The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1872-10-03
COIfax on the credit
MebiIier SANDER.
SOUTH BEND. Ind. September IS.

SOUTH BEND, Ind, September IS.
GENERAL j. r. HAwLEY, with others,
having been advertised to speak here to-
day, Vice President Colfax was elected
by the audience to preside, and on taking
the chair said that it afforded him great
pleasure to introduce to the people of his
own home his valued personal and politi-
cal friend, Ex-Governor Hawley, of Con-
necticut, distinguished both in civil and
military life, who would speak to them
in favor of Republican principles and
their chosen standard bearers, State and
national, Grant and Wilson, Browne and
Saxton, Packard, and all their Republi-
can associates on the ticket. Mr.. Colfax
then said
Let me detain you a few moments, my
townsmen, while I touch fabric of false
hood with the spear of truth, exposing the
so-called "Credit Mobilier scandal" that
you may see out of what worthless stuff
campaign charges are manufactured. Not
to put myself on the defensive. Far from 1T.
In all my public life there has never been an
hour when l would not have trusted
jury of my political opponents here to de-
eide any charge affecting my honesty that
the bitterest malignant could imagine or in
vent or to render their verdict as to whether
l could be bribed to cast any vote or support
any measure my conscientious convictions
disapproved. You are all nay witnesses, too,
that during twenty years of editorial life
and speaking on the stump, never sought
to make you believe that public men were
scoundrels because 1 differed with them
politically.
There are, my friends, three papers in the
United States which, above all others, abso-
lutely know, as 1 shall show, that bribing
me to support Pacific Railroad interests is
just as incredible as that l should need to be
bribed to vote the Republican ticket. Seven
years age, with three gentlemen, connected
with and corresponding with the Chicago
T,.ib, fhn vi T.jko and he
Springfield (Mass.) Republican, l crossed the
continent i'll stage coach, expressly that all
four of us might see with our own eyes the
proposed route of the Union Pacific Rail-
road-might decide as to its practicability,
and might hasten it's construction, by using
our influence, personal and journalistic, to
induce capitalists to accept the liberal sub
sides offered three years previously by Con-
gress. From a letter written by Mr. Bowles
to the Springfield Republican, dated at San
Francisco, August 20, 1865, and found on
page 262 of his widely circulated book,
''Across the Continent" quote the follow
ing:
.Govsrnment bonds are loaned to it to the
amount of S16 900 mile through the plains, and
$4,000 mile in the mountains, beside which half
of all the land each side OF the road for twenty
doing the work. The companies are fur
ther authorized to issue their own bonds to an
equal amount to those granted by the Governmen
and secure them by first mortgage, the G0Ue7n-
maent loan taking the second place IN the security.
Mind you, my friends, Mr.. BOwles is stat
ing the otter Of ne Goue.7snlent, sshieh '0os
On page 273 Mr.. Bowles concludes the
letter:
men of the East Men at Washington x
Send now a few thousands of men, and hundred
millions of money, to create a new republic to
marry to the nation of the Atlantic equal if not
greater nation of the Pacific y
1 need not quote from my own numerous
speeches, lectures and letters, nor from the
cd of Governor
Chicago Tribune, and his lectures before
boards of trade and capitalists to induce
them to subscribe the millions of money"
alluded to by Mr.. Bowles for this great
work, nor from Mr.. Richardson's letters to
the New York Tribune. Their favorable in
fluence in pushing this enterprise forward
is summed up in Mr. Bowles' dedication of
his book, dated December 25, 1865, four
months after his letter, as follows:
1.-The railroad is indeed the great work of the
day; the great want the great revealer, the great
creator of this empire of west of the Missis-
sippi. 1t is cheering to find that, since weIyent
over the plains, labor the eastern end of this
road has had a new impetus; to learn that new ele
ments of capital and enterprise have become en-
gagged
Mr.. Bowles wrote truly. The appeal of
these representatives and special correspon-
penis of the New York and Chicago Tai6ataaes
and the Springfield Republican, with, per-
knowledge we had acquired by our long and
dangerous journey, was inducing men Of
wealth to accept the subsidy, offered at first
by the Congress of 1862, and reoffered and
improved by the Congress of 1864, two years
afterward, both of which acts were support
ed and voted for by such distinguished Sena-
tors as Charles Sumner and Lyman Trum-
bull. But these very capitalists have been
denounced ever since by many papers and
politicians as not better than swindlers for
accepting what had been proffered and re-
profered by Congress with the heartiest pop
ular Endorsement, and finally risked their
millions where Others would not hazard their
dollars. Having myself made more speeches,
addresses and lectures in favor of the Pacific
Railroad as political military and CONNER
cial necessity than any other man in the ma
ton, nothing could be more absurd and self
refuting than the charge that one who was
its open friend when millions doubted its
practicability, had to be bribed to favor it's
interests: Enemies, not friends, are those
whom brides seek out and control.
You might as well say that q Methodist
had to be bribed to advocate methodism, or
that an editor had to be bribed to support
typographical interests. But, never having
had in nay life dollar Of stock of any kind
that did not pay for, 1 claim the right to
purchase stock in the Credit Mobilier, or
the Credit 1mmobilier, if there is one; in
| the Union Pacific, or Central Pacific, or
Northern Pacific, or Southern Pacific, or
| Lake Shore, or South Bend & Plymouth
Railroads; in oil wells or gold mines, prom-
| Using immense dividends that sometimes fail ;
| ia printing offices or furniture factories; in
banks or in water works-just like other
American citizens or the rest of mankind
| Nor do know of any law prohibiting it. If
there is man out of all our 40 600, 600 of
| people who knows me, who believes l could
be Influenced a hairs breadth, in private or
public life, by the purchase of any stocks in
any company, l should not value his good
| opinion as worth any more than his evil one
| am proud to say, too, that in all my public
| life, no man ever dared to make me q dis
| honest proposition.
| Do need to add that neither Cakes Ames
nor any other person ever gave or offered to
! give me one share, or twenty shares, or 2 600
shares in the Credit Mobilier, or any other
| railroad stock land that unfortun ately hare
'aeoe' seen or received the UGlae Of a Ja7thing
out of the 80 per cent. dividends, nor the
$40 per cent. dividends in cash, stock
and bonds you have read about every
day for the past month, nor 100 per
cent, Tor one per cent, nor the tenth of
one per cent. l have said that if twenty
shares of it could be purchased at ar, with
out buying into prospective lawsuit, it
would be a good investment, if it was as val
| liable stock as represented; and l have
| said that | would like to buy twenty shares
| at par if attainable, in the Studebaker Wagon
| Company, or the Birdsell Clover-Separator
Company here; and l challenge either one
/ OF the two last companies to give me such an
! opportunity now or hereafter. But never
having been plaintiff nor defendant in a
court OF justice, want no stock of any kind
! at any price with a lawsuit on the top of it:
not even with the prospective dividends of
! 81, 900, which am "free to maintain neither
| these good eyes of mine nor this pocket-book
have ever seen the first dollar Of although it
Is so positively asserted that I have been en-