The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1873-03-20
Mr. Brooks on the Credit MobilIer Scandal

Hon. James Brooks, of New York, has issued
the following address to his constituents, in
which he attacks the Poland Committee rather
sayapely. and defends himself with considers
bic vigor:
Enemies have taken advantage of my physi-
cal prostration from malaria, contracted in
India and too long neglected, to offer up Oakes
Ames and myself as sacrifices to public
clamor in which two Vice Presidents of the
United States, several members of the Senate,
and eight other members of the House were
more involved than myself The sacrifice of a
Democrat was deemed indispensable to Offset,
if not to protect them, and hence, early In
December q committee was organized, seeming
" on purpose to bring in my name with theirs
80 as to make me responsible for $50 shares OF
the stock of the Credit Mobilier owned by c..
II. Nelson. The certificates of this stock were
notoriously in the full possession of Nelson as
long ago as December II, 1867 (see evidence,
page 59,) but of these certificates the Commit
tee in January, 1873, chose to make me the
owner upon the pretence that he, being my
son-in- law, was only the apparent owner. The
Committee was thus organized, 1 say, for there
were put upon it such men as General Banks,
chevaler d'industrie, for years living in Cha
teau d'Espagne, because of his known hostility
to Ames, who, when asked, refused to subscribe
with certain rich Bostonians to free his Walth-
am house from heavy mortgage; and Merrick,
of Maryland, an ex-rebel Judge of this district
at the opening of the civil war, whose court
Congress had to extripate to be rid of him,
and who, therefore, sore and sour now more
than ever, hates the whole human race be-
cause of the defeat of his aspirations to re-elec
ton to Congress. With Niblack, very, very
small man in the plastic fingers of such SLY,
sleek and crafty Chairman as Poland, of Yer
mont, whose antecedents in railroads at home
are worse than anything alleged against the
Credit Mobilier.
This Committee, after sitting two months
and half purposely neglecting the exPloita-
ton of many rich mines of testimony, fiercely
fell upon me in eleven different sittings when
my physical prostration was such that the news
papers daily reported me dying, and at last,
after refusing me hearing, which | earnestly
demanded, fact which they suppressed in the
first report of 523 pages-which no member of
Congress could find time to read so late in the
session-when it was made coupled me, a DEM
ocrat with Mr.. Ames, O Republican, for expul-
sion, while they let off thirteen other Republi-
cans who, all but one, had handled Credit
Mobilier when not share had even come into
nv hands. The House and the country from
the start secuted such nm absurd report the
moment they could get at it by refusing to. vote
on expulsion at all. They did not censure Mr..
Ames or myself, only condemned an act as old
as 1867, in order thus to carry off as on alight-
ming rod the electricity that had been genera
ted BY the batteries Of the press upon Congress
and the country.
But even in this, the House did me injustice,
because was not in Congress when it was
alleged my interest began in the Credit Mo-
bilier. or if, as alleged, had any interest, it
was fully disposed Of before went into the
directory. Some Democratic members of Con-
gress assented to this injustice in the belief
that they could then condemn such leading
Republicans as Dawes, Garfield, Bingham,
Kelley, Scofeld, and Hooper; but in this they
were Justly fooled, because the great intel
lieence, high character, and well-known ante
cedents of these men are such as to make
ridiculous the charge that Ga kes Ames had
bribed them or that they were his dupes, as
the Poland Committee reasons, and did not
know what they were about. :.
To YOU my old constituents, who have stood
by me for twenty five years and over, both as
an old line Whig and Democrat, who have
seen me whether rs a member of the Legisla-
ture in Maine and as your own representative
in Albany, both in the Legislature and in the
Constitutional Convention, and who now zee
me in my eighth Congressional term, hitherto
unspotted and unsuspccted in every public sta
ton, 1 shall appeal in person, if the good God
restores me to health and life, as [ think he
will. shall demonstrate to you that neither
myself nor Mr.. Nelson, from New York City
family of over 100 years of stainless antece-
dents, was guilty Of perjury, as Poland charges,
and that both of US told the truth when testi-
fying that had no hand in the Credit Mobilier
dividends, allotments, or profits in any form.
YOU adopted in 1886, and to whom the old
Whig and Democratic parties have often given
the highest honors of the city, and whona Con
gress has honored on its most important COM
mittees-Lands, Post-ofices, Pacific Railroad,
Reconstruction, and more especially the Ways
and Means, and twelve years there--at times
appropriatng millions and millions of dollars,
and at other times leyying with Others OF the
~ Al. r,ff ha try