The Portland daily press., 1876-04-22
The Secret Service Fund Slander

Thursday morning Washington specials
declared that testimony had been taken be-
fore the committee on expenditures in the
department Of justice to the effect that in
1871 money to the amount of $500, and in
1872 to the amount of $4,000, was taken
from the appropriations for the detection and
punishment of crime, and paid to John 1.
Davenport, then United States commissioner
and supervisor of elections in New York, TO
be used for election purposes in that city.
The money was paid over by Detective
Whitley, then chief of the secret service,
upon the order of Attorney-G General Williams,
for the ostensible purpose of fdetecting frauds,
but the charge was made that it was actually
used for ordinary election purposes, in the
interest of the Republican ticket in the Presi-
dental election. This charge was declared
to be supported by testimony given by Will
liams, who stated to the committee that he
protested against the payment of the money
as diversion of the funds from the purpose
for which they were intended and neededt
but that the President insisted that Daven-
port should have the money.
Such was the story put forth by the Demo-
cratic members of the committee. 1t now
appears that it is false, and that there is o
material difference between the facts as testi-
fled to by Colonel Whitley and ex-Attorney-
General Williams, and the construction put
upon them by the Democratic investigators
who fastened to newspaper row and sent a
false report over the country. 1t is sta.
ted on the best authority, says the Wash.
ington correspondent of the Boston Id.
oertiser, whose account we follow, tina
neither Whiteley nor Williams testified
or believe that the money paid out of the Sc
cret service fund was paid illegally or improp.
eriy. The impression that they did so testi-
fy was ingeniously created by the statemen:
that both said they protested against the Pay
ments, and made them only under specific
orders from President Grant. Judge viii.
liams' own statement is that he told the COM
mittees not that he protested, but that he was
unwilling to send the money to New York,
and so informed the President, believing it
was needed more elsewhere. He says tha.
while the President was in New York Daven-
port explained to him his plan of registration
for the prevention of illegal voting The
President was struck with its efficiency, and
on his return to Washington urged the Attor-
ney-General to furnish Davenport with
means from the fund for the detection and
punishment of crime, to enable him to carry
out his plans. Whiteley's so-called protest
was simply an objection to paying the money
at first, not because he thought the transac-
tion illegal, but because he wanted to know
as head Of the secret service, charged with
the expenditure of the fund in question, pre-
cisely for what the money was paid.
Thus it appears that the money was legit-
imately expended, that the transaction was a
defensible one, and that the whole affair has
about it no touch of illegality. Indeed the
plan has reduced the expense of the govern
ment supervision of electors in New York
5000. 1t is of course too much to expect
that Democratic newspapers will state the
case as it is. They will continue TO assert
that the money was used as campaign fund.