The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States / Embracing an Account of the Scenes and Incidents of His Boyhood; the Struggles of His Youth; the Might of His Early Manhood; His Valor As a Soldier; His Career As a Statesman; His Election to the Presidency; and the Tragic Story of His Death.

by John Clark Ridpath

“Now, take another step. I hold in my hand here, a record of all the changes of pay that have been made since this Government was founded, and in every case,—I am not arguing now that it is right at all, I am only giving you a history of it—in every single instance when Congress has raised its pay, it has raised it to take effect from the first day of the session of the Congress. Six times Congress has increased its own pay, and every time it made the pay retroactive. I say again, I am not arguing that this was right and proper; I am only arguing that it was lawful and constitutional to do it. In 1856, the pay was raised, and was made retroactive, for a year and four months, and the member of Congress from this district threw the casting vote that made it a law. That act raised the pay by a larger per cent. than the act of last Congress. Joshua R. Giddings was the one-hundredth man that voted aye. Ninety-nine voted no. Joshua R. Giddings’s vote the other way would have turned the score against it. That vote gave back pay for a year and four months. That vote gave Congress nine months’ back pay for a time when members would not have been entitled to any thing whatever, because, under the old law, they were paid only during the session. What did this district do? Did it call him a thief and a robber? A few weeks after that vote this district elected him to Congress for the tenth time. Have the ethics of the world changed since 1856? Would I be a thief and robber in 1873, if I had done what my predecessor did in 1856? In 1866, the pay was raised; that time it was put in the appropriation bill (a very important appropriation bill), a bill giving bounties to soldiers. It passed through the Senate and came to the House; there was a disagreement about it. Senator Sherman, of Ohio, had charge of the bill in the Senate, and voted against the increase of pay every time when it came up on its own merits, but he was out-voted. Finally it went to a committee of conference, and he was made chairman of the committee of conference. The conference report between the two houses was made in favor of the bill. Mr. Sherman brought in the report, saying when he brought it in, that, he had been opposed to the increase of pay, but the Senate had overruled him. He voted for the conference report, voted for the final passage of the bill. That bill gave back pay for a year and five months. Was John Sherman denounced as a thief and robber for that? Was Benjamin F. Wade called a thief and robber?

“At that time I was not chairman of the committee, and had no other responsibility than that of an individual representative. I voted against the increase of salary then; at all stages I voted against the conference report, but it passed through the House on final vote by just one majority. I don’t remember that any body ever praised me, particularly, for voting against that report, and I never heard any body blaming John Sherman for voting for it.

“Now, in 1873, the conditions were exactly the reverse. I was chairman of the committee that had charge of the great appropriation bill. There was put upon that bill, against my earnest protest, a proposition to increase salaries. I take it there is no one here who will deny that I worked as earnestly as I could to prevent the putting of that increase upon the bill. I did not work against it because it was a theft or robbery to put it on there; I worked against it because I thought it was indecent, unbecoming, and in the highest degree unwise and injudicious to increase the salaries at that time. First, because they had been increased in 1866, and in proportion to other salaries, Congressmen were paid enough—paid more in proportion than most other officials were paid. Second, the glory of the Congress had been that it was bringing down the expenditures of the Government, from the highest level of war to the lowest level of peace; and that if we raised our own salaries, unless the rise had been made before, it would be the key-note on which the whole tune of extravagance would be sung. I believed, too, that it would seriously injure the Republican party, and on that score I thought we ought to resist it. I did all in my power to prevent that provision being added to the bill. I voted against it eighteen times. I spoke against it, but by a very large vote in the House, and a still larger vote in the Senate, the salary clause was put upon the bill. I was captain of the ship, and this objectionable freight had been put upon my deck. I had tried to keep it off. What should I do? Burn the ship? Sink her? Or, having washed my hands of the responsibility for that part of her cargo I had tried to keep off, navigate her into port, and let those who had put this freight on be responsible for it? Using that figure, that was the course I thought it my duty to adopt. Now on that matter I might have made an error of judgment. I believed then and now that if it had been in my power to kill this bill, and had thus brought on an extra session, I believe to-day, I say, had I been able to do that, I should have been the worst blamed man in the United States. Why? During the long months of the extra session that would have followed, with the evils which the country would have felt by having its business disturbed by Congress, and the uncertainties of the result, men would have said all this has come about because we did not have a man at the head of the Committee on Appropriations with nerve enough and force enough to carry his bill through by the end of the session. The next time we have a Congress, we had better see if we can not get a man who will get his bills through. Suppose I had answered there was that salary increase—‘That won’t do. You had shown your hand on the salary question; you had protested against it and you had done your duty.’ Then they would have said, there were six or seven sections in that bill empowering the United States to bring the railroads before the courts, and make them account for their extravagance. They would have said we have lost all that by the loss of this bill, and I would have been charged with acting in the interest of railroad corporations, and fighting to kill the bill for that reason. But be that as it may, fellow-citizens, I considered the two alternatives as well as I could. I believed it would rouse a storm of indignation and ill feeling throughout the country if that increase of salary passed. I believed it would result in greater evils if the whole failed, and an extra session came on. For a little while I was tempted to do what would rather be pleasing than what would be best in the long run. I believe it required more courage to vote as I voted, than it would to have voted the other way, but I resolved to do what seemed to me right in the case, let the consequences be what they would. [Applause.] I may have made a mistake in judgment; I blame no one for thinking so, but I followed what I thought was the less bad of two courses. My subsequent conduct was consistent with my action on the bill.

“I did not myself parade the fact, but more than a year ago the New York World published a list, stating in chronological order the Senators and Representatives who covered their back pay into the Treasury. My name was first on the list. [Applause.]

“I appeal to the sense of justice of this people, whether they will tolerate this sort of political warfare. It has been proven again and again that I never drew the back pay, never saw a dollar of it, and took no action in reference to it except to sign an order on the sergeant-at-arms to cover it into the general Treasury, and this was done before the convention at Warren. I say more. Some of these men who have been so long pursuing me, have known these facts for many months. During the stormy times of the salary excitement, a citizen of this county wrote a letter to a prominent official in the Treasury of the United States, wanting to know whether Mr. Garfield drew his pay or not, and received a very full and circumstantial reply stating the facts. That letter is in this town, I suppose, to-day, but those who have had possession of it have been careful never to show it. I have a copy of it here, and if these men continue lying about it, I will print it one of these days. [Sensation and great applause. Cries of ‘Let us have that letter read now, General Garfield.’] I will not give the name of the party. The name I have not to whom it is addressed.

[The audience here absolutely insisted on having the letter read, some demanding the name, and all positively refusing to allow the speaker to proceed without reading the letter in justice to himself and for the information of the audience.]

“‘Treasury Department, Washington, June 9, 1873.

“‘Dear Sir: Your letter written early in May was forwarded to me at Youngstown, where it could not be answered for want of accurate data. When about to return to Washington, I searched for the letter but could not find it. My recollection of its contents is that you inquired as to the repayment into the Treasury by General Garfield of the additional compensation due him as a member of the Forty-Second Congress, under the provisions of the general appropriation act of March 3, 1873.

“‘The additional compensation due General Garfield was drawn by Mr. Ordway, sergeant-at-arms of the House of Representatives, and by him paid into the Treasury as a miscellaneous revenue receipt. The money was drawn by Mr. Ordway on the order of General Garfield. The practice of the sergeant-at-arms is to take receipts from members in blank in anticipation of the dates at which they are to become due, and to pay their check on him by drawing the money from the Treasury on those receipts. In this way he is, in a measure, the banker of the members. General Garfield has signed such receipts month after month at the beginning of the month, one of which was filled up by Mr. Ordway and presented to the Treasury. At that time, I believe, General Garfield was out of the city, but I happen to know that as early as the 22d day of March this written order was delivered to Mr. Ordway, viz: if he had not drawn any money from the Treasury on his account to close the account without drawing it, and if he had drawn it to return it. Mr. Ordway then informed him that it was necessary for him to sign a special order on the Treasury if he wished it drawn out and covered in, otherwise Mr. Garfield could draw it at any time within two years; whereupon Mr. Garfield drew an order for $4,548, payable to the order of Mr. Ordway, to be by him covered into the Treasury. This was presented to the Treasurer and the money turned over from the appropriation account to the general account, so that no portion of it ever left the Treasury at all. It was simply a transfer from the appropriation account to the general funds of the Treasury.

“‘Very respectfully,