The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1872-02-27
COLUMBIA. s. G.
Tuesday Morning. February ~. 1879.
Tn. Sale OF Arms TO tho French.

Senate by Mr.. Sumner, demanding an
investigation into the sale Of arms by
the War Department to the agents of
the French Government, during the
Franco-Prussian war, has excited much
interest in Congress and discussion
through the press OF the country. The re-
solution is supported by Sumner, Carl
Sohurz, Trumbull and other lesser lights
of the anti Grant Republican faction. and
by the Democrats, Of course. Morton,
of Indiana, and Roscoe Conkling, Of
New York, assumed their usual role Of
henohmen to Grant, and endeevored to
defend the Administration from the al
legged violation of good faith ind the
neutrality laws, and to defeat the inves-
tigation. They raised the party lash,
ana Conkling oven went SO far as to
threaten Schurz and Sumner with cri-
minal prosecution, for ''conspiring with
the agent, of a foreign Government
against the United States.'' But it was
all to no purpose. Schurz treated the
threat with the defiant scorn and deri-
sion it merited. He delivered, on Tues
day, what reporters term the 'mightiest
speech Of the session, or of many pre-
ceding sessions" The rising fame of
the young Missouri Senator attracted an
Immense concourse of spectators to the
Senate Chamber. Many distinguished
statesmen and public men, not members
OF the Senate, were upon the floor, and
tho galleries were crowded with ladies
and men-foreign Ministers, their wives,
&c. In the words Of the reporter of the
World: whoever of intellectual cmi-
nence, high public and social station.
and womanly worth and charm, could
unite to inspire m orator and lend
kind of enchantment to the scene of his
endeavor, was not lacking on this memo
rable occasion. The worry attitude of
Sohurz proclaimed his intention to at
tack, instead Of to defond himself
against, his adversaries. It was the
posture OF one Of those fiery German
students, represented with one foot for
ward and a rapier in his hand" Says
the same reporter:
''The opening of his speech was like
the legend-naens. 7,,ene, tehel uphursin-
written of old on the wall at Belshaz.
zar's feast, for it branded the motives
and phrophesied with words of fire the
isene of the attempt of the Republican
Senators who are trying to ward off all
investigation into the abuses of Gen.
Grants ad linistration. It sounded like
trumpet, and stung Conkling. Morton.
and their associates. like ON adder The
Senator from Indiana. (Morton,) he
said, had set out to prove, yesterday,
that there had been no illegal sales Of
arms to France, because (alluding to the
course of Senators Schurz aud Sumner
at this crisis) there was no way out of
the ranks of the regular Administration
party that did not lead into the Demo-
cratic party. The Senator from New
York (Conkling) had likewise cssayed to
show that such sales by tho Government
were not facts to be investigated, be-
cause there WAS n senatorial cabal op-
posed to the corruption. which hns
thrived under the rule of tho Admins
tratlon. But Senator Schurz made it
very plain that it was this samo cabal
""ASA hnN d1PpClA Luo IouuGO bUmluSO
job i'll the bud, which had forced inves-
tlgation of the abuses under the Now
York Custom House system. and which
was now about to compel the adoption
OF the resolution before the Seuate de-
spite everything that Administration
Senators could do or say.''
Morton and Conkling had donicd and
endenvored to prove that the Wnr De-
partment had sold no arms to agents of
the French Government, knowing them
to be such. Tho Government, they
claimed, had traded with Remington 6
Co., and IN agent Of theirs, without any
knowledge or suspicion that the con-
tracting party was in anywise connected
with the French Government. This
statement Schurz showed to be utterly
false; the most crushing testimony he
adduced being that Of Jules lie eCesne,
who swore, at the recent trial OF M.
Place, in France, for mal-prnctices as
agent of the Government in tho United