"No, sir; he had some money from me once, some three or four hundred dollars, and called it a loan. He says that is all he ever received from me, and that he considered it a loan. He never took his stock and never paid for it."
"Did you understand it so?"
"Yes; I am willing to so understand it. I do not recollect paying him any dividend, and have forgotten that I paid him any money."
Five weeks after this statement, Mr. Ames appeared a second time before the committee with a memorandum in which there was an entry to the effect that a certain amount of stock had been sold for $329 and paid over to General Garfield; that it was not paid in money, but by a check on the sergeant-at-arms.
To this statement, the sergeant-at-arms, Mr. Dillon, testified that he had paid a check of $329, but that the payment had been made to Mr. Ames, not to General Garfield.
It was conclusively proved that Garfield's name was not among the eleven congressmen who had bought shares in the Credit Mobilier.
In a long and able vindication of the purity of his motives, Garfield concludes with the following words:—
"If there be a citizen of the United States who is willing to believe that, for $329, I have bartered away my good name, and to falsehood have added perjury, these lines are not addressed to him. If there be one who thinks that any part of my public life has been gauged on so low a level as these charges would place it, I do not address him; I address those who are willing to believe that it is possible for a man to serve the public without personal dishonor.
"If any of the scheming corporations or corrupt rings that have done so much to disgrace the country by their attempts to control its legislation, have ever found in me a conscious supporter or ally in any dishonorable scheme, they are at full liberty to disclose it. In the discussion of the many grave and difficult questions of public policy which have occupied the thoughts of the nation during the last twelve years, I have borne some part; and I confidently appeal to the public records for a vindication of my conduct."
A writer in the Cincinnati Enquirer at this time thus described Garfield:—