New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-10-18

hats andtcaps were OF 80 mean quality tnat
thew could only have passed through the in
competency or collision of the inspectors, the
renorts of the reputable committees to the
some effect or the authenticity OF tho pub
lished affdavits
| With that the case might rest. Mr.. Murphy's
effort to raise point over the comparatively
unimportant question whether he gave his
money as he did his vote and influence to elect
Mr.. Hoffman, is O petty evasion. His old assocl-
ate and friend, Marshal Murray, says he did;
other Republicans say he did; Mr.. Murphy says
he did not 1T makes little difference
while the fact of his voting and working
for Hoffman is admitted The question
of his actual attendance at the john
son Convention is equally unimportant MIR.
Murray and others say ho was there; ne says
| he was not it is not of the least consequence
| whether he was or not, since Dir. Murphy
does not and cannot deny that he partici-
pated warmly and effectively in the john
son movement His ostensible denial of
his real estate speculations with Tweed,
| Connolly g. Co. turns out to be a confession
and apology, whereon only one remark seems
necdful. Mr.. Murphy was an active Republ-
can politician, and there were thousands OF
Republican capitalists dealing in real estate.
But out of all these thousands Mr.. Murphy
did not find his associates. Out of all the
other thousands of reputable Democratic capt.
talsts dealing in real estate he did not find
his associates. He found instead three men,
VIM. NJ. Tweed, Richard B. Connolly, Peter
b. Sweeny. They were all comparatively
Door then. Their business operations" have
Ill three
of them at the head of the Tammany Ring
that rules the City, the fourth at the head OF
the New-York Custom House!
Mr.. Murphy makes bold and ostentatious
denial of report never alluded to, edl-
tOrially, in our columns, about his sons hold
ing a place under one of his Fathers partners,
in the City Hall. We cheerfully give him the
benefit of the denial as we do OF whatever
benefit he may derive from his effort
to trace O similarity between his de!iber-
ately sought partnership with the Tam
many Ring and the casual purchase of trifing
amounts of stock In incorporated companies,
controlled by political opponents. Suppose
Mr.. Grinnell happened to hold five or ten
shares of Eric stock Does Mr. Murphy sup
pose he can deceive people into believing that
that makes Mr.. Grinncll partner with James
Fisk, jr.2
And now as to the Dix Commission. Two
of its members say over substantially what
they have said before when their paper was
presented to the third he refused to sign it.
But we have liMg quarrel with it. 1t is
mistaken in intimatng that Mr.. John
Sedgwick appeared for the Government
to aid Col Olcott In the trial
the Government expressly refused authority
to retain him. What it says about possible
change of the sample hat is to be interpreted
in tho light of what the other member Of the
Commission says in his card. The whole case
of the shoddy contracts remains absolutely
unaffected. These gentlemen, as one OF their
number explicitly says, in the card herewith
printed, were in no sense a Court; and their
repOrt neither did nor could pass judg-
ment ON the character of the contractors.
They made an investigation on single,
technical point. The case before them broke
down, through very contradictory evidence,
absence of important witnesses and testimony
by others in conflict with that in their preyi-
GUS afidavits,-a discrepancy which one OF
them has since explained by saying
that tho sample hat shown him had
been changed, and lie was compelled to
change his evidence accordingly. All this we
plainly stated at the outset, and the two Com
missioners now only confirm us. We made
our case against Collector Murphy on the I'M
impeached reports of four several committees
of experts, which we published; on the dccla-
ration of Gen. Meigs, then and now
the QuarteImaster General, that Mr.. Murphy's
goods were palpably so bad that only fraud
or incompetence could ever have passed
them; and on the afidavts of the men who
made them, detailing, with the utmost possible
mInuteness, the process of their manufacture
from shoddy and shellac. This evidence
was not before the Commission and
when Mr.. Murphy's case came up before the
Senate it was not to be found at the War
Department. When we got it, we forthwith
published it, and made the charges against
the Collector, which, to this hour, remain un-
touched by all his protracted efforts to remove
the indelibe brand we have affixed.
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