The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1880-12-03
WAS GEN. GARFIELD TEMPTED TO
SUICIDE?
[Erom Che New York sun.l

tFrom the New York SUM-
In the astonishing letter addressed to
Gen. Garfield by his old friend Dom
Piatt, we get a view of the Credit
Mobilier scandal entirely different
from that presented by Judge Black,
another friend of Gartield's who knew
the facts about his business with Cakes
Ames.
To Judge Black, as an astute lawyer,
a public man of vast experience, and
friend whose fidelity never swerved,
Gen. Garfield went for advice when the
consequences of his lapse from virtue
began to threaten him with ruin.
Judge Black gave him the counsel of a
lawyer and a friend. He urged him to
admit the fact of the transaction, which
in his intercourse with trusted friends
Gen. Garfield had never thought of
denying, and to put his defence, on the
most advantageous ground-the plea
that corrupt motive was wanting.
But Gen. Garfield decided to risk the
other course. To the first sin he added
the heavier weight of perjury. To the
grief of friends who had known his
weak ness of character, but had never
believed him capable of deliberate
wickedness, he went upon the stand
and took oath to what they knew to be
a lie.
Interesting as is the view which
Judge Black gives us of Gen, Garfield,s
bearing at this crisis in the develop
ment of his moral character, it is not
by any means complete. While a
friend, Judge Black was still Il LAWYER.
LPS SRably had more federation for
g @l 5cowardice than for the
40 ~ folly which Gen. Garfield
q z .ys TIn his choice of the fatal
49, e the keen personal suffer-
Ss,,st6l -friend, beset by temptation.
Ably, Of S5oy terrible perplexities, hesita.
tween natural, preference to do
Repn1 was rightand powerful impulse
Cls2lo what seemed to him expedieut.
5cddge Black, perhaps, had little
Knowledge. lie was not friend from
whom an unhappy wretch would be
likely y seek sympathy for the inner
anguish of guilt and fear. 1t was the
legal and not the psychological phase
of his troubles that chiefly concerned
Judge Black.
Col. Dom Piatt, however, is a man
constituted for friendship of different
sort. Intimate, as he says, with Gen.
Garfield from the time when they both
occupied. a cheap boarding. house. he
had been in the habit of sharing with
him the burden of difficulties and the
joy of triumphs. Piatt is accustomed
to look at affairs from an emotional
rather than an intellectual point of
view. Without caring particle for
the question of guilt or innocence or
the. means to be adopted to shield the
one or demonstrated the other, he would
have felt the liveliest sympathy with
his friends sufferings, and would have
been fully informed of every new
phase of Gen. Garfield's mental an
guish.
What, then, does Dom Piatt mean
when he reminds Gen. Garfield Of that
ssdarkest hour of your (Garfield's) life.
when life itself seemed so horrible that
an escape from it was temptation ?''
There seems to be no doubt that this
darkest hour of life, when life itself
was SO horrible, refers to the time of
the Credit Mobilier Investigation, and
not to the later troubles in which the
De Golyer bribe involved Gen. Gar
field. The earlier experience was the
crucial one. Then, SO far as we are
aware, Gen. Garfield had never before
been accused of corruption and had
never been tempted to forswear him
self. When the facts in regard to the
pavement fee forced Gen. Garfield to
the stand second time to defend his
reputation and to engage in desperate
struggle for political existence, he had
necessarily become hardened to the
idea of perjury. 1t was the first con-
temptation of the crime that cost him
the intensest suffering. But was the
agony of that first struggle so great
that he actually took suicide into con-
sideration rs n means of escape from
dishonor? This is what Dom Piatts
"Reminiscences plainly alleges.
If Gen. Garfield thought even for
moment of depriving himself of life
rather than to swear falsely in the
name of God, the fact is creditable to
him, and Damn Piatt has done his
friend service in making'it public.