The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-02-26

DNihs5 JuuSIleHI ddy Ill Tic llOuSC liiC
galleries were filed half an hour before the time
of meeting. Every seat was occupied and
every standing place filed The corridors were
impossible, being crammed with late corners
pressing for chance to to get admission. The
clerks rooms and places at the rear of the
members were damned with people. There
never was before such a crowd of curious snec
tators in the Capitol. 1t was more than half
past eleven when the reading of the journal
ended and when the other parliamentary BUSH
ness of the days session was disposed of In
the meantime the crowd became denser and
the scene noisy. Ladies had been admitted
within the body of the hall and stood
grouped up at the entrance of all the aisles
and pressed around at the back of the circle,
and many of them had achieved prominence by
gaining possession of chairs of the members
They did not seem at all abashed or conscious
of being out of place. On the contrary, they
wore, for the most part, an air of keen, anx-
ious, determined persistenesrand eagerness in
the pursuit of their object, as characterizes
them when they flock to fashionable auctions.
At IL 45 a. M, the Speaker announced that
the special order as the report of the Credit
Mobilier. .s
MIR. Butler of Mass, moved that the House
go into Committee of the Whole ON the legs-
lative appropriation bill
Mr.. Garfield of Ohio, chairman of the Com
mittee on Appropriations, intimated to Mr..
Butler that it would be just as well for him to
attend to his own business and leave the Com
mittee on Appropriations to attend to its own
affairs. i.- t..-..-
The House then proceeded with the special
order.
AS soon as the Clerk had read the resolution
providing for the expulsion of Messrs. Ames
and Brooks, Mr.. Butler rose and offered the
following substitute: i.N
Whereas, A Select Committee of the Honse
has. after investigation, reported to the House
testimony which is by them deemed sufficient
to show criminal action in one or more MEM
beers of the House; and
Whereas, The testimony shows that similar
acts have been done by other persons not now
members of the House; and
Whereas, 1t clearly appears that whatever
acts were done Were offences committed by
members of the House or by any civil officer of
the United States now in office, or others that
were done and committed more than five years
ago are within the jurisdiction of the Supreme
Court of the District of Columbia; and
Whereas, No legal or constitutional right to
use its power of expulsion of its members as
punishment for crimes done or committed by
member before his election thereto, but that
punishment of all crimes and offences against
the law should be after a trial by jury and the
judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction;
therefore,
Resolved, That in the Judgment of the
House, as it appears that there is probable
cause to believe from the report of the testi-
mony submitted by the Select Committee OF
Investigation of the matter of the Credit Mo-
bilier, that grave offences, punishable by the
statutes of the United States, as well as at
common law such as giving or receiving brides,
or false swearing as may have been committed,
as shown by the testimony, within the District
of Columbia, therefore the Clerk of the House
be, and is hereby, ordered to cause a copy of
this testimony SO taken to be forwarded to the
District Attorney, the prosecuting officer of
the United States for said district, with the
recommendation of this House that the same
and other testimony, which he shall deem ma
teral, he shall cause to be presented to the
grand jury sitting in and for the said District
at the next session thereof, that they may take
such action in the premises as to law and JUS
tice shall appertain
Mr.. Poland, of Vermont, then opened the
case for the prosecution in a speech, reciting
the facts and justfying the report of the COM
mittee. After showing by the testimony that
at the time OF the transactions the stock of the
Credit Mobilier was worth from 200 to 300 per
cent: he asked whether Mr.. Ames was so ut
tery insensible to the profit which he could
have derived from that stock had he chosen to
sell it, but he preferred to let members of Con-
gress have it without any profit to himself
How came his charitable disposition all at
once to be SO extended in favor of members of
Congress? His ostensible business in Wash
lngton that winter was his position as a mem
Der of the House, but his actual business was
the peddling of ten shares of stock piece to
members of Congress-
Mr.. Briggs, of Delaware, interrupting Mr.
Poland, asked him to state whether or not the
evidence showed these leading members to
whom Mr.. Ames was peddling the stock knew
1t to be worth from 200 to 800 per Cent
Mr.. Poland suggested that if he would wait
he (Poland) would get along to that point
(Laughter.)
Mr.. Briggs-we will wait patiently.
MIR. Poland went ON with his argument and
said that there was some balancing motive in
the mind of Mr.. Ames which induced him to
let certain men have this stock at 100 when he
could have got two or three or four times as
much. First. was there any possible doubt
about the motive of Mr. Ames? He had de-
signed to get this stock into the hands of mem
beers of Congress, not merely to rely on the feel
ing OF gratitude which they might have towards
him because he had given them something
worth two three or four times as much as they
paid for it, but he relied on something stronger
than that. Mr. Ames had lived long enough
in the world to know that man sometimes fore
goes klndnesses; that mans gratitude for
kindly act does not last always. He had read
enough OF scripture to know that ''where
mans treasure is there will his heart be Also"
(Murmers of applause.) Mr.. Ames had avowed
his whole philosophy on that subject. He had
said that the difficulty is that you cannot
get man to give attention to a thing unless he
has a heart to do So
He had therefore TO contrive some means or
other by which he could make the interests of
the leading men in Congress identical with his
own, so that they should be as watchful in re-
lation to this matter as he was himself. Ames.
knew that himself and his friends had started
ON voyage which sooner or later would be ex-
posed he knew that the nation had been, by
their performances defrauded out of millions,
and he understood it would be a good thing
when that time came, that he should have some
strong hackers and he had intended by his
course of conduct to provide himself with them.
He had done so for that very purpose, and with
the intent to influence their action as members
of Congress, on matters to come before them.
That it was an act of bribery in Ames for which
he might have been sent to the penitentiary,
even though every member had received stock
from him in entire innocence. The law did not
require the intent to be known to the person to
whom the present was made 1t was the in
sidious attempt to undertake to bind man of
honor by gratitude, that constituted bribery.
1t would not do for Mr.. Ames to plead ign0r-
ance Of the law. That plea was not permitted
to the most debased and ignorant criminal, and
was the House to lberalize that rule of law for
the benefit of millionaire and of ten years
member of Congress? Was that man to stand
up in such presence or anybody for him, and
say that he did not know what law was and did
noe know that he was violating it, IF mans
moral sense saw no wrong in that which their
predecessors had declared penitentiary offence
and should forever disqualify man from hold
ing the meanest office, was such man fit to
sit here as one of the law makers of the nation?
Mr.. Poland submitted whether, even in the
most charitable views of Mr.. Ames' conduct,
that man was one who ought to be tolerated as
member of the House. Passing then to the
case of James Brooks, of New York, Mr.. Po-
land stated the facts in the evidence which JUS
tife the resolution reported for the expulsion
of Mr.. Brooks He dwelt somewhat on the
fact that that at the time of the Cakes Ames
contracts Mr. Brooks was thoroughly
familiar with the whole subject: First, as the
agent of Durant for placing the shares OF Cred
it Mobiler stock before the capitalists of New.
York; and second, as government director OF
the Union Pacific Railroad Co.
Mr. Brooks, interrupting corrected Mr.. Po-
lands statement as to his being government
director at the time of the Cakes Ames contract.
That contract was dated in August, 1867, was
assigned in October, 1867, and he (Brooks) was
not nominated till October, 1867, and had not
accepted the office till January, 1868.
Mr.. Poland protested that he would not for
in reference to the case. What Mr.. Brooks had
said was not in the slightest degree in conflict
with what he (Poland) had said. The Cakes
Ames contract had been executed ia August,
1868, but it had been found that the trap was
not properly set, and under the advice of cum
ming counsel new machinery had to be devised
in order to run it successfully so as to cheat the
United States government, to cheat the State of
Pennsylvania and to cheat the Union Pacific
Railroad Company The matter was not COM
pleted until about the middle of October, and
Brooks had become a government director on
the 1st of October. There was not the slight
est evidence that Mr. Brooks ever considered
himself as anything but full f1edged govern
ment director; there was no evidence that he