National Republican., 1874-05-29

| or by Mr.. Cluss's own order. You understand,
wish to be explicit as 60 along. Now, here
| is where my fault was, and hold myself re-
sponsible for IL. ] should have asccrtained
who was doing that work and notified the par
ties that it was not the Board of Public Works,
That I did not do, and when the bills were
| ignored and refused, I was considerably
alarmed about It. To be very candid, in the
feeling between everybody, Mrs. Williams,
the Attorney General, the contractors, myself,
and all. Thatis what Twas trying for, and
then to be very candid, self controlled all my
actions. ! Thought 10 possible might be big
loser, and went to work to endeayor 10 man
4 age Il, and worked Il along, think, very judi
ciously. commenced first with three hundred
apiece-that is for the two contractors, Mr..
Riley ami Mr.. Clark. Mind you, l never
! spoke to Mr.. Clark except to old Mr.. Clark.
They offered to compromise; affer that, Mr..
Riley brought suit against the board. went
to see Mr.. Crittenden, his lawyer, and by a
ststemsnt that Mr.. Riley and l made, we
agreed to a compromise by. payment OF $3.50,
| making $500 apiece. Mind you, II never saw
Mr.. Clark to my knowledge except once, pos
sibly. It was Clark, the elder, with whom l
was talking. The transaction was carried
along through him; and in this very building
Mr. Riley told me that he would take cheer
] fully $500 and quit the whole thing. He said
il Eo could get $500, he would then give the
him on the stand and he will not deny it.
| Q. The board refused to pay that A. The
| board had no more to do with 1t than you gen.
tlemen. Don't / tell you why did it Twas
afraid of getting into lawsuit, and the board
lignored it In the most emphatic manner.
| @. Who was to pay the money! A. did
| think Mrs. Williams would pay some; and, TO
be very candid, IL Mrs. Williams had not paid,
rather than to have lawsuit, do not know
| but that myself would have done II. I am
telling you Gods truth. Self governed me out
and out, and good feeling also.
| Q. Why was not the 5000 paidi A. would
have paid the $500 from my own pocket:
I could have gotten along very well with Mr..
Clark and Mr.: Riley both, but when we got
up to this $500 money was very scare, and
| actually and truthfully we had not the money
| to pay the $500. Then when we came to $3.50
we had not that, and when we got down to $500
would have paid mine, and then thought If
did 1t might look little hshy. Ihaye always
| borne good character In this community ever
since came into it, and I want to 90 out OF it
as I came In.
By Mr.. Wilson: Q. Do you recognize this
letter as being the one you sent to the Board
of Public Worksi Handing witness letter.
A. Yes, fir; that is mine.
Q. You say In this letter that Governor Shep-
herd directed you verbally to do this work in
| way that would suit the taste of Mrs. Williams.
Is that the facti A. Yes, sir; it is. 1 may
have gone little farther than Governor Shep-
herd, since when am writing about ladies l
go little on the fantastic.
@. This is the report of your proceedings to
the Board Of Public Worksl A. Yes, sir. If
you 90 and look over my reports, some Of them
to Vice President Willard, you will find some
Of them are very funny.
| Q. don't see anything funny about this.
A. don't say Governor Shepherd told me that
Ito suit her taste" 49,.
Q. You did say 20 In this report to the
board. A. 1t may be SO that he told me.
think if he did not say that he meant it.
Q. You reported 1t according TO your under
standing of this order2 A. Yes, sir. My idea
was that the two lots occupied by the house,
is all correct, with the Exception, perhaps, Of
what is said there about Mrs. Williams, -.
By Mr.. Mattingly: Q. State as to what you
understood by the word premises" whether
1t was inside OF the lot, or outside, over which
the board had terrsced. A. think it was
what the board had terrseed outside. If there
is any mistake assume the entire RESPONSE
bility. 90.
ADOLF CLUss RECALLED.
By Mr.. Wilson: @. What do you know about
this work, that these witnesses have Just been
speaking of, having been ordered to be donel
A. Well, sir, to the best of my recollection,
some time about the middle of November Mr..
Riley and Mr.. Clark came and brought q bill
for days work done on that square up there;
and did not know anything of 1t, and 1 went
out there. / took Mr.. Barney out. AS soon
as we got there we found that this bill of
about 81 600 was only bill up to the LIST of
that month, and that already there was an
other bill of about 81 100, and the work was
still going on, SO 1 told him to stop at once.
sent out an engineer to measure what had been
done, so as to be able to come to some conclu-
sion. Mr.. Franklin went there and brought
the following statement: "Grading by Riley 4
Clark on square 159, from alley, LII cubic
yards; north of alley, on the lot, 2,S26 yards; |
on Rhode Island avenue, 2s9 yards; Attorney |
altogether, 9. .4S7 yards"
Well, consulted with the members of the |
board as to what this was, and by and by we |
found that the order, most likely unguardedly, |
had been given to Mr.. Hill. Under the cir
cumstances, l construed that order that the |
alleys around Mr.. Williams property should |
be graded, and so proposed to make out the |
bills. There seemed to be some difference of
opinion about it, and they wanted to do the |
best they could under the circumstances. So,
several weeks afterward, on December IL, re-
ceived the following letter:
BOARD OF PUBLIC woRKs,)
wAsHfsGros, Dec. S Z isPs. A
SIR: You are requested to propose contract |
with Messrs. Riley & CLARK for filling alleys In |
square lao, and for parking Rhode Island avenue,
(north side, between Seventeenth street and Con-
necticut avenue.
BY order Of the board;
CHAS. 8. JOHNSON, Secretary,
Hon. AdoV Clnss, Engineer in Charge.
1 put in led pencil under 1t, "This refers to J
the order of October H." The letter was
written in order to make the record straight |
for his work which had previously been done,
- A. a. IA
Q. Before you proceed further will ask |
whether you knew anything about this work |
being carried on BY Messrs. Riley g. Clark until
the time you went out there as you have saidl |
A. That is the first knew of it. Then on JAN |
uary the following bills were made, "Riley |
& Clark, Rhode Island avenue" This was |
for terracing in front of the street line.
Q. Was that contract madei A. The con-
tract was executed on December IA, and It |
hung on until some time in January.5. These |
bills were made, one for this terracing, which |
is nearly in the street line; and II is right and
proper charge. The second, for lit yards of |
grading, which was taken out from the alleys |
In Attorney General Williams square, and is |
again q proper charge. But, then again, in |
fill alleys which took instead Of 1,177 yards |
1000 yards more; and then this 4, 900 yards |
more, since Messrs. Riley & Clark had another |
contract awarded, was to be made so, of course, |
that he had to obtain this dirt from private |
sources. And so he was paid for 900 yards |
for this which was done upon the lots.
By Mr.. Stewart: Q. Filling up that public |
alleyl A. Yes, sir; that is that transaction. |
That is all I know of this; but then we come to |
another point. have read here that my name |
is on some former voucher that refers to the |
same transaction- |
Q. Before you leave that. Then the charges |
made out and paid by the board were for tor
racing Rhode Island avenue within the street |
line, and for the alley, and then you also al |
lowed him for filling this public alley, all Of
which belongs TO the city7 A. Yes, sir.
Q. Those are the items In the bill which were |
paidi A. Yes, sir. -r..-E-- a-.r
Q. And that makes the transaction 90 far as |
the bill that WIS paid Is concerned proper |
charge against the District government A. |
We did the best We could under the circum- |
stances: We thought, perhaps, 1t was un-
guardedly made.
Q. That is as near as you could arrive at III |
A. Yes, SIR; but didn't know until read be- |
fore was coming here-l did not know that |
had already paid from the same lot S1,-
150.95. ~. ....t
The Chairman. That turns out not to be true. |
was laboring under the same impression, but |
l find was mistaken. It was not from this |
lot at all.
Witness. You see Il Is charged on that bill to |
Rhode Island avenue. When this bill came to |
fo,,nd an ~ tbatt thfe 1uorb nrdarad d.