Pine to Potomac

by E. K. Cressey

He further plead that “as commercial men of the country, who do so much to sustain our finances and our honor, they should be relieved from its oppressive exactions.”

There were no mists or fogs about him to conceal him or his methods, and what he said stood out in the clear light of day. In this case he was able to catch up from memory, a better argument for the repeal of the oppressive section of the law than had come to the House in a lengthy written memorial from a company doing business on the Schuylkill Canal in Pennsylvania, and who could make sitings net them four hundred and ten dollars, while in the case cited by Mr. Blaine, one trip was made at a loss of nine hundred and forty-eight dollars and five cents.

Seldom did he cite his own opinion. It was the bludgeon of hard, solid facts with which he did his best execution. Others might theorize, and imagine, and conceive, and spin web after web of sophistry, like the spider, out of themselves, to be full as flimsy when the storm of debate beat upon it, but not he. He evidently kept up a living acquaintance with those to whom he was responsible, and this, with an ever vigilant correspondence, enabled him to know, and not simply think and feel, but actually to know their adverse experiences where the operations of the machinery of government affected them, and with reasonable and apparent facts in hand he could easily procure the remedy. This lively interest, so practical and so potent as well, was with him a constant element of power.

He lost no opportunity to familiarize himself with business enterprises, great and small, and get the best authority on all questions of finance and trade, and as a result he could speak with pertinency, and from a mind prolific of the freshest data on the practical questions as they were constantly coming before the House, and especially in the old war-days, when the vexed questions of internal revenue, with all its myriad details regarding the nature and value of taxable articles, were being adjusted.

At one time when he first entered congress, nearly every article that entered into the construction of a ship was taxed, and then upon her tonnage, and then, beside, upon the gross receipts for carrying the cargo. He saw to it at once that those matters were attended to.

But a fresh call was out for troops, and it was a final call. They were getting ready for the great opening of the spring campaign which was to speedily end in crushing the Rebellion, and annihilating the Confederacy. There was a flaw in the enrollment law passed the last session, which Mr. Blaine had discovered, and sought to remedy. It permitted recruiting in the rebel states, and credits for previous naval enlistments. “From these two sources have arisen the gigantic and wide-spread evil of filling quotas of towns without adding troops to the army.” He had offered an amendment which was designed to bring back recruiting to “an honest, meritorious, and patriotic effort to fill the ranks of our gallant army with men, and not with shadowy fictions which pass under the name of ‘paper credits.’” The quotas of entire cities, districts, and possibly states, had been thus filled “without adding a single man or musket to the effective military force of the nation. There was fraud, and he would so change the law that it could not be perpetuated.”

There were substitute-brokers, who, in some mysterious way, would get hold of these “credits,” as they were called, and sell them, much as torn scrip is sold.

“We can deal just by the government,” he said, “in its struggle for existence. It calls for men, and it is worse than madness to answer this call with anything else than men.

“In conclusion,” and his words reveal a genuine patriotism and zeal of affection for the soldier, “nothing so discourages the brave men at the front as the belief that proper measures are not adopted at home for re-enforcing and sustaining them.

“After four years of such patriotic and heroic effort for national unity as the world has never witnessed before, we cannot now afford to have the great cause injured, or its fair fame darkened by a single unworthy incident connected with it. The improper practices of individuals cannot disgrace and degrade the nation, but after these practices are brought to the attention of congress, we shall assuredly be disgraced and degraded if we fail to apply the remedy. Let us, then, in this hour of the national need, do our duty here, our duty to the troops in the field, our duty to our constituents at home, and our country; above all, to our country, whose existence has been in such peril in the past, but whose future of greatness and glory seems now so assured, and so radiant.”