70 page printout, 128 - 197 Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship. CLOS
70 page printout, 128 - 197
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
(3 of 3 parts)
**** ****
This file, its printout, or copies of either
are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
**** ****
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
His object was to get the evidence broad enough -- checks and
check-books enough -- to fit their notice, to the end that they
might get possession of all the check-books, and of all the amounts
on all the stubs.
What more? The discussion convinced Mr. Rerdell that it would
be far safer to say "stubs" than "stub"; that it would be far
better to say "cheek-books" than "check-book," and far better to
say "amounts" than "amount"; because he would have a better chance
in adding these up so as to make six thousand five hundred dollars,
or seven thousand dollars, or six thousand dollars, than to be
brought down to one check, one amount, and one stub-book. So he
went off into the region of safety, into the domain of the plural.
Now, the last point -- at least for this evening -- so far as
Mr. Bliss is concerned, I believe, is about the red books. Mr.
Bliss tells you that Mrs. Cushman was telegraphed to from the far
West. There was a little anxiety, I believe, on the part of Rerdell
about the book, and he telegraphed her. She found it there in the
wood-shed, you know, hanging up, I think, in the old family carpet-
sack -- I have forgotten where she found it -- and she put it away.
Now, there is a question I want to ask here, and I know that Mr.
Merrick when he closes will answer it to his entire satisfaction;
I do not know whether he will to yours or to mine: How does it
happen that Mrs. Rerdell never saw that red book? How does it
happen that Mrs. Rerdell, when she was put on the stand, never
mentioned that red book? How does it happen that she never heard of
it when her husband went to New York to get it; when everything he
had in the world, according to his idea, was depending upon it;
when it was his sheet-anchor; when it was the corner-stone of his
safety? And yet his wife never heard of it, never saw it, did not
know it was in the wood-shed, slept in that house night after night
and did not even dream that her husband's safety depended on any
book in a carpet-sack hanging in the wood-shed. She never said a
word about it on the stand, not a word, Gentlemen, nobody can
answer that question except by admitting that the book was not
there and did not exist.
But perhaps I have said enough about the speeches of Mr. Ker
and Mr. Bliss. Of course, their business is to do what they can to
convict. I do not know that I ought to take up much more time with
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
128
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
them. I feel a good deal as that man did in Pennsylvania who was
offered one-quarter of a field of wheat if he would harvest it. He
went out and looked at it. "Well," he says, "I don't believe I will
do it," The owner says, "Why?" "Well," he says, "there is a good
deal of straw, and I don't think there is wheat enough to make a
quarter."
So now, gentlemen, if the Court will permit, I would like to
adjourn till to-morrow morning.
Now, gentlemen, the next witness to whose testimony I will
invite your attention is Mr. Boone. Mr. Boone was relied upon by
the Government to show that this conspiracy was born in the brain
of Mr. Dorsey; that these other men were simply tools and
instrumentalities directed by him; that he was the man who devised
this scheme to defraud the Government, and that it was Dorsey who
suggested the fraudulent subcontracts. They brought Mr. Boone upon
the stand for that purpose, and I do not think it is improper for
me to say that Mr. Boone was swearing under great pressure. It is
disclosed by his own testimony that he had eleven hundred routes,
and that he had been declared a failing contractor by the
department; and it also appeared in evidence that he had been
indicted some seven or eight times. Gentlemen, that man was
swearing under great pressure. I told you once before that the hand
of the Government had him clutched by the throat, and the
Government relied upon his testimony to show how this conspiracy
originated. Now I propose to call your attention to the evidence of
Mr. Boone upon this subject.
On page 1352 Mr. Boone swears substantially that on his first
meeting with Stephen W. Dorsey -- that is, after they met at the
house -- he said to Dorsey that he (Boone) would be satisfied with
a one-third interest. Now, the testimony of Boone is that Mr.
Dorsey then and there agreed that he might have the one-third
interest.
Mr. Dorsey says it is not that Way; that he told him that when
the others came they would probably give him that interest, or
something to that effect.
Mr, Boone further swears that when J.W. Dorsey did come there
was a contract -- or articles of agreement you may call them --
handed to him by J.R. Miner, purporting to be articles of
partnership between John W. Dorsey and himself, and that he signed
these articles; that, I believe, was on the 15th of January, 1878,
and that it was by virtue of that agreement that he had one-third.
It was not by virtue of any talk he had with S.W. Dorsey that he
got an interest, and you will see how perfectly that harmonizes
with the statement of Stephen W. Dorsey.
Mr. Dorsey's statement is: "I cannot make the bargain with
you, but when John W. Dorsey comes I think he will, or they will."
It turned out that when John W. Dorsey did come in January he did
enter into articles of partnership with A.E. Boone, and did give
him the one-third interest. So the fact stands out that he got the
one-third interest from John W. Dorsey and not from Stephen W.
Dorsey. If the paper had been written and signed by Stephen W.
Dorsey that would uphold the testimony of Boone. If Boone had said,
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
129
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
"I made the bargain with Stephen W. Dorsey," and the articles of
co-partnership were signed by him, I submit that that would have
been a perfect corroboration of Boone. Stephen W. Dorsey swears
that the bargain was made with John W. Dorsey, and you find that
the agreement was signed by John W. Dorsey, and not by Stephen W.
Dorsey. I submit, therefore, that that is a perfect corroboration
of the testimony of Stephen W. Dorsey.
At page 1544 Mr. Boone says that, as a matter of fact, all
contractors endeavored to keep what they were doing secret from all
other contractors. Think of the talk we have heard about secrecy.
If the bidders upon any of these routes did not want the whole
world to know the amount they had bid, that secrecy was tortured
into evidence of a criminal conspiracy. If John W. Dorsey did not
want the world to know what he was doing, if Mr. Boone wanted to
keep a secret, these gentlemen say it is because they were engaged
in a conspiracy to defraud the Government, and crime loves the
darkness. What does Mr. Boone say? As a matter of fact, that all
contractors endeavored to keep what they were doing secret from all
other contractors where they feared rivalry. Of course that is
human nature,
Mr. Boone further says that he never knew of one contractor
admitting even that he was going to bid. He always pretended, don't
you see, that he was not going to bid. He wanted to throw the other
contractors off their guard. He did not want them to imagine that
he was figuring upon that same route, because if they thought he
was, they might put in a much lower bid. He wanted them to feel
secure, so that they would put in a good high bid, and then if he
put in a tolerably low bid he would get the route. That is simply
human nature.
Boone further says that always when a letting came on he had
his bids in; that contractors keep their bids secret from rival
contractors, not for the purpose of defrauding the Government, but
for the purpose of taking care of their business. Now, gentlemen,
when men make these proposals and keep their business secret -- as
it turns out that in these cases they were keeping their business
secret -- the fact that they are so doing is not evidence going to
show that they are keeping that business secret because they have
conspired. Have you not the right to draw the inference, and is it
not the law that you must draw the inference, that they kept their
business secret for the same reason that all honest men keep their
business secret?
At page 1545, Mr. Boone, swearing again about his talk with
Mr. Dorsey that night after the arrangement was concluded, says
that he -- Dorsey -- told me to be careful of Elkins, because
Elkins was representing Roots & Kerens, large contractors, * * *
the largest in the department, at that time, in the Southwest.
And yet that evidence has been alluded to as having in it the
touch and taint of crime, because S.W. Dorsey said to Boone to say
nothing to Elkins. Who was Elkins? He, at that time, as appears
from the evidence, was the attorney of Roots & Kerens; and who were
they? Among the largest, if not the largest contractors in the
department; that is, the largest in the Southwest.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
130
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Mr. Boone stated that the letter of Peck to S.W. Dorsey
requested him to get some man who knew the business to look after
the bids or proposals. Now, I want to ask you, gentlemen, and I
want you to answer it like sensible men, if Stephen W. Dorsey got
up a conspiracy himself, why was it that Peck wrote to him asking
him to get some competent man to collect the information about the
bids -- that is, about the country, about the routes, about the
cost of living, about wages, the condition of the roads, and the
topography of the country?
If it was hatched in the brain of Stephen W. Dorsey, how is it
possible, gentlemen, that a letter was written to him by Peck
asking him to get a competent man to gather that information? Mr.
Boone swears that he had such a letter. Mr. Boone swears that
Dorsey showed the letter to him. Mr. Boone swears that, in
consequence of that letter. he went to work to gather this
information. Did Mr. Dorsey do anything about gathering
information? Nothing. Did he give any advice? None. Did he ask any
questions? Not one. Did he interfere with Mr.Boone in the business?
Never.
You know that was a very suspicious circumstance. I believe
there was a direction given that letters be sent to James H.
Kepner, That was another suspicious circumstance. Mr. Boone swears
that he was also in the mail business; that he did not want the
letters to go some place; that he had to give at the department an
address; that thereupon he chose the name of James H. Kepner, his
step-son, so that all the mail in regard to this particular
business would go in one box, and not be mingled with the mail in
reference to his individual business or the business represented by
the firm to which he belonged. What more does he swear? That
neither Dorsey nor any one of these defendants ever suggested that
name, or ever suggested that any such change be made; that it was
made only as a matter of convenience; that it was not intended to
and could not in any way defraud the Government.
Now, Mr. Boone has cleared up a little of this. He has cleared
up the letter; he has cleared up the charge of secrecy; he has
cleared up the charge that we had the letters addressed to James H.
Kepner & Co.; he has shown that everything done so far was
perfectly natural, perfectly innocent, and in accordance with the
habits of men engaged in that business.
Now I come to the next thing (page 1550). The next great
circumstance in this case, the great suspicious circumstance, was
that the amount of the bid was left blank in the proposals. The
moment they saw those blanks in the bids they knew then that the
Government was to be defrauded, and they brought Mr. Boone here for
the purpose of showing that that was done to lay the foundation for
a fraud. What does Boone swear? He swears that he always left that
part of the proposal blank; always had done so; had been engaged in
the mail business for years, and never filled that blank up in his
life, in which the amount of the bid should be inserted. It was not
left blank to defraud the Government, but to prevent the
postmasters and sureties, or any other persons, finding out the
amount of the bid. Away goes that suspicious circumstance.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
131
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
After the bids had been properly executed and came back into
the hands of the contractors, from the time the figures were put
into those routes, what does he say they did?
We slept with them until we could get them to the department.
He says they never allowed anybody to see them after the
amount of the bid had been inserted; that they would not allow
anybody to see the amount of the bids; that it was left out,
however, only for self-protection, and for no other reason, That is
the Government's own witness. He is the man they brought to show
that this blank in the bid was a suspicions circumstance. He is the
man they brought here to show that because Stephen W. Dorsey had
told him to say nothing to Elkins, that injunction of secrecy was
evidence of a conspiracy.
At page 1552, Mr. Boone, in speaking of these same things,
says that however they were made, whether the name of the bidder or
the route was put in, or whatever he did -- that is, Boone -- he
did not do it for the purpose of defrauding the Government. They
say to him, "Don't you know that you left out not only the amount
of the bid, but the name of the bidder?" He says, "Whatever I did,
whether I left out the amount of the bid or the name of the bidder,
I did not do it for the purpose of defrauding the Government; I had
no such idea, no idea of defrauding the Government by leaving any
blank or any blanks." He did the work. Stephen W. Dorsey left no
blank; A.E. Boone left every blank; and yet they brought him
forward to prove that that was the result of a conspiracy; and
after he comes upon the stand he swears, "I left those blanks
myself; I always left them in proposals exactly in that way; and
whether I left out the amount of the bid or the name of the bidder,
I did not do it to defraud the Government; I did it simply to
protect myself, as I had the right to do." So much for that. That
is gone.
So, speaking of these other proposals (the Clendenning
proposals) what does Mr. Boone say -- the witness for the
Government, the very man who got up those proposals, the man who
wrote them, the man who wrapped them up, and sealed them? What does
he say? "Those proposals were not gotten up for the purpose of
defrauding the Government; I did not send them to Clendenning for
that purpose." That is the end of that. No conspiracy there.
The object, don't you see, gentlemen, was to show by Boone
that he acted under the direction of Dorsey; that Dorsey was
responsible for everything that Boone did; and that although Boone
was guilty of no crime in leaving the bid blank, still if be did it
by authority of Dorsey, Dorsey had an ulterior motive of which
Boone was ignorant. Let us see.
At page 1554, Mr. Boone swears that Dorsey never told him at
any time or any place that he wanted any blanks left. And yet they
were endeavoring by that witness to saddle that upon S.W. Dorsey.
But that witness swears that Dorsey never even told him that he
wanted any blanks left in any paper, proposal, bid, or bond, He
says that Dorsey never at any time or place told him (Boone) that
he (Dorsey) wanted any blanks left, or any proposals of any
particular form printed, to the end that a fraud might be
perpetrated upon the Government -- not a word.
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
132
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
And, gentlemen, I am now in that space of time where they say
this conspiracy was born. At page 1567, before Miner got here, Mr.
Boone swears that Dorsey told him that he would advance money for
the other defendants, and Mr. Boone swears that after he got here
he never asked Dorsey for a dollar except through Miner; that
Dorsey never gave a dollar except through Miner.
What more? This is the witness that is going to establish the
guilt of Stephen W. Dorsey. Stephen W. Dorsey never told Boone at
any time that he had any interest what-ever in those mail routes.
Boone never heard of it. Dorsey never told him to print a proposal
with a blank; never told him to leave a blank after it was printed;
never told him to do anything for the purpose of defrauding the
Government in any way at any time. This is extremely good reading,
gentlemen, when you take into consideration that this is the
witness of the Government, their main prop until the paragon of
virtue made his appearance upon the stand.
Page 1558. Another great point: That in preparing the
subcontracts, Dorsey having it in his mind to conspire against the
Government, or really having conspired, according to their story,
wanted a provision in a subcontract for increase and expedition.
Why, it strikes me, gentlemen, that that is evidence of
honesty rather than dishonesty. If these subcontracts were to hold
good during the contract term, and if in the contract given to the
contractor by the Government there was a clause for increase and
expedition, why should not the subcontract provide for the same
contingencies that the contract provided for with the Government?
That looks honest, doesn't it?
It was advertising the subcontractor that the moment he signed
his subcontract the trips were liable to be increased and the time
was liable to be shortened, and that if the time was shortened or
the trips increased the pay was to be correspondingly increased.
But I will go on with the testimony.
Page 1558: In preparing the subcontract Mr. Dorsey instructed
Boone to provide for an expedition clause. That was a suspicious
circumstance. What for? To conform to the expedition clause in the
contract with the Government. If making it like the Government
contract is evidence of conspiracy, the fact that the Government
contracts have that clause is evidence that the Government
conspired with somebody. It is just as good one way as the other.
The Government made a contract with the contractor, the contractor
made one with the subcontractor, and the contractor so far forgot
his duties, so far forgot his moral obligations, that he made it
just the same as his contract with the Government. Gentlemen, is
there any depth of depravity below that? Absolutely copying the
contract that the Government was going to make with him, and
treating the subcontractor, so far as the contract was concerned,
as the Government had treated him, he (Boone) prepared a clause
which he thought filled the bill, and which he still thinks, I
believe, would have been better to use than the other. When he
showed that to Stephen W. Dorsey, Dorsey suggested another form. It
was the same thing exactly, but in different words. There was the
testimony I have read to you, and now here is what Mr. Bliss states
about it at Page 4865:
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
133
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
But Stephen W. Dorsey, away back there, knew sufficient about
expedition to appreciate the importance of keeping for the
contractors thirty-five per cent. and giving to the men who were
performing the service only sixty-five per cent.
Why not? Is that a crime? Suppose I agreed to carry the mail
four years for $10,000 a year and I subcontract with another man.
Have I not the right to get it carried as cheaply as I can? I just
ask you that as a business proposition. Or has every man to treat
this Government as though it was in its dotage? Must you do
business with the Government as though you were contracting with an
infant or an idiot? Must you look at both sides of the contract?
That is the question. The Government, for instance, advertises for
so much granite, and I put in a bid which is accepted; at the same
time I know that I could furnish that granite for twenty-five per
cent. less. Is it my duty under such circumstances to go and notify
the Government that I have cheated it, and that I would like to
have It put the contract down? There may be heights of morality
that would see the propriety of such action, but it is not for
every-day wear and tear. Very few people have it; it scarcely ever
comes into play in trading horses. Must we treat the Government as
though it were imbecile? I say it was a simple business
transaction. The Government advertises for proposals to carry the
mail; I make my bid for $10,000, and we will say that my bid is
accepted. Now, I admit that I could carry it for $5,000 and make
money.
Am I criminal if I go on and perform the contract as I agreed
and draw the money? Or suppose the people along the route do not
want it expedited and increased, and so I talk to them about it; I
go to Mr. Brown and say, "Mr. Brown, you are living in this smart,
thriving town, and you need a daily mail." I go to the next village
and I say, "Why, gentlemen, you will never have a town here until
you have a daily mail; I am the fellow now carrying the mail." And
I keep talking about it, you know, and finally get a fellow to get
up a petition, or I write one myself, and send it around, and say
to them, "Gentlemen, what you want is more mail, faster mail; the
mail is the pioneer of civilization, gentlemen; have a daily mail,
and along the line at once towns and villages and cities will
spring up, and all the hillsides will be covered with farms, and
school-houses will be here, and wealth will be universal." Any
crime about that. Every railroad has been built just that way.
Every park has been laid out in every city by just such means.
Nearly every street that has been improved has been improved in
that way, by men who had some interest in the property, by men who
were to be benefitted by it themselves, and who ought to be
benefitted. Should the men that get the public attention in that
direction be benefitted, or the men who do nothing? I say that the
men who give attention to the business have a right to be
benefitted by it. And yet here is the crime, gentlemen. And then we
only gave these fellows sixty-five per cent. and took thirty-five
ourselves, because we were bound to the Government to fulfill the
contract, as was explained to you so admirably, so perfectly, by
judge Wilson. The contract was to run for four years, and I believe
in a certain contingency for six months thereafter. We had to carry
out the contract, whether the subcontractor carried out his
contract with us or not.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
134
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Now, this is what Mr. Bliss says:
So, after a large mass of subcontracts had been struck from
the press, which gave to the subcontractors all the increase --
There never was a subcontract that gave to the subcontractors
all the increase; there is no evidence that there ever was such a
subcontract.
he --
That is, Stephen W. Dorsey --
directed them to be put back on the press.
I should think he would. If he found any subcontracts were
printed that gave to the subcontractor all the increase, I do not
wonder that he had them destroyed.
Here you get, we will say, a contract for ten thousand dollars
for one trip, with the agreement that if there are two trips the
compensation shall be twenty thousand dollars, Thereupon you make
a contract with a subcontractor, and you agree in that subcontract
that he shall have all the increase. Of course, you want that made
over again; of course, you would not make that kind of a
subcontract.
He directed them to be put back on the press, and this
provision giving the subcontractor his money struck out and this
other clause put in.
Gentlemen, that is an entire and absolute mistake. There is no
such evidence, there never was in this case, and I take it there
never will be. The evidence was -- and you remember it; and you
remember it; and you remember it; and you [addressing different
jurors] -- that Stephen W. Dorsey allowed to the subcontractor
sixty-five per cent. of the expedition, and that same subcontractor
provided what he should have for one trip, and what he should have
for two trips; that is to say, what he should have for increase;
and it provided at the same time for sixty-five per cent. on
expedition. Mr. Boone swears it; others swear it. Not only that,
but it is printed in the record again and again and again. Why did
Stephen W. Dorsey do that? I can tell you why: He did not. Why did
Stephen W. Dorsey do that, if it was not because his fertile
imagination had already conceived the plan of defrauding the United
States, and he was making an arrangement by which that fraud could
be consummated? How would that help him consummate a fraud? Suppose
he struck out all the per cent. to the subcontractors; suppose he
had not had any subcontract printed; suppose the subcontract was
printed, and printed on purpose to deceive and defraud the
subcontractors; how does that show that he was trying to defraud
the United States? Why, if it proves anything it proves the other,
that he had not entered into a conspiracy by which he could get the
money from the United States, but had endeavored to get it from the
subcontractors. If it proves anything it proves that. But the
reason it does not prove anything is because the statement is not
correct.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
135
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Now, just see how a conspiracy can be built of that material.
A man that can do that can make a cover for Barnum's Circus with
one postage-stamp; he can make a suit of clothes out of a
rabbit-skin; he can make a grain of mustard seed cover the whole
air without growing.
That is given as an evidence that Dorsey had conspired. There
is not a thing on the earth that he could have done that would not
prove conspiracy just as well as that -- just exactly -- no other
act. Humph! That is the way they build a conspiracy.
Why not take another step? Why not have a little bit of
ordinary good hard sense? On the 17th day of May, I believe, 1878,
the act was passed allowing the subcontractor to put his
subcontract on file. Now, that contract ought to provide for all
the contingencies of the service, so that if the trips were
increased the Government would know how much to pay that
subcontractor; so that if the time was expedited the Government
would know how much to pay the subcontractor. The subcontract ought
to have been made in that way, and it would be perfectly proper to
make it in that way.
I once went to see a friend of mine who had the erysipelas and
who was a little crazy. I sat down by his bed. side, and he said,
"Ingersoll, I have made a discovery; I just tell you I am going to
be a millionaire." Said I, "What. is it?" He says, "I have found
out that if four persons take hold of hands after they have had a
hole made in the ground and put a piece of stove-pipe in it, and
then run around it as hard as they can from left to right, a ball
of butter will come out of the pipe." Now, I think that is about as
reasonable as the way conspiracies are made, according to Mr.
Bliss.
Now, we come to Mr. Boone (page 1560). He says that the action
he had taken was upon his own responsibility, and that at no time
had any papers been gotten up with any view of defrauding the
Government. That was good. I am like the Democrat who said, after
hearing the returns from Berks County, "That sounds good." Then,
here is a question asked him:
Q. I understood you to say that the contract was made between
you and somebody, fixing your interest in all this business? -- A.
Yes, sir.
Q. Do you recollect about the date of that? -- A. I think it
is on the day John W. Dorsey got here in Washington.
On page 1561 he swears that at the time Boone made that
contract with John W. Dorsey he and Dorsey had not conspired to
defraud the Government in any way, nor did they ever do so after
that contract was made. When was that contract made? It was made on
the 15th day of January, 1878. Who made it? John W. Dorsey of the
one part, and Albert E. Boone of the other. And they tell exactly
what that contract was for. Here is the contract, on page 1561, and
this shows that the statement of Stephen W. Dorsey, that the matter
was deferred until John W Dorsey should come, is absolutely
correct:
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
136
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
That the parties to this agreement shall share in all the
profits, gains, and losses as follows: John W. Dorsey shall have
two-thirds and Albert E. Boone, share one-third.
Now, gentlemen, there was the original partnership agreement.
Let us see if that was ever dissolved.
The next contract was made on the 12th of September, 1878,
Now, therefore, in consideration of one dollar in hand paid,
the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, I hereby, sell, assign,
and transfer to Albert E. Boone all my said two-thirds interest in
the routes in the name of said Boone in the States of Texas,
Louisiana Arkansas, Kansas, and Nebraska, and in the name of said
Dorsey in the States of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas.
The reason he did that was because Mr. Miner had made a
contract with Boone to that effect; and probably I had better read
that now so that you will have it exactly and know what we are
doing. I read from page 1569:
WASHINGTON, D. C., August 7, 1878.
Whereas A. E. Boone has this day, for the purpose of saving a
failure in the routes in the name of John R. Miner, John M. Peck,
and John W. Dorsey --
"For the purpose of saving a failure," recollect. Although
Stephen W. Dorsey, according to the prosecution, was a conspirator,
and although John W. Dorsey was another, and Peck was another, yet
on the 7th day of August, 1878, "for the purpose of saving a
failure," they made this:
assigned to John R. Miner his one-third interest in the routes in
their names, now, therefore, I, John R. Miner, agree that John W.
Dorsey shall assign his; interest in routes in the name of A.E.
Boone in Kansas and Nebraska, Texas and Louisiana, and Arkansas ;
in the name of John W. Dorsey, in Texas, Louisiana, and Kansas. The
latter clause not guaranteed.
JOHN R. MINER.
Now, he said to Mr. Boone, "I have got to have another man
come in; we haven't got the money to run these routes; I have got
to get somebody with us; if you will go out, I will agree that John
W. Dorsey will assign to you his two-thirds interest in all the
routes in Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. I will
agree that John W. Dorsey, although he has a two-thirds interest in
all these routes, shall assign them to you, A. E. Boone, and they
shall thereupon become your property." That agreement was made on
the 7th of August, 1878; and then, as I read you before, on the
12th day of September, Miner made that promise good, and John W.
Dorsey did assign to Boone his two-thirds interest in all the
routes that Miner said he would. Then Boone was out of it. He had
no more to do with Miner, Peck & Co., and no more to do with John
W. Dorsey; he went his road and they went theirs. He went out in
consideration that John W. Dorsey would give him (Boone) two-thirds
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
137
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
of all the routes that he before that time had one-third in. Then
Miner took in Mr. Vaile, because he had the money to go on with the
business.
Page 1562, still talking about Mr. Boone. There is another
very suspicious circumstance that was brought up by the
prosecution. These bids were put in different names, and that was
looked at as a very suspicious circumstance! What does Boone say
about that? He says that the object in bidding in separate names
was not to defraud the Government, but was to have the service
divided up and not to bid against each other. That was reasonable.
The arrangement was simply to keep from injuring themselves; it was
not made to defraud the Government, but it was made so that they
might not by accident injure each other. It was a common thing for
members of a firm to bid in that way, and it is a common thing for
persons to organize themselves for the purpose of bidding and
running contracts, and when they thus bid they always bid in their
individual names. The fact that we bid in our individual names was
taken as a circumstance going to show that we had conspired to
defraud the Government, and a witness they bring forward to prove
that fact swears that it has been the custom for all firms to bid
in their individual names. Away goes that suspicion. The coat-tail
of that point horizontalizes in the dim distance.
Page 1563. The point was made, gentlemen, that we bid on long
routes with slow time, knowing -- understand, knowing -- that the
service would be increased and that the time would be shortened.
The only word I object to there is the word "knowing." That we bid
on long routes with slow time thinking that the service would be
increased and the time shortened was undoubtedly true. That we bid
expecting that the service might be increased and the time
shortened is undoubtedly true. That when we bid we took into
consideration the probability of the service being increased and
the time shortened is undoubtedly true. The only difference is the
difference between thinking and knowing; between taking into
account probabilities and making the bid because we had made a
bargain with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. That is the
difference. Let us see what Boone says about it. I read from page
1563:
On all service of three times a week and under there is a
chance for improvement in getting it up to six or seven times a
week.
Everybody who has ordinary common sense knows that! If I bid
on service for once a week there is a great deal better chance for
getting an increase of trips than if there were seven when I
started. Everybody knows that. There is about six times as good a
chance.
All contractors consider that --
That chance --
in their bids, and bid lower on one, two, and three times a week
service than on a daily service --
Why? --
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
138
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
because the chances are the route will be increased.
Boone swears on the same page that he always did that himself;
that he always had done it. Yet that is lugged in here as evidence
of a conspiracy.
There is a great deal better chance for expedition when a
route is let at two or three miles an hour, than when it is let at
six or seven.
Of course there is. The slower it is let the better chance of
getting it expedited. The faster it is let the less chance of
getting it expedited. There is no need of bringing a man here to
show that. You know that. If you thought there was more money in
expedition and increase than on the original schedule, you would,
as I insist, bid on such routes as the advertisement showed the
time was to be slow and the service infrequent upon. Now,
gentlemen, to take advantage of such a perfectly apparent thing as
that will not do. You have heard a good deal about star routes,
gentlemen. Every one of you by this time ought to make a pretty
good Postmaster-General; every one of you. If you do not know all
about this subject, you never will.
The FOREMAN (Mr. Crane). We ought to be good lawyers, too.
Mr. INGERSOLL. You also ought to be good lawyers, at least on
this subject! I do not know that you have all the testimony in your
minds, as there have been so many misstatements made, but if you
ever are to know anything on this subject you know something now;
and if you, Mr. Foreman, or you Mr Renshaw, were to-morrow to go to
work to bid on some star routes you would bid on the longest
routes, on the slowest time, and with the most infrequent trips.
You would do that. Then would you say, "That is evidence that we
have conspired"? Has a man got to be so stupid that he will not
take advantage of a perfectly plain thing in order to escape the
charge of conspiracy? If you were to put your money in land in the
Western country you would not go where the country was settled up,
and give one hundred dollars an acre for land, You would go where
you could get land for two, or three, or four, or five dollars an
acre, and say, "There is a chance for land to rise." That is not
conspiracy. So if you were going to bid on mail service you would
bid where the time is slow, or the route long, and the service once
a week. Then you would say that the country might grow, that
railroads might be built and that they might get the service up to
seven trips a week; and that instead of going on two miles an hour
may be they would want to make it seven miles an hour. That is the
service to make money on. Is it a crime to make money? Is it a
crime to make a good bargain with the Government? I suppose these
gentlemen of the prosecution made the best bargain they could with
the Government themselves. Is it a crime? I say no. Is a man to be
regarded as a conspirator because some outsider thinks he got too
good a bargain? That will not do. Boone says he always did that. Of
course he did. He says another thing. These gentlemen say that we
did not go above three trips, and that is another evidence of
fraud. They say we did not bid on any route with more than three
trips a week. Mr. Boone tells you, on page 1565, that the
department never advertised for four trips a week. That is the
reason I think they did not bid on any of these. He also swears
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
139
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
that they never advertised for five trips. That is a good reason
for our not taking any routes with five trips, is it not? There
were not any advertised. The Government did not offer to let us
have any. That is a good reason for not taking any of them. The
Government had not any of that kind. After you get beyond three
trips Boone swears that the next number is six or seven; never
four, never five. Don't you see? And yet it is a very suspicious
circumstance that we did not bid on any four-trip routes, or any
five-trip routes; that we stopped at three. Why did we stop at
three? Because if we had not stopped at three we would have had to
go to six. Why did we not go to six? Because at six trips a week we
would have been obliged to put up too much money, and to put up too
many certified cheeks. It required too many men to go on the bonds.
That is the reason. Gentlemen, if there had been a conspiracy it
would have been just about as well for us to bid on six or seven
trips to get the expedition of time. If there had been a conspiracy
to make money, and it had been understood by the Second Assistant
Postmaster-General, he could have just as well given us routes with
seven trips a week, and put the service up to seven, eight, nine,
or ten miles an hour, and he could have done that in the
thickly-populated parts of the country; if it had been the result
of a conspiracy.
Let me read more from what Mr. Boone says on page 1565:
The proposals that I destroyed were upon routes of at least
six times per week.
How did he come to destroy them? Another suspicious
circumstance against Dorsey! Boone said when he went into the
business he just took the bidding-book and commenced at A, and was
going right straight through to X, Y, and Z, and make a bid, I
believe, on every route that was in the book. I think that is his
testimony. Boone says:
I was going on without instructions. I was going on without
authority from anybody, working on the bids.
He thinks it was the same day that Miner got here, or the day
afterwards, and he -- I suppose meaning Dorsey -- came up to the
room and saw what the witness was doing. He was making up bids for
every route in the advertisement, going right along with big and
little, when Dorsey said there was a mistake. No proposals were to
be made for over three times a week or for routes under fifty
miles. When Miner came into the room witness asked what was the
reason of that. I say upon this point that Stephen W. Dorsey never
said a word about it, and that Boone is mistaken. But he says he
asked Miner the reason. What did Miner say? Did he say to him, "It
is because we have got a conspiracy? We have got it fixed with the
Second Assistant Postmaster-General"? No. He said this, he said for
fear of failure in getting bonds; that they could not get the bonds
for all the service and could not get certified checks for all the
service. Boone was going clear through the book from preface to
finis. They could not get bonds for all the service and could not
get certified checks for all the service. You remember that for all
the service over five thousand dollars they had to put up five per
cent., I think, in certified checks. Now, there was an immense
volume, of three or four thousand routes and he was going to put in
a bid on every one of them. That is what Boone was going to do. He
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
140
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
did not understand the conspiracy at that time. Miner explained to
him, "We cannot get the certified checks. We cannot get the
bondsmen." He did not tell him, " Good Lord, my friend, you don't
understand the terms of the conspiracy. We are taking no such
service as that. We are taking none over three times a week,
because, don't you see, we want the chance for increase. We want
the lowest. If we can find any service where the horses agree to
stand still, that is the service to take. You must look over the
terms of the conspiracy and have some sense about it."
Boone says he was starting in, taking the advertisements,
going right through the territory, all over that country, and
bidding on every route, not missing one. He never saw Stephen W.
Dorsey do any work on the bids. The proposals sent down to the
postmasters in Arkansas, including those to Clendenning, he (Boone)
fixed himself and sealed them. Gentlemen, there is no evidence that
Mr. Dorsey, as I understand it, ever saw one of those papers, but
simply the form that was written out by Boone that was sent to
Clendenning with instructions what to do with the proposals. That
I understand to be the evidence. They proved by Boone that Dorsey
never saw them; never wrote them; never ordered them to be written;
never ordered a blank to be left unfilled. And yet, gentlemen, he
was the man whom they say had brooded over this conspiracy; the man
that gave to it life and form. He is the man that used Boone and
John W. Dorsey and Peck and Miner as instrumentalities and tools.
What more? Did Boone take those bonds up to Dorsey and show
them to him? He says that he did not open them; that he did not
show them to Dorsey. That is what Mr. Boone swears. Surely Mr.
Boone is an honorable man, stamped with the seal of the Department
of Justice. He did not even show them to Dorsey. Dorsey,never saw
anything except the form after Boone had made it out. I showed you
that form on yesterday, I think, marked 16X. That is the only thing
that Dorsey saw. He did not know what blanks were left in the
bonds, or whether any were left. He never gave any orders about
them, and never saw them. Yet the prosecution want you to hold him
responsible as a conspirator for those bonds.
What more, gentlemen? Those bonds were never used. Nobody was
ever defrauded. Not a proposal was put in the Post-Office
Department. They never came to life. Dead! No contract, says Mr.
Boone, was ever awarded on those proposals, even the proposals sent
back, unless it was a contract to him, Boone. That is what he
swears. And yet Dorsey is to be held responsible.
Let us hurry along, gentlemen. See how Dorsey came to do this.
How did that arch-conspirator, as they claim him to be, happen to
write that letter to Clendenning? On page 1567 Boone says that he
suggested to Dorsey that he had better send a note with the
proposals to Clendenning. Boone suggested it. He was not a
conspirator, but he suggested it. Dorsey was the conspirator, but
never dreamed of it. How fortunate for a conspirator to have an
innocent man think of the means of carrying out a conspiracy; never
thinking of dime, but having it all suggested by perfect innocence
and then crime taking advantage of it. That is the position! He
suggested that Dorsey would better send a note with the proposals
to Clendenning. I will read from page 1568:
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
141
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Q. Was there not danger that he would be declared a failing
contractor? Was it at that time the practice of the department if
a man, for instance, had fifty contracts and failed on one to
declare him a failing contractor on all? -- A. No, sir; but they
would declare him a failing contractor on that one route and
suspend his pay until he paid up the loss to the Government -- just
my case now, exactly.
Q. That was one of the reasons that you had. Now, you were
informed at that time that they had not the money to carry this on.
When, as a matter of fact, did you go out of the concern? -- A. The
8th day of August, 1878.
Q. Was S.W. Dorsey then in Washington? -- A. No, sir; he was
not. He had been gone ten or twelve days.
Now, then, we come to August 7, 1878, the time that Mr. Boone
went out. He did it for the purpose of saving a failure on the
routes in the names of Miner, Peck, Dorsey, and himself. That is
what he went out for, and that is his only reason. On page 1570 Mr.
Boone swears that so far as he knows neither John W. Dorsey, John
R. Miner, John M. Peck, nor Stephen W. Dorsey had any arrangement
with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General to increase the
service; none whatever.
Boone went out on the 7th day of August, 1878. S.W. Dorsey was
in New Mexico. He did not return here until about the time Congress
assembled in December. Boone swears that he then learned from S.W.
Dorsey that he, Dorsey, did not know that Boone was out of the
concern; did not know that he had left on the 7th day of August,
1878. Now, gentlemen, if Stephen W. Dorsey was the main
conspirator, if he was doing this entire business, is it possible
that A.E. Boone went out on the 7th day of August, that John W.
Dorsey assigned his interest in all the routes mentioned in the
agreement, and John R. Miner took in Vaile, and the service was put
on those routes by the money furnished by Vaile, that all that was
done and yet Stephen W. Dorsey neither heard of it and did not even
know that Boone was out, did not even know that Vaile was in?
Besides that, gentlemen, as I told you, Dorsey was not here. He was
in New Mexico. He was in utter ignorance of this entire business,
and yet they claim that he was the directing spirit.
Mr. Boone further testifies, on page 1571, that Brady showed
him a telegram from the postmistress at The Dalles, saying that the
service was down. When I read that I thought may be that was where
Moore got his hint to swear that he telegraphed to find out what
was done with that service. Boone further swears that Brady said
that it must be put on; that he said it could not be put on at the
contract price, and that Brady told him, "I advise you to telegraph
and put it on at any price," and that unless all the service was on
by the 15th day of August he would declare the contractor a failing
contractor on every route the service was down upon. That is what
Brady told him. Stephen W. Dorsey was not here. According to the
testimony of Moore he knew when he went away that the service in
Oregon was not put on, but he abandoned it, and paid no attention
to it. He happened to meet Miner at Saint Louis, and told him, I
believe, "There are my notes for eight thousand five hundred
dollars. That is all I will do. I am through! I have already
advanced thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars. I will not advance
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
142
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
another dollar." Why did not Miner tell him, "If you are not going
on with this conspiracy I am going home"? Why didn't Miner tell him
then, "What did you get up a conspiracy like this for, just to
abandon it"? Why did not Miner say to him, "This is your child. I
became a criminal at your suggestion. I entered into this
conspiracy because you urged me to, and now after we have got the
routes, you are going to abandon it"? Why did he not say to him,
"Dorsey, if you are not going on with this conspiracy I am going
back to Sandusky"? Did Dorsey at Saint Louis treat it as his
bantling? or did he say to Miner, "This is all I will do"? Did he
mean for himself? No. "All I will do for you."
Certainly he would not have made the threat to Miner that he
would not do anything more for himself. He then said to Miner, "I
am through! "Miner knew at that time that Stephen W. Dorsey had not
the interest of one solitary dollar except the money he had
advanced. Stephen W. Dorsey, according to the testimony of this
prosecution, knew when he left this city that the routes were not
in operation in Eastern Oregon. He went away knowing that J.W.
Dorsey and John R. Miner and John M. Peck were in danger of being
declared failing contractors. Yet he never even called on Brady to
see about it. He never asked to have the time extended a minute. He
never took the least interest in the business. He started for New
Mexico, and went by way of Oberlin, Ohio. He happened to meet Miner
in Saint Louis, and for Miner's sake, for Peck's sake, for John W.
Dorsey's sake, and not for his own sake, he gave them some notes to
the extent of eight thousand five hundred dollars that they could
have discounted, and said to Miner then and there. "That is the
last dollar. That is the last cent." What more did he do? He
abandoned the whole business. He went to New Mexico. He never wrote
about it; he never spoke about it; he never received a dispatch
concerning it until the following December, when he came back to
Washington, and then for the first time found that Boone had gone
out and that Vaile had come in. What more? Although he was
interested to the extent of thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars,
he did not know until he came back in December that his security
had been rendered worthless. He found that out then for the first
time. That is a fine model of a conspirator. Reading again from
Boone's testimony, on page 1371:
Fully a month and a half of the time had been taken up by the
Congressional investigation, and we --
That is to say, Miner, Peck, Boone, and the rest --
did not know what to do with the service. We dared not to move. We
expected that the contracts would be taken from us.
Do you tell me that under such circumstances, if Stephen W.
Dorsey had conceived this thing, he would have gone off and left
it? Do you tell me, with the entire business trembling in the
balance, without the money to put the service on, at the mercy of
Thomas J. Brady, that if Stephen W. Dorsey had gotten up that
conspiracy, and also put in thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars,
he would have gone away and left it, and told Miner and the others,
"will have no more to do with it," and leave it so effectually and
so perfectly that he did not even know that Boone ha gone out and
Vaile had come in until the following December, when he came here
to take his seat in the Senate?
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
143
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
On page 1580, again quoting from Mr. Boone:
The fact --
There is something that rises like the Rock of Gibraltar It is
one of those indications of truth that rascality never had
ingenuity enough to invent:
The fact that Dorsey refused to advance any more money on
account of this business was taken into consideration by me when
made up my mind to go out.
Do you want any better testimony than that, that Dorsey did
refuse to advance any more money?
Don't you see how everything fits together when you get at the
facts? How naturally they all blend and harmonize when you get at
the facts. Now, here is some more from Mr. Boone:
If I had not gone out the service would have undoubtedly
failed, unless they got the money to put it on. When Mr. Dorsey
decline to furnish any more money or to indorse any more notes,
there was nothing else to do but for me to go out and let somebody
else come in who had the money.
That is a witness for the Government, and yet at the time that
happened they say there was a great conspiracy; that the Second
Assistant Postmastery-General was in it that a Senator of the
United States was in it; and that these other men were simply
tools. It will not do, gentlemen. If that had been the case Stephen
W. Dorsey would have remained here. He would have gone to Mr. Brady
and said, "I must have time," and Mr. Brady would have given him
all the time he desired, because, according to this prosecution, it
was their partnership business. Brady had ten times as great an
interest as Stephen W. Dorsey. According to the testimony of Mr.
Rerdell, Brady had an interest of thirty-three and one-third per
cent., and according to the testimony of Rerdell and Boone, Dorsey
only had an interest of seven-eights of one per cent.
That means, as I understand it, according to their testimony,
thirty-three and one-third per cent. of the gross expedition; not
profits, but the gross expedition. That is what they swear. When he
gave on a route an expedition of, say six thousand dollars, two
thousand dollars would go to Brady each year. In other words,
thirty-three and one-third per cent. of the money paid for
expedition went to Brady.
Mr. Walsh testified and gave the exact figures, and called the
amount, if the Court will recollect, sixty thousand dollars, and
twenty per cent. he said of that is twelve thousand dollars, That
had to run, he says, for three years, and that made thirty-six
thousand dollars. That is the testimony in this case, gentlemen. If
you should have a row of men as long as the row of kings that
Banquo saw, stretching out "to the crack of doom," and they should
swear to it, I should still die an unbeliever; but that is their
testimony. Dorsey ran away and left his conspiracy and Brady would
not attend to his own business. Now, I read again from Boone:
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
144
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
With regard to the preparation of circulares, the sending of
them to postmasters, the printing of proposals, the printing of
bonds and subcontracts, there was nothing done differently from
what I had always done before.
Recollect that. He is a government witness. Dorsey in a
conspiracy got Boone to help him, and in helping him boone did
nothing different from what he had always done before. There is not
much left of this case, gentlemen, but I will keep going on just
the same. Mr. Boone swears that he followed the regular custom and
practice of doing business.
Then, there is another suspicious circumstance. At the bottom
of the contracts published by the Government, for the purpose of
informing contractors as to how the bonds or contracts are to be
signed, and exactly what is to be done by each person, there are a
lot of instructions.
Mr. CARPENTER. On the proposals.
Mr. INGERSOLL. On the proposals. When they got up the
proposals of their own, they, understanding the business, left off
all those directions that the Government put upon its forms. Why?
Those directions were put there for the benefit of men who did not
understand the business. These men did understand the business, and
consequently it was nonsense for them if they had to have the
printing done, to put on the bottom of the contracts two or three
paragraphs of directions to themselves. They understood exactly how
to do it without the directions.
Who left them off? Stephen W. Dorsey? No. John W. Dorsey? No.
He had nothing to do with it. Miner? No. He had nothing to do with
it. Who left them off? Boone says he did. Was he instructed to do
it? No. Did it take a conspiracy to leave them off? No. He left
them off for two reasons, and good ones, too. One was to save the
expense of printing. That was a good reason. There was no
conspiracy needed for that. The other was, that knowing how to
perfect the proposals, and understanding all those instructions,
there was no need of having them printed for their own benefit.
Next, on page 1582. What instructions as a matter of fact did
Mr. Boone receive from Mr. Dorsey, if he received any? The question
arises, upon what subject? In reference to what particular point?
Boone says on this page that he received no instructions from
Dorsey in reference to the business except in regard to the
subcontract blanks That is the one subject on which he received any
instructions from S.W. Dorsey. I have shown you that those
instructions were in the interests of honesty and fair dealing.
Those were the only instructions he received. On every other
subject there is not a word. Why? Here Boone gives the reason. "I
did not require any." Why? Because he understood the business
himself. What else? "I was to go ahead and do whatever was
necessary to be done." He did it without consulting anybody. He did
it in his own way. He did it as he thought best for all concerned.
Now, gentlemen, there will be an effort made to convince you that
Stephen W. Dorsey did everything during all that period. If you are
told that, when you are told it remember what I tell you now: that
Mr. Boone swears that he did it himself; that he attended to the
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
145
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
entire business, and that he was instructed by Dorsey in no
particular except as to that one blank, and that I have clearly
demonstrated was in the interests of honesty and in the interests
of the subcontractor, so that the subcontract might agree with or
be similar to the contract made with the Government. That is all.
Now we come to another point. You must recollect that Mr,
Boone got out the circulares. Mr. Boone sent to all the postmasters
to know about the roads and the price of grain and the price of
labor, about the snow in winter and the rain in the spring. He got
all that up. He went through the bidding-book originally and made
the bids. He it was who prepared most of these proposals. He did
all the work until Miner came. S.W. Dorsey did not do any of it.
Boone never saw him working upon or touching the proposals. What
S.W. Dorsey did he did at Boone's request. What he did he did at
Miner's request. What he did he did simply because he was a friend.
Boone attended to it all. Now, what does Boone say on page 1584? He
swears that so far as he knew there never was any conspiracy on the
part of these defendants with him, with each other, or anybody
else, in reference to these routes, or any route bid for and
awarded to them during that time. There was no conspiracy to
defraud the Government in any way. That is what the Government
witness swears to -- a man brought here to stain the reputation of
Stephen W. Dorsey. That is what a Government witness swears;
swearing, too, under pressure; swearing, too, under circumstances
where the Post-Office Department could strip him of everything he
had on earth; swearing under circumstances where if did not please
the Government they could pursue him as they have pursued us.
Perhaps I had better read what he says. I read from page 1583 of my
examination:
Now, then, so far as you know, Mr. Boone, was there any
conspiracy on the part of any of the defendants with you, or with
anybody else. to your knowledge, in respect of these routes
mentioned in the indictment or of any routes bid for and awarded to
them during that time -- any conspiracy to defraud the Government
in any way?
And he answered:
No, sir.
That was a Government witness, acquainted with all the
transactions during that time. He was swearing under the shadow of
power, with the sword hanging over his he and yet he swears he
never knew or heard of any such thing.
Let us go on. On page 1589 he swears that Mr. Dorsey told him
to fix the blanks and make them up and to write what he wanted done
in Arkansas, and that while he, Boone was engaged in so doing he
said to Dorsey, "Had you not better write a note so that I can
attach it to the blanks? And Dorsey did so. Dorsey told him to fill
up what he wanted in Arkansas, and what was necessary to be
executed there, and he did so.
Boone indicated exactly what he wanted put in. I showed
you the Clendenning bonds yesterday and showed you just what Boone
did. He filled up the blanks that he wanted to have filled down
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
146
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
there. Of course, the blanks that were already filled in he did not
want interfered with. That is what he says. There is another part
of his testimony. I want to call the attention of the gentlemen to
it. "I hand you," said they, "32X." Mr. Bliss did the handing. What
was that? That was the Chico letter. What did they want to
introduce that for? To show that S.W. Dorsey was interested
personally in these routes in 1878. That was a magnificent piece of
testimony for them to show that Dorsey in 1878 was writing to
Rerdell to watch the advertisement of these routes. So they
introduced that letter. Mr. Boone looked at it., He was a
Government witness. The noose was around his neck and the other end
of the rope was in the hands of Mr. Bliss. What did Mr. Boone say?
"Mr. Dorsey never wrote that letter." Then said Mr. Bliss to him,
"That is not Mr. Dorsey's writing?" And Mr. Boone said "No, sir."
And at the same time threw the forged scrap away contemptuously.
What else? On April 3, 1878, Mr. Dorsey was here.
Mr. MIERRICK. Was Mr Dorsey here at that time?
WITNESS. He was here, sir; and I was in communication with him
on that very day.
That is the evidence of a Government witness; a man who was
depended upon to show that not only my client, bit that Mr. Miner
entered into a conspiracy in the fall of 1877 to defraud this
Government. I want you to remember one thing which I was about to
forget. Mr. Ker, I believe, spoke six or seven days and I do not
remember of his having mentioned the Chico letter. He acted as if
it had a contagious disease. He was followed by Mr. Bliss in
another week, but he did not mention the Chico letter; at least I
have never happened to read it in his speech. Both of them are as
dumb as oysters after a clap of thunder. Not a word. They did not,
either of them, have the courage to refer to it. They did not have
the nerve to ask you to believe it. I tell you one thing,
gentlemen, I would either admit that it was a forgery, or I would
swear that it was genuine. I would do something with it. I would
not allow that paper, blown by the wind, to scare me from the
highway of the argument! I would do one thing or the other. I would
either admit that Mr. Rerdell forged it, or I would insist that it
was the handwriting of Stephen W. Dorsey. Why was it left where it
was, gentlemen? They could not get anybody to swear that it was
Dorsey's handwriting. That is all.
Now we will take the next step. They had so much confidence in
that witness that they concluded they would prove the pencil
memorandum by him. They had such a clutch on him. So they stuck
that up to him. Recollecting the position he was in, recollecting
the danger, recollecting all that might probably follow speaking
the truth, here is what he says:
Everything above "profit and loss" in that memorandum favors
the handwriting of S.W. Dorsey.
What else?
And everything below favors the handwriting of M.C. Rerdell.
Fit conclusion for a Government witness, brought here to show
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
147
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
that Stephen W. Dorsey was the arch-conspirator. And they ended the
witness; dismissed him from the stand, after he had shown that
Dorsey did not conspire; after he had shown that he himself fixed
the subcontracts, with the exception of only one; after he had
shown that he himself filled out the blanks to send to Clendenning;
after he had shown that he did everything without being advised by
S.W. Dorsey, and then he swore that their principal witness was a
forger. Then they dismissed him. That was the end of the Government
witness who was to brand the word "conspirator" upon the forehead
of Stephen W. Dorsey's reputation. But in stead of putting
"conspirator" there, he put the word "forger" upon the principal
witness for the Government. Magnificent exchange! Now, gentlemen,
you know as well as I do that Mr. Boone, knew all that was
happening during that entire time. You know as well as I do that he
did not swear anything for the defence that he could help swearing.
What else? Mr. Bliss, on page 303, says that:
Parties conspiring make an informal verbal agreement.
When did we make that agreement? When does the testimony show
that we made an informal verbal agreement? Who were present at the
time? Where were we? Do you recollect the number of the house? Do
you recollect the day of the month? Has any one of you ever had in
his mind which side of the street that was on? What town was it in?
Could you locate it if you had a good map? I do not care whether it
is informal or formal. Did we make one? In order to make a verbal
agreement you have to use some words. Is there any evidence as to
the words we used? Not a word that I have heard, not a word.
What else? He says that this is necessarily secret and
intended to be secret. The first thing done was that Dorsey told it
to Moore. Then, for fear it would get out, J.W. Dorsey told it to
Pennell and to thirty fellows around the camp-fire out in Dakota.
And there was a suspicion in Brady's mind that somebody might hear
of it, and so he told Rerdell. He says, "Get the books copied; this
is a secret thing." Then Dorsey wrote it to Bosler, and he was so
awfully afraid that it would get out that he kept a copy of the
letter. You see, Mr. Bliss says the object was to keep it secret.
Then Miner and Vaile told it to Rerdell for fear he would not
believe it when Brady told him. They were bound the thing should
not get out. Yes, sir. And then Rerdell, just bursting with the
importance of keeping that secret, told it to Perkins and Taylor;
went away out there for that purpose. And then Moore, he gave it
away to Major and McBean for the purpose of keeping it secret. Then
Miner told Moore. From whom did they keep it secret? Nobody in
God's world but Boone. He is the only fellow that nobody told.
Boone went through it all saw all the plan and heard all the
whispering, and he is the only man in the country, I think, that
did not suspect it. And on the 7th day of August he left the
concern because there was not a conspiracy, and admits to you that
if he had had even a suspicion of it he would have staid -- staid
or died.
Now, was there ever a conspiracy published so widely that one
end of the country kept so secret from the other? Was there ever a
conspiracy like that, the news of which ran through the West like
wild-fire, while the fellows at the East never heard of it?
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
148
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Everybody knew it out on the plains. All you had to do was to
subpoena a fellow that wanted to come to Washington, and he would
remember it. And yet that is the evidence that the prosecution
desires you to believe. I do not believe it. I do not think I ever
shall. But then they promised so much at the beginning, and they
have done so little in many respects.
Something had to be said, and so Mr. Bliss, on page 265, in a
little burst of confidence to the jury, says:
At least one United States Senator was the paid agent of these
defendants.
Who was the Senator?
Mr. BLISS. Did I say that, sir?
Mr. INGERSOLL. Look at page 265 and see whether you did.
Mr. BLISS. Read all that I said there.
Mr. INGERSOLL. I will do that.
But we shall show to you that at least one United States
Senator urging such increase, was the paid agent of these
defendants.
Mr. BLISS. I then went on and said we should show it if you
put him on the stand.
Mr. INGERSOLL. Yes, if we furnished you the evidence.
Mr. BLISS. No, sir; that is not what I said.
Mr. INGERSOLL. Why didn't you produce the Senator?
Mr. BLISS. Why didn't you put him on the stand?
Mr, INGERSOLL. How did I know what Senator you meant?
Mr. BLISS. Did you have two?
Mr. INGERSOLL. No, sir; and we did not have the one. If you
could have proved it, it was your duty, as the attorney of the
United States, to do it, and if you did not do it, you did not do
your duty in this case.
Mr. BLISS. Whose name is expressed in the memorandum?
Mr. INGERSOLL. Why did you not say that to the jury? You dared
not do it. That is like what was said here the other day before
this jury, and taken out of the record. We will come to it. These
are the gentlemen who did not wish to stain the names of citizens.
These are the gentlemen who did not wish to bring anybody into
their, case that had not been indicted. And yet Mr. Bliss, in his
opening, said that he would show you at least one Senator who was
the paid agent of these defendants; and now, having failed to do
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
149
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
it, he stands here before you and asks whose name was on the pencil
memorandum, meaning that J.H. Mitchell was the paid agent of these
defendants.
Ah, gentlemen, I would not, for the sake of convicting any man
on this earth, stain the reputation of another in a place and in a
way where that other could not defend himself. I would not do it.
I do not think there is any crime beyond that. It is as bad to stab
the reputation as it is to stab the flesh; it is as bad to kill the
honor of the man as to put a dagger into his heart.
There are so many things in these papers that I would never
get through, if I commented upon them all, if I talked forty years,
I now refer to page 4509. I have to change from one of these
lawyers to the other. Now, on this subject of subcontracts, showing
how we are endeavoring to cheat and defraud the Government, Mr. Ker
says, at page 4509:
Acting upon Stephen W. Dorsey's advice he put in this clause
giving the subcontractors sixty-five per cent. of the increase. I
want you to remember the sixty-five per cent., because I will show
you some subcontracts with that amount in, but I do not want you to
think for one moment that the subcontractors ever got a dollar out
of it.
Gentlemen, the evidence is that the subcontractors were paid
the amount mentioned in their subcontracts. I believe all of them
are on file in this case, and on all that were filed in the
department the money was paid directly to the subcontractor. And
yet Mr. Ker tells you that he does not want you to think for a
moment that the subcontractors ever got one dollar out of it. Is it
possible, gentlemen, that there is any necessity for resorting to
such statements? Can you conceive of any reason for doing it,
except that they are actually mistaken, except for the fact that
they know they have not the evidence to convict these defendants?
We are not begging of you. We are not upon our knees before
you. But we do want to be tried according to the evidence and
according to the law. We do not want your mind, nor yours, nor
yours [addressing different jurors] poisoned with a misstatement.
We want to be tried, and we want the verdict rendered by you when
every fact is as luminous in your mind as the sun at mid-day. We
want every fact to stand out like stars in a perfect night, without
a cloud of doubt between you and the fact. That is the kind of a
verdict we want. We want a verdict that comes from a clear head and
a brave heart. We do not want a verdict simply from sympathy. We
want a verdict according to the evidence and according to the law.
And when the verdict is given we want every one of you to say,
"That is my verdict; I found it upon the evidence and upon the law;
dig beneath it and you will not find used as the corner-stone a
misstatement, or a mistake, or a falsehood; it stands upon the rock
of fact, upon the foundation of absolute truth."
Do you know that if I were prosecuting a man, trying to take
from him his liberty, trying to take from him his home, trying to
rob his fireside and make it desolate, and if I should succeed and
afterwards know that I had made a misstatement of the evidence to
the jury, I could not sleep until I had done what was in my power
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
150
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
to release that man; and after he was released, or even if he were
not released, I would go to him when he was wearing the prison
garb, and I would get down on my knees and beg him to forgive me.
I would rather be sent to the penitentiary myself, I would rather
wear the stripes of eternal degradation, than to send another man
there by a misstatement or a mistake that I had made. That is my
feeling. I may be wrong.
It may be that I am guilty, according to Colonel Bliss, of
sneering at everything that people hold sacred. But I do not sneer
at justice. I believe that over all, justice sits the eternal
queen, holding in her hand the scales in which are weighed the
deeds of men. I believe that it is my duty to make the world a
little better, because I have lived in it. I believe in helping my
fellow-men. I do no not sneer at charity; I do not sneer at
justice, and I do not sneer at liberty. And why did he make that
remark to you, gentlemen? Is it possible that for a moment he
dreamed that he might prejudice your minds against the case of my
client, because, I, his attorney, am not what is called a believer?
Is it possible that he has so mean an opinion of a Christian that
a Christian would violate his oath when upon the jury, simply to
get even with a lawyer who happened to be an infidel? Is that his
idea of Christianity? It is not mine; it is not mine. I stand
before you to-day, gentlemen, as a man having the rights you have,
and no more; and I am willing to work and toil and suffer to give
you every right that I enjoy. And I know that not one of you will
allow himself to be prejudiced against my client because you and I
happen to disagree upon subjects about which none of us know
anything for certain. I do not believe you will. And yet, that
remark was made, gentlemen -- I will not say that it was made, but
may be it was -- hoping that it would lodge the seed of prejudice
in your minds, hoping that it might bring to life that little adder
of hatred that sleeps unknown to us in nearly all of our bosoms. I
have too much confidence in you, too much confidence in human
nature to believe that can affect my client.
Now, gentlemen, there is no pretence, there is no evidence
that every subcontractor did not get the per cent. mentioned in his
subcontract, except one, and that was Mr. French, on the route from
Kearney to Kent; and the evidence there is that Miner settled with
him, I believe, and gave him a certain amount of money in lieu of
expedition. That is the solitary exception.
Now, gentlemen, I come to a most interesting part of this
discussion, and I hope we will live through it. In the first place,
what is a conspiracy? Well, in this case, they must establish that
it was an agreement entered into between the persons mentioned in
this indictment, or two of them, to defraud the Government. How? By
the means pointed out and described in the indictment. While it may
not be absolutely necessary to describe the means, I hold that if
they do describe them, tell how the conspiracy was to be
accomplished, they are bound by their description; they must prove
such a conspiracy as they describe. If a man is indicted for
stealing a horse and the color of the horse is given, it will not
do to prove a horse of another color. If they describe the offence
they are bound by the description.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
151
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Now, this is a conspiracy entered into, as they claim, by the
persons mentioned in the indictment, to do a certain thing. What is
the object of the conspiracy? To defraud the Government. And,
gentlemen, I believe the Court will instruct you that the
conspiring is the crime. The object of the conspiracy is to defraud
the United States. What are the means? According to this indictment
false petitions, false oaths, false letters, false orders. What I
insist on is that the means cannot take the place of the object;
that the means cannot take the place of the conspiracy described.
When you describe a conspiracy by certain means to defraud the
Government, and Set out the means so that the Second Assistant
Postmaster-General is a necessity, then you cannot turn and shift
your ground, and say that it was not the conspiracy set out in the
indictment, but that it was a conspiracy to do some of the things
recited as means in the indictment; you cannot say that it was not
a conspiracy entered into with the Second Assistant Postmaster-
General, but was a conspiracy entered into with some others to make
a false petition or a false affidavit. The ostrich of this
prosecution will not be allowed to hide its head under the leaf of
an affidavit. They must prove, in my judgment, the conspiracy that
they describe in the indictment, and none other.
Now, what else? You must be prepared, gentlemen, when you make
up a verdict, if you say that there was a conspiracy, to say when
it was entered into and who entered into it. And I suppose when you
retire, the first question for you to decide will be: Was there a
conspiracy? Has any conspiracy been established beyond a reasonable
doubt? If you say yes, then the next question for you to decide is,
who conspired? Who were the members of that conspiracy?
After you do that there is one other thing you have to do: You
have to find that one of the conspirators, for the purpose of
carrying the conspiracy into effect, did something; that is called
an overt act. You have to find that at least one of them did
something to effect the object of that conspiracy. You must
remember, gentlemen, that the overt act must come after the
conspiracy. In other words, you cannot commit an overt act and make
a conspiracy to fit it. You must have the conspiracy first, and
then do an overt act for the purpose of accomplishing the object of
that conspiracy. The conspiracy must come first, and the overt act
afterwards. You all understand that now.
Now, this indictment is so framed that the earliest time
within the life of the statute of limitations for an overt act is
the 23d day of May, 1879. Why? The indictment charges that as the
day, the conspiracy was entered into. Any overt act in consequence
of that conspiracy must have been done after the 23d of May, 1879.
Now, get that in your heads, level and square. The conspiracy,
according to this, is not back of the 23d of May, 1879, and any
overt act done, in order to be considered an overt act, must be
done after the date of that conspiracy. If they prove any act done
before that time, it shows that it was not an overt act belonging
to the conspiracy mentioned in the indictment. If it is an overt
act at all, it is an overt act of another conspiracy entered into
before the date mentioned in this indictment, and consequently will
not do for an overt act in this case. Now, I want you all to
understand that.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
152
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
I forget how many overt acts are charged in this indictment;
some sixty or seventy, I think. And understand me, now, gentlemen,
no matter what date they fix to an overt act in the indictment, no
matter whether there is any date to it or not in the indictment, if
it turns out to have been done before the time fixed for the
conspiracy it is dead as an overt act: it is good for nothing. The
overt act is the fruit of the conspiracy; the conspiracy is not the
result of the overt act. Now let me make a statement to you, so
that you will understand it.
Every petition, every letter, every affidavit, upon which
orders for expedition were based, was filed before the 23d of May,
1879, except on two routes -- Toquerville to Adairville and Eugene
City to Bridge Creek. If that is true, then not a solitary petition
filed in this case can be considered as an overt act; and a
conspiracy without an overt act is nothing; it simply exists in the
imagination; it is an agreement made of words and air, and never
was vitalized with an act done by one of the conspirators for the
purpose of giving it effect. Recollect that every petition, every
affidavit, every letter filed, was filed before the 23d day of May,
with the two exceptions I have mentioned. That is the date when the
conspiracy came into being. And consequently an overt act must be
after that time.
Now, when they came to write this indictment, why did they not
tell the truth in it? I do not mean that in an offensive sense,
because a man has the right to write in that indictment what he
wants to. That is a matter of pleading. But why did they not tell
the facts? Why did they put in the indictment that a certain
petition was filed on the 26th day of June, when they had the
petition before them and knew that it was filed in April, 1879? Why
did they put in that indictment that a certain affidavit was filed
on the 26th or 27th of May, I think it was, when they knew that it
was filed in April or March? Why? Because if they had put that in
the indictment the indictment would have been quashed, so far as
their overt acts were concerned. The Court would have said, "I
cannot allow you to put on paper that a man entered into a
conspiracy on the 23d of May, and then did an act to carry that
conspiracy into effect in April before that time. I cannot allow
you to do that, because that is infinitely absurd, and pleadings
have to be reasonable on their face." But you see they stated that
this was done after the conspiracy. They had to do it or they would
be gone. I believe there is no dispute about this law that if they
describe the overt act -- and they must describe it, because it is
a part of the offence -- that is, the offence is not complete
without it -- they must prove it exactly as they describe it.
If they describe it with infinite minuteness, they must prove
it with infinite minuteness. If they set out that an affidavit was
written on bark, they must produce a bark affidavit. If they were
foolish enough to say it was written in red ink they must produce
it in red ink. If they allege that an oath was sworn to twice
before two notaries public they must produce an oath sworn to
twice. They are bound to prove exactly what they charge, and if
they were too particular about it that is their fault, not ours.
I say that all these, with the exception of the two routes I
have named, were filed too early to play any important part in this
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
153
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
case. Now, I will come to those routes. Remember, that every overt
act must be after the conspiracy. There are two exceptions, and
those two exceptions include petitions and affidavits. And there is
a splendid kind of justice in the way this thing is coming out, so
far as that is concerned.
The petitions filed on the Toquerville route and on Bridge
Creek route, I believe, are genuine; I believe the Government
admits that they are honest; and they were not attacked except upon
one point, and that was that a daily mail did not mean seven times
a week. The point made by the Government was that a daily mail
meant six trips a week -- that is, where you have them every day.
We took the ground that daily mail meant a mail every day, and that
in the Western country, as here, they have seven days in a week.
We contended that you cannot have a daily mail without having
seven trips a week. I think that was the only point made against
these petitions -- that they were for a daily mail, and that
somebody put in a figure 7.
No petition for increase of service alone was ever attacked by
the Government in this case, except 25L, on The Dalles route, and
20H and 29H, on the Canyon City route. 25L was filed April 23,
1879. That was one month before the conspiracy had life.
Consequently that is mustered out of this case as an overt act.
23L was filed June 27, 1879, and is in time, provided it had
been a dishonest petition. And it is the only petition filed on the
date alleged in the indictment, and it was not attacked. It was
signed by the business men of Baker City, and is set out, I
believe, on page 1617.
20H was filed May 7th. That is not in time. That is gone.
29H has no file mark, and never was proved. So that goes.
All the allegations as to false petitions for increase of
service -- and by that I mean additional trips -- are shown to have
been genuine, honest, true petitions.
There are but two affidavits, one correctly described. Both
were made by Peck. Mr. Bliss admits that Peck had nothing to do
with any of these routes after April 1, 1879, and both of them were
made by Peck, and were sworn to before that date.
The affidavit on the Toquerville route was filed by M.C.
Rerdell, who swears that he was not in any conspiracy to defraud
the United States; that he was not in a conspiracy with Vaile and
Miner and John W. Dorsey, nor with anybody else. It was filed by
the subcontractor of record, M.C. Rerdell, and it is the same route
on which Mr. Rerdell, by virtue of his subcontract, appropriated
about five thousand dollars of money belonging to other people.
The other exception is on the Bridge Creek route, and, strange
as it may appear, that was also filed by Mr. Rerdell. And, strange
as it may appear, it has not been successfully impeached as to the
men and horses necessary under the existing and proposed schedule.
The overt act is not proved, because the oath is not proved to be
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
154
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
false, and because Peck and Rerdell, according to Mr. Bliss's
admission and according to Rerdell's oath, were not in the
conspiracy, and the overt act has to be done by one of the
conspirators, of course.
The COURT. I understood -- I do not know whether I have been
under a delusion all this time or not -- that the indictment
charged that these affidavits and false petitions were the means by
which the conspiracy was to be carried into execution; that they
were not the overt acts. If they had been set out as overt acts in
the indictment, the Court would have seen that they antedated the
time, and if an objection had been made to them the Court would not
have received them as overt acts. The reason why they have been
admitted and regarded as in the case all along, to my mind, was
that they were acts tending to prove, so far as they tended to
prove anything, the nature of the combination between these parties
anterior to the 23d of May.
Mr. INGERSOLL. Before the conspiracy.
The COURT. Before the conspiracy. So that whatever character
belonged to that association anterior to that time, if it was
continued on after that time, carried out with overt acts done
subsequently to that time, they were properly received as evidence
going to establish the conspiracy -- not as overt acts, but as
means to show the character of the combination amongst the parties
anterior to that date.
Mr. INGERSOLL. That saves me a great deal of argument. Now, I
understand, gentlemen, that the Court will instruct you that you
cannot take any petition, any letter, any oath, any paper of any
kind that was filed or written or used prior to the 23d of May,
1879, as an overt act; that all that evidence is for is to show you
the relation sustained by the parties before that time.
The COURT. Yes; you are right.
Mr. INGERSOLL. Now, that saves a great deal of trouble.
There are on the Toquerville and Adairville route, and on the
Eugene City and Bridge Creek route, petitions filed after the 23d
of May, 1879, set out in the indictment as overt acts. I shall
insist, if the Court will allow me, that if there is no evidence
that those petitions were dishonest, no evidence going to show that
they were not genuine, those petitions cannot be used as overt acts
for the reason that they are charged in the indictment as false and
fraudulent petitions. no, gentlemen, I take that ground, that as to
the petitions filed after the 23d day of May on the only two routes
left for these gentlemen to find overt acts upon (Eugene City to
Bridge Creek, and Toquerville to Adairville), if those petitions
have not been proved to be false they cannot be regarded as overt
acts for the reason that they were described in the indictment
itself as false and fraudulent petitions. It is perfectly clear, is
it not?
What else have we left? A couple of affidavits. Who made them?
Mr. Peck. When? Before the 1st day of April, 1879, and Mr. Bliss
admits that from that time on he never had anything to do with this
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
155
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
business. Mr. Rerdell filed them, and Mr. Rerdell swears that he
was never in any conspiracy; and Mr. Bliss admits that Peck, after
the 1st of April, had nothing to do with this business. That
substantially knocks the bottom out of that dish.
Now, they attacked the affidavit on the Bridge Creek route,
but they did not succeed in showing that it was not an honest
affidavit.
Now, gentlemen, after what the Court has decided I want to
call your attention to another thing.
Do not forget what the Court has decided -- that all these
things are not overt acts, but that they simply show the relations
of the parties.
Now, if you go and find Vaile and Miner getting up petitions
on their routes, and you also find Dorsey getting up petitions on
his routes, then they claim that that is the result of an agreement
between them. That is not the law. Neither is there in that the
scintilla of common sense. If I find you plowing in your field and
your neighbor plowing in his field, I have no right to draw the
conclusion that you have conspired to plow or to help each other.
But if I find your neighbor and you plowing in your field, and I
afterwards find you and your neighbor plowing in his field, I have
the right to conclude that you have swapped work and that you have
something in common. If I find you plowing in your field and your
neighbor walking behind you sowing grain or dropping corn, and then
I find you in the fall shucking out the corn together, and I find
your neighbor taking half of it to his barn and you taking half of
it to your barn, I make up my mind that you have had some dealings
on the corn question.
Now, we find that on May 5, 1879, these parties absolutely
divided, and after that, when Vaile and Miner got up a petition on
their route, Dorsey did not help them; and when Dorsey got up one
on his, Vaile and Miner did not help him. That shows what the
relations of the parties were. Does that show that they were then
in a conspiracy? Does it show that they had any conspiracy before
that time? They had separated their interest; they had ceased to
act together; one did nothing for the other. If there had been a
conspiracy before that time that conspiracy died on the 5th of May,
1879; and if it did, then there is no possibility of any conviction
in this case, no matter what the evidence is -- not the slightest.
Now, I want you to understand that ground exactly. I am not
begging the question. I am not afraid to meet every point, every
paper, every scratch, in this case. But I want you to understand
it. All those things were allowed for the purpose of showing the
relations of the parties, the relations that the defendants
sustained to each other and the evidence is that they sustained no
relations to each other after 1879; that each went his own road to
attend to his own business in his own way. That is the evidence.
Now comes the next point. What are the overt acts in the
indictment? Really they are the orders made by Mr. Brady, unless
you take this poor little affidavit made by Peck and filed by
Rerdell.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
156
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Then comes the next point. You cannot treat anything as an
overt act unless it was made by one of the conspirators. Is there
any evidence in this case that Mr. Brady ever conspired with
anybody? Not the slightest. And unless he conspired with us any
order made by him cannot be regarded as an overt act in this case.
I think everybody will admit that. Unless Brady conspired with us,
and we with him, any order of his cannot be regarded as an overt
act.
I ask you, gentlemen, what evidence is there in this case that
Mr. Brady ever conspired with any of these defendants? I will
answer that question before I get through, and I think I will
answer it to your entire satisfaction.
I will go a step further in this case, and I may go a little
further than the Court will go. I say that when they state in that
indictment that an order is made for the benefit of Miner, Vaile,
and Dorsey, and the evidence is that it was made for the benefit
only of Vaile and Miner, that is a fatal variance, and it cannot be
treated as an overt act for any conspiracy. And when the indictment
charges that an order was made for the benefit of S.W. Dorsey, and
Vaile, and Miner, and it turns out that it was made for the sole
benefit of S.W. Dorsey, I claim that that is a fatal variance.
Gentlemen, I was going through all these overt acts and all
these terrible false claims. But the decision of the Court has
utterly and entirely relieved me from that duty. So I will turn my
attention to another person.
The next defendant to whom I may call your attention is Mr.
John W. Dorsey. It is claimed that John W. Dorsey was one of the
original conspirators; that he helped to hatch and plot this
terrible design. Let us see what interest John W. Dorsey had. You
have beard me read the agreement he made, have you not, with Miner?
Now, let me read to you the agreement that he made on the 16th day
of August, 1878. Now, we will find out what interest John W. Dorsey
had in all this conspiracy. On the 16th of August, 1878, there was
no reason for telling any lie about it. They could not get on the
routes in August, 1878; they had not the money, and so they took in
Vaile. At that time, gentlemen, there was no reason for their
writing anything in this paper that was not true, not the
slightest. And I take it for granted that most people tell the
truth when there is no possible object in telling anything else, if
their memory is good:
4th. The profits accruing from the business Shall be divided
as follows: From routes in Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and
Dakota, to H.M. Vaile, one-third.
To John R. Miner, one-sixth; to John M. Peck, ene-sixth; and
to John W. Dorsey, one-third.
From, routes in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico,
Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and California,
to H.M. Vaile, one-third; to John R. Miner, one-third; to John M.
Peck, one-third. [Page 4014.]
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
157
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
And to John W. Dorsey nothing. The entire interest of John W.
Dorsey in the whole business was one-third of the profits on routes
in the Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota, This was
signed by H.M. Vaile, John R. Miner, John M. Peck, and John W.
Dorsey, and I believe these are all admitted to be the genuine
signatures of the parties.
The only routes mentioned in this indictment in which John W.
Dorsey on the 16th day of August, 1878, had any interest whatever
were: Kearney to Kent in Nebraska, Vermillion to Sioux Polls in
Dakota, and Bismarck to Tongue River in Dakota. Remember that,
gentlemen. That is very important. The evidence is that he sold out
his interest in the following December, made a bargain for ten
thousand dollars, and the evidence is that he received the money,
and the evidence is that after that he never had any interest in
the profits, no matter how much was Made. And yet these gentlemen
say that he was part and parcel of a conspiracy formed on the 23d
of May, 1879, Long before that time he had sold out every dollar's
interest he had, and had no more interest in it than though he had
never existed. He got his ten thousand dollars; that was all. Now
let us see what he did when the routes were divided.
Mr. MERRICK. When did you say he sold out and got the money?
Mr. INGERSOLL. The bargain was made in December, and his
brother wrote to him at first that Vaile would not give it to him,
and then that he would. Don't you recollect the two letters you
asked Dorsey so much about?
It had been agreed to once, and then after S.W. Dorsey came
out of the Senate John W. Dorsey was paid ten thousand dollars, and
Miner swears that the division was absolute, perfect, and complete;
and that nothing was signed by one for the other after the 5th of
May, 1879.
Mr. BLISS. Miner does not say when. He swore that he signed no
papers after the 5th of May, 1879.
Mr. INGERSOLL. He says that he signed no papers for the other
side, and that the other side signed none for Vaile and Miner.
Mr. DAVIDGE. You are talking of two different things.
Mr. INGERSOLL. I will show you after awhile that you are
wrong, as I always do. I never made a mistake on you yet.
The only routes mentioned in this indictment in which John W.
Dorsey on the 16th day of August, 1878, had any interest whatever
were from Kearney to Kent, in Nebraska; Vermillion to Sioux Falls,
in Dakota; and Bismarck to Tongue River, in Dakota. And I will say
right here that if at any time I do injustice to Mr. Bliss or
anybody else, if it is pointed out I will take it back cheerfully,
and if it is not pointed out, and they show that I did it, I will
get up and admit it and say that I was mistaken.
Mr. BLISS. You will have a great deal to admit.
Mr. INGERSOLL. Very well, I will do it, for I have the courage
of conviction, and I have the courage to say that I am mistaken
when I am.
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
158
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Now, the evidence is that John W. Dorsey sold out his interest
for ten thousand dollars, and that he received the money, and that
after that he had no interest in the profits when the three routes
were divided, and the only three were the ones I have mentioned.
On the first route, from Vermillion to Sioux Falls, John W.
Dorsey was the subcontractor and he gave Mr. Vaile the entire pay
for all increases and all expeditions. John W. Dorsey had the right
to subcontract, and Mr. Vaile had the right to make the contract.
The statement on page 726 shows simply that John W. Dorsey never
drew a dollar upon that route. That is one route fairly and
squarely disposed of. Understand, I cast no imputation upon Mr.
Vaile for having the contract and for getting the money. When I
come to it I will show you that he had a right to.
The next route is from Kearney to Kent. John W. Dorsey had an
interest in that route, according to the agreement of August 16th,
of one-third. You will see from page 726 of the record that the
first quarter John M. Peck got the money, two hundred and forty-
five dollars and six cents. John W. Dorsey was entitled to one-
third of that, if it was profit. The next quarter was paid on the
22d of January, 1879 -- that is, for the fourth quarter of 1878,
and that was paid to H.M. Vaile. And never another solitary cent
was paid to anybody in such a way that John W. Dorsey was entitled
to any part or portion of it. That gets that route out of trouble,
so far as John W. Dorsey was concerned, no matter what the increase
may have been after that, no matter what the expedition was, no
matter whether French carried it for nothing, no matter what
happened to Cedarville or that city of Fitzalon; it was no interest
to John W. Dorsey, no matter whether the road ran direct from
Fitzalon to Cedarville or not. He was entitled to one-third of the
profits on one payment to Peck, and that payment was two hundred
and forty-five dollars and six cents,; whether he ever got it I do
not know.
Let us see how he came out on the next route, from Bismarck to
Tongue River. He went out there to build stations. I will come to
that in a little while. Now, I call attention to page 727. The
third quarter from July 1 to September 30, 1878, was paid November
8, 1878, to H.M. Vaile, Never a solitary dollar on the route was
paid to John W. Dorsey, according to this record, if you can rely
on these books.
That is the state of the case on these three routes. And yet
it is solemnly averred in the indictment that all the orders on
these routes were made for the joint benefit of John W. Dorsey and
others. Now, before another payment was made the division of the
routes had been completed, and John W. Dorsey sold out his interest
in these routes and all others for ten thousand dollars. So that he
never received a dollar upon the Bismarck route and the Vermillion
route except as it is included in the gross sum of ten thousand
dollars which he received for his entire interest, and that entire
interest is described perfectly in the contract of August 16, 1878.
Now, if John W. Dorsey had no interest in any route except as
stated in the contract, of course nothing was done upon any other
route for his benefit; nothing was done in which he, by any
possibility, had the slightest pecuniary interest. How were the
petitions filed for his benefit? How were the affidavits made for
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
159
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
his benefit? How were the orders made for his benefit? He had no
interest; he had parted with it, and had nothing more to do with it
than the attorneys for the prosecution in this case.
It is claimed by Mr. Bliss that when John W. Dorsey sold out
he agreed to make the necessary papers for the routes, and he tried
to impress upon your minds the idea that the bargain was that John
W. Dorsey knew that for ten thousand dollars he had to commit
perjury and forgery and several other cheerful crimes, from time to
time, as he might be called upon by the gentlemen who had been his
co-conspirators.
J.W. Dorsey frankly and cheerfully swore that he agreed to
make the necessary papers. He did not swear that he agreed to
commit any frauds, perjuries, or forgeries. Nothing of the kind. He
agreed to execute, of course, the necessary legal papers -- the
papers that, as contractor, were necessary for him to make to vest
title of the route in the person to whom he had sold -- just the
necessary papers that would allow the man who had paid him for the
route to draw the money from the Government if he performed the
service.
Now, what were the papers? I say right here, gentlemen, that
under the law as it was then, under the law as it is now, it is
impossible for a contractor to assign his contract so as to be
relieved from responsibility to the Government; the Government will
not permit it. The Government will permit him to make a
subcontract, and that is what John W. Dorsey did: that is one of
the things he agreed to do. In order to make that subcontract
absolutely order to put it beyond his power to do anything with it,
that subcontract was made for the entire pay, for the entire
increase and expedition. And what more? In order to make that
absolutely perfect, so they would not have a loop-hole anywhere, he
signed blank drafts upon the Post-Office Department for the entire
pay of every quarter during the contract term. And then, if they
were fined -- and nobody knew how much they would be fined -- they
had the right to fill up that order for the amount due them from
the Post-Office Department after deducting fines.
He sold out in March, 1879. The regulation or order making it
necessary for the contractor to make an oath as to additional stock
and men was not in existence, was not a binding law or regulation,
until the 1st day Of July, 1879. When he sold out in March, unless
he were gifted with prophecy, he would not know what the regulation
of the 1st of July following would be.
Now, there were two affidavits made by John W. Dorsey on route
38134, Pueblo to Rosita. Around those affidavits Mr. Bliss hovered
and Mr. Ker remained. John W. Dorsey testifies that he received one
of those affidavits in the morning and swore to it, and that it was
filled up when he swore to it. Mr. Bliss and Mr. Ker, I believe,
both say that it was not filled up.
Mr. BLISS. Where does Mr. Dorsey say that it was filled up
when he swore to it?
Mr. INGERSOLL. I have not the page here, but I will give it to
you. He swore that a dozen times, that he never swore to any blank
affidavits.
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
160
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Mr. BLISS. I undertake to say that it cannot be found in his
evidence.
The COURT. He testified that he received them both by mail,
and that the second one was contained in a letter which said that
there was an error in the first, and the second was sent for the
purpose of correcting that error.
Mr. INGERSOLL. There could not have been any error in the
first unless it had been filled up. You cannot make an error in
blank. On page 4838, Mr. Rerdell swore that he left this city on
the 17th or 18th of April for the West, and then he adds, "I think
on the 18th." Then the Government brought the hotel-keepers from
Sydney, Nebraska, and from Denver, and from some other place,
nearly as many witnesses as you had about the paper pulp. And they
proved that Rerdell was beyond the Missouri River on the 21st of
April.
Now see what Mr. Bliss says on page 4914:
And yet, gentlemen, it is beyond dispute that as early as the
15th of April, 1879, Mr. Rerdell had left this city and gone Wert.
Why did he have it stated on the 15th, gentlemen? I will tell
you. Oh, I tell you the human mind is a queer thing when it gets to
working. John W. Dorsey was in Middlebury, Vermont; if a letter had
been sent from here on the 15th, it certainly would have got up
there before the 21st. So they wanted Rerdell out of this town as
early as possible, so that it would make it highly improbable that
it would take a letter from that time to the 21st to get to
Middlebury. Now, the evidence is that he left here, he thinks, on
the 18th. When did the letter get up there? I think the 20th or
21St.
Mr. DAVIDGE. There was a Sunday intervened.
Mr. INGERSOLL. They say, gentlemen, that there is no evidence
that the blanks were filled, and yet John W. Dorsey swears that he
received a letter stating that the first affidavit was erroneous,
and the second one was sent to him to correct it. How would you
correct one affidavit in blank by another affidavit in blank? How
did he ever get those affidavits? I will tell you. We will have
that little matter settled. Here is what Rerdell swears on page
2232:
Q. When did you return from that visit? -- A. I returned about
the 5th of May.
Q. State whether or not after you returned, you found blank
affidavits among the papers connected with the business? -- A. Yes,
sir.
Q. How many did you find? -- A. Well, there were several blank
affidavits of John W. Dorsey's and several of John M. Peck's. I
don't know how many there were.
Q. Were they blank affidavits? -- A. Well, sir, they were
blank affidavits similar to that one I sent, leaving out the number
of men and animals in each case.
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
161
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Q. Did they purport to have been sworn to? -- A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were those affidavits among the papers when you left here
to go West? -- A. Some of them were. I think those of Peck's were
here, probably four or five, or half a dozen, and I had made out,
before I left here, a lot of them and sent them to John W. Dorsey.
In the mean time, when I returned here, John W. Dorsey was here.
Mr. Rerdell swears that just before he went away he sent the
affidavits to John W. Dorsey, and the only question between them
is, were they in blank, or were they filled. John W. Dorsey swears
that they were filled, because when he received the second he
received a letter stating that there was an error in the first, and
that error had been corrected in the second. The last nail in the
coffin of that doctrine.
Mr. INGERSOLL. [Resuming.] May it please the Court and
gentlemen of the jury, before finishing what I am about to say in
regard to the two affidavits of John W. Dorsey, I will now call
your attention to a statement made by Mr. Bliss, on page 304, in
his opening speech to you:
Mr. Dorsey, while Senator, was, I think, chairman of the
Committee Post-Offices, and chairman of the subcommittee in charge
of all the appropriations. That brought him, of course, directly in
connection with the Post-Office Department and its officials, and
gave him, as we all understand, necessarily, from the nature of the
case, the possession of some exceptional power over officials of
the department -- greater power than a Senator would have when
occupying some other position.
That statement was made to you, gentlemen, for the purpose of
making you believe that while Senator Dorsey was a member of the
Senate he was also chairman of the Post-Office Committee, and of
the subcommittee having power over the appropriations, and that he
not only took advantage of being a Senator, but by virtue of being
chairman of that committee had exceptional power over the officials
of the Post-Office Department. He was trying to convince you that,
finding himself chairman of that committee, finding himself with
this power, he thereupon entered into a conspiracy. What evidence
did the Government offer upon that point? Nothing. Did Mr. Bliss at
that time suppose that Mr. Dorsey was chairman of that committee?
The records were all here. The Government had plenty of agents to
ascertain what the fact was; and yet, without knowing the facts,
Mr. Bliss stated to this jury that he believed that; that Dorsey
was chairman of the Post-Office Committee and of the sub-committee;
wanting to poison your minds with the idea that Mr. Dorsey had
taken advantage of having held that position. Now, the only
evidence upon that point I find on page 3992, and that is the
evidence of Mr. Dorsey himself. He is asked, Were you a member of
the Post-Office Committee in 1877? No. In 1878? No. Or chairman of
the subcommittee? Here is what he says, that he had not been on
that Post-Office Committee "for nearly two years" prior to July 1,
1878. And yet an attorney representing the United States,
representing the greatness and honor, the grandeur and the glory of
fifty millions of people, for the purpose of poisoning your minds,
there made that statement without knowing anything about it or
without caring anything about it. I thought I would clear that
point up the first thing this morning.
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
162
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Now we will go on with the affidavits. You know these terrible
affidavits that were sworn to in Vermont. It was stated that the
first affidavit was wrong and that the second affidavit was
substituted for the first. Now, if the second affidavit took more
money out of the Treasury than the first affidavit you might say
that there was a sinister motive, a dishonest motive in withdrawing
the first and substituting the second, unless it appeared clearly
that the second was true. But suppose it turns out that the
substitution did not take an extra dollar from the United States?
Then what motive do you say they had in doing it? Was it a motive
to steal something, or was it a motive simply to be correct? What
other motive could there have been?
Now, let us see. The first affidavit said three men and twelve
animals; for the expedition, seven Men and thirty-eight animals;
and the proportion was exactly three hundred per cent -- that is,
three times as much. Now, then, they put in another affidavit. The
second affidavit says two men and six animals. That makes eight.
And on the expedited schedule six men and eighteen animals, which
makes twenty-four; and three times eight are twenty-four; exactly
the same. Three times fifteen are forty-five, and three times eight
are twenty-four, and the amount of money drawn under the second
affidavit is precisely the same that would have been drawn under
the first affidavit.
Now, do you pretend to tell me that they took the trouble to
withdraw the first affidavit and put in the second affidavit
because they were trying to defraud somebody? On the contrary, they
took that trouble because there was a mistake made in the first
affidavit and they wanted to correct it, not for the purpose of
getting more money, but for the purpose of getting a correct
affidavit.
Mr. CRANE. (foreman of the jury). Was not that first affidavit
interlined?
Mr. INGERSOLL. No, sir.
If there had been any fraud about it, would they not have
withdrawn the paper? They had a right to withdraw it. Yet they left
the paper there; they left it there as a witness. Why? Because it
did not prove anything against them; it only proved they desired to
be correct.
My recollection is there were erasures in both affidavits, Let
us find them. Before I get through I will endeavor to show you that
every erasure and interlineation is an evidence of honesty instead
of dishonesty. What are the numbers of these affidavits? [Examining
the papers.] They are number 4C and 5C. Route 38134. I will read
them.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
163
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Hon. THOMAS J. BRADY,
Second Assistant Postmaster-General.
SIR: The number of men and animals necessary to carry the mail
on route 38134 on the present schedule is three men and twelve
animals. The number necessary on a schedule of ten hours, seven
times a week, is seven men and thirty-eight animals.
Respectfully,
JOHN W. DORSEY,
Subcontractor.
There does not appear to be any erasure or interlineation or
anything else in that affidavit. Now, here is the other one:
Hon. THOMAS J. BRADY,
Second Assistant Postmaster-General:
SIR: The number of men and animals necessary to carry the
mails on route 38134 on the present schedule, seven times a week,
is two men and six animals. The number necessary on the schedule of
ten hours, seven times a week, is six men and eighteen animals.
Respectfully,
JOHN W. DORSEY,
Subcontractor.
That is the second affidavit. The first was withdrawn. That
is, they had permission to withdraw it, and in the second affidavit
is the interlineation "seven times a week," isn't it? That is
simply an interlineation, because there had been an omission to
state the service that was then being performed or that was to be
performed.
Mr. CRANE (foreman of the jury). That has puzzled me a good
deal, to understand the motive of those two affidavits.
Mr. INGERSOLL. There certainly could not be any motive for
putting in seven for three times a week, for this is simply to make
it agree with the truth. If I give a note to a man for five hundred
dollars and should happen to write in the word "hundred" and not
the word "five," and then should take it back and write in the word
"five" above it, that is not a sign of fraud.
Will somebody give me number 18K; I just happened to see
something there which may be worth something or may not.
Now, gentlemen, here is a petition marked 2A, that Rerdell
swears that the words "schedule thirteen hours" were written in by
Miner. In one of these papers I happened to see the word
"schedule." just notice the word "schedule" on this paper
[exhibiting to the jury,] and then have the kindness to look at the
word "schedule" in this other one [exhibiting to the jury,] and see
whether You think one man wrote them both. Rerdell says he wrote
the word "schedule" in that one [indicating,] and that Miner wrote
the word "schedule" in this other one [indicating.]
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
164
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Now, gentlemen, there is another charge against John W.
Dorsey, on route 18145, and upon that route he made two affidavits.
In the first affidavit he swore it would require three men and
seven animals on the schedule as it then was, and that makes ten;
that with the proposed schedule it would take eleven men and
twenty-six animals, making thirty-seven. Now, if it took ten on the
schedule as it then was, and thirty-seven on the proposed schedule,
then the Government, which accepted that affidavit, would have to
pay him three times and seven-tenths as much, which is the relation
between ten and thirty-seven. The proportion then is three and
seven-tenths. On the first affidavit his pay would have been twelve
thousand nine hundred and thirty-five dollars and fifty-two cents
a year.
Now I come to the second affidavit, which said that for the
schedule as it then stood it would take twenty men and animals. On
the proposed schedule he said it would take twelve men and forty-
two animals, making fifty-four. Now, the ratio of the second
affidavit was as twenty is to fifty-four. The ratio in the first
affidavit was as ten is to thirty-seven, so that under the second
affidavit, which they say was willful and corrupt perjury, he got
eight thousand four hundred and fifty-seven dollars a year in.
stead of twelve thousand nine hundred and thirty-five dollars and
fifty-two cents. There were three years for the contract to run,
and a little over. Under the first affidavit he would have received
thirteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-two dollars and seventy-
five cents during the contract term more than he took under the
second. An affidavit was put in there that he thought was
erroneous. He withdrew that affidavit and put in a second one. If
he had allowed the first to remain and they had calculated the
amount on the first he would have received thirteen thousand nine
hundred and ninety-two dollars and seventy-five cents more than he
did under the second affidavit. But he withdrew the first and put
in the second, and took from the Treasury thirteen thousand nine
hundred and ninety-two dollars and seventy-five cents less, and
they charge that as a fraud, as an evidence of conspiracy and
perjury. Now, that is all there is against John W. Dorsey.
On page 4090 John W. Dorsey swears that General Miles wanted
to know how far apart he (Dorsey) was building the stations on the
Tongue River and Bismarck route. Let us turn to page 4090. You know
they were trying to prove that when John W. Dorsey went out there
and built the ranches that he was going to build them about fifteen
or seventeen miles apart, because it was claimed that they knew
there was to be increase and expedition. You remember that. Now,
when John W. Dorsey came upon the stand he swore that when they
went out there they started to build those stations, I believe,
somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty or thirty-five miles apart,
as they could get water. Then he swore that when he went himself
over, I think, to Miles City, where General Miles was, that General
Miles asked him how far he was building his stations apart. John W.
Dorsey told him. Then General Miler, gave him his advice. Now, I
want to read this to you. I asked him this question:
Q. When you got to Fort Keogh did you go to see General Miles?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you have any conversation with him in regard to this
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
165
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
route, with regard to the needs of the country for mail service;
and, if so, what was it? A. I told him all about the business
generally. He seemed to understand it pretty well. He wanted to
know how far apart we were building stations. I told him. He wanted
to know how often the mails would run, and I told him it would be
a weekly service, I thought. "We have been pent up here two or
three years," he says, "with mail from eighteen to twenty days
apart, reaching us by the way of Ogden and Bozeman." And he says,
We can get it in seven or eight days over this line." And now I
would like to say that he did not say that he knew there would be
an increase, but he said he should like to have it increased to
three trips a week, or daily, and fifty hours time. I told him
there was no use to try to get it at all; that it could not be done
at present; that nobody knew the distance through that country;
that we expected to have it measured; that it was claimed by
everybody that it was a good deal more than two hundred and fifty
and probably over three hundred miles, and nobody would undertake
to carry it. Said I, "If you extend it the contractor can throw up
his contract and you will be without any mail." He said, "We are
going to ask for what we want, but we will take what they will give
us."
"Your stations are too far apart; you can't run any fast time
with your stations so far apart; you want more stations, and nearer
together." The result was that when I went back I met Mr. Pennell,
who had built the stations thirty to thirty-five miles apart, and
going back we put in intermediate stations. We only carried out
lumber enough from Bismarck to build eight or nine stations, for
the windows, &c.; we did not think of building any more at that
time. Mr. Pennell say; the order was to build the stations
seventeen to twenty miles apart in going out. That is no such
thing. There was not a station built going out closer than thirty
to thirty-five miles.
Q. What, if anything, did General Miles say that convinced you
that you ought to build stations nearer together?
Then he testifies that on account of what he said he did this,
and that he had no instructions from Washington.
That is the testimony. Mr. Bliss endeavored to frighten the
witness by stating in his presence that he (Bliss) did not believe
General Miles would swear to any such thing, judging, of course,
from the conversation that he (Mr. Bliss) had had with General
Miles. Notwithstanding that threat, John W. Dorsey, confident that
he was telling the truth, knowing that he was telling the truth,
told his story, and the Government never brought General Miles to
contradict him.
Now, the next thing about John W. Dorsey is the conversation
that he had with some men in July or August out on the road, that
I have spoken to you about before. Nothing could be more perfectly
improbable. It may be that he did tell some man that he was a
brother of Senator Dorsey, and, perhaps, he did say that if he got
into a tight place or hard up for money he could borrow money from
his brother. I do not know what he may have said on that subject.
But, gentlemen, there is not a man on this jury, not one of you,
who has the slightest suspicion that John W. Dorsey at that time
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
166
PART THREE, CLOSING ADDRESS, 2 STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
told those men substantially that his brother was in a conspiracy
with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, and that he, John W.
Dorsey, was also a conspirator. There is not one of you who
believes that, not one, and you never will. Why not? Because it is
so utterly and infinitely unreasonable and absurd. Now, that is the
evidence against john W. Dorsey, My attention is called to one
other point in his case, and so I will call your attentio