Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-05-11

l
property of the United States, shall have their
| first consideration in the committee of the
| whole, and all Senate amendments to House
| bills not german to the subject matter of the
bill as passed by the House, shall have the
| same consideration. Ordered printed and laid
| over for consideration.
The speaker called the committees for re-
ports of private nature. and the bill to aid
| the improvement of the dismal swamp canal,
guaranteeing the government to the payment
Of interest of the bonds of the company to.the
amount not exceeding $4,000, was referred to
| the committee of the whole.
| The House then went into committee of the
whole, Mr.. Knapp in the chair, on the private
| calendar.
The pending business, the William and
Mary college bill, being passed over without
action, Mr. Goode stating he would not press
the BILL the session bill appropriating $500
to Richard Heater of Virginia, for stores and
supplies taken by the United States army, led
to discussion.
Mr.. Keifer advocated the bill, stating that
Heater had been loyal through the war and had
a son in the Union Army.
Mr.. Bragg opposed the bill. He had been in
Virginia during the war and never heard of a
citizen of that State loyal to the Union.
Loyalty in Virginia meant loyalty to Virginia.
Mr.. Hunton stated that during the war there
had been number of people in Virginia who
remained as loyal to the Union as any one north
of the Potomac.
Mr.. Finley called attention to the fact that
these war claims were all defeated because the
Republican party seeking to make party
capital in claiming that the Confederate House
was going to pay enormous war claims.
Mr.. Thornburgh advocated the bill. There
had been no distinction made by the Union
army during the war between loyal persons in
| the South and confederates He was in favor
of paying the claim of Southern men who had
remained loyal when to be loyal meant some
ill., ocl Go,,+h l,o4
had been paid, or that were now pending,
would not amount to one-tenth the losses sus-
tanned by such men.
Taking that admission as a basis Mr. Mcmahon
proceeded to make speech in regard to the
subject Of war claims. He read from speech
made at Marietta in August, 1876, by John
Sherman, in which he stated that a hundred
million dollars had been paid by the Republican
party for loyal war claims. Taking that state
ment in connection with the admission just
made, that not one-tenth of tho claims had
| been paid, it would be seen that if the Repub-
licans obtained majority in the House they
would pay out 5000, 000 900 more for the pay
mcnt of such claims.
Mr. Thornburgh stated he meant that not
one-tcnth Of the loyal claims had been paid.
| This gave rise to colloquy between Messrs.
Thornburgh and Mcmahon, as to whether the
Republican party had paid disloyal claims, in
| the course of which Mr.. Mcmahon called atten-
ton to the fact that the Republican House had
twice passed the William and Mary bill, about
which the Republicans we're endeavoring to
make party capital.
Mr. Kiefer denied that the bill had been
| passed by Republican Congress, and discus
sion took place between him and Mr.. Mcmahon,
| the latter criticlsing Mr.. Kiefers course in adj
vocating the passage of the bill under consid-
eration and then stumping Ohio and making
party capital by hypocritically talking about
| war claims.
In the course of Mr.. Refers speech, which
was frequently interrupted by his colleague,
| Mcmahon, he said his colleagues suggestion
that he, Keifcr, undertook to make political
capital out of this matter, came from spirit
that lay deep in his colleagues bosom, spirit
of demagoguery.
Mr. McMahon retorted with remark to the
effect that the hypocrisy of his colleague and
of the Republican side of the House, in the
matter of war claims, had been unveiled. He
Mcmahon, had never voted for paying the
claims of either loyal or disloyal man. He
had even voted against the William and Mary
college bill, because it would open the doors tt
other claims behind it.
Mr.. Goodc remarked that most of these wal
| claims came from men who had been really
loyal to the Union. Those who had not beer
so who had staked their all on the struggle ane
having lost, accepted the result as the fate O.
war.
Mr.. Cabell took the same ground, and said
great many Southern people, whenst assent
ed to the secession movement, had burned tn
bridges behind them and never expected to asl
Congress to pay for their losses.
Mr.. Blair suggested the Democratic side o
the House ought not to present to sustain
fraudulent claims
Mr.. White, Pennsylvania, spoke with muc
warmth of the prosecutions of Southern loyal
lists in Libby prison.
|, publican ide of the chamber, and had istene
, calmly but with evident disrelish, to MI
Whites remarks, replied to them, and denie
emphatically that any unnecessary or avoida
BILE privations had been imposed on fedora
prisoners in confederate hands, and imputc
to the federal government the blame for sue
privations, in refusing to allow exchange {
prisoners. He deprecated the introduction {
such q topic into debate.
MIR. Thompson expressed his humiliation ;
what he called the unstatesmanlik
and unpatriotic reason given
: the gentleman from Ohio (Finley) for nc
voting for any of these war claims-ihat tt
Republican party might seek to make polite
capital out of his act. For his part he WI
ready and willing to vote for the just claims
Southern loyal men who had stood here az
there in the South as unbent as their natl,
pines, and who had been spotted for their 10
atty, and had been persecu ted for it.
Mr.. Hunton challenged Mr.. Thompson to i
:. stance such cases of persecution.
10 Mr.. Cabell repudiated Indignantly that il
10 putation. He spurned the idea that Southel
90 Republicans would either present upho
e any fraudulent claim. The people of t.
IT. South were poor. They had been bereft
- their property and had little left but the
good name. which they hoped and expected
r maintain untarnished. Ninety-nine out
every hundred of these war claims were
= men who, during the war, had been known
- Southern loyalists, and their claims should n
to now be called rebel war claims.
90 Mr.. Thompson argued in support of the bi
t% and asserted that the Republican party b
70 been, in regard to these war claims, genero1
a. liberal and magnanimous.
I'd Mr.. Bright took the floor to close the disc
sion, but at the solicitation of Mr.. White. F
IL yielded one minute to that gentleman.
NJ White thereupon in more excited mann
he even than that which he had exhibited f
or minutes before, took up the same subject, su
in moned before the House the ghostly skelett
rs of Andersonville and other Southern prison
but denied he had any desire to stir up an!
til passions. As he became more and more excl
in his manner, gesticulating vehemently, a
moving across the area toward the Democra
side of the House, he was greeted from t
side with jeering shouts of louder" "loude
ed At the top of his voice he declared he '
he ready to meet the issue raised by the gem
os- man from Virginia, Hunton.
-, Mr.. Vance asked him whether he Mr.. VIII
NJ had been in the Southern army.
0o Mr.. White scornfully answered in the ne
re- tive, but said he had been in the North
INT army and had become prisoner Of war in
lue hands of the confederate army. He there1
,ed knew what he had asserted, and he repea
ro- that the Union men from the valley OF
~ ginia and from eastern Tennessee had been
ne liberately starved in rebel prisons.
Mr.. Eden and other members on the DE
re- cratic side, claimed that Mr.. Whites time
90 expired, and the Chairman SO stated.
~ Mr.. White, however, paid no attention to
all intimations bnt continued amid storm of
OF jections calls to order and other interrupt