The sun., 1872-03-02
The Grant Band of Robbers-One of
George III. RoboSon's Exploits.

George ID. RObeSOn's Exploits.
President GRANTS Cabinet and the circle
Of his prominent oniccholdcrs contain so
many men whose prevailing thought is to
rob the Treasury of the United States, and
whose success in the execution of this pur-
pose has been astonishing. that il is fair to
represent his Administration Us one of the
greatest bands OF robbers ever known in
the world; and this proposition we will
now proceed to illustrate by the history of
one OF Secretary RoBEsoN's exploits. The
amount which RoBEsoN robbed in the case
we are about to detail was not 80 large rs he
has taken in other cases; but the audacity
Of this act Of robbery, and its utter con-
tempt not merely FOR the law Of God but for
thcpcnal statutes of the country, ns well Us
forpublic opinion and the public conscience,
give to it character of signal and peculiar
interest.
As oar readers are all well aware, the
close OF the rebellion was followed by
numerous applications to Congress for cx-
trn allowances, indemnity FOR losses, and
the Ike on the part of contractors who
hld been employed in the building of iron
clad vessels FOR the navy Many of these
contractors had realized cnormou, profits
ON the work which they had done. aud not
O few of them hal become MILL ouair,s
bat not satisfied with this, they at once,
and on vaiiou, pretcnrcs set up claims Tor
large additional sums. These claims the
Secretary of the Navy, GIDEON WELLcs OF
Connecticut refused to entertain, because
the claimants had already been fully and
justly compen Itcd according to both the
lcttor and the spirit Of their contracts, and
because he had no power TO pay any claim,
no matter how just, without authority and
IN appropriation from Congress. Accord
jngly, the claimants directed thrirattention
O. the National legislature, and at the third
Session Of the Turiy-cighth Congress q
formal petition signed 10y forty-cght con-
tractors, was presented in the senate, pay
ing for indemnity aud relief They an, gcd
that the Go,rrnu.ut justly owed them
toInu $95Jj0jo arl thyryupon the >,uate
hdoptcd the following resolution:
Ec'o'r,' That a. crc,ar, %; M, Navy De re vested
rSfs6s, o. dy .sh bc ~ i i. HIS is.o ,y' ln m ~
ciinciy coniru td for by ne bSiarnrnt In tnt year.
,sc SSt igT eH,rstao1 over ana above me con
me came To the senate az IT, seion. Nonc tut
tc c,u,idrr,d '''' '''' ~ ~
Board va, organized in accordance
c.,h thi- request of the Senate, and the
"forty-cight contractors came before ii
and had their accounts and claims exam
incd' The examination was very super
hcially made, the CT paHc statements of
the contractors being taken Il, evidence,
and that, too, without requiring the De-
partment to make any rountor-statemcnt-
The result was that the Board reported In
favor OF paying the S2,j0O,OO0 claimed by
these forty y-oight contractors.
This report was submitted in the senate
al the fist session OF The Thirty ninth Con-
gre, and was referred 10 the Committee
on Naval AGIils. The Committee, after
some deluy, reported bin appropriating
tlSeoOO to pay those forty eight claim
Ru'. When TIE umt,cr came up for dis
cussOn, Senator GEMEo, Chairman of the
Committee ou Naval Affairs, said he had
objected to this report in the committee.
Rud hc thea proceeded to make telling
speech against the Llu. lie declared that