Morning journal and courier., 1880-06-23
AWKWARD,

Whether Senator McDonald of Indiana is or is not on the national ticket of his party, a report which he made in the last days of l the session of Congress which has just ended seems likely to give him some trouble and he may yet have to make an explanation of his action. This report was in relation to two of the awards made by the mixed commis- sion against the Mexican government, and the amount involved is nearly million and a quarter dollars. The Mexican government
 has always protested that the two awards re- ferred to were fraudulent. Just before the adjournment of the commission proofs were laid before Sir Edward Thornton, the ium-
 pire, who said that they pointed strongly to fraud and perjury on the part of the Ameri-
 can claimants. He added that he had no
 power to review his decisions, but that he
 doubted whether this government would in
 sist upon the payment of claims shown to be
 founded upon perjury, and that if perjury
 should be proved hereafter none would re-
 joice more than the umpire himself should
 his decision be reversed When the bill for
 the distribution to the various claimants of
 the moneys paid by Mexico to the United
 States was before the Senate, these proofs
 were laid before the Judiciary committee
 The Judiciary committee were satisfied that
 an investigation of the two claims denounced
 as fraudulent was needed and so reported
 In spite of the efforts of the claimants an in
 vestigation was finally ordered and it was made by the Secretary of State, who reported that while, for reasons of public policy, it would not be expedi- ent to retry them by new mixed commis- sion, yet the honor of the United States did require that the two cases should be further investigated.
 A bill to carry out the Secretarys recom-
 mendations was introduced and referred to
 the Judiciary committee, and Senator McDon- aid had control of it as chairman of sub-
 committee. What happened after this we give in the words of the careful and reliable | Washington correspondent of the Boston Ad- 1 vertiser ''The claimants were very active, l and having large interests at stake disbursed freely to the lobby. Their headquarters I were at Voorhees, committee room, and long
 before McDonald's report was presented they l confdentially asserted that it would be against ] the investigation and that they would get 1 their money. The report was purposely 1 brought up at session when only five of the 1 nine members of the Judiciary committee | were present, and was adopted by four votes l "a minority of the committee. It reverses 1 completely the previous action of the com mittee. In addition to this the report pre- sents strong contrast to the frequently ex-
 pressed opinions of McDenald himself in fla vor of investigation, and it is evidently an artful contrivance to shut of inquiry and se-
 cure the payment of claims pronounced by high authority to be fraudulent. The expec-
 tations of the claimants were fully realized so far as the Senate was concerned, but the House Foreign Affairs committee made a
 contrary report on the same day, and this 1 will probably stop the payment of the claims
 until more deliberate action can be had in
 Congress
 The action of Senator Mcdonald is the sub
 ject of severe criticism at Washington among
 those acquainted with the facts. It certainly
 seems to have been neither consistent or free
 from cause for suspicion.