Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-06-09
THE MULLIGAN LETTER.
The Most Dramatic Episode of Blaine's
Life

The Most Dramatic Episode of Blaine's
Life.
The event in Mr.. Blaine's career in Com
gress, says the San, which best illustrates
his audacious and sensational methods of
self-detense against an attack was his
speech in the House of Representatives
on June 5, 1876, on the Mulligan letters.
James Mulligan had told a committee of
Congress that Mr.. Blaine acting as the
broker of Warren Fisher, Sr., contrac-
tor, had tried to sell to friends in Maine
$520,000 worth of stocks and londs of the
Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad
Company, and had received for that SER
vice about $162,500 of the company's
bonds as commissions that the specula-
ton had turned out badly and Mr.. Blaine
was compelled to take back part of the
securities. Mulligan had added to this
story the statement that Elisha Atkins,
then a director in the Union Pacific Com
pany, had told him that Mr.. Blaine had
sold $4,000 of the Little Rock and Fors
Smith bonds to Col. Thomas A. Scott, and
that Col. Scott had made the Union Pa
cl1c Company take them at eighty cents
on the dollar.
When pressed for proof of his state
ments Mulligan had produced a number
OF letters and memoranda and declared
a
sequent examination MulIigan had told
how Mr.. Blaine had visited him in the
Riggs House and implOred him for the
sake of his wife and children to show him
the letters, and how after he had gotten
them he refused to return them.
Mr.. Blaine at the time was candidate
for the nomination for President His
friends on the committee tried in vain to
shake Mulllgan's testimony, and he took
witness M
ed MulIgan's story. Not satisfied with
the result of his work, he determined to
make bold attempt to turn the tables on
his accusers in the House of Representa-
tives. His intention was made known to
the public, and on June 5 the galleries
and the floor of the House were crowded
by his friends. He obtained the floor on
question of privilege, and defended him
self in a speech which elected enthusi-
astic plaudits from his friends. After
charging that the committees inquiry
had been turned into an investigation of
his personal affairs, he drew from his
pocket the Mulligan letters. Holding
them up, he said that they had been
wrongfully in Mulligan's possession, and
charged that the committee, in trying to
us them against HIM, had violated the
personal and private rights that belonged
to every American citizen.
Then, holding the package high enough
for the whole House to see it, he said:
81 thank God Almighty that am not
ashamed to show them. Here there are.
There is the very original package. With
some sense of humiliation, with morti-
1cation which l do not pretend to con-
ceal, with sense of outrage which l
think every man in my position would
feel, l invite the confidence of $4,000, 900
of people, and | will read these letters"
As he finished this sentence the Re-
publican members, who had left their
seats and stood near him, clapped their
hands, and the throng in the galleries,
who had listened with rapt attention,
applauded and cheered.
Mr.. Blaine then read some of the letters
and gave his own explanation of their
meaning, and then said that they had
been picked out of the most intimate
business correspondence of his life
Then he faced his Republican colleagues,
and said!
II ask you, gentlemen, if any of YOU
could stand a closer scrutiny. a more
rigid investigation of your correspon-
denceF'
The Republican members again ap-
plauded, and cheers went up from the
galleries. Then Mr.. Blaine advanced
from the aisle and accused Proctor Knott
OF suppressing a dispatch from Josiah
Caldwell which eXonerated him from Null
ligan's charges. He concluded this re-
markable speech by moving that the COM
mittee be compelled to report whether
and why the dispatch had been sup
pressed, and then took his seat amid the
applause of his friends.