Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-06-14
lanraster fntellige1lrer.
MONDAY EVENING, JUNE II, 1880.
Garfleld's Credit Mobilier Record.

MONDAY EVENING JUNE Ia, 1850.
Garfleld's Credit Mobilier Record.
The more thoughtful members of the
Republican party are not disposed to con-
tent themselves with answering the at
tacks on Garfield's record by flippant re-
marks about "mud-throwing'' and the
"licentious press.'' Because these at
tacks proceed from the Democratic jour-
mails and most of the independent news
papers of the country, some of our Re-
publican contemporaries are satisfied
with the declaration that they are mere
partisan sound and fury, of no more
effect in political campaign
than the din of Chinese gongs in
modern warfare. Men of wider compre-
hension see that they are mistaken. 1t
may be that Gen. Garfield did not delib-
erately sell his vote to Oakes Ames, nor
take direct bribe from Richard C. Par
sons to influence his course as chairman
of the committee on appropriations in
reporting the expenditure of the money
needed by the Washington ring to carry
out its schemes of plunder. But the un-
mistakable, undenied and undeniable
facts in Mr.. Garfeld's congressional ca
reer, spread upon the Record and COM
mented upon by the newspapers of his
own party, are such as to fully illustrate
his character before the American people
who are asked to elect him their chief
magistrate.
Gen. Garfield is man of intellectual
ability; he is of scholarly studious
habits, much given to philosophizing on
subjects of political economy and theo-
ries of legislation. When he was
detected as one of the beneficiaries of
Oakes Ames's patronage in the Credit
MObilier business, had he frankly said
that he had unwarily allowed his fellow
congressman of eminent business
ability to make an investment for him
which recommended itself to his
superior judgment, without much in
quiry as to it's character, with no
knowledge that it could or was ex-
pected to influence his vote On pending
legislation, the public might have
been led to put charitable construction
on his conduct. This was no doubt Mr..
Garfield's first impulse; but Mr.. Garfield
is not man of moral courage. He
would rather shirk a danger than brave
it. lie saw that public sentiment was
aroused on this Credit Mobilier
question and that any man with
the smell of smoke on his gar.
ments was to he branded as a public
thief. lie concluded to lie out of it. He
became scared, he hesitated and was
lost. lie went the way of Colfax and
though Ohio virtue was easier than that
of the country when it sat in judgment
on Colfax, and Garfield has longer been
endured, he has reached 4 point whence
his fall will be rs certain and all the
harder, because the deeper, than Col.
faX's was.
First Garfield published broad denial
that he had ever had any Crodit Mobilie1
stock. Then Ames showed that he had
been assigned ten shares Garfield said
it was never paid for, and that he never
got any dividends. Then Ames swore
Mr.Garfield did not pay me any money.
sold the bonds belonging to his 81 900 stock
at 81, making $776. In June received a
dividend in cash ON his stock of $500, which
left a balance due him of $329, which
paid him. That is all the transactions he
tween us. did not deliver him any stock
before or since. This is the only transac-
tion and the only thing.
Garfield said this was a loan that he
had made from Ames, after having been
impoverished by a trip to Europe. Then
it was shown that the European trip was
made subsequent to this transaction, and
Il memorandum was produced in Gar
fields own handwriting to show that he
claimed the stock and more dividends on
it than he had received, and, after the
testimony was all in, a committee, of
which Garfield S party friends were in a
majority, reported that Garfield had re.
ceived dividends on the stock, and he
was placed in what the New York Times
called "a most distressing position"
His course in the Washington pave
ment business was very much of the
same character, and illustrated the same
evasive, equivocating disposition, the
same lack of moral courage, and the
same lack of common honesty. Serious
as the charges are in themselves, they are
most important in illustrating the char
acte- of the man. Such man is not fit
to be president. Hayes has much of the
same disposition, and he has been a con-
spicuous failure. His duplicity has ex.
cited the enmity of his own party and
the contempt of the Democracy. The
country wants no more of him and none
like him.
THE heartrending steamboat accident
on Long Island sound had all the ele-
monte Of mOct farrib1o chinurooE an6