Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-07-09
4 Baseless Charge.

The back-pay "charge" is as base
less as anything can be. Mr.. Garfield
voted against the amendment to the
Legislative, Executive, and Judicial
Appropriation bill providing for in
creased salaries in every form and at
every stage. But, when the amend
ment was tackled on in spite of him, he
voted for the whole bill, as Chairman of
the Appropriation Committee, being in
charge Of it himself. In aspeech in the
House December 9, 1873, Mr.. Wilson,
of Indiana, said on this subject:
It matters not how many years of faithful
service had been devoted TO the country, nor
how exalted character for integrity had been
builded up, this one act has been deemed an
unpurdOnable crime. My distinguished friend
from Ohio tMr. Garfield, who struggled against
1t until In conference report which he had
resisted to the last 1t was brought before the
House attached TO one of the most important
appropriation bills, and then as all of us who
are familiar with the facts most confidently
believe and 1t is hut justice TO say so herel
voted for II in the conscientious discharge of
his duty to his country, has Jared no better
than any one else.
Mr.. Garfield was one of the first
members of Congress to return back
pay and the most earnest advocate of
the bill repeating the increase. Speak
ing in reply to Alexander Stephens,
who advocated still higher salaries, Mr..
Garfield said
One Of the brightest and greatest men
know In this Nation, man who, perhaps, has
done as much for rs intellectual life rs any
other told me not many months ago that he
had made II the rule Of his life TO abandon any
intellectual pursuit the moment 1t became
commercially valuable; that others would uti-
lie what he had discovered; that his field of
work was above the line of commercial values
and when he brought down the great truths of
science from the upper heights TO the level Of
commercial values Il thousand hands would be
ready TO take them and make them valuable in
the markets of the world.
A YOioe-Who was he2
Mr.. Garheld-lt was Agassiz. He entered
upon his great career, not for the salary It gave
him, for that was meRRer compared with the
pay of those in tho lower walks OF life; but he
followed the prumptings of his great nature
and worked for the love Of truth and for the
instruction of mankind. Something Of this spir-
Il has pervaded the lives of the great men who
did 50 much % build up ana maintnin our he-
publican institutions. And this spirit is, in
my Judgment higher and wOrthler than that
which the gentleman from Georgia tMr. Ste
phcnsl has described. To come Immediately
to the question before us, join IN no crimina-
tions against those who used their right to
vote and act differently from myself on this
subject. But when the public says to me, and
10 those associated with me, that we have,
under constitutional law, given ourselves
more pay than that public ls willing TO grant
on such question to resist that public
opinion.
Intelligent readers may judge wheth-
er Mr.. Garfield, in his speech, exhibited
the spirit of salary-grabber or sor-
did politician. He spoke simply as he
had acted all his life through. He has
not been u money-maker. He has not
made money. Spite of his great abili-
ties as lawyer and literary man, he
is one of the poorest public men in the
Nation, and at the same time one of the
most frugal, Industrious and temperate
-IOtOa State Register.