CHAPTER XXI.
The Credit Mobilier.--Garfield entirely Cleared of all Charges Against him.--Tribute to him in Cincinnati Gazette.--Elected U. S. Senator.--Extract from Speech.--Sonnet.
A still more fruitful source of scandal was the association of Garfield's name with the Credit Mobilier stock. The company bearing this high-sounding French title was chartered, as early as 1859, under the law of Pennsylvania, for the alleged purpose of buying land, loaning money, building houses, etc.
When the war broke out, it ceased operations, until in 1866 the construction of the Pacific railroad brought it again into notice.
By using the charter of this Credit Mobilier, Mr. Oakes Ames and his associates saw an opportunity of making large sums of money. They bought up a majority of the stock of the Pacific Railroad, and secured the entire control of the Credit Mobilier. A contract was made with this company to build the road at an exorbitant profit, the proceeds of which were to be divided among themselves. The rights and interests of the smaller stockholders were quite ignored, as well as those of the United States, which, besides giving millions of acres, had also indorsed $60,000,000 of its bonds, to assist in the building of the railroad.
Of course, all this fraudulent dealing was kept a profound secret, and the true character of the Credit Mobilier was not known to the public for a long time.
To prevent Congress from investigating this outrageous swindle, the ring tried to dispose of some of their Credit Mobilier stock to different members of Congress.
George Francis Train called upon Garfield and asked him to invest.
"You can double and treble your money in a year," he urged; "the object of the company is to buy land where cities and villages are to spring up."
Garfield told Mr. Train that he had no money to invest, and even if he had, he should want to make further inquiries before entering into such a transaction.
A year later Mr. Ames, who was a member of Congress, came to Garfield and repeated the request.
"If you have no money to spare," said Mr. Ames, "I will hold the stock until you can find it convenient to pay for it."
After taking a few days to consider the matter, Garfield told Mr. Ames he had decided not to invest.
The following July, 1867, Garfield sailed for Europe, and in order to obtain funds for this trip, he turned over advanced drafts for several months of his congressional salary. When he returned home in November, he needed a small sum, for current expenses, and borrowed three hundred dollars of Oakes Ames. This loan he paid back in 1869.
Not long after this transaction, Garfield was informed that his name was upon Oakes Ames' book as holding ten shares of the Credit Mobilier.
He demanded an explanation, and Mr. Ames appeared before a committee of investigation, upon December 17, 1872. His testimony was as follows,--
"In reference to Mr. Garfield," said the chairman, "you say that you agreed to get ten shares for him and to hold them till he could pay for them, and that he never did pay for them nor receive them?"
"Yes, sir."
"He never paid any money on that stock, nor received any money from it?"
"Not on account of it."
"He received no dividends?"
"No, sir; I think not. He says he did not. My own recollection is not very clear."
"So, that, as you understand, Mr. Garfield never parted with any money, nor received any money on that transaction?"
"No, sir; he had some money from me once, some three or four hundred dollars, and called it a loan. He says that is all he ever received from me, and that he considered it a loan. He never took his stock and never paid for it."
"Did you understand it so?"
"Yes; I am willing to so understand it. I do not recollect paying him any dividend, and have forgotten that I paid him any money."
Five weeks after this statement, Mr. Ames appeared a second time before the committee with a memorandum in which there was an entry to the effect that a certain amount of stock had been sold for $329 and paid over to General Garfield; that it was not paid in money, but by a check on the sergeant-at-arms.
To this statement, the sergeant-at-arms, Mr. Dillon, testified that he had paid a check of $329, but that the payment had been made to Mr. Ames, not to General Garfield.
It was conclusively proved that Garfield's name was not among the eleven congressmen who had bought shares in the Credit Mobilier.
In a long and able vindication of the purity of his motives, Garfield concludes with the following words:--
"If there be a citizen of the United States who is willing to believe that, for $329, I have bartered away my good name, and to falsehood have added perjury, these lines are not addressed to him. If there be one who thinks that any part of my public life has been gauged on so low a level as these charges would place it, I do not address him; I address those who are willing to believe that it is possible for a man to serve the public without personal dishonor.
"If any of the scheming corporations or corrupt rings that have done so much to disgrace the country by their attempts to control its legislation, have ever found in me a conscious supporter or ally in any dishonorable scheme, they are at full liberty to disclose it. In the discussion of the many grave and difficult questions of public policy which have occupied the thoughts of the nation during the last twelve years, I have borne some part; and I confidently appeal to the public records for a vindication of my conduct."
A writer in the Cincinnati _Enquirer_ at this time thus described Garfield:--
"With as honest a heart as ever beat, above the competitions of sordid ambition, General Garfield has yet so little of the worldly wise in him that he is poor, and yet has been accused of dishonesty. He has no capacity for investment, nor the rapid solution of wealth, nor profound respect for the penny in and out of pound, and still, is neither careless, improvident, nor dependent. The great consuming passion to equal richer people, and live finely, and extend his social power, are as foreign to him as scheming or cheating. But he is not a suspicious nor a high-mettled man, and so he is taken in sometimes, partly from his obliging, un-refusing disposition. Men who were scheming imposed upon him as upon Grant and other crude-eyed men of affairs. The people of his district, however, who are quick to punish public venality or defection, heard him in his defence, and kept him in Congress and held up his hand."
Side by side with this testimony, listen to Garfield's own words in the Ohio Senate just after his election:--
"During the twenty years I have been in the public service (almost eighteen of it in the Congress of the United States), I have tried to do one thing. I have represented, for many years a district in Congress whose approbation I greatly desired, but, though it may seem perhaps a little egotistical to say it, I yet desired still more the approbation of one person, and his name is Garfield. He is the only man that I am compelled to sleep with, and eat with, and die with, and, if I could not have his approbation, I should have bad companionship."
The following sonnet, from an anonymous pen, appeared about this time in the Washington _Evening Star_:--
TO JAMES A. GARFIELD.
"Thou who didst ride on Chickamauga's day, All solitary, down the fiery line, And saw the ranks of battle rusty shine, Where grand old Thomas held them from dismay, Regret not now, while meaner factions play Their brief campaigns against the best of men; For those spent balls of slander have their way, And thou shalt see the victory again. Weary and ragged, though the broken lines Of party reel, and thine own honor bleeds, That mole is blind that Garfield undermines! That shot falls short that hired slander speeds! That man will live whose place the state assigns, And whose high mind the mighty nation needs!"
[Illustration: PRIVATE RESIDENCE OF GEN. JAMES A. GARFIELD, MENTOR, OHIO.]