refund to John W. Dorsey all the money he had expended. That amount was
about ten thousand dollars. It was nine thousand and something. He also
agreed that he would refund to John M. Peck, who is now dead, the money
he had expended, which was between nine and ten thousand dollars. He
also agreed that he would take the routes for the money he had expended,
and that was between sixteen and eighteen thousand dollars. So, when
those routes were turned over to him they were taken in full of over
sixteen thousand dollars advanced by him, ten thousand dollars that he
was to give to his brother, and ten thousand dollars that he was to give
to John M. Peck--in the neighborhood of thirty-eight thousand dollars
in all. Speaking of the sum without interest it amounted to thirty-six
thousand dollars. Those routes were turned over to him. Gentlemen, it
was not done in secret. When that division was made, the law having
provided no way for A to assign a contract to B, that assignment had to
be accomplished by a subcontract, and consequently subcontracts had to
be given to Vaile, subcontracts to John R. Miner, and subcontracts to
S. W. Dorsey, and yet the original contractor was still held by the
Government. When the subcontract was made, it was for the entire amount
of the pay; not one dollar remained for the original contractor. Now,
I want to state to you what we are going to prove about that. After
the division was made, to show you the interest taken by the
arch-conspirator, we will prove these facts: That when the routes
awarded to him by chance, on the 6th day of April, 1879, had been
awarded, he left the city of Washington in a few days, and went to New
Mexico; that he returned here on the 15th or 16th of May; that he left
again on the 19th of May, and went to Arkansas; that from Arkansas he
went to New Mexico, and returned to Washington on the 21st day of June,
and that on the 27th of June he left for New Mexico. The next time he
visited Washington was in July of the following year, 1880. He remained
here one day, left and returned again to witness the inauguration of
General Garfield. From June 27, 1879, up to the present hour I challenge
these gentlemen to show that Stephen W. Dorsey ever wrote one line,
one word, one letter, to any officer of the Post-Office Department. I
challenge them to show that he ever took the slightest interest in any
star route, or said one word to any human being about that business,
except in explanation when attacked by the Government or in the
newspapers. Now, gentlemen, after the division of these routes what
did Stephen W. Dorsey do? This is a story, complicated, it may seem,
perfectly plain when you understand the surroundings. It is a story
necessary for you to know. After he got these routes what did he do? Did
he want them? Did he want to engage in carrying the mail of the United
States? Was that his business? At that time he had a ranch in New Mexico
where he was raising cattle. That was his business, and is up to to-day.
Did he want to stay here? Did he want to attend to these contracts? That
is for you to determine. Did he want to enter into some partnership by
which the Government was to be fleeced? That is for you to say. I tell
you he had another business. I tell you he had a ranch in New Mexico,
and we will prove it to you, and that ranch was of more importance to
him than all the star routes in the United States. We will show you
that at that time he could not have afforded to waste his time on these
routes; that the business he was then engaged in was too profitable
to waste any time in the mail business. Profitable as these gentlemen
appear to think it was, what did he do? Just as soon as he could make
the arrangement he went to a gentleman living in Pennsylvania by the
name of James W. Bosler. Who is Bosler? He is a man well acquainted with
the business of contracting with the Government. He has been in that
business for years and years. He is a man of ample fortune, excellent
reputation, considered by his friends and neighbors to be a gentleman
and an honest man. He went to him. That we will show you. He said to Mr.
Bosler, "I have advanced money by the indorsement of a note. I am in a
business that I do not understand. We have had to divide the routes in
order for me to have security for my debt. I want to turn these routes
over to you. I am not acquainted with the business of carrying the mail.
I know absolutely nothing about it. I want you to take it." How did he
turn it over? We will show. He said to Mr. Bosler, "You take all the
routes that have been given to me; every one. You run them and you pay
me back my money, and then we will divide the profit." Mr. Bosler
said he was not very well acquainted with post-office business, but
he understood how to transact any ordinary business, and he would take
them. That is all there is to it. He took the routes; every one. I
believe that he took absolute control within a few months of the 6th day
of April. I do not know but the warrants for the first quarter were
paid or came in some way to S. W. Dorsey. But for the second quarter Mr.
Bosler took them, and from that day to this Mr. Bosler has controlled
those routes. He has carried every mail or has contracted with the man
who did carry it. Every solitary thing that has been done from that day
to this has been done by him. Every dollar has been collected by Mr.
Bosler, and every dollar has been disbursed by Mr. Bosler. And before we
get through I am going to tell you how all the routes that were given to
Mr. S. W. Dorsey came out. Let me tell you how they came out. Mr.
Bosler has carried the mail, paid the expenses, kept the accounts, and,
gentlemen, I am going to tell you how much he made out of this vast
conspiracy that has convulsed that part of the moral world that has been
hired and paid to be convulsed. I am going to tell you exactly how we
came out on all this business. I will give you the product of all this
rascality, of all this conspiracy, of all the written and spoken lies; I
will tell you our joint profit on this entire business; a business that
promised to change the administration of this Government; a business
about which reputations have been lost, and no reputations will be
won; counting it all, every dollar, and taking into consideration the
midnight meetings, the whisperings in alleys, the strange grips and
signs that we have had to invent and practice, you will wonder at the
amount. I will give it to you all. Mr. Bosler has kept the books, has
expended every dollar, collected every warrant, and I say to you to-day
that the entire profit has been less than ten thousand dollars, not
enough to pay ten witnesses of the Government. Our profits have not been
one-fiftieth of the expense of the Government in this prosecution--not
one-fiftieth, and I say this, gentlemen, knowing what I am saying. It is
charged by the Government that these gentlemen were conspirators; that
they dragged the robes of office in the mire of rascality; that they
swore lies; that they made false petitions; that they forged the
names of citizens; that they did all this for the paltry profit of ten
thousand dollars. That is what we will show you. And the moment this
reform administration swept into power they cut down the service on
these routes. They not only did that, but they refused to pay the
month's extra pay, and they committed all this villainy in the name of
reform. And do you know some of the meanest things in this world have
been done in the name of reform? They used to say that patriotism was
the last refuge of a scoundrel. I think reform is. And whenever I hear
a small politician talking about reform, borrowing soap to wash his
official hands, with his mouth full and his memory glutted with the
rascality of somebody else I begin to suspect him; I begin to think that
that gentleman is preparing to steal something. So much, then, for the
conspiracy up to this point, up to the division of these routes in 1879.
Now recollect it.
Now, the next charge that is made against us, and it is a terrific
one, is that these defendants, my clients, have filled the Post-Office
Department with petitions--false petitions; forged petitions. I want
to tell you here to-day that these gentlemen will never present any
petitions upon any route upon which my clients are interested that they
will claim was forged--not one. Have we not the right, gentlemen, to
petition? Has not the humblest man in the United States a right to send
a petition to Congress? Has not the smallest man--I will go further--has
not the meanest man the right to petition Congress? Why, it is
considered one of our Constitutional rights not only, but a right back
of the Constitution, to make known your grievances to the governing
power. Every man always had a right to petition the king. There is
no government so absolutely devoid of the spirit of liberty that the
meanest subject in it has not the right to express his opinion to the
king--to the czar. Upon what meat do these officers feed that they are
grown so great that an ordinary citizen may not address a petition to
one of them? Now, I ask you, if you were living in Colorado and could
get a mail once a week, have you not the right to petition your member
of Congress to have it three times a week? Do you not know that
every member of Congress from every State, every delegate from every
Territory, is judged by his constitutents by the standard of what he
does. By what he does for whom? By what he does for them. They send a
man to Congress to help them, and they expect that man to get them a
mail just as often as any other member of Congress gets his people a
mail, do they not? And if he cannot do that they will leave that young
gentleman at home. They will find another man. It is the boast of a
member of Congress when he returns to his constitutents, "I have done
something for you. You only had a mail here once a week. I have got it
four times a week, gentlemen." "Here is a river that was navigable. I
have got a custom house." "Here is a great district in which the United
States holds a court and I have an appropriation for a court-house." Up
will go the caps; they will say, "He is the man we want to represent us
next session." But if he sneaks back and says, "Gentlemen, you do not
need a court-house, you have mails often enough," the reply of the
people is, "And you have been to Congress often enough." That is nature,
and no matter how highly we are civilized when you scratch through the
varnish you find a natural man.
Now, then, every member of Congress felt it was his duty, his privilege,
and his leverage, to have the mails established, and when the people
got up petitions he would indorse them. He would look at the petitions.
There was the principal man, you know, in his town. He would look down
a little farther. There was a fellow that had an idea of running against
him. He would look down a little farther, and there was the man who
presented his name at the last convention; there is the fellow who
subscribed three hundred dollars towards the expenses of the campaign.
That is enough. He turns it right over--"I most earnestly recommend that
this petition be granted. So and so, M. C." Then he would put it in his
coat-pocket, and he would march down to General Brady with a smile
on his face as broad as the horizon of his countenance. He would just
explain to the gentleman that there are miner's camps springing up all
over that country, towns growing in a night like mushrooms, Providence
just throwing prosperity away in that valley; that they have to have
a daily mail then and there, and he would show this petition. In three
weeks more there would come fifty others, and it would be granted. Why,
even the counsel for the prosecution would have done the same, strange
as it may appear. They would have done just the same--maybe worse, maybe
better. The Post-Office officials might have granted more to them.
Now, I have always had the idea that it was one of my rights to sign a
petition; that no man in this country could grow so great that I had not
the right just to hand the gentleman a paper with my opinion on it. Do
you know I do not think anybody can get so big that an American citizen
cannot send a letter to him if he pays the postage, and in that letter
he can give him his opinion. There is no fraud about that; not the
slightest. These men all out through the mountains, men that went out
there, you know, to hunt for silver and for gold, live in little camps
of not more than twenty or thirty, maybe, but they wanted to hear from
home just as bad as though there had been five hundred in that very
place. And a fellow that had dug in the ground about eleven feet and had
found some rock with a little stain on it and had had the stain assayed,
wanted to hear from home right off. He stayed there and dreamed about
fortune, palaces, pictures, carriages, statues, and the whole future
was simply an avenue of joy upon which he and his wife and the children
would ride up and down. He wanted to write a letter right off. He wanted
to tell the folks how he felt. Do you think that man would not sign a
petition for another mail? Do you think that fellow would vote to send a
stupid man to Congress who could not get another mail? He felt rich; he
was sleeping right over a hole that had millions in it, and he had
not much respect for a Government that could not afford to send a
millionaire a letter.
Now, Mr. Bliss tells you that we forged petitions, and in only a few
moments, as the Court will remember, he had the kindness to say that
anybody in the world would sign a petition for anything, and the
question arises if people are so glad to sign petitions why should we
forge their names. Do you not see that doctrine kind of swallows itself.
You certainly would not forge the name of a man to a note who was
hunting you up to sign it. And yet the doctrine of the Government is
that while the whole West rose en masse, each man with a pen in his hand
and inquiring for a petition, these defendants deliberately went to
work and forged it. It won't do, gentlemen. Oh, my Lord, what a thing a
little common sense is when you come to think about it, when you come to
place it before your mind.
Now, the next great trouble in this case, gentlemen, is that we bid on
routes that were not productive. When you remember that Congress made
all these routes--now Congress did it; we did not do it--you will
protect us. We did not make a solitary route upon which we bid, strange
as it may appear. Congress, with the map of the Territories and the
States of the Union before it, marked out all the routes. Congress
determined where these routes should run. And yet this case has been
tried as though in reality we were the parties who determined it.
Now, let me say something right here. It is for Congress to determine
first of all on what routes the mail shall be carried. I want you
to understand that, to get it into your heads, way in, that Congress
determined that question, and that there has to be a law passed that the
mail shall be carried from Toquerville to Adairville, from Rawlins to
White River. That law has to be passed first, and Congress has to say
that that route shall be established. Now, get that in your minds. I
give you my word we never established a mail on the earth. That was done
by Congress, and the moment Congress establishes a route it becomes the
duty of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General to put the service upon
that route, and the duty of the First Assistant Postmaster-General to
name the offices on that route. Is not that true? That is the doctrine.
Now, that had all been done before we entered into a conspiracy. These
routes had not only been established, but the Government had advertised
for service on these routes, and we bid. That was our crime.
These gentlemen said, I believe, at one time, that they were about to
lift a little of the curtain, to expose the action of Congress. You
see this suit has threatened the whole Government. If the Constitution
weathers this storm it will be in luck. They were going to raise the
curtain. They were going to be like children hanging around a circus
tent. One lifts it up and hallooes to another, "Come quick, I see a
horse's foot." They said that they were going to show the rascality
of Congress. They have never done it. I suppose the reason may be that
their pay depends upon an act of Congress, but they let that alone. Now,
they say that Congress committed a great mistake. Why, they say they
were routes that were not productive, and we knew it, and that when
the people asked for expedition and increase on a route that was not
productive we were guilty of fraud.
Now, gentlemen, let us see: There are not a great many productive
post-offices in the United States. They say that a post-office that is
not productive should be wiped out. Let me say to you, you cut off the
post-offices that are not productive and you will have thousands the
next day that are not productive. It is the unproductive offices that
make others productive. You cut off those that are not productive and
you will have double the number that are not productive. You cut off all
those that are unproductive and you will have nothing left but the
mail line. You might say that there is not a spring that flows into the
Mississippi that is navigable. Let us cut off the springs. Then what
becomes of the Mississippi? That is not navigable either. It is on
account of the streams not navigable, emptying into one, that the one
into which they empty, becomes navigable. And yet, these gentlemen say
in the interest of navigation, "Let us stop the springs because you
cannot run a boat up them." That is their doctrine. There is no sense in
that. You have got to treat this country as one country. You have got
to treat the post-offices business as a unit for an entire country. You
have got to say that wherever the flag floats the mail shall be
carried, wherever American citizens live they shall be visited with the
intelligence of the nineteenth century. That is what you have got to
say. You have got to get up on a good high plane, and you have got
to run a great Government like this that dominates the fortune of a
continent, and you have got to run it like great men. There has got to
be some genius in this thing and not little bits of suspicion.
Productiveness! Let us see. We are informed by Mr. Bliss, who is paid
for saying it, otherwise he would not, that the West is perfectly
willing to have mail facilities at the expense of the East. I do not
think the gentleman comprehends the West. There is nothing so laughable,
and sometimes there is nothing so contemptible, as the egotism of a
little fellow who lives in a big town. Some people really think that New
York supports this country, and probably it never entered the mind of
Mr. Bliss that this country supported New York. But it does. All the
clerks in that city do not make anything, they do not manufacture
anything, they do not add to the wealth of this world. I tell you,
the men who add to the wealth of this world are the men who dig in the
ground. The men who walk between the rows of corn, the men who delve in
the mines, the men who wrestle with the winds and waves of the wide sea,
the men on whose faces you find the glare of forges and furnaces, the
men who get something out of the ground, and the men who take something
rude and raw in nature and fashion it into form for the use and
convenience of men, are the men who add to the wealth of this world. All
the merchants in this world would not support this country. My Lord! you
could not get lawyers enough on a continent to run one town. And yet,
Mr. Bliss talks as though he thought that all the mutton and beef of the
United States were raised in Central Park, as though we got all our wool
from shearing lambs in Wall Street. It won't do, gentlemen. There is a
great deal produced in the Western country. I was out there a few years
ago, and found a little town like Minneapolis with fifteen thousand
people, and everybody dead-broke. I went there the other day and found
eighty thousand people, and visited one man who grinds five thousand
bushels of flour each day. I found there the Falls of Saint Anthony
doing work for a continent without having any back to ache, grinding
thirty thousand bushels of flour daily. Just think of the immense power
it is. Millions of feet of lumber in this very country, and Dakota, over
which some of these routes run, yielding a hundred million bushels of
wheat. Only a few years ago I was there and passed over an absolute
desert, a wilderness, and on this second visit found towns of five and
six and seven thousand inhabitants. There is not a man on this jury,
there is not a man in this house with imagination enough to prophesy the
growth of the great West, and before I get through I will show you that
we have helped to do something for that great country.
Productiveness! Let me tell you where that idea of productiveness was
hatched, where it was born, the egg out of which it came. It was by
the act of March 2, 1799, just after the Revolution, and just after
our forefathers had refused to pay their debts, just after they had
repudiated the debt of the Confederation, just after they had allowed
money to turn to ashes in the pockets of the hero of Yorktown, or had
allowed it to become worthless in the hand of the widow and the orphan.
In 1799, the time when economy trod upon the heels almost of larceny,
our Congress provided that the Postmaster-General should report to
Congress after the second year of its establishment every post-road
which should not have produced one-third the expense of carrying the
mail. Recollect it, and I want you to recollect in this connection
that we never established a post-route in the world. We will show
that, anyway, if we show nothing else. By the act of 1825 a route was
discontinued within three years that did not produce a fourth of the
expenses. Now, when those laws were in force the postage was collected
at the place of delivery.
But in old times, gentlemen, in Illinois, in 1843, it was considered a
misfortune to receive a letter. The neighbors sympathized with a man
who got a letter. He had to pay twenty-five cents for it. It took five
bushels of corn at that time, five bushels of oats, four bushels of
potatoes, ten dozen eggs to get one letter. I have myself seen a farmer
in a perturbed state of mind, going from neighbor to neighbor telling of
his distress because there was a letter in the post-office for him. In
1851 the postage was reduced to three cents when it was prepaid, and the
law provided that the diminution of income should not discontinue any
route, neither should it affect the establishment of new routes, and
for the first time in the history of our Government the idea of
productiveness was abandoned. It was not a question of whether we would
make money by it or not; the question was, did the people deserve a mail
and was it to the interest of the Government to carry that mail? I am a
believer in the diffusion of intelligence. I believe in frequent mails.
I believe in keeping every part of this vast Republic together by
a knowledge of the same ideas, by a knowledge of the same facts, by
becoming acquainted with the same thoughts. If there is anything that is
to perpetuate this Republic it is the distribution of intelligence from
one end to the other. Just as soon as you stop that we grow provincial;
we get little, mean, narrow prejudices; we begin to hate people because
we do not know them; we begin to ascribe all our faults to other folks.
I believe in the diffusion of intelligence everywhere. I want to give to
every man and to every woman the opportunity to know what is happening
in the world of thought.
I want to carry the mail to the hut as well as to the palace. I want
to carry the mail to the cabin of the white man or the colored man, no
matter whether in Georgia, Alabama, or in the Territories. I want to
carry him the mail and hand it to him as I hand it to a Vanderbilt or
to a Jay Gould. That is my doctrine. The law of 1851 did away with your
productiveness nonsense, and when the mails were first put upon
railways in the year 1838, the law made a limit, not on account of
productiveness, but a limit of cost, and said the mail should not cost
to exceed three hundred dollars a mile. Let me correct myself. In 1838 a
law was passed that the mails might be carried by railroad provided they
did not cost in excess of twenty-five per cent, over the cost of mail
coaches. In 1839 that law was repealed, and the law then provided that
the pay on railways should be limited to three hundred dollars a mile.
So you see how much productiveness has to do with this business. In
1861 Congress provided for an overland mail. Did they look out for
productiveness? The overland mail in 1861 was a little golden thread
by which the Pacific and the Atlantic could be united through the great
war. Just a mail, carrying now and then a letter in 1861, and they were
allowed, I think, twenty or thirty days to cross. Was productiveness
thought of? Congress provided that they might pay for that service eight
hundred thousand dollars a year. The mail did not exceed a thousand
pounds. Including everything. Some letters that were carried from this
side to the other cost the Government three hundred dollars apiece. What
was the object? It was simply that the hearts of the Atlantic and the
Pacific might feel each other's throb through the great war. That is
all. Suppose some poor misguided attorney had stood up at that time and
commenced talking about productiveness. In the presence of these great
national objects the cost fades, sinks. It is absolutely lost. Wherever
our flag flies I want to see the mail under it. After awhile we
established what is known as the free-delivery system. That was first
established on the idea of productiveness. Whenever you start a new
idea, as a rule, you have to appeal to all the meanness that is in
conservatism. Before you can induce conservatives to do a decent action
you have to prove to them that it will pay at least ten per cent. So
they started that way. They said, "We will only have this free delivery
system where it pays." We went on and found the system desirable, and
that many people wanted it, and that the revenues of the Post-Office
Department were so great that we could afford it, and we commenced
having it where it did not pay. Right here in the city of Washington,
right here in the capital of the great Republic, we have the free
delivery system. Is it productive? Last year we lost twenty-one thousand
dollars distributing letters to the attorneys for the prosecution
and others. And yet now this District has the impudence to talk about
productiveness. If anybody wants to find that fact it can be found on
pages 42 and 45 of the Postmaster-General's report. Productiveness! We
have now a railway service in the United States. I want to know if that
is calculated upon the basis of productiveness. A car starts from the
city of New York, and runs twelve hours ahead of the ordinary time
to the city of Chicago for the simple purpose of carrying the mail,
stopping only where the engine needs water, only when the monster whose
bones are steel and whose breath is flame, is tired. Do you suppose that
pays? You could scarcely put letters enough into the cars at three cents
apiece to pay for the trip. At last we regard this whole country as a
unit for this business. We say the American people are to be supplied.
We do not care whether they live in New York or in Durango; we do not
care whether they are among the steeples of the East or the crags of the
West; we do not care whether they live in the villages of New England or
whether they are staked out on the plains of New Mexico. For the purpose
of the distribution of intelligence this great country is one. Do you
see what a big idea that is? When it gets into the heads of some people
you have no idea how uncomfortable they feel. I have as much interest in
this country as anybody, just exactly, and I am willing to subscribe
my share to have this mail carried so that the man on the very western
extreme, on the hem of the national garment, may have just as much as
the man who lives here in the shadow of the Capitol. You see whenever
a man gets to the height where he does not want anything that he is not
willing to give somebody else, then he first begins to appreciate what a
gentleman is and what an American should be. Productiveness! I say that
all the State and Territorial lines have been brushed aside. We do not
carry the mail in a State because it pays. We carry it because there are
people there; because there are American citizens there; not because it
pays. The post-office is not a miser; it is a national benefactor.
There are only seventeen States in this Union where the income of the
Post-Office Department is equal to the outlay; only seventeen States in
this Union. There are twenty-one States in which the mail is carried
at a loss. There are ten Territories in which we receive substantially
nothing in return for carrying the mail, and there is one District,
the District of Columbia. I do not know how many miles square this
magnificent territory is; I guess about six. Thirty-six square miles.
How much is the loss in this District per annum? About one thousand
five hundred dollars a square mile. The annual loss right here in this
District is fifty-eight thousand dollars, and yet the citizens of
this town are rascally enough to receive the mail, according to the
prosecution. Why is it not stopped? Why is not the Postmaster-General
indicted for a conspiracy with some one? This little territory, six
miles square has a loss of fifty-eight thousand dollars.
If there was a corresponding loss in Kansas, Nebraska, California,
Dakota, and Idaho, it would take more than the national debt to run the
mail every year. And yet here in thirty-six square miles comes the wail
of non-productiveness. It is almost a joke. We are carrying the mail in
Kansas at a loss of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, and
yet Kansas has a hundred million bushels of wheat for sale. Good! I
am willing to send letters to such people. It is a vast and thriving
country. It contains men who have laid the foundation of future empires.
I want people big enough and broad enough and wide enough to understand
that the valley of the Mississippi will support five hundred millions of
people. Let us get some ideas, gentlemen. Let us get some sense. There
is nothing like it. We pay five hundred thousand dollars a year for the
privilege of carrying the mail in Nebraska. Do you know I am willing to
pay my share. Any man who will go out to Nebraska and just let the wind
blow on him deserves to have plenty of mail. You do not know here what
wind is. You have never felt anything but a zephyr. You have never felt
anything but an atmospheric caress. Go and try Nebraska. The wind there
will blow a hole out of the ground. Go out there and try one blizzard,
a fellow that robs the north pole and comes down on you, and you will
be willing to carry the mail to any man that will stay there and plow a
hundred and sixty acres of land. When I see a post-office clerk sitting
in a good warm room and making a fuss about a chap in Nebraska for not
carrying the mail against a blizzard, I have my sentiments. I know what
I think of the man. In the Territory of Utah we pay two hundred and
thirty thousand dollars a year for the privilege of carrying the mails,
and the males in that country are mostly polygamists. I want you to get
an idea of this country. In the State of California, that State of
gold, that State of wheat, the State that has added more to the
metallic wealth of this nation than all others combined, an empire
of magnificence, we pay five hundred thousand dollars a year for the
privilege of distributing the mail. I am glad of it. I want the pioneer
fostered. I want the pioneer to feel the throb of national generosity.
I want him to feel that this is his country. You see the post-office is
about the only blessing he has. Every other visitor that comes from the
General Government wants taxes. The Post-Office Department is the only
evidence we possess of national beneficence. It is the only thing that
comes from the General Government that has not a warrant, that does not
intend to arrest us. In Texas, which is an empire of two hundred and
seventy-three thousand square miles, a territory greater than the French
empire, which at one time conquered Europe, we pay four hundred and
fifty-nine thousand dollars for the privilege of distributing the
mail. I am glad of it. It will not be long before that State will have
millions of people and give us back millions of dollars each year, and
with that surplus we will carry the mail to other Territories. A man who
has not pretty big ideas has no business in this country; not a bit.
We pay one hundred and eighty-nine thousand dollars for the sake
of carrying letters and papers around Arkansas; one hundred and
eighty-three thousand dollars for the privilege of wandering up and down
Alabama; one hundred and seven thousand dollars in Missouri; two hundred
and forty thousand dollars in Ohio; two hundred and eight thousand
dollars in Georgia; three hundred and twelve thousand dollars in old
Virginia. When I first went to Illinois the Government had to pay for
the privilege of carrying the mail in that State. Now Illinois turns
around and hands six hundred and sixty thousand dollars of profit to
the United States each year. She says, "You carry the mail to the other
fellows that cannot afford it just the same as you carried it for us.
You rocked our cradle, and we will pay for rocking somebody else's
cradle." That is sense. In other words, in seventeen States we have a
profit of seven million dollars. In twenty-one States, ten Territories,
and the District of Columbia we have a loss of five million dollars.
When we regard the country as a unit, then we make money out of the
whole business. That is good. We have in the United States about a
hundred and ten thousand miles of railroad now, and we pay about two
hundred dollars a mile for carrying the mail on those railroads. We have
two hundred and twenty-seven thousand miles of star routes, and we pay
on them between twenty and thirty dollars a mile. I want you to
think about it. In looking over the Post-master-General's report I
accidentally came across this fact. You know, gentlemen, the present
period is a paroxysmal period of reform. We are having what is known
as a virtuous spasm. We have that every little while. It is a kind
of fiscal mumps or whooping-cough. I find by this report that a mail
averaging twenty pounds carried in a baggage-car from Connellsville to
Uniontown, Pennsylvania, is paid for at the rate of forty-two dollars
and seventy-two cents a mile. Under General Brady the star routes cost
between twenty and thirty dollars a mile.
Now, gentlemen, I have told you our connection with the star-route
business. I have told it all to you freely, frankly, and fully. Some
charges have been made against us, and I want to speak to you about
them. You understand that it often takes quite awhile to explain a
charge that is made in only a few words. One man can say another did so
and so. It is only a lie, and yet it may take pages for the accused man
to make his explanation. The worst lie in the world is a lie which is
partly true. You understand that. When you explain a lie that has a
little circumstance going along with it, certifying to it, and attesting
to its truth, it takes you a great deal longer to explain it than it did
to tell it. The first great charge is that for us--and I limit myself to
my clients--orders were antedated. That is one great charge. Let me tell
you just how that was. Mr. Bliss calls attention to the fact that Mr.
Brady made orders relating back, and in one case he alleged that the
order was made, for the benefit of my clients, to take effect six weeks
prior to its being issued. I want to explain that. A railroad was being
constructed along the line of one of these routes. It may be well enough
for me to say that it was the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The
points from which the mail was carried had to be changed as the road
progressed. As it grew Mr. Brady increased the service on the route to
seven times a week. He increased it from the end of the railroad, and
he made it seven times a week because the mail on the railroad was seven
times a week. We were to carry the mail from the end of the railroad,
wherever that end might be. He increased the service on this route from
the end of the railroad to the other terminal point; that is, he made it
a daily mail so as to connect with the daily trains on the railroad. At
the time the seven trips were to be put on, distance tables were sent
out to postmasters at the terminal points to get the distances. Let me
tell you what a distance table is. The names of the post-offices are on
a circular, and the Post-Office Department sends that circular to the
postmasters along the route and they are asked to return it with the
distance from each station to every other marked upon it. Now, until
that table is returned it is impossible for the Second Assistant
Postmaster-General to tell how far they carry the mail. This railroad
was progressing every month, and as the railroad advanced the distance
from the end of the railroad to the other terminal point decreased. Now,
the Postmaster-General or the Second Assistant cannot fix that pay until
he has a return of the distance table. But before he has that return he
can order the contractor to carry the mail, and after the distance table
is returned then he can make up the formal order and have that order
entered upon the records of the department. That is all he ever did. I
want you to understand that perfectly. It might be four weeks after the
contractor was ordered to carry the mail from the termination of the
railroad, or it might be five or six weeks before the distance tables
were returned and the distance calculated. But do you not see it made
no difference? There was first an order either by telegraph or a short
order, and after the distance tables were returned then the distance
was calculated, the amount of money calculated, and the regular order
written up and made of record, and a warrant drawn for payment. That is
all there is to it. And yet this is what Mr. Bliss calls defrauding
the Government. We are charged on that kind of evidence with having
defrauded the United States. We will show you that no order of that
kind was made except when the distance was unknown; and that when the
distance was ascertained, the formal order was made, another order
having been made before that time. Let me say right here that orders of
a similar nature have been made in the Post-Office Department since its
establishment. Since the construction of railways there has not a month
passed in that department--certainly not a year--when such orders
have not been made. And yet for the first time in the history of the
Government it is brought forward against us as an evidence of fraud. We
will show that the order was made exactly as I have stated.
The next badge of fraud that is charged is that after a route had been
awarded to us it was increased or expedited, or both, before the stock
was put on. Well, I will tell you just how that is, because you want to
know. This case, apparently complicated, is infinitely simple when it is
understood. There are in the United States, I believe, some ten thousand
of these star routes. They are all or nearly all in some way connected.
One depends upon another. It is a web woven over the entire West, and
how you run a mail here depends upon how one is run there, and the
effort is to have all these mails connect in a certain harmony so
that time will not be lost, and so that each letter will get to its
destination in the shortest possible time, and it requires not only a
great deal of experience, but it requires a great deal of ingenuity.
It requires a great deal of study and strict attention for a man so to
arrange the routes and the time in the United States that the letters
can be gotten to their destination in the shortest possible time. And
yet that is the object. You can see that. Now, you may be looking at the
route from A to B, and say that there is no sense in having it in that
time; but if you will look at the time of other routes, if you see with
what routes that connects you will say that it is sensible. Now, you go
on to another route, and, gentlemen, you see that every solitary route
is touched, is compromised, is affected by every other route. That is
what I want you to understand.
Now, then, Mr. Bliss says that it was a badge of fraud to increase the
time and the service on a route before the stock was put on. Now let
me show you. Here you have your scheme. Here is the route, we will say,
from A to E. You let that for a weekly route, once a week. How fast?
A hundred hours. When you get the other routes and look at this
business you see that that crosses several places where the mail is
lost. That is where a day is lost, and you see, if instead of that being
a hundred hours it were seventy-five hours the mail at many stations
would save one day or two days. Now, then, the law vests in you the
power before a solitary horse or carriage goes upon that route to say
to the man to whom the contract was awarded, "You must carry that in
seventy-five hours instead of one hundred hours, and you must carry it
four times a week instead of once a week." If you take that power from
the Postmaster-General and from the Second Assistant those offices
become useless. It is impossible for any human intellect to take into
consideration all the facts growing out of this service.
There is another thing, gentlemen, which you must remember, and that
is that these advertisements for this service are not made the day the
service is wanted. These advertisements are put out six months before
there is to be any such service.
It is sometimes a year before that service is wanted, and if you know
anything about the West you know that in one year the whole thing may
change. That where there was not a city there may be a city, and where
there was a city nothing but desolation. Now, then, the law very wisely
has vested the power in the Second Assistant and the Postmaster-General
to rectify all the mistakes made either by themselves or by time, and
to call for faster time or for slower, that is, for less frequent trips.
Now, then, you see that that is no badge of fraud, do you not? If,
before you put a man or a horse on that route, the Government finds it
wants twice as many trips there is no fraud in saying so, and if they
find they want to go in fifty hours instead of a hundred hours there
would be fraud in not saying so. That has been the practice since this
was a Government.
Now, what is the next? The next great charge against us, gentlemen, is
that when they agreed to carry a greater number of trips, or any swifter
time for money, Mr. Brady did not make us give an additional bond, and
Mr. Bliss talked about that I should think about a day. Nearly all the
time I heard him he was on that subject. "Why did they not when they
were to carry additional trips give a new bond?" Well, I will tell
you why: Because there is no law for it. There never was a law for
it--never. And Mr. Brady had no right to demand a bond unless the
statute provided for it. When I give a bond to carry the mail once a
week, and the Government finds that it wants it carried three times
a week, the Government cannot make me give an additional bond. Why?
Because the statute does not provide for it, and Mr. Brady had not the
power to enact new laws. That is all. Why, there never was such a bond
given, and any bond that is given under duress, by compulsion, not
having the foundation of a statute, is absolutely null and void.
Everybody knows it that knows anything. And yet the gentleman comes
before you and says it is a sign of fraud that we did not give an
additional bond. There never was such a bond given in the history of
this Government--never; and in all probability never will be unless
these gentlemen get into Congress. You know the law prescribes every
bond that the contractor must give, and it is bad enough without ever
being increased during the contract term.
So much now for that frightful badge of fraud. I want to make this
statement so you will understand it. They have the unfairness, they have
the lack of candor to tell you that it is one of the evidences that we
are scoundrels, that we failed to give an additional bond, and when
they made that statement they knew that by law we could not give an
additional bond, and they knew that if we had given an additional bond
it would not have been worth the paper upon which it was written. And
yet they lack candor to that degree that they come into this court
and tell you that that is one of the evidences that we have conspired
against the United States. It won't do.
What is the next badge of fraud? And I want to tell you this is a case
of badges, and patches, and ravelings, and remnants, and rags. It is a
kind of a mental garret, full of odd boots, and strange cats, thrown at
us, and altogether it is called a case of conspiracy. Another badge of
fraud is that whenever we carried the mail one trip a week, and it was
increased to two trips a week, Brady was such a villain that he gave us
double pay; and Mr. Bliss informed the jury that they knew just as well
as he did that it did not cost twice as much to give two trips a week as
it did to give one. Well, who said it did? And yet they say that is an
evidence of fraud. Well, let us see. There is nothing like finding the
evidence.
Now, when we come to this case we will introduce a bond that we gave
at that time, and when the jury read that bond they will find this, or
substantially this:
It is hereby agreed by the said contractor and his sureties that the
Postmaster-General may discontinue or extend this contract, change the
schedule, alter, increase, or extend the service, he allowing not to
exceed a pro rata increase of compensation for any additional service
thereby required, or for increased speed if the employment of additional
stock or carriers is rendered necessary, and in case of decrease,
curtailment, or discontinuance, as a full indemnity to said contractor,
one month's extra pay on the account of service dispensed with, and not
to exceed a pro rata compensation for the service retained: Provided,
however, That in case of increased expedition the contractor may, upon
timely notice, relinquish his contract.
Now, it is in that provided that if they call on him for double service
he is entitled to double pay. That is the law, and it has been the
practice, gentlemen, since we have had a Post-Office Department. And
why? Let me show you. Here is a man who carries a mail from A to Y.
There are supposed to be some commercial transactions between those two
places. It is supposed that now and then a human being goes from one of
those places to the other, and the man who carries the mail, as a rule
carries passengers and does the local business. Now, do you suppose that
he would agree with the Government that he would carry the mail once a
week for a thousand dollars a year, and that they might hire another man
to carry it once a week for a thousand dollars a year, and maybe
that other man take all his passengers and all his business. The
understanding is that when I bid a thousand dollars a year for once a
week, if you put it to three times a week I am to have three thousand
dollars; four times a week, four thousand dollars; seven times a week,
seven thousand dollars, and that has been the unbroken practice of this
Government from the establishment of the Post-Office Department until
to-day. You can see the absolute propriety of it, and you can see that
any man would be almost crazy to take a contract on any other terms, and
that contract is this: "I will carry for you so much a trip, and if you
want more trips you can have them at the same price as that fixed." That
is fair. That is what we did.
So much for that badge of fraud. What is the next one? It is that the
pay was increased twice as much by the increase, and, as I said, that is
the law.
Now let us see what is the next great badge of fraud. That we received
the pay when the mail was not carried. I deny it, and we will show in
this case, gentlemen, that we never received pay except when the mail
was carried. And how do I know? Because General Brady established a
system of way-bills, so that a way-bill would accompany every pouch in
which letters were, and they would put on that way-bill the time that it
got to the post-office, and when that way-bill got to the terminal point
it was sent here to Washington and filed away, and at the end of every
quarter a report was made, and if a mail was behind at any post-office
you would find it on that way-bill, and if they had not made the trip
then they were fined. That way-bill system was inaugurated by General
Brady, and under that way-bill system we carried the mail, and we could
not get pay unless we had carried the mail. I call them way-bills. They
are mail-bills that go with the pouch and give a history of each mail
that is carried. That is all.
Now another great badge of fraud. The first was that he was to impose no
fines when the mail was not carried. The next was that he was to impose
fines and then take the fines off for half--fifty per cent. Now, would
not that be an intelligent contract? I carry the mails. You are the
Second Assistant Postmaster-General. I agree with you that if you fine
me and then will take the fine off I will give you half of it. About
how long would it take you to break me up? And yet that is honestly and
solemnly put forward here as a fact in the case. They tell a story of
a man who was bitten by a dog. Another man said to him, "I'll tell you
what to do. You just sop some bread in that blood and give it to the
dog; it will cure you." "Oh, my God!" says he, "if the other dogs hear
of it they will eat me up." And here it is, without a smile, urged
before this jury that we made a bargain that a fellow might fine us
for the halves. Well, there may be twelve men in this world who believe
that. They are unfortunate.
The next charge is that a subcontract was made for less than the
original contract. Well, that is where most of the money in this world
is made. Thousands and millions of men have made fortunes by buying corn
at sixty cents a bushel to be delivered next February, and selling
the same corn for seventy cents. There is where fortunes live. The
difference between a contract and a subcontract is the territory of
profit in which every American loves to settle. You make a contract with
the Government to furnish, say, a thousand horses of a certain kind for
one hundred and fifty dollars apiece. You go and make a subcontract
with some one to furnish you those same horses for one hundred and
twenty-five dollars apiece. Is that a fraud? You have taken upon
yourself the responsibility and if your subcontractor fails you must
make it good. There is no harm in that.
Suppose I agree with you to-morrow that if you will furnish me one
thousand bushels of wheat on the first day of January, I will give
you one thousand five hundred dollars, and I find out that you made a
bargain with another fellow to do it for a thousand dollars. If I am an
honest man I suppose I will jump the contract, won't I? Not much. If I
am an honest man I will say, "Well, you made five hundred dollars; I am
glad of it; good for you." But the idea of the prosecution is that the
moment Brady saw a subcontract for less than the original contract
he should have had a moral spasm, and said, "I won't carry out the
contract; I will swindle you, I will rob you, and I will do it in the
name of virtue." And that is the meanest way a man ever did rob--in
the name of virtue, reform. So much for that. But if you ever make a
contract with this Government and can make a subcontract at the same
price you do it as quick as you can.
The next is, that whenever he discontinued a route or any part of a
route, rather, he gave us a month's extra pay; you heard that, did you
not? He was on that subject about a half a day. How did he come to do
that? I will tell you. There is nothing like looking:
And in case of decrease, curtailment, or discontinuance of service, as a
full indemnity to said contractor one month's extra pay on the amount of
service dispensed with.
That is first the law, secondly the contract, and thirdly it was made
in the interest of the United States. And why? Suppose the United States
made a contract with a man to carry a mail from New York to Liverpool,
and in consequence of that contract the man bought steamships to perform
the service, and then the United States made up its mind not to carry
the mail. That man might get damages to the amount of hundreds and
thousands of dollars. Therefore the United States endeavored to protect
itself and say the limit of damage shall be one month's pay, and that
has been the law for years, and that law has been passed upon by the
Supreme Court of the United States. It was passed upon in the case of
Garfielde against the United States, where he claimed greater damages
because he had all the steamships to carry the mail from San Francisco
to Portland, and the Supreme Court said it made no difference what
his expense had been. He was bound by the letter of the law and the
contract, and could have only one month's extra pay as his entire
damage.
Now, these gentlemen bring forward a law to protect the United States
Government, and they bring that forward as an evidence of conspiracy,
as evidence of a fraud. Nothing could be more unfair, nothing on earth
could show a greater want of character. Now, let us see what else.
The next great charge is false affidavits. They tell you that we made
lots of them; that we just had them for sale. False affidavits! And that
Mr. John W. Dorsey made two false affidavits in two cases. The evidence
will show that he did not. The evidence will show that he made only one
in each case, when we come to it. But I want to call your attention to
this fact, that in one case one affidavit was made where it said the
number of men and horses then necessary was eight, that on the expedited
schedule it would be twenty-four. Three times eight are twenty-four. The
second affidavit said the number of men and horses then was fifteen, and
the number on expedition and increase would be forty-five. Three times
fifteen are forty-five. So that the amount taken from the Government
would be exactly the same on both affidavits. You understand that. For
instance, if it took five horses and men to do the then business, and
would require fifteen to do the expedited and increased business, then
you would be entitled to three times the amount of pay. So in this case
one affidavit said it took eight and would take twenty-four, the other
affidavit said it took fifteen and would take forty-five. Three times
eight are twenty-four. Three times fifteen are forty-five. So that the
amount of money taken from the Government would be exactly the same
under each affidavit. Now, that is all there is of that.
In the next case, where he made two affidavits, I find that by the
second affidavit it took, I think, thirteen thousand dollars less
from the Government, and yet they call the second affidavit a piece
of perjury. And here is one thing that I want to impress upon all your
minds. Where you not only carry the mail but carry passengers, it is
an exceedingly difficult problem to say just how many horses and men it
requires to carry the mail, and then how many men and horses it
requires to carry the passengers. It is hard to make the divide you
understand--very hard. You can tell, for instance, the cost of mounting
a railroad for a hundred miles, but it is very difficult to tell the
cost of the bridges or what the spikes cost or what the deep cuts cost.
You can take the whole together and say it cost so much a year. So
in this case we can say it requires so many men and horses doing the
business that we are doing, but it is almost impossible for the brain
to separate exactly the passengers, the package business, from simply
carrying the mail. As I said before, men will differ in opinion. Some
men will say it will take ten horses, others twenty, others twenty-five,
and then the next question arises, and I want to call particular
attention to that question, and that is, whether the law means only the
horses absolutely carrying the mail; whether the law means by carriers
only the men who ride the horses or drive the wagons. Now, I will tell
you what I mean. I undertake to carry the mail, we will say from Omaha
to San Francisco. How many men will it take? Now, I will count all the
men who are driving the stages, all the men who are gathering forage,
all the men who are attending to that business in any way, and if on
the way I have blacksmiths' shops where my horses are shod I will count
those men. If I have men engaged in drawing wood a hundred miles, I
will count those men. In other words, I will count all the men I pay, no
matter whether they are keeping books in New York or carrying the mail
across the desert. I will count all the men I pay; so will you. What
horses will you count? All the horses engaged in the business; those
that are drawing corn for the others, as well as the rest, will you not?
There is an old fable that a trumpeter was captured in the war and he
said to his captor, "I am not a soldier, I never shot anybody." "Ah,"
they said, "but you incited others to shoot, and you are as much a
soldier as anybody; we want you."
Now, I say that we are entitled to count every man who carries the mail,
and every man necessary to perform that service. So do you. Now, there
we divide. The Government says we shall count simply the men carrying
the mail, nobody else, and we shall count simply the horses in actual
service. That is nonsense. For instance, you have got to have thirty
horses. They are going all the time. Do you depend on just that thirty?
No, sir. If one gets lame you cannot carry the mail. You have got to
have twenty or thirty horses in your corral, in the stables, so that
if one of the others gives out you will have enough. That is one great
question in this case, gentlemen. What I say to you now is that on every
one of these routes in which my clients are interested, or, I may say,
in which anybody is interested, the evidence will be that the affidavits
were substantially correct. In many cases there was a far greater
difference between the men and horses then used and the men and horses
that were afterwards necessary.
You must take another thing into consideration. In a country where there
are Indian depredations one man will not stay at a station by himself.
He wants somebody with him; he wants two or three with him, and the more
frightened he is the more men he will want. On that route from Bismarck
to Tongue River, as to which it was sworn it would take a hundred and
fifty men, the statement was made at a time when the men would not stay
separately; that they wanted five or six together at one station; that
they wanted men out on guard and watch. You will find before we get
through, gentlemen, that the affidavits do not overstate the number. You
will find in addition that these petitions were signed by the best
men; that that service was asked for by the best men, not simply in
the Territories, but by some of the best men in the United States; by
members of Congress, by Senators, by generals, by great and splendid
men, men of national reputation. So when we come to that we will show to
you that the affidavits made were substantially true. There is another
charge that has been made, and that is that the affidavits in Mr. Peck's
name were not made by him; that he never signed these affidavits.
Yet, gentlemen, we will prove to you as the Government once proved
by Mr. Taylor, a notary public in New Mexico, that Mr. Peck appeared
personally before him; that he was personally acquainted with Mr. Peck,
and that he signed and swore to those affidavits in his presence. That
we will substantiate in this trial as the Government substantiated it
in the other. These gentlemen, are among the charges that have been made
against us. I say to you to-day they will not be able to show that we
ever put upon the files of the Post-Office Department a solitary letter,
a solitary petition, a solitary communication that was not genuine and
true. Not one. They cannot do it. They never will do it. You will
be astonished when you hear these petitions to find the Government
admitting that they are true. If they do not read them we will read
them. That is all.
Now, I have stated to you a few of the charges made against my clients
up to this point. I want to keep it in your mind. I want each man on
this jury to understand exactly what I say. Let us go over this ground
a little. I want to be sure you remember it. In the first place, S. W.
Dorsey was not interested in these routes. All the bids were made by
John W. Dorsey, John M. Peck, John R. Miner, and a man by the name
of Boone. All the information was gathered by Mr. Boone by sending
circulars to every postmaster on the routes. Upon that information John
W. Dorsey, John M. Peck, and John R. Miner made their calculations and
made their bids, numbering in all about twelve hundred. Of that number
they had awarded to them a hundred and thirty-four contracts. Recollect
that. After those contracts were awarded to them they were without the
money to put the stock on all the routes, because more contracts were
awarded than they expected. Thereupon John R. Miner borrowed some money
from Stephen W. Dorsey and kept up that borrowing until the amount
reached some sixteen or eighteen thousand dollars. Don't forget it.
After it got to that point Mr. Dorsey started for New Mexico. At Saint
Louis he met John R. Miner, then coming from Montana, and John R. Miner
said to him, "We have got to have some more money of you;" and Dorsey
replied, "I have no more money to give you." Miner then said, "You give
your note or indorse mine for nine or ten thousand dollars." Dorsey
replied, "If you will give me post-office orders and drafts, not only to
secure the note I am about to indorse or make for you, but also to the
amount of the money I have advanced for you, I will give the note." That
was agreed upon. Thereupon he gave the note. It was discounted in the
German-American National Bank, and Mr. Miner deposited with the note the
orders on the Post-Office Department, not only to secure the note, but
the sixteen thousand dollars that Dorsey had before that time advanced.
Dorsey went on to New Mexico, and in May or July of that year another
law was passed, allowing a subcontractor to put his subcontract on file.
After he had advanced that money and indorsed or signed the note, they
made the contract with Mr. Vaile, turning these routes over to him and
giving him subcontracts on all these routes. When Stephen W. Dorsey came
back from New Mexico in December of that year he found that the note
at the German-American National Bank had been protested, and that his
collateral security was at that time worthless, because the subcontracts
had been filed and these subcontracts cut out the post-office orders or
drafts. Thereupon he wanted a settlement. Matters drifted along until
April, 1879, and a settlement was made. I have told you that from the
time the routes were given to Mr. Vaile until that time nobody had the
slightest thing to do with them except Mr. Vaile; that in April,
1879, the division was made; that Mr. Vaile paid the note at the
German-American National Bank; that the division was made, as I told
you, by Mr. Vaile drawing one route, Mr. Dorsey one, and Mr. Miner one,
and keeping that up until they were all drawn. I forgot to tell you
before that Mr. S. W. Dorsey had sixteen thousand dollars, to which, if
you add the interest, it would be about eighteen thousand dollars;
that John W. Dorsey had ten thousand dollars and John M. Peck had ten
thousand dollars, and when that division was made Stephen W. Dorsey
agreed to pay John W. Dorsey ten thousand dollars, and to pay John M.
Peck ten thousand dollars for his interest. Gentlemen, he did pay John
W. Dorsey ten thousand dollars, and he did pay the same amount to Peck,
and from that day to this John W. Dorsey has never had the interest of
one solitary cent in any one of these routes. He was simply paid back
the money that he expended. Not another cent. John M. Peck never made by
this business one solitary dollar. He simply received back the money he
had expended. After he had paid back that money to both of these men,
Stephen W. Dorsey took these routes with a debt to him of between
sixteen and eighteen thousand dollars. Now, as to Mr. Rerdell. They say
he was the private secretary of Stephen W. Dorsey. He never was; not for
a moment, not for a single moment He attended to some of this business.
I have no doubt that the Government imagine they can debauch somebody
in order to get information. I give them notice now--GO on. There is no
living man whose testimony we fear. There is no living lawyer who has
the genius to make perjury do us harm. I want you to understand it.
And I want them to understand that I know precisely what they are
endeavoring to do. There is only one way for them to surprise me, and
that is for them to do a kind thing.
Now, gentlemen, at that time--I want you to remember it; I do not
want you to forget it--when these routes came to Mr. Dorsey, he, not
understanding the business, turned it over to Mr. James W. Bosler.
Mr. Bosler, as I told you before, is a man of wealth. But, say these
gentlemen, "While these routes were in your possession, and while
Stephen W. Dorsey had an interest in them he asked men to sign petitions
in favor of an increase of trips and decrease of time." What if he did?
Suppose you have a house out here somewhere; you can petition to have a
street opened, even if you have the contract for paving the street.
You have a right to petition to have a schoolhouse located in your
neighborhood even if you have children. There is no harm about that. You
certainly can petition to have cows prevented from running at large even
if there is no fence around your yard. I think you could do so without
being indicted for conspiracy. I think a man might start a subscription
for a church, even if he owned a brick-yard and expected to sell bricks
to build it. Now, suppose I had a contract to carry the mail through the
State of California from one end to the other once a week, is there
any harm in my asking the people of that country to petition to have
it carried twice a week? Do you not remember what I told you? All the
members of Congress out there, when they go home want to say to the
people when they meet at the convention with all the delegates on hand.
"Why, gentlemen, you did not used to get the New York Herald or New York
Times, or The Sun, until it was two weeks old, and now it is only a
week old. Where you only had one mail I have given you three. I have got
fifty thousand dollars to improve your harbor, and one hundred thousand
dollars for a new custom-house. Look at me, gentlemen, I am a candidate
for re-election." That is natural. This Court will instruct you that any
man who is carrying a mail anywhere in the United States has the right
to use his influence in getting up petitions for the increase of that
service or the expedition of that time. They say Dorsey did this. What
of it? They say Dorsey tried to manufacture public opinion. That is what
these gentlemen of the prosecution have been doing for eighteen months,
and now they object to the manufacture of public opinion. Public opinion
is their stock in trade.
Leaving that charge, every man who has a contract for carrying the mail
has the right to call the attention of every editor in that country to
the fact that they need more mail service. He has the right to send his
agents there and if the people want to petition for more service, and
if Congress is willing to give them more service, no human being has a
right to complain in this manner and in a criminal court. If any offence
has been committed it is of a political nature. If a member of Congress
gets too much service his people can keep him at home. If he does too
much for his locality they need not elect him the next time. It is
a political offence for which there is a political punishment and a
political remedy. So much for the right of petition. I am perfectly
willing to tell all he did in regard to the increase of service and the
expedition.
While I am on that point I want you to distinctly understand what
increase is and what expedition is. Increase of service means more of
the same kind. Suppose I am to carry the mail from one place to another.
We will call it from Si-Wash to Oo-Ray. If I am to carry that mail once
a week for five hundred dollars and they want it twice a week, I
have one thousand dollars, but do not carry it any faster. That is an
increase. Suppose I am carrying it in say two hundred hours and they
want it carried in half that time. That is what they call expedition.
Now, the question is as to the difference in cost of carrying the mail
at six miles an hour, or at two and a half, or two, or one and a half.
If I carry it slowly, I can go at a reasonable rate in the day and can
lie by at night. I want you to understand distinctly the difference
between increase of service, which is more of the same kind, and
expedition, which means the same kind at a faster rate. Now, I can carry
the mail twenty miles and back in a day and do that a great deal
easier than if I were to make the distance in four or five hours. The
difference is just about the same with a locomotive as with a horse. If
a train runs twenty miles an hour and you want to increase its speed to
thirty, it will cost altogether more than twice as much as it does to
run it at twenty. If you want to increase it still further to forty or
sixty, it will cost at sixty more than three times as much as at twenty.
The cost increases in an increased proportion. I want you to understand
that. Now, we are charged with having done some frightful things on
several of these routes, and for three days and a half your ears were
filled with charges of the rascality we have perpetrated. We had some
ten or eleven routes, and we are charged with having defrauded the
Government on those particular routes. Let us see what my clients did.
Do not understand me as saying that because my clients have done nothing
the other defendants have. I do not take that position. I take the
position that according to the evidence in this case there is nothing
against any of these defendants. Leave out passion, prejudice,
falsehood, and hatred and there is absolutely nothing left. If you will
take from Mr. Bliss's speech all the mistakes he made in law and fact,
there will be nothing left to answer; not a word. But I think it due to
my client, gentlemen, my client who is not able to be in this court, my
client who sits at home wrapped in darkness, that I should answer every
allegation touching every route in which he was interested. I think it
due to him. [Resuming]
I will call your attention to a few of the routes, possibly to all, in
which my clients were interested. It will take but a short time. I want
you to know whether or not these routes were important, whether it was
proper to carry the mails as they were carried, whether it was proper
that they should be carried from once to seven times a week, and whether
it was proper that the speed should be expedited. Now, you may think
after hearing the evidence that there were some routes that never should
have been established; but that does not establish a conspiracy. That
simply establishes the fact that Congress created routes where they were
not absolutely necessary. You may come to the conclusion that General
Brady ordered more trips on some of these routes than he should have
ordered. That does not establish a conspiracy. The most that it could
establish would be extravagance, and extravagance is not a crime. If it
were, the penitentiaries of the day would not be large enough--or rather
would be large enough, and too large, to hold the honest men. You may
say after you have heard the evidence that the time was faster than it
need be; but you must take into consideration all the connecting routes,
and even if you should so feel, it is for you to say whether that
establishes any conspiracy. All these things must be taken into
consideration.