Litchfield enquirer., 1838-01-04
THE ENQUIRER.
LITCHFIELD, JAN'Y 4, 1899.
RICHARD FLETCHER OF BOSTON

been making great ado about the dilemma into which they supposed this gentleman, member of Congress from Boston, was placed by the majority of the com mtee of ways and means in the House of Represen- tatves. Let them ahd every reader peruse the fol- lowing brief recapituation of the facts, and the com of the Boston editor, and say who placed in the most unfortunate dilemma, MT. Fletcher or the committee We copy the whole article from the New-Haven Palladium of Saturday last MT. Fletcher and the Committee of Ways and Means.
 Most of our readers no doubt familiar with all the facts and circumstances connected with MT. Fletchers resignation of his appointment as member the Committee of Ways and Means. Lest some of them, however, should not be, we will briefly state them. At the recent extra session of Congress, Rich ard Fletcher, member of the House from Boston, John Sergeant ot Pennsylvania bo:h whigs) Messrs. Cambreleng, Atherton Haynes and Rencher, (admin- istration mem appointed the Committee of Ways and Means, of which MT. Cambreleng was and is Chairman. At the close of the session Mr. Fletcher in accordance with established custom at meet ing o his constituents gave account of the things which he heard, and participated in memb Der o Congress. He stated in his speech, among other things that the majority of the committee which he belonged, were disgraceuy subservent to the will of the Executive officers of the governmentthat the bills reported by that Committee originated with the Executive came to the Committee from the Execu- tive, drawn up in form, and were Executive meas ures." " In calling them Executive measures, he had v, heads of Departments" Such was the substance of l MT. Fetchers charge. His speech was reported by one of the editors of the Boston Atas and had wide circulation, and here the matter rested until the mencement of the present session of Congress, when | the administration members of the above named Committee, published card in the Globe disavoWing morning after the publication of the card, MT. Fletcher rose in his place and called the attention of the House to the subject. He reiterated the substance ot his former statements, but in some particulars de- nied having used the exact language quoted from his printed speech. He said he was not responsible for the words of that speech as he had never seen it until it's in the unimporant particulars re-
 crred to- until his attention called to them by the "card" of the gentlemen denying them. In view of all the circumstances connected with the subject, MT. Fletcher asked to be excused from longer serving | the committee His request was granted, but not un- 1 til he had been meany bulled by some of the admin istraton members, who knew that he, as leader in several religious societies, could not be driven into due The result of the matter in the House, at first seemed rather unfavorable to Mr. F., especially as it reported that he had denied only the letter but the substance of the charges he had made
 When this report reached Boston, the editor of the Atlas declared with much warmth that the report of in substance (which, by the way, MT. F. never de- ned)and not only true in substance, but true to the
 fer as he had reason to suppose from the fact that ed Here Mr. F. was indirectly charged with false- hood, and this charge has been seized upon and pub
 shcd by nearly all the admnistration papers in the | nation They feasted upon with all the greediness of cannibalsthey had got hold of something besides
 Waterbury cents and old federalism, and made much
 Mir. Fletcher has published letter to his consti,u- ents, setting forth all the circumstances of the case, and these are admitted to be true by the Boston Atlas majority of the Committee of Ways and Means, viz
 that "the bills reported by that committee, originated Uifh the Erec"ttUe, cde to the COmmiee from the Er ecu'iue draWn uP n form and Erecutiue meas- nres." And" says MT. Fletcher, all this appears from the ADMISSIONS of the majority of the Committee in the article signed by them in the Washington pa-
 inee consult he Secretary Qfthe Treasury about the bills referred to "At his request the Secretary of i!e Treasury transmitted to him dretts e "'ost ef Me
 What Mr. Fletcher denies is that he said these bills were passed by the House without alteration and without debate. He says he could have made no such | statement, every who heard him must have known that those bills were debated, altered &c, af 1 ter they were reported by the Committee.
 The whole matter is thus cleared up so far as MT. Fletcher's charges are concerned but in regard to the statement of the Atlas that MT F. and revis- ed his speech before it published, which he de- nes, how is this discrepancy explained? The Atlas Of Thursday morning thus satisfactorily accounts for l its oUn error:
 1 From the Boston Atlas
 Mr. Fzetchers Address-We earnestly entreat the attention of our readers to the Address of repre- sentative Tn Congress- the Hon. Richard Fletcher, which appears in our paper of this morning:
 This Address shows in the cearest and distnctest manner, that the impression so generally prevalent,
 that MT: Fletcher intended in his remarks in the House of Representatives the 18th inst, dscred it the report of his Faneuil Hall speech, which origin ally appeared in this paper, was an impression which l MT; Fletcher never designed to make. So far from such design, he did expressly sustain the substan- ta accuracy of that report and, as appears in his Address he was So understood by the persons who re- piled 10 him on that occaso Unfortunately, howev- cr tor all parties, this false impression was very ex-
 ensvely made. For ourselves we resisted it as long us we could, without subjecting ourselves, as we thought, to charge, which wonld have been fatal to the reputation of this Journal for honesty and truth and which would even have cast deep stigma upon thee, whole whig party of Boston;
 The whole of Friday-and while there was nothing to go upon but the brief sketches in, the New-York Fletcher could have discredited the report of his speech. But on Saturday, when the mail brought full report of the remarks in the House the l2th- remarks which seem very generally to have produced an impression they were not intended to produce, which, upon examination, they will not warrant and when at the same time, exchange papers began to taunt us with having manufactured speech from Mr. meet the charge at once, with an explicit and indg- nant denial The distinctions upon which MT. Fletcher went in his explanations though sufficiently just in themselves, yet of kind likely to be mis npprehended by nasty readers. In a matter which touched veracity and honor, felt obliged to ceive as just what seemed to be prevalent mpres for deliberate analysis; and could hardly stop make it, without subjectlng ourselves, by our silence and delay, to the most injurious imputatiOns.
 We were the more confirmed in the interpretation 1 so commonly put upon MT. Fletcher's remarks, by | two very natural mistakes as to matter of fact.
 The foreman of our printing office, most respecta- ble man, assured that it his distinct impression,
 that the corrections in the first two three sheets of the copy of the report of the Faneu Hall speech, as | given in this paper, were in handwriting with which he not familiar, and which he concluded to have been MT. Fetcher's. This assurance, in con- nection with the circumstances, that kneU that the had been submitted to the inspectlOn Of