New-York tribune., 1873-02-04
THE V1yrAGE-GRoUND OF TRUTH.

If the present Investigations in Congress are
followed to logical results, they will have
good effect Their influence on the Congress
men, themselves is of more account just now
than on the country at large. The exhibition
has been painful and humiliating one; first,
because it has shown the weakness of Con-
gressmen in their yielding to the temptation
to make money by doubtful means; and sec
ond, because 1T has displayed an unmanly
timidity on the part of some of our public
men, heretofore unsuspected. Congressman
are no longer willing to relnquish for q time
the habit of money getting, and devote
themselves unselfshly to the service of
their country they are not cOntented
with the mere reward of an approving con-
science and the hOnOrs of what was once an
exalted position in the Republic. Worse than
this, when they do become involved in finan-
cial transactions, of doubtful propriety, they
lack the moral courage to stand up and
either defend their action or confess the
false step. 1t was the average Con-
gresham who nibbled the forbidden fruit I;
it was the average Congressman who had not
pluck enough even to say: "Oakes Ames
tempted me and did eat" With one ac-
cord, they all began to deny what they had
done.
1t is instructive, though not specially pleas
ant, to look back now over the course of those
Congressman who have been convicted of re-
ceiying stock and dividends from the Credit
Mobiler Association. When the now famous
McComb- -Ames memorandum was first pub
lshed, there was silence in the political frma-
ment for the space of several days. The gen.
tlemen who afterward protested so much were
for O time as mute az mice. The solemn
hush was broken by Speaker Blaine, whose
record was clear, and who was the first, or
among the very first, to say as much. His de-
NAL made it necessary for the rest to speak.
One would have supposed that men of infu-
ence in the Senate and House could afford
10 tell the whole truth about the mat
ter 80 far as it concerned them, Leaving
the country to judge of the purity of their
motives. AS things turned out, they might
have made their dealings in Credit Mobilier
stock ono of the issues of the campaign. There
would be plenty of obsequious newspapers
ready to claim that one of the things indorsed
by the people and established by the election
of Gen. Grant was the inalienable right of
every CONGRESSMAN to speculate in stocks
more or less affected by their votes in House
or Senate. They missed that chance; and
what pitiable show is this which followed !
One after another, these men got up
all over the country and denied, with
many protestations, that they had any
thing to do with the stock. They brought
such pressure to bear on Oakes Ames that he
made one sweeping disclaimer for all of them
with one stroke of his brush whitewashing
the whole lot. The Republican candidate for
Vice President met the charge by saying that
he was tired of letter-writing, but he would
vouch for Gen. Hawley's denial for him as be-
ing correct. Brought to bar, after the election,
the Yice-President elect acknowledges the
stock but says it was not his; it was his wife's.
Very good; why not say so last Summerf
Vice-President Colfax fingered some time before
making his defense; and then, after a purely
gratutOus assault upon the Liberal candidate for
the Presidency, he prattled on about the great
national value of the Pacific Railroad, about
the Studebecker Wagon Company and Some
body e. Co.'s Glover Separator Company, and
various other things but the upshot of it all
was that he solemnly denied the Credit Mobilier
charges, A careful examination Of the speech