Year: 1875

/ An
1 To the Legislature of Minnesota:


GENTLEMEN, SENATOR'S, AND REPRE-
sENTATIvEs 1t has been my good fort
une to come into possession of a copy OF
certain joint resolutions relating to my
self, which resolutions are said to have
been passed by the House of Represent
atives on the Both day of January last,
and by the Senate on the 9TH day of Feb
rrlary, 1875. Aside from any bearing
these resolutions may have upon myself,
they are, as coming from your body,
very extraordinary in character. They
are, gentlemen, very extraordinary in so
far as they correctly illustrate your lack
of knowledge of the common proprieties
and decencies of official position, your
painful disregard of truth in your official
action, and your false and hypocritical
pretenses of virtuous regard for the
honor of the State of Minnesota. In
dealing with you and your joint resolu-
ton, therefore, j shall, gentlemen,
speak of you as L know and understand
you, paying no regard whatever to that
official greatness you so pompously as
sumo during the brief sixty days allotted
you wherein TO fit and complete yourself
for that undying political fame and i'm
mortality which each of you no doubt
supposes himself to have been born to.
AS for your joint resolutions, gentlemen,
i'll which You so indecently assume the
falsehood that / have accepted money as
consideration for my services III aiding
the passage of subsidy bill in the in-
terests of the Pacific Mail Steamship
Company they areinterpretedin in other and
more coi1mon language, Legislative lies.
They are lies in double sense, inasmuch
as they not only charge me in the broad
est implication with having accepted
money for my services" etc, but i'll as
erting, by the same broad implication
that have refused to appear before the
Committee of Ways and Means to testify
as to my connection with and knowledge
of the passage of the Pacific Mail sub
sidy bill for now again assert, what I
two years ago truthfully statedunder oath
that i never accepted or received dollar
as q consideration for my services in aid
ing the passage of the bill, while took
great pleasure i'll appearing before the
committee mt the very opening of their
investigation, and testifying fully as to
all / knew concerning the matter. There
fore, it is, gentlemen of the Legislature,
that distinctly charge you with having
spread upon the records OF your respec-
vehouses fragrant, audacious falsehoods
concerning myself-an act which, to use
your own language, is calculated to " cast
dishonor" upon the escutcheon of Min
nesota unless you shall have the decency
to at once rectify your position" by
expunging these disgraceful falsehood
from your journals.


Under what arrangement | did receive
large sum of money about the time of
the passage of the Pacific Mail subsidy
bill is matter which L do not propos Sc
to disclose to the world, except i'll my
own good time, nor until the evidence,
which am unable to reach now, can be
secured, to the end that the exact facts In
the case can be presented to the public,
which will bring to me the fullest and
most complete vindication against the
falsehood which you have spread upon
your respective journals. Until that time,
which, trust, will not be for distant, l
have only to say that not one dollar OF
the money received by me, of which so
much has been talked and written, was
ever intended or applied to influence a
vote upon the Pacific Mail subsidy, and
no word or line of the evidence that has
been taken during this long and most
searching investigation even "points" tc
any such conclusion.


And so, conscious of my own rectitud'
in the matter, and pausing here to tender
to that one Representative who was just
enough toward me to refuse his assent
to your lying declaration my grateful
thanks, pass on to some other points
which | propose to present to your anC
/ the public's consideration.


WILLIAM S. KING.