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And ring it did, party and section for the time forgotten in the universal praise. For a moment it seemed that a miracle had been wrought but just for a moment. The exigencies of politics would soon unfurl the bloody shirt again, and Blaine himself would wave it, despite his tears.

IV

For the scandals of the Administration were accumulating, and even as Lamar spoke, the Foster Committee was just closing its investigation of the Sanborn contracts. Acting under a law authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to employ no more than three men to assist officials in the discovery and collection of money due the Government, a contract had been awarded John D. Sanborn, of Massachusetts, then a special agent for the Treasury. The Secretary was to determine the conditions of the contract and to pay no compensation save for the money recovered. Having in his official capacity acquainted himself with the distillers, rectifiers, and purchasers of whiskey who had withheld taxes, Sanborn obtained a contract for collection in the case of thirty-nine. Finding the picking profitable, officials complacent, and his authorization from the Secretary of the Treasury sufficient to open the books of all the revenue offices to his inspection, Sanborn asked the Secretary to add to his contract the names of seven hundred and sixty persons charged with failing to pay taxes on legacies, successions, and incomes. They were added 'as a matter of routine.' Delighted with his easy conquest, he asked to have five hundred and ninety-two railroads added — and this was done. In a little more than a year he had collected $427,000, of which he received half.

The evidence disclosed that Sanborn had a political character, being a friend of Ben Butler, who had introduced him to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and that he had been a constant contributor to the campaign funds. When he was arrested in Brooklyn, it was Butler and W. E. Chandler, with whom we are familiar, who went on his bond. Summoned before the committee, the Secretary of the Treasury, William A. Richardson, disclosed an appalling ignorance. He was ignorant of the transactions in his office — no time to investigate. He had signed the instructions

to supervisors and revenue collectors, placing them at the disposal of Sanborn without reading- had no recollection of it.' 'What,' asked the committee, 'you sign contracts without reading?' 'Oh, yes, sir.' He had not answered the letter of the Commissioner protesting against the privileges of Sanborn, because he had never seen it. Had he inquired into the details of the railroad collections when he signed the order for the payment to Sanborn of fortynine thousand dollars? Not at all—'I signed in the regular course of business.'' The evidence of the other Treasury officials showed an ignorance or culpable indifference quite as amazing. With characteristic effrontery, Ben Butler, whose name had bobbed in and out of the testimony, appeared before the committee one day in a bulldozing mood, to receive shot for shot from Beck of Kentucky.1

There was but one thing to do. The committee found that the Secretary, the Assistant Secretary, and the Solicitor 'deserve severe condemnation for the manner in which they have permitted the law to be administered.' Thus Richardson's position became untenable in the Treasury. When it was proposed to proceed against him in the House, Grant summoned the committee, with a plea to withhold action until he could find a successor — and another official position for the Secretary! Thus Richardson was transferred to the Court of Claims - and Bristow entered the Treasury to play havoc with the peace of the Administration.

V

Meanwhile, with Pike's book on the savagery of government in South Carolina sinking in on the consciousness of the North, an incident soon disclosed that no impression had been made on the President. For almost two years Frank Moses, a lecherous degenerate and corruptionist, had been in the gubernatorial chair at Columbia. The black sheep of a decent family, notoriously dishonest in the Legislature, he had been elevated to the executive office with the aid of the National Government and had entered into the land of milk and honey with an insatiate appetite. Almost immediately, this penniless adventurer had purchased a 1 H. R. Report, 559, 43d Cong., 1st Sess., 88. 2 Ibid., 89.

3 Ibid., 92.

• Ibid., 176-77.

forty-thousand-dollar mansion, furnished it with elegance, maintained the grounds and buildings perfectly, and indulged himself in every luxury. Driving through the streets in an expensive equipage drawn by a span of the finest horses, he conveyed the impression of opulence. He was living at the rate of about forty thousand a year, and, while his debts had reached almost a quarter of a million, he was not without resources in the crimes he was committing.1 A natural actor in the princely rôle, a correspondent described his domestic establishment as 'a well-trained corps dramatique.' In the presence of minister or bishop, he was all piety and humility and the good man was impressed with his sanctity and the charms of a pious household. When occasion called, he could 'preface a meal with a lengthy and unctuous grace and roll off a well-written family prayer.' Even the domestics enjoyed the comedy. And yet this 'frowsy, hatchet-faced, pale young man of a debauched exterior, suggesting the celebrated Dick Swiveller,' with a big mustache and thin hair 'like a dried moss,' could be seen with negroes and low whites puffing cigarettes, and sitting down among the blacks with a hunchback billiard-player.3 His was the golden age of stealing in South Carolina - he in the executive mansion, 'Honest' John Patterson in the Senate. Reeking with corruption, he and his followers in public station lived on the fat of the land, with fine wines and liquors, blooded horses and luxurious homes. Elliott, the negro Speaker of the House, dwelt in a white trellised cottage in the fashionable section, with his 'green vines, magnolias, mock orange, and long-thistled Carolina stem grass,' and 'a pretty, rose-tinted light mulatto.' This house was in his wife's name. Scott, the former Governor, and Patterson, and the other pillagers, had homes in the capital, and a correspondent, surveying the sorry scene, described Columbia as 'an out-of-door penitentiary, where the members browse voluntarily, like the animals in the Zoological Garden.' 5 And the taxpayers? They were ground to powder civilization in peril. In Charleston alone, this year, two thousand pieces of real estate were forfeited for taxes, and in nineteen counties, 93,293 acres were sold, and 343,891 acres went to the

1 Reynolds, 270.
New York Herald, October 13, 1874. 4 Ibid., October 17, 1874.

New York World, August 25, 1874.

their very

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tax collector.1 All attempts to reach Moses through the law were vain. Indicted for complicity with a county treasurer to rob the State, he defied arrest, and for three days three companies of negro militia guarded his house and office; and the courts declared him immune from arrest, and only liable to impeachment by the corrupt Legislature he controlled.2 Under these shocking conditions, the taxpayers met in protest at Columbia and formulated an appeal to Congress. This set forth the exclusion of taxpayers from the Government, the constant increase in taxes until they consumed more than half the income from the property, and the fact that the exploiters boasted that the great body of the land would be taxed out of the possession of the owners. More: that public plunder was open and defiant, with the living standards of two governors only possible on stolen money.3

This was not news in the North. The 'New York Tribune,' 'Herald,' 'World,' 'Sun,' and 'Nation' had been drawing stronger indictments and describing Moses as a consummate thief. But there was no relief in Washington. A committee of the most reputable and distinguished citizens presented their petition to Congress, along with a copy of Pike's 'Prostrate State.' Nothing happened. The petition was flippantly laid on the table without discussion. The committee then turned to Grant.

Just before its arrival at the White House, the slouching figure of 'Honest' John Patterson sneaked into the Executive Office to prepare the President for the visitors and advise him. One of the speakers in the Taxpayers' Convention had severely reflected on Grant, and it was enough for Patterson. It served his petty purpose. Balancing himself with one foot on a chair, Grant listened impatiently to the spokesman, interrupting occasionally with tart reproaches, and then bursting into an extraordinary discussion of his personal grievance against one man in the convention. Even the 'New York Sun,' he said, had not been so villainous in its attacks. And perhaps the taxpayers had themselves to blame. Had they not refused to amalgamate with the carpetbaggers and the negroes refused to affiliate with the Administration Party in South Carolina? Another speaker, resorting to manuscript lest under the provocation he lose his temper, tried to talk, only to 1 Williams, Columbia State, August 8, 1927. ' Reynolds, 270.

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Ibid., 250-53.

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be interrupted. In sheer disgust the committee, of as high-minded men as South Carolina had produced, turned from the presidential presence.1

But again Grant had blundered. 'It is a new thing in our history, even after all these recent years of scandals in high places, for an American President to insult his fellow citizens coming before him on a lawful errand,' said the 'New York World.' 2 This, following on Pike's exposé, hastened the awakening of the North. Nor was the bad impression brightened by the reply to the taxpayers by the Republican State Committee — a partisan tirade evading the issue. Among the signers were some disreputable characters, fourteen of the twenty-four being notorious bribe-takers. It was common knowledge. When the representatives of this group appeared before Grant, they were received with courtesy, and assured that their reply seemed satisfactory. The spokesman was a carpetbagger who had participated in the robbing of the Treasury, and afterward was to be convicted of forgery.3

Thus, with the appeal of the taxpayers worse than ignored, the conviction grew that the South would have to fight.

VI

The character of the campaign being waged in the North accentuated the fact. With Lamar's speech forgotten, desperate politicians were waving the 'bloody shirt.' The embattled farmers were on the march; the unemployed of the cities were in an ugly mood; the small business man struggling against bankruptcy was rebellious now; and the masses were beginning to sicken at the multiplying scandals. The third-term aspirations of Grant were impressing stout Republicans as unendurable, and this was to align Whitelaw Reid and 'The Tribune' behind the gubernatorial candidacy of Tilden in New York. To arouse the dominant party to a fighting fury, Andrew Johnson was on a rampage again, waging a vigorous battle for the Senate in Tennessee, with the multitude reacting rapturously to his denunciations of the Administration.

1 Richard Lathers, Reminiscences, 321-24.

4 To Weed from Dix, Weed, Memoirs, II, 505.
New York Herald, November 2, 1874.

2 April 13, 1874. 3 Reynolds, 265.

5 Cortissoz, I, 284.

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