The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1872-10-03

! as he states in his recent letters, to investi-
gate and write up for that paper the Credit
| Mebilier. / shall refer now to only one
single paragraph ont of his many calumnies
so conspicuously printed in that paper with
| sensational headlines, and largely copied
| into the New York Tribune. He charges that
| Speaker Colfax and Speaker Blaine kept
! Oakss Ames at the head of the Pacific Rail
road Committee; a petty untruth, Ames
| having only been member of it, but never
| its Chairman. In the same paragraph he
| says: "Ames carried through Congress a
scandalous proposition by which the Gov
eminent abandoned its first mortgage of
this highway, and allowed the private mort
| gage bonds of the railroad to take preced-
ence." And this is repeated editorially in
the Chicago Tribune of last Wednesday.
The falsehoods as to the abandonment of
Government mortgages have already shown
you from Mr.. Bowles' let Ter of August, 1865
| that this was already the law before capital
lists were induced by the influence of the
| cago Tri6uneS and myself to accept this
very proposition of Congress, and to risk,
| in what many then deemed an impossible
work, the millions" Mr.. Bowles appealed
to them to invest. And this very PROPOSE
ton which Gath denounces as "scandalous, :"
and the Chicago Tribune denounces editorial
", was supported when passed, by Messrs.
Sumner, Trumbull and Julian, well as by
Mr.. Ames and an overwhelming majority of
Congress. Nor did Mr.. Anes invest dollar
in the Pacific Railroad till after the letters of
Governor Bross to the Chicago Tribune, of
Mr.. Bowles to the Springfield Republican,
and of Mr.. Richardson to the New York
Tribune, had been published, more than a
1854.
Gath says in this same paragraph of his
letter that Games was able, with the help of
the most eminent men in the RepH blican
party, to collect from the United States the
gross SUM for carrying the mails over this
road, while, at the same time, he never paid
the interest on the Government bonds as it
accrued
The facts, SO utterly at war with this
charge, are that the railroad has never re-
ceived nor ever claimed but half of ssthe
gross sum for carrying the mails,n the other
half having alaoayS been retained and applied
on the interest of the bOnds-that Secretary
Boutwell, desired, in 1870 to retain the
whole, but the Senate Judiciary Committee,
having been instructed to examine the ques-
ton, decided that the Congressional charter
authorized only half to be thus retained, and
Congress SO re enacted. After twelve pages
of debate in the Globe, the Senate SO decided
by thirty-six to eighteen, Senators Trumbull
and Thurman both speaking and voting in
its favor.
This correspondent concludes this para
graph thus:
I'm short, the Union Pacific Railroad first
begged loan from the United States of from six
teen to sixty thousand dollars a mile. and then
robbed it OF the interest on the loan, forced the
loan itself back to a contingent place, and pasted
1t over with another and private loan of It's own
and then swindled it out of the whole gross sum
for the mail service
These charges are very grave, and if true
would blast forever the character of men ca
pable of such conduct, and give color and
confirmation to the original charge of bribery
and corruption. The only answer necessary
to them is that not only does the Congressman
al Globe prove, as l have shown, their entire
falsity beyond all contradiction, but the edi-
tors and proprietors of the Chicago Trib,ses
lyraOr <ff 6nir H. IL, :,
not particle of truth in any one of these
sweeping falsifications of their correspon
dent. What could have induced them to
print them, even amid all the excitement OF
political canvass, is a mystery to me.
Let me ask you, now, if the public have
not right to demand from the editors and
proprietors of these two great newspapers
the New York and Chicago Tri6uneS, some
personal explanations. Day after day their
papers have been filed with inuendoes and
charges, some of which they happened to
know, better than all other men, could not
possibly be true, and nearly all the rest OF
which they well knew their own files ex
planned or disproved Day after day they
have sought to make the people of the
United States suspect number of then
prominent public men, and the builders OF
the Union Pacific Railroad generally, banC
OF thieves, scoundrels and swindlers, anC
they have demanded that those thus assailee
"should be heard from" Well, they have
heard now calm, dispassionate Statement
from one of those VIII = one of the Tribune
stigmatized as "tho Twelve apostles who
sold out to the Credit Mobiier at $50, 00t
apiece" 1 submit, in sorrow for those VIII,
thus "bear false witness against thei
neighbour" that clearing their own skirt
from the "scandal" of their course is tn
next thing now in order.
After Mr.. Colfax was through, Gov
ernor Hawley addressed the audience TO
over two hours in his characteristic man
ner