connected with it. ” 
 
 Question by Mr. Hale—“Did he intimate that he was connected with it?” 
 
 Answer —“He did not.” 
 
 The point which gave Mr. Greene uneasiness, as quoted above, 
 was the immorality (in other words criminality) in the case, growing out 
 of “Congressman Blaine’s” connection with it. This would involve 
 Stewart as well as Blaine, if acknowledged by him. Stewart was 
 therefore silent on this point, neither admitting nor denying it. He 
 certainly would have denied it however, when Greene raised the point 
 with him, and stated his fears concerning it, if he could have done so 
 truthfully. In the same testimony, in reply to a question of Mr. Hunton, 
 as to whether Stewart, “in speaking of the Hon. Mr. Blaine, did he ever 
 say James G. Blaine or James Blaine?” the witness replied: 
 
 “Mr. Stewart always spoke of him as the Hon. James Blaine, I always 
 spoke of him as Congressman Blaine, and as Speaker Blaine, after he was 
 Speaker of the House, I never used his first name. On page 66, of Stewart’s 
 printed book of depositions, he speaks as follows: I further state, as in direct 
 examination, that the President (of the Union Pacific R. R. Company) and its 
 counsel, the Hon. John P. Usher, have both repeatedly stated to me 
 that I was entitled to my bonds, and ought to receive them. . . . Among 
 
 others, I am informed and believe that Mr. Usher made that statement to Mr. 
 Alexander Hay and the Hon. James Blaine in Washington. ” 
 
 Why was Mr. James G. Blaine talking to Usher about these bonds? 
 and how did Stewart probably learn that Usher had admitted to Blaine 
 (and Hay) that he (Stewart) “ was entitled to the bonds , and ought to 
 
 receive them?” 
 
 The Mulligan letters show what an active business man Mr. 
 Blaine is, and that he leaves “no stone unturned” in carrying out his 
 business arrangements to a satisfactory conclusion. 
 
 This investigation, with such testimony before it, had to be aban¬ 
 doned by the Judiciary Committee of the House, because in the midst 
 
7 
 
 of it Mr. Blaine fled from the House to the Senate, and thereby escaped 
 from its jurisdiction. 
 
 In regard to the item in Stewart’s list to Perry, of “-Blaine, 
 
 15” (no other name in the list being given in blank as will be observed), 
 the New York Herald , of August 21st, 1884, after giving lengthy ex¬ 
 tracts from the testimony taken in this case, says: 
 
 “The first transcript of the Kansas court record sent to Washington con¬ 
 tained a letter from Stewart to John D. Perry, the President of the Railroad 
 Company, dated April 23, 1868, setting forth that among other unsettled 
 claims upon him for construction bonds was one of “James Blaine” for “fifteen 
 bonds.” When the case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, and the record arrived in Washington, it was found that the word 
 “James” had been omitted from this portion of the certified record, and that 
 
 it was written instead, “-Blaine, fifteen bonds.” A search of the records 
 
 in Topeka showed that the official copy of the original letter of Stewart to 
 Perry had been abstracted from the files and one put in its place, which, in¬ 
 stead of “James Blaine,” read “blank Blaine.” * * It further appeared 
 
 from the record, that after the case had been pending before the Master and 
 the Court for some five years, that Stewart on the 11th of December, 1873, 
 asked for and obtained an order on John D. Perry directing him to produce 
 the original of the Stewart letter of April 23, 1868. This order was complied 
 with and the letter was produced in court and examined, proved to agree with 
 the first transcript forwarded unofficially to Washington, the blank reading 
 “James,” and the entry showed fifteen construction bonds of the road set op¬ 
 posite the name of 11 James Blaine .” 
 
 The claims on Stewart , as reported by him to President Perry, 
 were for “ construction bonds ” of the Union Pacific Eailroad Company , 
 and he states in this report to his principal, that “- Blaine ” is en¬ 
 
 titled to fifteen of these construction bonds , as agreed between Mr. Durant 
 and myself (Stewart) before and at the time he ratified the settlement 
 of 6th of January, 1866.” These claims Stewart says in his letter are 
 “ on mefi but those in the power of attorney are stated to be on the 
 Leavenworth Co. 
 
 The reader will find some interesting official showings concerning 
 this Mr. Durant and his connection with the construction of this road, 
 immediately following in this pamphlet. 
 
 DUB ANT -stewart- BLAINE. 
 
 Stewart the link between—that’s enough. 
 
 The foregoing gives us a sad and mortifying insight into the 
 influences which were brought to bear in the passage of this iniquitous 
 act of 1864, which resulted in such a startling and gigantic robbery of 
 the people, as the evidence which I will now present clearly shows. I 
 quote from The Congressional Record , volume 7, part 3, Forty-fifth Con¬ 
 gress, from March to May, 1878, and the pages here given as reference 
 will be found in said volume. In a report made to the House of Rep¬ 
 resentatives, by the Judiciary Committee, on the subject of a sinking 
 fund for the Railroad Companies, made to the Forty-fourth Congress, 
 first session, referring to the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, 
 this committee says: 
 
 “ The first contract for the construction of the road was made with one 
 H. M. Hoxie, who seems to have been a person of little pecuniary responsi¬ 
 bility. His proposal to build and equip one hundred miles of the railroad and 
 telegraph is dated New York, August 8, 1864, signed H. M. Hoxie, by H. C. 
 
8 
 
 Crane, attorney. It was accepted by the company September 23, 1864. On 
 the 30th of September, 1864, Hoxie agreed to assign this contract to Thomas 
 C. Durant, who was then Vice-President of the Union Pacific Railroad com¬ 
 pany, or such parties as he might designate. On October 4,1864, this contract 
 was extended to the 100th meridian, an additional 146 45-100 miles, the agree¬ 
 ment for extension being signed by Crane, as attorney of Hoxie. Hoxie was 
 an employe of the company at the time, and Mr. Crane, who signed as Mr. 
 Hoxie’s attorney, was Durant’s ‘ confidential man,’ as Durant himself expresses 
 it. On the 11th day of October, 1864, an agreement was entered into by Du¬ 
 rant, Bushnell, Lombard, McComb, all directors of the Union Pacific Railroad 
 company, and Gray, a stockholder, to take from Hoxie the assignment of his 
 contract, which assignment he had previously bound himself to make to such 
 person as Durant should designate. * * * This Hoxie contract 
 
 and its assignment were a device by which the persons who were the active 
 managers and controllers of the Union Pacific Railroad Company caused said 
 corporation to make a contract with themselves for the construction of a por¬ 
 tion of its road, by which, also, they got possession of all the resources which 
 it would be entitled to by the completion of said portion, and by which they 
 evaded, or sought to evade, the requirement that the capital stock should be 
 fully paid in in money, by substituting for such payment a fictitious or nom¬ 
 inal payment in road-building and equipment, each share being treated as 
 being worth much less than its par value.” 
 
 The report continues: 
 
 “ The Hoxie contract had been completed, finishing the road to the 100th 
 meridian, a distance of 146 45-100 miles. An agreement was then made, No¬ 
 vember 10, 1866, by Thomas Durant, vice-president of the Union Pacific Rail¬ 
 road company, with a Mr. Boomer, for the construction of 153 35-100 miles 
 west from the 100th meridian. By the terms of this agreement Boomer was 
 to be paid $19,500 per mile for that portion between the 100th meridian and the 
 east bank of the North Platte, and for that portion lying west of the North 
 Platte, within the limits of the agreement, $20,000 per mile, the bridge over 
 the North Platte, and station buildings, equipments, etc., to be an additional 
 charge. This contract was never ratified by the company, but under it the 
 work progressed, and fifty-eight miles of road had been completed and ac¬ 
 cepted by the Government. The books of the company failed to show what 
 this fifty-eight miles had cost the company, but from the best evidence that 
 could be procured, your committee believed that the cost had not been to 
 exceed $27,500 per mile for construction and equipment, the excess over the 
 contract price being for station-houses, etc., inasmuch as the charter required 
 that the station-houses, etc., should be built and furnished before acceptance 
 by the Government; and inasmuch as the records of the department show 
 that the fifty-eight miles had been accepted, your committee feel warranted in 
 finding that this had been done, and that the cost of the whole was not to ex¬ 
 ceed $27,500 per mile ; but, notwithstanding this, on the 5th day of January, 
 1867, the board of directors, by a resolution, extended the Hoxie contract over 
 this fifty-eight miles of then completed road, thereby proposing to pay to the 
 Credit Mobilier the sum of $22,500 per mile for this fifty-eight miles—amount¬ 
 ing to the sum of $1,345,000 —without any consideration whatever. The fol¬ 
 lowing is the resolution: 
 
 “ Resolved, That the Union Pacific Railroad Company will, and do hereby 
 consider the Hoxie contract extended to the point already completed—namely, 
 305 miles west from Omaha—and that the officers of this company are hereby 
 authorized to settle with the Credit Mobilier at $50,000 per mile for the addi¬ 
 tional fifty-eight miles.” 
 
 In the same report, at page 13, is the following concerning the Oakes 
 Ames contract: 
 
 This contract extending over 138 miles of road completed and accepted. 
 No work was done under it until after its assignment. That portion already 
 completed had cost not to exceed $27,500 per mile, and by embracing this 138 
 miles in it these trustees derived a “profit,” if such a term is admissible in 
 such a connection, which enabled them to make a dividend among the stock¬ 
 holders in less than sixty days after the assignment—namely, on the 12th of 
 September, 1867, as follows: Sixty per cent, in First Mortgage Bonds of the 
 Union Pacific Railroad Company, $2,244,000; 60 per cent, in stock of the 
 Union Pacific Railroad Company, $2,244,000. This was mainly, if not entirely, 
 derived from the excess of the contract price over what the 138 miles had cost. 
 The trustees proceeded to construct the road under this contract, and from a 
 
9 
 
 balance-sheet, taken from the books, it appears that the cost to the railroad 
 company was $57,140,102.74, and the cost to the contractors was $27,285,- 
 950.75—profit, $29,854,141.90. 
 
 In the same report may be found the following account of the 
 Davis contract: 
 
 “This was a contract made with G. W. Davis, a man of but little, if any, 
 pecuniary ability, and not expected to perform the contract, for the construc- 
 • tion of that part of the road beginning at the western terminus of the ‘ Ames 
 
 Contract,’ and extending to the western terminus of the road—a distance of 
 125 23-100 miles. It was upon the same terms as the Ames contract, and was 
 assigned to the same board of trustees. Under it the residue of the road was 
 j constructed, and from a balance-sheet taken from the books of the railroad 
 
 company it appears that it cost the railroad company $23,431,768.10; and from 
 a balance-sheet taken from the books of the trustees, that it cost the con¬ 
 tractors $15,629,933.62—profit, $7,802,084.48.” 
 
 Your Committee present the following summary of cost of this road to the 
 railroad company and to the contractors: 
 
 COST TO RAILROAD COMPANY. 
 
 Hoxie contract.$12,974,416 24 
 
 Ames contract. 57,140,102 94 
 
 Davis contract. 23,431,768 10 
 
 -$93,546,287 28 
 
 Now see the other side of the books: 
 
 COST TO CONTRACTORS. 
 
 $ 7,806,183 33 
 27,285.141 99 
 15,629,633 62 
 
 -$50,729,958 94 
 
 Difference.$42,825,328 34 
 
 To which should be added amount paid Credit Mobilier on account of 
 fifty-eight miles ($1,104,000), making total profit on construction $43,925,- 
 328.34. (See Congressional Record , pages 2,028 and 2,029). 
 
 “ Profit /” How very accommodating is this word as here used. 
 A man may steal a horse successfully, and carry the result in his 
 mind, or even enter it upon his private memorandum-book thus: 
 
 One horse, value. $200 00 
 
 Cost me. 000 00 
 
 Profit*... $200 00 
 
 Let us examine these estimates briefly, which I have been com¬ 
 pelled to quote at some length, in order that the enormity of these 
 transactions may be fully understood'. It is seen by the committee’s 
 report that these railroad directors, with all their amazing boldness 
 and greed, did not place the inflated and fictitious cost of construction 
 and equipment higher than $50,000 per mile. The committee, in 
 their report, it will be observed, estimated the cost for a portion of the 
 road at $27,500 per mile for “construction and equipment.” Doubt¬ 
 less some portions of the road cost more than other portions, but, 
 taking the directors’ own excessive figures, $50,000 per mile, as an 
 average (which would give $100,000, if need be, for the most difficult 
 
 Hoxie contract 
 Ames contract.. 
 Davis contract. 
 
10 
 
 and expensive parts of the road), would be for the entire two thousand 
 miles $100,000,000. To pay for this the directors had: 
 
 United States Bonds at par..$ 55,000,000 
 
 Their own first mortgage bonds for $55,000,000, backed by all the 
 
 property, must have been cashed at nearly par, say. 50,000,000 
 
 Stock, which the law required should be paid for in cash at par. .. 90,000,000 
 
 Land bonds, on over 21,000,000 acres. 20,000,000 
 
 Making.$215,000,000 
 
 Entire cost by the above excessive estimate of $50,000 per mile. .. 100,000,000 
 
 Profit (so called) to the “ ring ”..$115,000,000 
 
 And this was taken from the people; millions upon millions, by 
 mere manipulations and trickery. Senator Booth, of California, in 
 his speech on this subject in the Senate, April 23, 1878, said: 
 
 “The bonds of the government were the basis of the credit upon which 
 the companies were enabled to place their first mortgage bonds. These two 
 classes, omitting all mention of the land bonds, amount to $52,000 per mile to 
 the Union Pacific, and $64,000 per mile to the Central Pacific, and they not 
 only built the road, but left a large margin of profit, aggregating millions of 
 dollars. The 36,000,000 of stock in the Union Pacific and the 54,000,000 of 
 stock in the Central Pacific do not represent money paid in. If it had been 
 paid in, that, with the land bonds alone, would have built the road. This 
 90,000,000 of stock, claiming dividends, standing between the companies and 
 their obligations to the government, does not represent one dollar nor the 
 phantom of a dollar. 
 
 “If it represents anything, it is simply an arbitrary profit upon fraudu¬ 
 lent contracts. The assumption that it is actual capital is a bare, naked 
 assumption, without a fig-leaf covering of fact.” ( C . R., page 2,223.) 
 
 Senator Beck, of Kentucky, on the same subject, said: 
 
 “I confess, in view of the well-known history of these corporations,—their 
 Credit Mobiliers and construction companies, faise statements made as to the 
 cost of their roads, and the millions of spurious stock, on which vast dividends 
 are regularly paid, which represents nothing but the fraud that issued it; the 
 withholding of 5 per cent, of net earnings for many years after they had ob¬ 
 tained our bonds and lands, and the subterfuges they have continually resorted 
 to for the purpose of swindling the taxpayers of the country, from whose sweat 
 and toil all of these millions have been wrung, and in the face of the avowals 
 that they intend to continue to take all and save nothing to enable them to pay 
 their debts,—that it amazes me to hear that the effort we are now making to 
 save something for the people, and to prevent the consummation of avowed 
 frauds and breaches of contract, even when congress on the very face of the 
 contract reserved the power to do so, is a wrong and an outrage on the rights 
 of these companies. I have long thought that the day was not far distant 
 when the question would have to be settled whether railroad corporations 
 controlled congress or congress regulated them. This will perhaps be a test 
 case; we could not have a better one.” 
 
 At another point in his speech, Senator Beck said: 
 
 “Independent of the postponement of our vast debt to a private debt, we 
 gave them, as the judiciary committee show in their report, coal lands alone, 
 as their directors say, larger than all the anthracite coal-fields of Pennsylvania. 
 We gave them 21,100,000 acres of land, or over 33,000 square miles, more terri¬ 
 tory than is contained in the six states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, 
 Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Delaware, all of this vast domain 
 being within ten miles of a great transcontinental railroad. More, I repeat, 
 than six states represented by twelve senators on this floor. The territory is 
 an empire of itself, and if these railroads are allowed now to defy our power, 
 they will perhaps in a few years have more than twelve senators themselves.” 
 (C. R., page 2,142.) 
 
 On this point of the subject, speaking of these companies, Senator 
 Edmunds, of Vermont, said: 
 
11 
 
 “The consolidation of its stock into the hands of three or four great oper¬ 
 ators, who thus become the kings of the king, and rulers of the corpora¬ 
 tion, and so the rulers of all that section of the country, in a certain sense, over 
 which the railroad runs, the lords paramount of every hamlet, and every city 
 in the two thousand miles that stretch from the Mississippi to the Golden 
 Gate.” (C. R., page 2,360.) 
 
 In a report of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Repre- 
 j sentatives, made to the Forty-fourth Congress, first session, at page 20, 
 
 will be found the following striking statement concerning the Union 
 Pacific Railroad Company: 
 
 “That the moneys borrowed by the corporation under a power given them 
 ^ only to meet the necessities of the construction and endowment of the road, 
 
 have been distributed in dividends among the corporators. That the stock 
 was not issued to men who paid for it at par in money, but who paid for it at 
 not more than 30 cents on the dollar in road-making, and that there has been 
 an attempt to prevent the exercise of the reserved power in Congress by induc¬ 
 ing influential members of Congress to become interested in the profits of the 
 transaction .” 
 
 (This was precisely the point of contest, as will be seen hereafter, 
 Blaine attempting to tie the hands of Congress, and Thurman and 
 Edmunds opposing it.) The report shows that, in fact, the men en¬ 
 gaged in this enterprise never risked a dollar of their own capital by 
 the possibility of loss, and that they not only constructed the road from 
 the resources which came from the Government, hut that they made 
 enormous profits from these, thereby leaving the Government with no 
 adequate security for the reimbursement of the subsidy bonds. On 
 page 14, the same report says: 
 
 “These companies on their own showing are making large profits, and are 
 abundantly able to pay and indemnify the Government against future loss, and 
 pay liberal dividends besides on the par value of stock, which cost its original 
 owners not more than 30 cents on the dollar in road-making, which road-making 
 paid itself enormous profits—profits realized through the National Credit Mo¬ 
 bilier of America. These net earnings, as reported by the companies, are over 
 16 per cent, on the nominal capital stock of the Union Pacific company, or, in 
 fact, 50 per cent, for the year 1875 on the real cost of the stock, while, as to 
 the Central Pacific company, the net earnings are nearly 15 per cent, on the 
 nominal capital stock, and how much on the real cost of the stock is not dis¬ 
 closed.” (C. R., page 2,018.) 
 
 In 1873 a select committee of the House of Representatives was 
 appointed under a resolution to make inquiry in relation to the affairs 
 of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, the Credit Mobilier of 
 America, etc., and they submitted their report on the 20th of Feb’y of 
 that year, being Nd. 78 of the third session, Forty-second Congress. 
 At page 9 of this report the testimony of Mr. I. M. S. Williams, who 
 was one of the contractors, was given as follows: 
 
 Question —Then what purpose had you to propose to build a road that 
 had already been built by the Company at a cost to them of less than the 
 amount mentioned in your proposition? 
 
 Answer —We were identical in interest. The Credit Mobilier and the 
 Union Pacific Railroad Company were the same identical parties; we were 
 building it for ourselves, by ourselves, and among ourselves; there was not 
 $20,000 outside interest in it. 
 
 Senator Bayard, in commenting on this testimony in his speech 
 on the Thurman bill in the Senate, in 1878, said: 
 
 “ I do not propose to repeat the sad and shocking history of that Credit 
 Mobilier Corporation, and its complete identification with the Union Pacific 
 
12 
 
 Railroad Company. It is a stain that will never be wiped out, on Republican 
 institutions . . . Contracting with themselves, the very corporators, the 
 
 trustees into whose hands this property of the American people had been so 
 generously given, in the sacred trust and confidence that they would use it 
 honestly and only for the great public ends, and in the manner prescribed by 
 the acts of Congress, how did they use it? Availing themselves of this 
 creation of the law by which a mere corporate title shall stand instead of a 
 real person, they dealt with themselves, they dictated their own profits, they 
 sold out the powers that were entrusted to them so generously for the benefit 
 of their fellow-countrymen, for their own aggrandizement.” {C. R., page 
 2,297.) 
 
 “ Credit Mobilier!” The very name in American ears is the synonym 
 of infamy. I cannot leave the main question to take up this, but in 
 passing will simply call to mind the famous Oakes Ames corruption 
 list, brought to light by the testimony of H. S. McComb. At the head 
 of the list of those whom Ames had found willing, for a consideration, 
 to assist in carrying out this monster scheme of unmitigated dis¬ 
 honesty, was “ Blaine , of Maine , 8,000.” Farther down the list we 
 'find the item, “Colfax, 2.” Here is a short sum in moral arithmetic. 
 If two steps taken in this slough of corruption caused Colfax to be 
 relegated from his high political position to the permanent shades of 
 private life, what effect should three thousand have upon the man 
 whose record at every point is found to be of like uncleanness? 
 
 By the act of 1862 these railroad companies were required to pay 
 annually into the United States Treasury 5 per cent, of their net earn¬ 
 ings to assist the Government in meeting the interest on the bonds 
 loaned them. Although paying such heavy dividends on fraudulent 
 stock, as the report from a Congressional committee herein quoted 
 shows, up to this time (1878) they had not p>aid one cent of their net 
 earnings into the United States Treasury. Emboldened by their immense 
 gains, and realizing the mighty power and influence of abundant 
 money used in quarters “where it would do the most good,” they 
 reached the climax of audacity when they coolly stated to Congress 
 and to the Government officials that they would so manage the road 
 (unless they were permitted to dictate their own terms) that by the 
 time the Government bonds fell due, and the claim of the Government 
 against them matured (which claim as estimated would then be about 
 $ 122,000,000), that the road, if sold, with all its appurtenances, would 
 probably not bring more than enough to satisfy the first mortgages— 
 to wit, $55,000,000, or $27,500 per mile, leaving the Government 
 minus the entire amount of its claim. I gather this from the follow¬ 
 ing statements: Mr. C. P. Huntington, Vice-President of the Central 
 Pacific Railroad, when before the Judiciary Committee of the House, 
 in speaking of the Government debt, and the first mortgage debt, the 
 last equal to the first and given precedence over it by the act of 1864, 
 said: “ By the time both mature and become payable it is not at all 
 
 likely the property will be worth their aggregate sum, and if the shrink¬ 
 ing and settling of prices should continue farther, it may happen that it 
 will not suffice to pay more than the first mortgages.” 
 
18 
 
 Senator Bailey, in his speech in the Senate on March 28, 1878, 
 referring to this statement of Mr. Huntington, and to a similar state¬ 
 ment made by Mr. Dillon, President of the Union Pacific Railroad 
 Company, said: 
 
 “These carefully considered statements are accompanied by equally well 
 considered declarations, to the effect that by the terms of the acts of 1862 and 
 \ 1864, the officers of the two companies have the moral as well as the legal 
 
 right to distribute the earnings of the two roads to the stockholders. And 
 although this course will certainly lead to the insolvency of the corporations, 
 as they agree, they very plainly threaten that unless the Government will 
 yield to their terms, they will manage affairs solely with regard to the inter¬ 
 ests of the corporation, and without regard to the just claims of creditors . ” 
 (C. R., page 2,101.) 
 
 Referring to the situation, Senator Beck said: 
 
 “The time for prompt action has come, if Congress does not intend to sur¬ 
 render all the rights of the people. These men almost avow that they intend to 
 violate their contract, and destroy the vested rights of this people to the extent 
 of $122,000,000, a sum larger than was spent for the support of this Government 
 from 1789 to 1812. And we, as trustees for the people, would be co-conspira¬ 
 tors with them if we did not so change the law as to prevent the consumma¬ 
 tion of this fraud on the rights of the taxpayers of this country, whose money 
 and property they have obtained, and whose money they avow they intend to 
 use for their own purposes and never pay back a dollar of. Shall we stand 
 with our arms folded, and see all these great wrongs perpetrated? I trust we 
 are not yet such abject slaves of these railroad kings. ” (C. R-, page 2,143.) 
 
 Such was the situation in regard to these railroads (and I have 
 stated it fully that those who read this paper may understand it clearly), 
 when Senator Thurman introduced his funding bill, through a desire 
 to protect, as far as possible, the interests of the people, and to compel 
 these arrogant capitalists, by yearly payments into a sinking fund, to 
 provide in part, at least, for the liquidation of their debt to the Gov¬ 
 ernment, at maturity. It was a just and wise measure, and impera¬ 
 tively called for by the situation of affairs. 
 
 thubman’s funding bill. 
 
 The substance of this bill was as follows : It established a sinking 
 fund, in charge of the Secretary of the Treasury. The amount of 
 the entire charges of these companies against the Government for 
 transportation, etc. ( during the year, was to be withheld, and one-half 
 applied to the payment of interest on United States bonds loaned to 
 said companies, and the other half to be turned into said sinking fund. 
 The manner of computing the net earnings of said roads (which had 
 been iniquitously evaded) was prescribed and regulated by this bill. 
 And the percentage was changed as follows: The Central Pacific Rail¬ 
 road was required to pay into the United States Treasury, on the 1st 
 day of February in each year, $1,200,000, or so much thereof as would 
 make the 5 per cent, of its net earnings, added to the whole amount of 
 its claim for services rendered the Government, amount in the aggre¬ 
 gate to 25 per cent, of the whole net earnings of said railroad company 
 for the preceding year. And the Union Pacific Railroad Company was 
 required to pay into the United States Treasury $850,000 per annum, 
 under like conditions. The receipts thus realized were to be placed 
 
14 
 
 in said sinking fund. No dividends were allowed to be paid to any 
 stockholder until these annual payments to the government had been 
 fully made, under penalty upon each director voting for, or any stockholder 
 receiving such dividend, of a fine of $10,000, and imprisonment not exceed¬ 
 ing one year, for violation of this last provision . This bill, after reference 
 to the Committee on the Judiciary, came before the Senate, and was 
 debated for many weeks, in the spring of 1878. Mr. Blaine, as the 
 acknowledged champion of the railroads, led the opposition against 
 the interests of the Government, and of the people, and tried, by every 
 device which he could think of, to defeat the bill. He offered an 
 amendment, which Senator Thurman declared was “ a stab at the very 
 heart of the bill,” and would be a “ death blow ” to it if adopted; that 
 said amendment, if inserted, “ would be the best bargain this company ever 
 made; ” that it was “ one of the things for which these railroad com¬ 
 panies have been striving for many years,” but that it was the first time 
 they had ventured, or that “ any one in the Senate of the United States 
 had ventured, to champion such an idea.” And yet Mr. Blaine vent¬ 
 ured; he is “ no deadhead in such enterprises ; ” he was fighting under 
 the eyes and approving smiles of that special lobby, and he saw “chan¬ 
 nels ” leading to wealth and future luxury which the grand old Roman 
 from Ohio, ever true to honor and to the best interests of his country, 
 never dreamed of. The man who could stand up under the transpar¬ 
 ent infamy of the “ Mulligan letters ” thought little of the exposure of 
 his treachery, and of his utter disregard for his official trusts in offer¬ 
 ing this amendment, and in pleading for its adoption. His course 
 on this occasion shocked the just sense of honor and received the in. 
 dignant denunciations of the best and purest men in the American 
 Senate, of all parties. To prove this, and to show his position more 
 clearly, I give the following extracts from the speeches of Senators 
 Thurman and Edmunds, on this occasion. Referring to the amend¬ 
 ment offered by Mr. Blaine, Senator Thurman said: 
 
 “ If such an amendment as that of the Senator from Maine should be in¬ 
 serted in this bill, it would be the best bargain this company ever made. * 
 
 * * I affirm that this Government had better lose every dollar due 
 
 and all that is to come due by these companies than to give up that right which 
 it has to alter, amend or repeal the charter. The amendment of the Senator 
 from Maine is the worst attack upon this bill that could be made. He knows 
 very well that with that provision fastened on to this bill the bill will not only 
 not be worth the paper on which it is written, but it will be far worse than 
 nothing. He knows that it would be a fatal death-blow given to this bill. Let 
 no one deceive himself about this. Let no one imagine that he can be a friend 
 to the Judiciary Committee bill and at the same time a friend to the amend¬ 
 ment of the Senator from Maine. The amendment of the Senator from Maine 
 is prussic acid to this bill; it can not survive a day—not an hour, perhaps, 
 after that amendment is adopted. It is a stab at the very heart of the bill. It 
 is as fatal as any stab can possibly be. I hope, therefore, the friends of this 
 bill, those who mean to make these companies live up to their obligations, and 
 do what they assumed to do ; those who mean that these companies shall know 
 that the Government is their master, and that they are not the masters of the 
 Government —will see that no such poison is taken into this bill as the amend¬ 
 ment of the Senator from Maine.”— ( Congressional Record , page 2,337.) 
 
15 
 
 At another point in the same debate Senator Thurman said: 
 
 “The pending amendment before the Senate is the amendment of the 
 Senator from Maine, Mr. Blaine. I have said that this bill is not framed upon 
 the idea contained in that amendment. That amendment goes upon the idea that 
 we ought to make an act that shall be unchangeable for twenty years. It goe s 
 further than that; a great way further than that. It goes upon the idea of 
 repealing pro tanto the reserved power in these charters, to alter, amend, or 
 repeal these acts. Mr. President, one of the things for which these railroad 
 companies have been striving these many years, has been to get rid of that very 
 reserved power, but this is the first time that they have ventured—no, not 
 they; I beg pardon for saying that— this is the first time that anyone in the 
 Senate of the United States has ventured to champion such an idea. Their 
 officers and lawyers, in their arguments before the Judiciary Committee last 
 November and December, urged upon us strenuously enough that we should 
 make some kind of a bargain with these companies, and they would be ex¬ 
 tremely liberal if we would only give up the right to alter, amend, or repeal 
 their charter. Those arguments taken in short-hand will show that it is the 
 cherished object of these corporations to get rid of that power of control 
 which Congress possesses over them.” ( C. R., page 2,378.) 
 
 It 11 be seen by the following extract from his speech, that 
 Senator Edmunds charged point-blank that the amendment proposed 
 was in the interest of the companies , and deeply unjust to the people. It was 
 an effort to tie the hands of Congress for twenty-two years, to prevent 
 its interfering in any manner with said companies for the protection of 
 the interests of the Government or of the rights of the people generally. 
 Senator Edmunds, in his speech against this amendment offered by 
 Mr. Blaine, said: 
 
 “And the time may come, if the lobby still continues to be successful, as 
 it has been hitherto, and these companies, I will say, should be successful in 
 now so entangling this legislation, as to break it down by amendments proposed 
 in their interest, or substitutes proposed in their interest, the time may come 
 come when the voice of the just judgment of the people will be heard in such a 
 way that the management of this great corporation will be placed in the hands of 
 impartial and fair and safe men, and that if your hands are to be tied for twenty- 
 two years in respect of all the financial administration of these corporations, 
 touching not only the millions of our interests, but the millions of our other 
 debts that we are bound to protect, there will still be in the enforced sense of 
 public justice from the people (which at last reaches us) a means of regulating 
 the management in such a way that the money will not then be squandered. ” 
 (C. R., page 2,361.) 
 
 During the delivery of this speech, Mr. Blaine suggested that Mr. 
 Edmunds had been “fruitful of provisos,” to which Mr. Edmunds 
 replied: 
 
 “Mr. President, I have never been fruitful of provisos which tied up the 
 hands of the Congress of the United States from the future exercise of its 
 sovereign power. The Senator from Maine is the original father—there is no 
 grandfather and no collateral relation—of a proposition in the Legislature of 
 this country, of the Congress of the United States (since the time when the 
 evil of the hands of the States and of Congress being tied up has been dis¬ 
 covered in the last few years), to provide that in any respect, or under any 
 circumstances, the hands of the legislative power shall be held off from the 
 exercise of their legitimate and constitutional control over public corporations. ” 
 ( C. R., page 2,362.) 
 
 Senator Edmunds (as will be observed in the foregoing extract 
 from his speech) referred with deep significance to the efforts and influ¬ 
 ence of the lobby on the pending legislation, seeking to defeat the bill 
 by “so entangling this legislation as to break it down by amendments 
 proposed in their interest.” 
 
 Deferring to the same persistent and active influence, Senator 
 
16 
 
 Thurman said in one of his speeches on this occasion : “I have seen 
 this Senate Chamber filled with the railroad lobby, I have seen the 
 galleries filled, I have seen the corridors filled, I have seen the Com¬ 
 mittee-room besieged, I have seen Senators besieged at their own 
 houses by the railroad lobby.” How plainly these statements show 
 the corrupting influences that were at work, and why it was that Mr. 
 Blaine, consistent with his whole record, was the open and undisguised 
 champion of these railroad companies, and the active, unscrupulous 
 servant of this corrupt lobby. But true to their country, and to the 
 high trusts confided to them, Senators Thurman and Edmunds, for¬ 
 getting all party differences, stood shoulder to shoulder in this gallant 
 fight, and won the victory. The amendment was rejected, and the bill 
 was passed by a vote of 40 to 20—16 being absent. The yeas included 
 Thurman, Edmunds, Anthony, Bayard, etc., the best men of both 
 parties. The nays were composed of Blaine, Dorsey, Kellogg, Pad- 
 dock, etc., a list that shows for itself. The bill went to the house, and 
 Ben Butler (who is said to have been an attorney in the employ of 
 these railroads while a member of Congress), made a long speech 
 against it, but such was its clear merits that it passed, 243 to 2, Butler 
 and Lynde being the two. And now, forsooth, Blaine and Butler, the 
 two Dromios of the political arena, with sublime impudence, are posing 
 serenely before the American people as anti-monopolists! and friends 
 of the workingman! Look at their record. 
 
 But to return, such is the corrupting influence of this formidable 
 railroad power, that although six years have elapsed, nothing has been 
 done at Washington to enforce the Thurman bill, and last spring (1884) 
 a Committee of the Senate, of which Mr. Edmunds is Chairman, pre¬ 
 pared a report (which has not yet reached the Senate) showing that the 
 Union Pacific Railroad Company, up to that time , had not paid into the 
 United States Treasury one cent of the 25 jJer cent, pn'ovision in the Thur¬ 
 man bill , and, wholly disregarding the law, had paid out since this act 
 was passed over §19,000,000 in dividends, notwithstanding the severe 
 penalties imposed by said act for doing so. Such is the situation now, 
 waiting only for the inauguration of President Blaine to make every¬ 
 thing lovely in the camps of the railroad millionaires. 
 
 Jay Gould, Russell Sage, Sidney Dillon, and company, will smile 
 with ineffable sweetness over such a culmination of their dearest hopes 
 and forthwith proceed to put up bigger jobs than ever against the 
 people. 
 
 Now, is there any intelligent man in America who doubts that the 
 Thurman bill will be enforced should Grover Cleveland be elected ? I 
 do not believe that there is one. Is there any such man who expects 
 it to be enforced should James G. Blaine be elected ? Not Senator 
 Edmunds, certainly. 
 
 I have heard it stated that these millionaire ringsters expended 
 nearly or quite a million of dollars to prevent the return of Mr. Thur- 
 
17 
 
 man to the Senate. And we all know the powerful influence which 
 they brought to bear in the June convention, which resulted in the 
 nomination of their most obedient servant, Mr. Blaine. We hear that 
 Mr. Blaine’s National Committee is straightened for funds, and that 
 strenuous efforts are being made to raise them, etc. Depend upon it, 
 this is all a blind. Elkins would not now be in such close and intimate 
 relations with Blaine if he were not the intermediate man, the “soap” 
 dispenser. These railroad barons will spend twenty millions> if neces¬ 
 sary, for the election of their “plumed knight.” 
 
 In the degenerate days of Rome, when the Empire was hastening 
 to its fall, the Praetorian Guards put up the Emperorship to the high¬ 
 est bidder—so much money per head to each soldier—and it was thus 
 bought by Julian. In the late election in Maine we are told that 
 “money flowed like water,” and that “at least fifteen thousand votes” 
 (in that small state) “were bought and paid for” by the supporters of 
 Blaine, and now the “rascal counters” are being hastened to Ohio to 
 influence the approaching election there. Indeed, it is an hour of great 
 peril to the Republic; the fight against bold, unscrupulous corruption 
 is fully upon us. 
 
 The Chicago Tribune , on the 10th day of June, 1876, gave the fol¬ 
 lowing voluntary and truthful testimony: 
 
 “ Among the candidates named was Mr. Blaine, and he- was the most 
 popular of all. He was bold, aggressive, magnetic, and eloquent. But his 
 personal rivals had prepared for his candidacy. Conkling and Morton and 
 Butler had made up his record. They knew him as the people did not know 
 him. They knew him as the man who had voted for or failed to oppose every 
 subsidy of either land or money asked while he was in congress. They knew 
 him as the man who had voted for the audacious robbery by which the govern¬ 
 ment lien for its $64,000,000 advanced to the Pacific railroads was changed 
 from a first to a second mortgage. They knew him as a lobbyist before he 
 entered congress, seeking contracts for the supply of arms. They knew him 
 in congress, and while speaker, as the inside friend of corporations; con¬ 
 cerned in legislation to benefit such corporations, ruling as speaker to save 
 their bills, and as claiming rewards for his official actions; as engaged in sell¬ 
 ing the worthless bonds of such corporations, receiving large gratuities there¬ 
 for, as confessed in his letters; and finally, when pecuniarily involved, getting 
 the Pacific Railroad Company, as it seems almost certain, to give him $64,000 
 cash for what was notoriously not worth 64,000 cents, although he declares in 
 one of his letters that he paid out that money in forty-eight hours thereafter. 
 The record of all this, in Mr. Blaine’s own handwriting, these personal rivals 
 of Mr. Blaine have made public. It is immaterial how they became public, or 
 through whose agency. These letters are all Mr. Blaine's—his own record of 
 his own operations as a jobber in contracts, in railroad legislation, and in 
 wild-cat securities , and of his pecuniary obligations to the Pacific Railroad 
 Company. 
 
 “ Unfortunately there is not a speech, nor a vote, nor a letter of Mr. 
 Blaine's on record that in the slightest sense can be tortured into favoring 
 reform, abolishing useless offices, reducing expenditures, purifying the civil 
 service, or cutting off any of the abuses which have stunk in the nostrils of 
 the people. 
 
 H Is this the record of a reformer? Of a man to purify the administra¬ 
 tion, to exterminate congressional corruption, and raise the standard of 
 political and official morality ? The Tribune has objected to perilling the 
 party triumph by the nomination of a party candidate thus loaded down and 
 impeached, not by confederates or democrats, but by republicans. ” 
 
 This testimony is not from confederates, or democrats, or inde- 
 
18 
 
 pendents, but from the leading republican newspaper of the northwest , 
 acting with seeming zeal under the behests of its party at the present time . 
 
 It shows conclusively what Mr. Blaine was in 1876. I have 
 quoted abundant proofs in this paper to show what he was in 1878, 
 and nobody has any reason to believe that he is any better now. Mr. 
 Blaine has grown gray, and grown rich also, by a deliberate and per¬ 
 sistent betrayal of the public trusts confided to him, freely selling his 
 wares in the market to any that would buy. He has submitted so 
 long and so freely to the polluted embraces of Jay Gould, and Dillon, 
 and Huntington, and Caldwell, and Ames, and Dorsey, and Robeson, 
 and Elkins, and many others high and low, that it is too late now for 
 him to plead chastity to them, or such as them, and he would not 
 think of such a thing. There is, therefore, no hope for reform with 
 him. To elect him president will be a deep and abiding evil, a long 
 step toward the downfall of the republic. Apart from the immense 
 money losses to the government through his ineradicable penchant for 
 official speculations (and as president his active mind would see many 
 tempting “channels” in which he could be “useful,” in this regard), 
 his election, with the brand of unquestionable guilt upon him, would 
 be in effect to excuse bribery and to dignify corruption. It would 
 stimulate and encourage treachery in office of the boldest character, 
 and tend to the complete subversion of public interests to private ends. 
 The wily lobbyist, the Oakes Ames sort of man, engaged in placing 
 money “where it will do the most good,” would then have an unanswer¬ 
 able argument with which to attack and overcome the otherwise honest 
 impulses of aspiring legislators and of representatives of the people in 
 every kind of official position: “Do you want wealth ? do you want 
 public honor ? do you want high official position ? Look at Blaine; remem¬ 
 ber his record. You cannot do any worse than he did. ” Are the honest, 
 intelligent men of the republican party ready to strike such a cruel 
 blow as this against the good name and dearest interests of their 
 country ? Will they permit the prejudices engendered by party zeal 
 to so stultify and enthral them as not to examine the facts closely and 
 faithfully for themselves ? Surely we are all equally interested and 
 desirous for political decency, honesty, and good government. Every 
 citizen in this matter is the peer and equal of any and of all, and to 
 each attaches the equal and just responsibility of upholding to the 
 extent of his power and influence the moral dignity and purity of his 
 government. Thousands of the best and purest men in the repub¬ 
 lican party have already come out boldly in this matter, not for party, 
 but for honesty and decency and good government, in spite of party. 
 It is the duty of true men everywhere to examine this question well 
 for themselves and to act accordingly. The solemn warnings of Wash¬ 
 ington in regard to the dangers of party spirit are proving prophetic; 
 it is the one weak point in our form of government, and its test is now 
 fully upon us; honest men must stand shoulder to shoulder, as did 
 
19 
 
 Thurman and Edmunds and Bayard and Anti 
 1878. Nothing but the intelligence, sturdy inj 
 mined adherence to principle— honest and pure- 
 people of all parties can save us from the demor£ 
 ing infamy which threatens us. 
 
 Mr. Blaine is the man with an “itching palm”' 
 men of the present day; his plumes are the funeral 
 honor—dead and buried long ago. To elect him prl 
 expunge his guilt, nor remove one single indelible tattl 
 tensely corrupt record. The man would not be purified tnei 
 the party which supports him would be lowered to his standard, and" 
 the office which Washington filled degraded by the act. It is not , 
 therefore, J. G. Blaine that is on trial now, but the people of this 
 country. 
 
 Cover it with words, and specious arguments, and side issues, as 
 you may, there is no disguising the plain, undeniable fact, which stares 
 every intelligent man in the face, that the presidential contest is nar¬ 
 rowed down to the one great distinguishing point of difference between 
 the two candidates, as shown by the record of each, and which defines 
 the issue sharp and clear —honesty versus corruption. Cleveland, by 
 his clear head, brave heart, sterling integrity and untiring faithfulness 
 in the interests of the people, has made his name “the synonym of 
 political courage, and honesty, and administrative reform.” Blaine, 
 as stated by a committee and select gathering of a number of the pur¬ 
 est and best men of the republican party, “is unworthy of respect and 
 confidence—he has traded upon his official trust for his pecuniary 
 gain, and is a representative of men, methods and conduct which the 
 public conscience condemns, and which illustrate the very evils that 
 honest men would reform.” 
 
 Against the dark background of Blaine’s undoubted perfidy, the 
 official record of Gov. Cleveland stands as a pillar of light—clear, 
 clean-cut, immaculate. Look at it! Not a whisper against his official 
 integrity, not a doubt as to his uncompromising honesty and faithfulness 
 in every official trust which he has held. Malice itself is silenced here! 
 
 Look on this picture, then on that; which is preferable? The 
 real question is certainly reduced to this, and only this. The presen¬ 
 tation to the whole people of this country now is, behold, there is set 
 before you this day good and evil, honest government or gigantic cor¬ 
 ruption ; which shall we have ?