The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1873-03-28

The more closely we scan the report Of
the special committee Of the House of
Representatives on the Credit Mobilier
corruptions the more lame and impotent
does that scandalous conclusion. of
great national scandal appear in orr eyes.
These inquisitors have absolutely turned
themselves into absurd apologists for all
the parties implicated in these corrup-
tions except two one OF whom is Re-
publican and the other Democrat. The
absurdity of the apologies invented by
the committee for the purpose of screen
ing some of these Republican criminals
from the Just condemnation of their guilt
may be seen in the fact that the extenu-
atoms of the committee actually exceed
all that Ames' victims had the audacity
to invent for themselves. In illustration
of this gratuitous whitewashing we need
cite only the following paragraph
1t ought also to be observed that those
gentlemen who surrendered their stock to Mr..
Ames before there was any public excitement
upon the subject do not profess to have done
so upon any idea Of improperly in holding II.
but for reasons affecting the value and security
of the investment. But the committee believe
that they must have felt that there was some
thing SO out the ordinary course Of business
in the extraordinary dividends they were re-
ceiving as to render the investment itself sus-
picious. and that this was one OF the motives
Of their action"
That is, this committee is determined
to protect these criminals from the dam
aging effect of their own brazen confess
sions I. Some of them, il seems, did not
pretend to have virtue enough to see any
impropriety in holding stock given to
them under auspices so corrupt that the
man who assigned it is deemed worthy
of expulsion from the House. And yet
il is in behalf OF such self-confessed mis-
creants that the committee proceed to
express "belief" which is not only I'M
authorized by anything in the words or
actions Of these parties, but which is
expressly negatred by their deliberate
utterances in the face Of the country. If
the committee had been the hired attor-
ney engaged by these culprits to plead
their cause before Congress it would
have been impossible to display a more
superserviceable zeal in the premises.
Here is set of men who disavow the
pretension of having been governed by
any sense of honor in seeking to- escape
from the predicament in which they had
placed themselves by accepting the
favors OF Cakes Ames and now comes
this committee and benevolently throws
its shield over those self-confessed con-
victs by volunteering to make in their
favor plan which, degraded as they are,
they had too much remaining candor and
honesty to make for themselves.
Az if to set their own obtuseness on
even higher PEDESTAL than that of the
parties for whose criminal insensibility
they invent this suppositiOus plea, the
members Of the committee proceed to
argue as follows:
"The committee do not find that either Of
the above-named gentlemen in contracting
with Mr.. Ames had any corrupt motive or pur-
pose himself, or was aware that Mr. Ames had
any, nor did either Of them suppose he was
guilty Of any impropriety, or even indelicacy,
appeared that these gentlemen were aware Of
the enormous dividends upon this stock. and
how they were to be earned, We could not then
acouit them"
What miserable paltering is this
Was it.not the love of enormous divi-
dends \" which tempted these men to
nibble at the bats OF Cakes Ames
Does this committee suppose that the
smart politicians who accepted this stock
were so incredlous as tomake noinquiries
concerning the amount Of these fat div
idends and how they were to be realized?
Is this the kind Of men who are placed
mt the head Of committees in Congress !
Must Dawes, the leader of the House,
be pronounced an idiot in the matter Of |
making investments for himself, but |
held wise enough to devise ways and
means for the whole republic? Did
Garfield make appropriations for
his own benefit in this senseless manner,
while deemed sagacious enough to pre- J