3. “Loan to H. K.” (which meant Hallett Kilbourn.) “on 300 shares of Metropolis Paving Company, $14,000. The par value of stock $30,000, only $3,500 paid up.”
The stock of this concern of which Lewis Clephane was president, and at the same time one of the Finance Committee of the Bank, was at the time it was hypothecated utterly worthless. This Lewis Clephane was what we shall call here, a high society Republican, and twenty years ago was book-keeper for Doctor Guilmel Bailey, editor of the National Era, an ultra anti-slavery journal. Mr. Clephane is now a man of wealth, lives in a thirty thousand dollar house, pretentiously located on the corner of 13th and K streets. How he got the money to build such an elegant house, to ride in his carriage, and fare sumptuously every day, is not a matter for so humble an individual as myself to inquire into. Washington has its laws, socially, legally, and morally, and I have sometimes thought that the bigger the thief the greater were his immunities. The difference between the big thief, in Washington, and the little thief, was beautifully illustrated a few weeks ago in the sentence of one of our judges who sent a black man of the name of George Washington to the Maryland penitentiary for six months, at hard labor, for stealing a goat. Yes, for stealing a goat, commonly regarded as a public nuisance. With so righteous a sentence, staring us in the face, who will dare say justice is jobbed in this District?
As to the matter of Mr. Clephane’s wealth, so suddenly acquired, I can safely leave that as a matter to be decided between his conscience and himself. Enough of this. Let us return to Mr. Elvans’ transcript.
4. “Demand Note, of Scharf Paving Company, collateral, 200 shares, of $100 each. (Worthless.) Loan, $3,000.”
This Scharf Paving Company was an offshoot of the rascally Metropolis Paving Company, of which John O. Evans, Kilbourn, and other congenial spirits, were the managers, and Lewis Clephane the president. And just here I beg the innocent reader not to forget that during all this time Lewis Clephane, the high society Republican, described above, was a member of the Finance Committee of the Freedman’s Bank, made such, because of his supposed friendship for the colored man.
5. “Loan to John L. Kidwell, apothecary, and President of the Seneca Sandstone Company, 20 bonds of $500 each. Loan. $4,000, at 10 per cent.”
These bonds were not worth the paper they were printed on.
GENERAL O. O. HOWARD, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN SOLDIER, COMES UPON THE STAGE AS A SPECULATOR.
6. “Gen’l O. O. Howard, (late Vice-President of the Bank,) on Lot 11, in Block 4, subdivision of Smith’s farm; also sundry good and bad bonds as collateral. Loan, $24,000.”