The Indianapolis journal., 1883-04-13
TOM OCHILTREE.
A Vivid Description of His Recent Hel
cuiean Struggle to Secure His Pay.

A Vivid Description of His Recent Her
cuiean Struggle to Secure His Pay
Interview in st. Louis Globe Democrat.
'Why, that affair" said he, twas the most
ddmnable and infamous conspiracy ever set
on foot to rob an American Of his birthright
and interfere with the prerogatives of a con-
gresham! 1t was gotten up by lot ofnews-
paper scavengers, a class of cheap Bohemi-
ans, who depend upon their Imagination for
their facts and their memory for their wit
| floating, as it were, on the surface of occa-
sion and trusting to the subimity of luck
l have been a sort of guerrilla journalist my
self, and these fellows were Jealous of me on
account of the big win 1 had made
By blank, sir, l tell you it's no
small honor to have been elected by
5000 majority, from district that includes
the most vigorous city of the South, that ex
tends from Galveston to the Upper Rio
Grande, faces four Mexican States and COW
ers $1,000 square miles, an area five times
larger than the whole blanked State of Massa-
chusetts! Well, as l said before, these envi-
Gus polecats and purveyors OF capital gar
bage raised the hive and cry that l owed the
government $4,000 and under the law
could not draw my congressional salary
They got around an old rattle-brained fellow
named Lawrence, who by some mysterious
dlspensatlon of chance happens to be the
First Comptroller OF the Treasury and
who has mania for opinions
and they made him believe that
L was not entitled TO draw any
money. Think of this jaundce-eyed old
curmudgeon sitting at his desk in the Treas
ury building and writing an opinion that
representative in Congress must not have his
pay! Why, the very genius of our govern
ment is that every public official shall be
paid for his services. The provision was ex-
pressly made to distinguish our institutions
from the ettete systems of Europe, to show
that poverty is no crime, to enable the poor
TO hold office as well as the rich! In England
members of Parliament are not paid, but
how many congressman in America could
getalong without their salary? Why, there
is Senator Logan, who is as poor as a church
mouse and lives in two rooms on his con-
gressional pay. He said the plot to with
hold my pay was outrage, as did Beck
Lamar, Ransom, and all the rest, Repu bic
ans and Democrats. By blank, sir, all of us
are not Windows, Shermans and Blaines!
We can't all get rich and make money, and
it would scatter the American Con-
gress to fragments if the pay
of representatives was withheld. Charles |.
lost his head for an offense that was not
greater than that advised by old Lawrence!
What are the facts in the case? Why, simply,
that while l was United States marshal in
Texas put down the tiercest bands of ku-
klux ever organized in the South. l did this,
not as Packard did in Louisiana, by sending
for government troops, but by summoning
the posse comitatus of entire counties, COM
posed of veteran Confederate soldiers, and
without bloodshed or oppression scattered
the violators of law. To do this cost money
and the sums expended make up the ac-
count which the government now holds
against me. There are dozen senators and
forty or fifty representatives in exactly the
same box, whose pay could be as easily with
held as mine. went to work and got up am
elaborate argument, full of irrefutable au-
thorities, old Lawrence took back his
opinion, and, by the eternal horned frog of
Texas, walked up to the public crib and
drew my first months pay! 1 didn't need
the money, but just wanted to show these
manufacturers of newspaper slime who got
up the war on me that | could do itl'
When asked by an intimate friend to ex-
PLAIN the efforts of cotemporary historians to
picture him as the boss romancer of ancient
and modern times, the ready Texan replied,
'Oh we'll, that all comes from me. told all
those stories on myself, at my own expense,
and the way told them they were good; but
these blanked ten-cent story tellers got hold
of them and people began to look on me as
fellow beside whom Ananias and Baron
Munchausen were shining examples of apos-
tOlic trnth -