there was one thing in that report to which I personally took exception, and only one. I understand that a gentleman occupied this room a few nights ago who undertook to make the impression upon his audience that Mr. Garfield was found guilty of some improper relation with the Credit Mobilier. Let me read you a sentence or two from that report. The committee say:
“Concerning the members to whom he had sold or offered to sell the stock, the committee say that they ‘do not find that Mr. Ames, in his negotiations with the persons above named, entered into any detail of the relations between the Credit Mobilier Company and the Union Pacific Company, or gave them any specific information as to the amount of dividends they would be likely to receive further than has been already stated, viz., that in some cases he had guaranteed a profit of ten per cent.... They do not find as to the members of the present House above named, that they were aware of the object of Mr. Ames, or that they had any other purpose in taking this stock than to make a profitable investment.... They have not been able to find that any of these members of Congress have been affected in their official action in consequence of interest in the Credit Mobilier stock.... They do not find that either of the above-named gentlemen, in contracting with Mr. Ames, had any corrupt motive or purpose himself, or was aware that Mr. Ames had any. Nor did either of them suppose he was guilty of any impropriety or even indelicacy in becoming a purchaser of this stock.’ And, finally, ‘that the committee find nothing in the conduct or motives of either of these members in taking this stock, that calls for any recommendation by the committee of the House.’ (See pp. viii, ix, x.)
“In Mr. Ames’s first testimony he names sixteen members of Congress to whom he offered the stock, and says that eleven of them bought it, but he sets Mr. Garfield down among the five who did not buy it.
“He says: ‘He (Garfield) did not pay for it or receive it.... He never paid any money on that stock or received money on account of it.’ Let me add that the last grant to the Union Pacific Railroad wasby the act of July, 1864, and that Oakes Ames had nothing to do with the Credit Mobilier till more than two years after that date.
“The point to which I took exception to the report of the committee was this: the report held that Mr. Ames and Mr. Garfield did agree upon the purchase of the stock, and that Mr. Garfield received three hundred and twenty-nine dollars on account of it. I insisted that the evidence did not warrant that conclusion, and rose in my place in the House, and announced that I should make that statement good before the American public; that I held myself responsible to demonstrate that the committee was wrong; that although they charged me with no wrong, they still had made a mistake of fact, which was against the evidence and an injustice to me. Soon after, I published a pamphlet of twenty-eight pages, in which I carefully and thoroughly reviewed all the testimony relating to me. I have now stood before the American people, since the eighth day of May, 1873, announcing that the following propositions were proven concerning myself: that I had never agreed even to take the stock of Mr. Ames; that I never subscribed for it, never did take it, never received any dividends from it, and was never in any way made a beneficiary by it. Seven thousand copies of that pamphlet have been distributed through the United States. Almost every newspaper in the United States has had a copy mailed to it. Every member of the Forty-Second Congress—Democrat and Republican—had a copy, and there is not known to me a man who, having read my review, has denied its conclusiveness of those propositions after having read them. I have seen no newspaper review of it that denies the conclusiveness of the propositions. It is for these reasons that a great public journal, the New YorkEvening Post, said a few days ago that on this point ‘General Garfield’s answer had been received by the American people as satisfactory.’ [Applause.] If there is any gentleman in this audience, who desires to ask any question concerning the Credit Mobilier, I shall be glad to hear it. [No response.] If not, would it not be about as well to modify the talk on that subject hereafter? [Applause.]
“Now the next thing I shall mention is a question purely of official conduct—and that is a subject which has grown threadbare in this community, and yet I desire your attention to it for a few moments. I refer to