The De Golyer contract was the next to excite unfavorable comment. But again, when a thorough investigation had been made, Garfield was found to be entirely innocent of the charges brought against him.
Mr. Wilson, the chairman of the Congressional Committee of Investigation, gives a clear statement of the case as follows:—.
"The Board of Public Works at Washington was considering the question as to the kind of pavements that should be laid. There was a contest as to the respective merits of various wooden pavements. Mr. Parsons represented, as attorney, the De Golyer & McClellan patent, and being called away from Washington about the time the hearing was to be had before the Board of Public Works on this subject, procured General Garfield to appear before the Board in his stead and argue the merits on this patent. This he did, and this was the whole of his connection in the matter. It was not a question as to the kind of contract that should be made, but as to whether this particular kind of pavement should be laid. The criticism of the committee was not upon the pavement in favor of which General Garfield argued, but was upon the contract made with reference to it; and there was no evidence which would warrant the conclusion that he had anything to do with the latter."
There were forty kinds of pavement presented, and for drawing up a brief in favor of the De Golyer patent, Garfield received a fee of five thousand dollars.
This was an honorable business transaction. "There was not in my opinion," adds Mr. Wilson, "any evidence that would have warranted any unfavorable criticism upon his conduct."
Garfield defended himself in a manly, straightforward manner. "If anybody in the world," he said in conclusion, "holds that my fee in connection with this pavement, even by suggestion or implication, had any relation whatever to any appropriation by Congress for anything connected with this District, or with anything else, it is due to me, it is due to this committee, and it is due to Congress, that that person be summoned. If there be a man on this earth who makes such a charge, that man is the most infamous perjurer that lives, and I shall be glad to confront him anywhere in this world."
The political opponents of Garfield delighted to call him a "salary grabber," but with how much justice the following facts will show.
On the 7th of February, 1873, a bill was presented in Congress, together with a report submitted by B. F. Butler, from the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, for the passing of the so-called retroactive law. Its object was to increase the pay of members of Congress for past services, a measure that Garfield strenuously opposed from the first. A few days later Butler tried to incorporate it with the miscellaneous appropriation bill. Of the whole matter, Garfield spoke as follows:—
"I wish to state in a few words the condition of the salaries-increase question in the conference committee of the Senate and the House. The Senate conferees were unanimous in favor of fixing the salary at $7,500 and cutting off all allowance except actual individual travelling expenses of a member from his home to Washington and back again, once a session. That proposition was agreed to by a majority of the conferees on the part of the House. I was opposed to the increase in the conference as I have been opposed to it in the discussion and in my votes here; but my associate conferees were in favor of the Senate amendment, and I was compelled to choose between signing the report and running the risk of bringing on an extra session of Congress. I have signed the report, and I present it as it is, and ask the House to act on it in accordance with its best judgment."
Garfield felt that Congress had no right to increase its own pay, but those who favored the plan had attached it to another bill that he very much desired to see passed.