Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1882-10-05

city. The rebels had possession o
Lexington. bis houss, . brick house
was occupied by The rebels. WheI
our forces marched in and got posses
J SION they tore il down. Now ther'
were hundreds OF millions Of that clas
iof claims from West Virginia mainly
Now, DR.. Best's claim was presented
many years ago; it passed both houses
Of Congress and was vetoed BY Gen
ersl Grant on the ground that thai
class of claims could not be allowed
for if they should be it would bank
rupt the Treasury Of the United
States. | set ny face there against
il not SO much these two claims
l would not have felt hurt il
they had been allowed; bat there were
hundreds of millions of claims that
we're rotten to the very core. But We
had to adopt a principle. The FIRST
case of the kind, as all our committees
would know, were referred to me and
/ reported on them the principle that
| thought ought to govern the COM
mittee, and they unanimously sus.
tanned me. l reported the Best case
and the Lexington. Missouri, case to
Congress in an adverse report and they
were laid away. In little while,
do not know what did it, / found a
majority of our committee voting for
the same class of cases and passing
them; and among them was a case
known as the Carroll case. There was
General Carroll about the city, as
learned, for he met me several times,
as fine looking gentleman as ever
was, who would tap you on the shoul-
der and talk nicely to you'll found
his case favoraply considered by the
committee. Iresisted it in the COM
mittee, but they over-rode me and 1t
passed and went on the calendar.
Well. / said, all can do is to fight it
in the House and see whether they
will pass 1t. 1t came up in the House
for open discussion, and they made a
little speech in its behalf and turned
it over TO our side, and our side put
me up and | made little speech
against it. We defeated it by about
a thirds or a three-fourths vote
over the report of the committee. be-
cause the House could be informed of
the real condition of that Carroll
claim. Now, will tell you what it
was really In point of fact, as we
learned by an investigation. 1t was
land helu near Washington and the
Union forces came along there and
cut down a lot of timber and piled it
up together to serve as.breastworks to
fight off the rebels temporarily and
they we're called forts; and this was
claim of $50, 900 put in there for ma
terial to build forts around Washing
ton City during the war, laughter
wien / know that all the land and all
the timber and everything on it was
not worth fifteen thousand dollars.
Well, we defeated that.
l would like to give you some more
cases but | have not time to do it.
Let me give you one as an illustra-
tion of another class. You take up a
case, and / am somewhat accustomed
to investigation, as you know, and
when you look over the papers you
see something that excites your
suspicious. We did in that case. We
finally found that it was claim Of
some $4,000 for stock taken from d
particular island where Union Col
onel by the name of Thompson had
taken the stock and used 1t for the
Union army. Well, Mr.. Updegraff,
of Iowa, who was on the committee
with us, said: "Why, Mr.. Thompson
is member of our present Congress-"
and we sent for him. Mr.. Thompson
came in and made statement to our
committee. Said he, when I went
on that island there was not hoof on
it. 1t was as bare as the floor about
me, and l took a scout of men and
went ten miles off the island to get the
first beef that my men had to eat"
Yet there was a claim fully proved by
affidavit that he had come on that is.
land and bearded together hundreds
and thousands of cattle and then the
Union men had eaten them all up
laughter1
Now, ! assure you my friends, that
there are cords of those cases piled up
there, one upon another, basely and
wlckedly fraudulent, and they ought
to be defeated this long after the war.
We should not override the statute Of
limitations, and allow these claims to
come in, when the government has
lost its proof. But I must not spend
any more time upon this matter.
REDUCTION OF INTERNAL REVENUE TAXES.
This overfowing treasury led me to
favor measure that only minority
Of Democrats voted for; that is, for a
reduction of internal revenue. You
know, fellow Democrats, that the in
ternal revenue, as contradistinguished
from our external tariff revenue, was
q war measure. Our fathers never
liked it, although in the war Of 1872
and at other times, as a war measure
they adopted it; but they got rid Of
it just as soon as they could; and the
people want to get rid of all this in
ternal revenue as fast as the income
will permit US to take 1t of. Now,