Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1886-02-11
New Series-Vol. 20. No. g
The Telephone Scandal.

and Attorney General Garland with the
Pan Electric Company excites much un-
favorable comment in Washington. Re-
ferring to this. the Leaders correspon-
dent in that city states that the opinion
prevails that the tive implicated officials
will be obliged to resign to save the ad-
ministration from disgrace Coupled
with this, we notice that the House of
Representatives, with much reluctance,
adopted resolution, introduced by Mr..
Hanback,, of Kansas, calling for an in+
vestigation of this matter so far as it
relates to the government. The Pan
Electric Company is made up almost
wholly of Southern Democrats. Garland
and Lamar being of the number, but the
stock of the concern Is not, and never
will be, worth cent unless the Bell tel
ephone patents are rendered worthless.
These patents have been sustained by
the courts whenevertheir legitimacy has
been called in question. A New York
cOtenporary says that Justices Matthews
Blatehford and Gray of the United States
Supreme Court; also. Circuit Judges
Lowell, Bond. McKenna and Wallace,
and number of federal district judges,
have all held. after a careful and pro-
tracted bearing of the same testimony,
that the Bell patents were valid. But
Notwithstanding the repeated decisions
of the United States courts, the Secretary
of the Interior and the Attorney General
have undertaken to use the government
for the purpose of prosecuting against
the Bell patents with a view to their
overthrow. The Attorney General does
not deny the fact that he is large stock
holder in the Pan Electric Company, and
while trying to keep out of sight him.
self, he allowed bis subordinate, Solicitor
GOOde, to institute d suit with view to
revoking the patents which stand in the
way of his own private interests When
the President directed this suit to be dis
continued, he should have requested his
Attorney General to step down and out,
instead of treating him slightingly, as he
has since been doing. Lamar is as deep
in the mud as Garland is in the mire.
Solicitor Goode subsequently applied to
him for an opinion regarding the bring
ing of suit, and be advises that the
shall institute prosecution
because no private suit could avail to set
aside a patent frauduIently granted.
With view to disclaiming responsible
ity for this decision Secretary Lamar q.
called in lot of his subordinates to hear
the testimony which has been before the
courts time and again, and on which the
Bell patents have been constantly sus-
tanned. As a Democratic journal says,
This is an official scandal of the first
oyertoppiug everything else
Of the kind that has been transacted since
this nation has been in existence" This
language is none too severe, for in this
matter the public is treated to the sight
Of tive Cabinet officers conspiring with
others to use the government machinery
for the destruction of private rights,
upon the accomplishment of which their
own individual fortunes depend. 1t is
that the present Democratic
shall disregard ali former
judgments given on the same facts, and
make the United States, as the Boston
Advertiser says, plaintiff in an endeavor
to prove what the Pan Electric Company
and all companies have failed to prove
as defendants. For what? Simply that
certain Democratic politicians. some Of
them high in official station, may prosper
in the event of a successful termination
Of the suit, the United States paying the
costs of prosecution. Unless Cleveland
puts his foot on this nefarious business
and sends Lamar and Garland back to
private life his administration must bear
the disgrace which the scandal will sure
y bring upon it.-Clevelaad Leader.