The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-05-01

to him. Before that we had been feeling
rather cold towards each other, but he was
affected by my offer, and he put his arms
around me when | met him after the SEES
sion was over, and we were always strong
friends after that"
Yes was the reply, cit gave me-
national reputation for the time, and IL
came about in rather curious way. When
first came to Congress | felt very back
ward and out of place. The Congressman
seemed bigger men TO me than they seemed
to Senator Nesmyth, but Blaine, who was
speaker, treated me very well and he gave
me good committees. l found afterwards
that he had received letter from Horace
Greeley about me, telling him to look out
for me and that | ought to be cared for. ]
had never met Greeley, but Blaine sent me
his letter when ne was writing his book
not long ago, and in this letter he had de-
scribed my Democratic district and had
shown how l had changed it to a Republi-
can one. Well, l got into the work in a
short time and by keeping my eyes open
do fairly well. L remember l did not even
know how to file petition, and wrote out
my first one and showed it to Frye ard
asked him if it was all right. Frye said :
| 1t is not perfect but It is better than nine
tenths of the petitions and you will get
along all right. One of my committees
was claims and at the beginning Of
Hale and myself who were the only two
men left on the committee, and he said he
wanted TO divide the committee and to
make two committees of it, and he wanted
us to propose it. We did SO and in that
way we came to have a committee on war
claims and one on claims, and at the time
we each expected to have Craftsmanship
of one of these committees. To our sur
prise, however, we were given better
places on more important committees and l
was put on the ways and means and was
given charge of internal revenue matters.
Now, great many OF the taxes which had
been levied during the war were uncol-
lected. During the rebellion everything
you know was taxed and it was to get
some of these uncollected taxes that Ben
Butler got up in the House one day and
proposed that the secretary Of the treasury
be authorized to appoint collector. His
resolution carried and a collector named
Sanborn was appointed, and the arrange
ment was that he was to have half Of all
ury officials were such that the
four or five men through whose
hands these accounts had to pass
were Massachusetts men, and in the work
which came before me on the ways and
means my attention was called to these col
lecJions, and l found that Sanborn had
made about 100000 out OF his work, and
got the papers in the case after a while
and l found that he had collected SIS, 90,
from William Walter Phelps. who is now
minister to Germany and was then mem
Der of Congress, and he had also collected
$500, 00J of Mr.. Phelps as unpaid taxes or
the Delaware 81 Lackawanna railroad.
called upon Mr.. Phelps and found that he
! supposed that he had paid these taxes to ar
internal revenue collector and that the only
reason that they had not been paid before
was that his fathers estate and the roaC
were in litigation and they could not ad
t Just them. I found, in fact, that ali thu
taxes collected in this way were such tina
I they would have come into the treasurl
anyhow and the treasury was being cor
ruptly used TO put money into Sanborn'
t pocket. Well, Butler got wind of wha
was going on and he denounced m
D on the floor of the House He hat
{ gotten half an hour of Garfield
i time one day, and Garfield gave me fv
t minutes of his time to answer him. la
t all these facts at my fingers end, and as
3 brought the story of the fraud out piece b.
piece and called upon members who were
$ personally acquainted with the circum
D stances to substantiate what | said, But
5 ler's face grew as white as a sheet, and a
' last he said that he admired the bravery O
r man who would attack absent parties
: referring to the contractors and the others
l l replied that the parties whom l accuse
8 were not absent, but they were present be
5 fore the House by proxy, in the person o
! their attorney. / here pointed at Butler
! and there was great scene in the House
L To make long story short, the result wa
Q that all Of these people had to resign frol
5 the treasury partment, and even th
d secretary, whom | think was innocen
4 went out and Grant appointed Bristow
( his placen