The Andrew County Republican. [volume] (Savannah, Mo.) 1871-1876, 1873-03-07
IS The Greatest Of These is Charity.o

MI. COd1aGs mas new accuSer. InlS
time he is not newspaper ibeler, nor
professional slanderer. He is not con-
victed briber like Ames, nor a proven
perjurer, like McComb. He is minis
ter, an honorable man a follower of
Him who charged the pastor as well as
the flock not to bear false witness against
his neighbor. On Sunday morning Mr.
Robert Laird Collier preached ser
mont? to q large congregation on "Our
National Modification a Pulpit Review
of the Credit Mobilier Scandal" in
which, among other things, he said
that she wanted to impress upon his
hearers the fact that it was wrong in the
first place to own Credit Mobilier stock
at all" Having taken upon himself this
assumption, placing himself above the
Committee of Investigation, Who have
declared exactly to the contrary, Mr.
Collier thus proceeded tospeak of Mr..
Colfax:
"To begin at the beginning, Mr.. Sen
ator Nye could not say to Vice President
Colfax what he is reported to have said
to Mr.. Senator Patterson-that if he
wished to get ont n patent for a fool he
should deposit him ut the Patent Office
for model. Those who have known
Mr.. COlfax best have never mistaken
him for II fool. No man in America ever
played small card better, or on less
capital did a larger bnsmess He was
fortunate in being citizen of Indiana,
which, without great repute for enight-
enment, has extended renown for re-
ligion. That he was suitable man to
represent his State Indiana has verify
believed.
"When publicly accused of being
party to the Pacific railroad job, we all
understand that these are the exact
words of his full, fiat, explicit, and, for
the time, efficient denial: .
L" Neither Oakes Ames nor any other
person ever gave or offered to give me
one share, or twenty shares, or two thou
sand shares, in the Credit Mobilier or
any other railroad stock; and unfortu-
nateiy ! have never seen or received the
value of farthing ont of the 30 per
cent. dividends, nor the 800 per cent.
dividends in cash, stock, and bonds You
have read about every day for the past
month, nor 100 per cent, nor per cent,
nor the one-tenth of | per cent.
How pitiable, how solemnly sad, this
asseveration in the light of these recent
Investigations, testimonies and confess
sions.
"Aud what does Mr.. Colfax mean
when he asks for a suspension of public
opinion?' This is a solecism. Opinions
are not passive, but active cannot be
kept i'll allegiance or held in suspense.
And the public are decidedly of the
opinion that lie has been told and
sworn to-"
Now, mark how plain tale shall put
this reverend defamer down We take
it that the equiyocator is rs base rs the
falsitier; the man who deliberately omits
words in a sentence that changes its
meaning is as bad rs he who interpolates
them for the same purpose. Whether
or not Mr. Collier has done this We leave
the reader to Judge, after observing the
following facts: The New York SIM,
the Chicago Tribune, and other papers,
charged last summer that Mr.. Colfax,
among others, had been yiren certain
number of shares for favoring the
schemes of the Credit Mobilier--to use
their words "bribcd to put Mc craft
! .NObiiicr Through congress and that
Colfax had received in dividends on this
stock given him 500, ,020. To this charge
Mr.. Colfax replied in his speech at South
Bend. The words quoted by Mr.. Collier
were in answer to this explicit charge,
not in denial of the fact that he had ever
owned stock. This is known to the Chi
cago Times, the Tribune, and every
other paper now attempting to show the
contrary, and was doubtless known also
to Mr.. Collier. But this is not all. 1t
is a part of the stock in trade of papers
| like the ones named to misrepresent
those who happen to disagree with them
politically; still they are less guilty than
Mr. Collier, because they Mt one time
gave the Vice-President the benefit OF
his statement, while the former quotes
only the solitary sentence, without any
explanation whatever. We now call the
attention Of the Times, the Tribune,
and Mr.. Robert Laird Collier, to the fol
lowing extracts from Mr.. Colfax's speech,
and ask them all whether the construc-
ton they seek to put upon his language
is not an open and disgraceful perversIon
of it. Speaking of the charge that
stock had been given by Oakes Ames,
and that 800 per cent. dividends had
been declared, Mr.. Coifax said:
81 never had in my life dollar of
stock of any kind that / did not pay .Jor.
/ claim the right to buy stock III the
Credit Mobilier, or the Credit 1mmobi-
lier if there is one III the Union Pacific,
or Central, or Lake Shore, or South
Bend and Plymouth railroads. Nor do
know of any law forbidding it. II
there is a man in all our 10000, 900 OF
people, who know me, who believes
could be influenced hair's-breadth il
private or public life by the purchase OF
any stocks in any company, l should moi
value his good opinion as worth any
more than his evil one. / am proud t.
say, too, that in all my public life NJ
man ever dared to make me dishonest
proposition. Do l need to add tha
neither Oakes Ames nor any other per
son ever gave or offered to give me on,
share, twenty shares, or two thOusant
shares in the Credit Mobilier, or an,
other railroad stock, and that unfortu
nately l have never seen nor received th'
value of farthing out of the 270 pc
cent. dividends, nor the 800 per cent
dividends you have read about for tn
last month, nor 100 per cent, nor on
, per cent, nor the tenth of one per cent
, l have said that if twenty shares of j
could be purchased at par without buy
ing into a prospective lawsuit it woult
be good investment" etc.
How was this explanation received Il
the time? As denial by Mr.. Colfax o
! his ever having any connection witt
that organization Not at all. On tn
contrary, the very papers now quoting
the sentence referred to show this, the
luakad Il and a&har montana nf III