Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-08-05

Mr.. Sage to Mr.. Titon.
Brooklyn, July 3lst, 1874.
Theodore Tilton, Esq. Dear Sir Il am
instructed by the committee to state that the
letters and documents referred to in your
statement presented to US have not been de-
livered, Notwithstanding your several promis-
es to furnish them.
As your statement in the absence of these
documents is deprived of its greater force,
we think you should desire to place them in
our possession and desire to impress oa you
the Importance Of delivering them to US at
your earliest convenience.
Very truly yours,
(Signed) II. w. SAGE, Chairman.
Mr.. Tilton to Mr.. Sage.
IA Livingston street,
Brooklyn, Aug. 3, "A.
Mr.. Henry w. Sage, Chairman of the Com
My Dear Sir Il have Just received your
note of July 81, four days after date. Unless
you accidentally mis- dated it the commune
cation should have come to me several days
ago. This leads me to recall a similar dila-
toriness of the delivery of your original note,
first summoning me before your committee,
which received only four hours before was
to appear, and yet the summons bore date of
the day previous.
But let these trifes pass. Your note just
received surprised me by its contents, for you
seem to have forgotten that on the last day
of my appearance before your committee, |
carried to your meeting not only all the docu-
ments which quoted in my sworn statement
(save those in Mr.. Moulton's posse ssion), but
many more besides, making a double handful
Of interesting and important papers vital to
my case and destructive to yours.
All these papers proposed to lay before
you, but no soonershad begun to read aloud
in your presence, than one of your attorneys
stopped me in the reading and proposed that
should save the committee time by referring
these papers to one of your memt ers, the Hon.
John Winslow. | acquiesced in this question
and retired from your committee, with the ex-
pectation of a speedy conference with Mr..
Winslow. Perhaps it was my proper duty to
have called on Mr.. Winslow, but as the whole
committee had previously set the example of
calling in body on one of the other parties
to this controversy, took it for granted that
Mr. Winslow would repeat the precedent by
doing me the honor to call at my house, at
which he would be a welcome guest. But
while waiting for his coming, l was called
upon instead by policeman, who arrested
me, and carried me at thirty minutes notice
before Justice Riley's Police Court to answer
the charge of libelling the Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher, against whom l had spoken not
libel, but the truth. Up to the time of this
arrest, had employed no lawyer, not need
ing any, but on finding myself before Police
Court, and not understanding the motives of
my arrest, nor the methods of courts | re-
quested my friend, Judge S. d. Morris to an
swer for me in a technical proceeding, in
which knew not how to answer properly for
myself.
Twice already have been before this I'M
expected tribunal, and may be called before it
third time on Wedne sday next. Meanwhile
my counsel to whom have shown your note,
instructs me to lay no documents, papers or
remaining testimony before your coHmitte,
nor have any further communication with you
in any form, except to send you this present
and final letter containing the reasons for this
step. These reasons are the following;
First, You are committee of Mr.. Beecher's
friends appointed by himself, expected to see
in his behalf, assisted by others employed ex-
clusively for his vindication; holding secret
sessions inaccessible to the public, having no
power to compel witnesses, giving no oppor-
tunity for the opposite eide to cross-examlne
such as voluntarily appear, publishing or snr-
pressing their testimony as you see fit, and so
far as my own experience goes, asking no
questions, save such as were irrelevant to the
case and emitting to publish in your imperfect
and unjust report of my testimony, all that
was most pertinent to my own side of the con-
troversy.
Second, The daily papers of Brooklyn and
Troy have been artfully fed, day by day, with
crumbs of fictitious evidence against my own
character, as if not Mr.. Beecher, but l alone
were the man on the trial, and though have
little right perhaps to hold your committee
responsible for this daily misrepresentation
which may come through the malice of others,
yet the result is the same to me as if you had
deliberately designated it, and tina. result is
this. namely: l expect no justice, neither
from your tribunal (since you cannot compel
witnesses to testify, nor from your reporters,
SINCE they do not give impartial reports.
Third, l cannot reach the conviction
(though mean no offence in expressing it)
that your committee has come at last to be as
little satisfactory to the public as to myself,
and that your verdict (if you render one)
could not possibly be based upon full facts,
since you have no power to compel witnesses
nor to verify their testimony by oath, nor to
sift it by cross-examination. For these rea-
sons, which ought to have moved me earlier,