Autobiography of Charles Clinton Nourse / Prepared for use of Members of the Family

by Charles Clinton Nourse

This, gentlemen, will appear in evidence when we come to investigate this matter. It does not answer the proposition and but for the fact that the money was speedily raised and the road built from Omaha to reach the hundredth meridian, before the Kansas branch got their road built there, we would have lost everything; we would have lost all that congress had granted to us, to build the road up the Platte Valley. This has been carefully concealed by Mr. Kasson in all his explanations and in all his discussions and he has, with his oily, deceptive subterfuges, tried to hide this enormity of his past life from his constituents. We hope, gentlemen, aided by the evidence of these members of congress, intelligent men, honest men, who have stood by the people of Iowa—we hope, with their depositions and the circumstances, and the evidence contained in the Congressional Globe, to show this matter up to you. We will prove to you by men who were on the ground that no sufficient motive could honestly have induced that man to have cast his vote in the way he did; that it was a surprise upon every intelligent man that knew what his pledges and promises and professions had been up to that time. Now, when this man offered himself as a candidate for congress last fall a year ago, one of the defendants in this case, who never was a candidate for office in his life, who had no interest in politics whatever, except as a citizen interested in our material interests, in our city, in our state, took the responsibility upon himself to ask Mr. Kasson through the public press to explain this, his extraordinary conduct and his treachery to his constituents; he got no answer except the insufficient one, the deceptive one, that Mr. Kasson wanted a rival railroad. Again, gentlemen, it will further appear in evidence that this was an additional subsidy of lands, that instead of connecting with the main line at the one hundredth meridian, this Kansas company was authorized to change its route and build the road to Denver, from Denver up to Cheyenne, and receive all the lands on either side of whatever route they may fix upon, and not requiring them to unite with the main line until they got fifty miles west of Denver. That they received on the line from Denver to Cheyenne the heart of the Territory of Colorado. That was a subsidy, and that the road got that subsidy, and that the parties who passed the bill undertook to deceive the members of congress in regard to it.

Now, gentlemen, this is all there is on this first matter. This publication was made, public attention was called to the fact that one of our members of congress, when asked how he would explain Mr. Kasson's vote, said he didn't know; but he could have taken twenty-five thousand dollars for his vote. That statement was made public by Mr. Savery in this communication to the citizens of this congressional district. Now this is the first matter which Mr. Kasson has chosen to bring before you, and to make an issue, and claim for damages to his character. Now we cannot prove—Mr. Kasson knows—we have no facilities for proving who was around there, or what money they had, or the means by which that bill was passed by congress. We can show you, gentlemen, only this one thing, that as a citizen of Iowa and as a representative of Iowa he betrayed his constituents wantonly; that he was in a scheme in which there was money; that is all; that this communication was made to the public, stating the bare facts at a time when it was necessary for the public to know them and by a man who had no interest in maligning Mr. Kasson, or injuring him. Savery had no personal feeling, and had no personal animosity towards him, but he felt, as a citizen, some indignation towards the man for the course he had pursued in congress. So much, gentlemen, for the first charge that was made. You are to judge whether that communication at the time it was made, and under the circumstances it was made, was justifiable. You are to take all the facts, and all the testimony with regard to it. Now as to the second matter that is set out in the answer.

Mr. Barcroft: Will you just tell the jury whether the bill that Mr. Kasson voted for under the Iowa Railroad were not built on the continuous line?

Mr. Nourse: I have already stated, that but for the extraordinary efforts by which money was raised, and the road pushed to the hundredth meridian first and this scheme defeated, we would never have been on the main line. But no thanks to Mr. Kasson for it. We are on the main line because these men went to work with superhuman energy to get to the hundredth meridian first, and they got there first, and that is the reason we are on the main line. If we had not reached it before they did, we would not have had a dollar of money with which to have built our line, and the other would have been the main line. That is the fact as it will appear conclusively from the testimony in this case. Gentlemen, I invite your special attention to the second charge, for if I can succeed in getting the jury to understand this question it is the end of the plaintiff's case. Fortunately for us on this question we have pretty conclusive proof, and with all the gentleman's ingenuity and that of his counsel, he will not be able to escape. We will show you, gentlemen, that in the year 1868 the old Des Moines Valley Railroad Company had forfeited her rights to the grant of lands that had been granted to her in the year 1858, by reason of not building the road as the original act required. The people of Boone county were dissatisfied because the Des Moines Valley Railroad Company had surveyed their road west up by Grand Junction, instead of going up the Des Moines river. Mr. Orr introduced a bill called the resumption bill, No. 139, in the house of representatives. That bill was read the first and second times, was ordered to be printed, and was referred to the railroad committee, of which Mr. Kasson was a member. The railroad committee prepared a substitute for that bill, as is set out here, in which they provided for a release of the company from all forfeitures and still allow them to have the lands and to build their road upon certain terms and conditions, and reported that bill back to the house of representatives as a substitute for house file No. 139. That substitute, gentlemen, is in Mr. Kasson's own handwriting, and we will be able to produce it here and show you the bill as he reported it originally to the house of representatives.

The records will show you, gentlemen, that after that bill came in, after this substitute was reported, Wilson of Tama county, with another gentleman constituting a minority of the committee on railroads, made a minority report in which they recommended what was called the "Doud amendment," or the Granger clause of that bill, in which they provided as set out in the answer: "that the company accepting the provisions of this act was at all times to be subject to legislative control." I will give you the very language of the amendment as it now appears in the law, so you may get the idea fully. [Reads.] "The company accepting the provisions of this act shall at all times be subject to such rules, regulations and rates of tariff for transportation of freight and passengers as may from time to time be enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Iowa." The minority of the committee recommended that amendment, and it was adopted; and it was the only amendment that ever was adopted by the legislature.

We will prove to you, gentlemen, that a forgery was committed, and the following words interpolated into that bill: "But the non-acceptance by the Des Moines Valley Railroad Company of this act shall not prevent all the foregoing provisions thereof from having the same operation and effect as if the same had been accepted by said company;" and we will prove to you that these words were agreed upon between Mr. Kasson and the railroad company's attorney, in a private room in the Savery House, and that he agreed to put them in the bill, and the attorney testifies that the provision escaped criticism. And this is the second charge: We charge him with so manipulating that bill as purposely to defeat the will of the legislature. That he did it fraudulently, and that he did it corruptly will be proved to you beyond a doubt; that this charge was made, honestly believing it to be true, in order that the people of this congressional district might know the character of the man that was asking for their suffrages. After he voted against Wilson's amendment, and failed to honestly defeat it, we are prepared to show that by an agreement between him and the general attorney of the road, he undertook to get this nullifying clause into the bill, and that he did get it in the bill, and that he did not get it there by the vote of the house.

Mr. Barcroft: You do claim that you have any such allegation in your answer?

Mr. Nourse: I claim that what we charge Kasson with was that he manipulated that proviso through the legislature, and we propose to prove it. We propose to prove that it came from him and originated with him. We may have other evidence on this point more full and complete that it is not necessary now to take the time to detail.

The third specification, gentlemen, relates to the vote of Mr. Kasson and his conduct with reference to the C., R.I. & P.R.R. Co. And here, fortunately, I can say to you that we are not without direct and satisfactory testimony. We thought that we could prove that he had taken money on both sides from both parties in the case, but we haven't succeeded fully. We have evidence, however, of this state of facts: That Mr. Kasson in the early part of that session voted for a bill that had for its purpose and object the helping of Tracy, who was then the president of the road, to retain his power and his place as president, and to complete the road from here to Council Bluffs; that a bill for that purpose was passed in the early part of the session and approved on the 11th of February, and that Mr. Kasson voted for it. Thus far all was right. It will further appear by the evidence that the legislature had a recess of a few weeks after that, and that Kasson disappeared from here and turned up in Wall street, New York; that he was found in conference with the men connected with the Northwestern Railroad and who had bought up the stock of the Rock Island road, with a view of obtaining control of it, who were anxious to secure the repeal of the Tracy bill. We will prove to you that Kasson promised these men his influence to have that bill repealed; that he came back to Des Moines and was in conference with them, promising them his aid, that he subsequently changed his mind and abandoned them, that they didn't succeed; and that Mr. Tracy out of sheer gratitude, as Kasson claims, offered him five hundred dollars in money; that he (Kasson) took the money, but stipulated that it should be called a retainer.

In his own deposition Kasson swears he got the money. But he says he didn't get the money until after the legislature adjourned, and when it was offered to him as a present, he said he couldn't accept of it unless it was offered to him as a retainer; and that Mr. B. F. Allen, who offered him the money, went away and came back again, and said that he could take it as a retainer; and that he supposed that Allen had seen Mr. Tracy. This is the way Kasson gets out of this. We will prove to you by Mr. Tracy that he never had retained Mr. Kasson, or authorized anybody else to retain him for the company; that he never requested Kasson to perform any professional services for that road; that he never performed any professional services for the road, and that he had been out of the practice of the law for years. It will further appear in evidence that Mr. Kasson has not practiced law since 1860; that this attempt to make it a retainer is simply a subterfuge to cover up the taking of pay for his services in the legislature, to a railroad corporation. Now, this all came to the knowledge of these defendants, and they proposed, in good faith, to publish to the community the facts in regard to Mr. Kasson's conduct. It is said by plaintiff's attorney that they will show to you that the Clarksons were the personal enemies of Mr. Kasson. I will say to you, gentlemen, that it is not true, and that I don't believe they will prove it; I don't believe in this community they can prove a thing that is not true. On the contrary, the Clarksons never had any personal or political difficulty with Mr. Kasson whatever. Every motive on earth that could induce men to act through favoritism was upon the other side of the question.