Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1870-07-22
THE CASE OF GEN. O. o. HOWARD.

Report OF the Minority Of the House Conn
mittee Of 1nvestigation---TheC Charges
| Sustained--.The Freedmen's Bureau and
| its Operations.
The minority of the Committee on Educa-
ton and Labor, Messrs. McNeely and Rogers,
to which were referred, for investigation, the
charges preferred by the Hon. Fernando Wood.
against the official conduct of General o. o.
Howard, Commissioner of the Bureau of Ref
ugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, re-
ported to the House of Representatives on
the 18th inst, resolutions demanding the trial
ofthe accused by Court Martial. The minor
ity cannot withhold an expression of regret
that the majority of the committee should have
prevented, in various ways, a fair and full in
vestigation of the subject matter in it. In the
jected to by the majority which were proper
and should have been answered, and time
was positively fixed for the closing of evidence
in support of the charges which the majority
of the committee would not extend, and when
the minority, as members of the committee,
asked certain important witnesses to be SUBJ
penael to establish important facts stated to
be within their knowledge, the request was
denied, aud the witnesses were not subpnnaed,
though they could have been produced and
their evidence taken before the investigation
was closed, and without delaying the report
of the case to the House. The minority think
that the first charge is proved by the evidence
that General Howard used more than half a
million Of dollars of funds of the Freedmen's
Bureau for the Howard University, Hospital
and lands. General Howard, in his written
statement, admits this, but denies any impro-
per motive The other charges of which the
committee find the accused guilty are numer-
Gus. and include transportation of Bureau
funds, improper speculations 10 lands belong
ing to the Howard University, and in being
interested in furnishing the worthless ''patent
brick" of which it was built The final charge
is that he was one Of ring known as the
"Freedmen's Bureau Ring" and that the
whole undertakings of Savings Banks and
schools for freedmen were political machinery,
and that he used the Bureau for his personal
and political profit. In concluding their re-
port the committee say
We consider it one of the highest duties of
Congress to protect the interests of the Gov
ernment as well as the equal rights of the
people. No subject can be of more pervad-
ing public concern than that which reaches
the social, religious, and political preudices
of classes. The Freedmen's Bureau has been
made mighty engine of power, by which to
control an entire section of the Union, aud
bring it under partisan subserviency. To &C
complish this the public Treasury has been
| freely used in various ways. Emissaries have
been despatched to the South with the Bible
in one baud and the purse in the other, and
who have been backed up and sustained by
both the military and civil power Of the Gov
eminent. Thus, successful applications were
made to the necessities aud ignorance Of a
people who had not learned the arts of the
demagogue nor the wiles of the politicians.
Under the pretence of giving him protec-
ton, the negro was plundered of his just dues;
under the pretence Of teaching him religion
and morality, he was taught a hatred of bis
best friends under an ayowed object OF teach
ing him his political rights and duties, he was
drilled into a voting machine and made trib-
utary to the aspirations Of those who bad said
they came to enlighten him; under the plea
of shielding him from oppression, hard labor
was wrung from him, and his little earnings
once obtained as deposits 10 Freedmen's Saw
iugs Banks were used for the profit of those
who had the control of them. This Bureau
! had it's ramificatious everywhere; its officers
and agents were'to be found in every State,
county, and voting precinct of the South; no
election could be held, but that some OF them
were found on the spot, exercising political
| mower over the made citizen, and the
leading candidates for the principal offices
were the self-nominated representatives Of the
Freedmen's Bureau.
| A majority of the members Of the Legisla-
lures of the so-called reconstructed States last
year were either taken from this class or the
immediate dependents of it; the civil govern
ment, what there was of it, was in their ha DDS.
The Bureau was the great absorbent of the
only civil authority there. Whenever this
power was disturbed an appeal was made to
! Congress and new reconstruction ordered
To ascertain the whole amount of public mo.
ney devoted to these purposes and distribut.
ed through the Bureau would be impossible
10 public record will now tell it. The of1ica
report Of General Howard to Congress in De-
j cember last places it at about thirteen million
dollars. This is very far short of the actua
sum dsbursed through the Bureau.
The counsel for General Howard, in his ar.
gument before the committee, in his 6na
summing up of the case, in the presence o
General Howard, stated with his consent ane
} approval that this amount exceeded this sun
and -.'ranged from $13 100000 to $4,000,
OOO." 1t is safe to conclude that the latte
more nearly approaches the true amount.
large part Of the amount received and spen
came from abandoned aud confscated Con
federate property. That is not named in th'
amount appropriated by Congress. There il
no other statement of the sum received from
D this source than that which is given by th'
Bureau itself. The whole amount which
came into the possession of Howard and hi
numerous agents in the late Confederate State
is within his and their knowledge alone.
: The undersigned are conscious that wha
they havo here represented, and the ,evidenc
elected, give but an imperfect view of tn
transactions of this Bureau and of the conduc
I of General Howard and those who acted un
der him. That this excresence on our bod.
politic was established and has been used TO
partisan purposes and to secure party supre
macy is too manifest to require further illus
i tration here. There has scarcely been de
0 cent attempt or pretence to disguise or con
: ceal this fact. Fer this purpose Gen. HoWar'