The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-02-26

In tho Hopse-Wm Pitiless Justice
he Donss
Yesterday in the House Of Representatives
were witnessed tho opening scenes of play
whose character we shall best be able to state
when the curtain falls. Yesterday tho report
of the Poland committee came up for debate
and Judgment and from that judgment alone
shall we be able to tell whether the whole pro-
ceeding has been farce, burlesque or tragedy.
It will be farce if the insulted honor Of
the country is blinded with whitewash
| and then held up for jeer to
| the nations of the earth. II will
be burlesque if the House stultifes itself by
whmsically striking dead one or two % the
offenders and robing the rest in the whito of
innocence 1t will be the tragedy Of supreme
justice if every man implicated in the briberies
be slain morally, SO far as branding upon
his forehead the death of his reputation
henceGsrth and forever. From the report pre-
sented by Judge Poland and his associates we
have no indication that the courage necessary
to the latter great act of national vindication
exists in the committee With the House the
question now lies, and yesterdays debate
opened the matter for final decision one way
or the other.
The interest in the debate depicted in the
struggle for seats i'll the gallery or on the floor
of the House by those present in the capital
| yesterday was, on small SCALE picture Of
the anxiety of the entire nation to note the
action of its representatives in Congress.
| Not since the day when the impeachment Of
| President johnson was begun in the Senate
has there been such strained attention turned
to the action of our national Legislators.
Then the heat of politics and parties was
felt through all the inquiry. Andrew
Johnson could then count his friends
| outside of Congress by millions,
and the feeling that partisan warfare was the
soul of the contention robbed the solemn 90
casion of the tinge Of moral dignity that
otherwise should have pervaded it. Yester-
day, however, the House sat in judgment
upon men of high functions, accused, not of
sins against party faith or tampering with the
constitution. to serve party ends, but Of
offences against honor, against honesty, and
so of conspiring against the life Of the nation
itself. Dishonor belongs to no party platform.
No party protesting dishonesty or bribery
as it's creed could exist an hour. Hence
the men charged with corruptly CIV
ing or owning Credit Mobilier stock
stood in that awful moment outside
of party altogether. They were before the
House of Representatives as accused criminals
not as eliminated partisans Never, perhaps
has the necessity for dignity, solemnity, high
impartiaity and stern justice of judgment
made itself 30 manifest in our national coun-
Gil. Every attribute that could confer sense
of lofty responsibility was there urging the
House to be worthy of itself and it's glorious
traditions, and of the national future, which
loom up like gigantic wonder-dreams before
under which Judge Poland rose yesterday in
his seat to defend his lame and impotent
report.
| We are glad to note that even he called the
transactions he was about to discuss by their
proper name-bribery. He brought the case
home against the only two whom he and his
fellows marked out for destruction. 1t was
before the crying sin of evasion, which has
beset his committee s work from the beginning,
made itself palpable. Its introduction may be
plainly noted when, in fortifying the case
against Ames, he said:-''The law did not
require the intent to be known to the person
to whom the present was made All
innocent as this may appear, it is part of the
deliberate plan to whitewash the receivers of
the brides. The presumption which it puts
forward Of a ridiculous ignorance of num-
dane affairs on the part Of the members who
received stock is seriously upheld by Mr.. Mer-
rick when he says that there was no evidence
Of corrupt knowledge on the part of the re-
in which weak sympathies for offenders should
be allowed to obtrude. It is doubly scandal
! lous when these special pleadings are intro
| duced under the cloak Of alleged fearlessness
such as Mr.. Merrick SYSTEMATICALLY donned for
the occasion. The fippancies of Mr.. Farms
worth, of Illinois, who had the temerity to de-
fend the barter and sale of honor as a pure
business transaction, we do not care to notice.
The slippery tongue which talks SO glibly of
what "every judicial tribunal in the land'
would do under the circumstances gauges its
own weight by its wagging We can lay
Judge Poland and Merrick and the rest aside
and happily take up the strongest argument
for the prosecution in the written defence of
Cakes Ames. In his own extenuation it adj
vances nothing worthy Of weight; in taking
ND the work Of the committee where it's incom-
pleteness began, and carrying it out to its
proper logical conclusion, it is unanswerable.
The three points which he considers should
be proven before he is adjudged guilty, which,
to be more exact, should exist in the charge