The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents / Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes

by Robert Green Ingersoll

44140 is the number of this route, and this evidence is on record, page 1568, and in regard to getting up these petitions you will recollect the language used by the Court. His Honor said in effect clearly, "Every man carrying the mail has the right to take care of his business. He has the right to get up petitions. He has the right to call the attention of the people to what he supposes to be their needs in that regard. He has the right to do it; and the fact that he does it is not the slightest evidence that he has conspired with any human being." Deny me the right to attend to my own affairs? If I have taken the route from the Government, and contract to carry the mail, tell me that I cannot suggest to my fellow-citizens that they ought to have a daily mail instead of a weekly? Tell me that I have not the right to talk it on the corners, in every postoffice for which I start, and that if I do I am liable to be pursued and convicted of an infamous offence? Every man has the right to attend to his own affairs, and he has the right to get all the people he can to help him. He has no right to go around lying about it, but he has the right to call their attention to the facts the same as you would have the right to get a road by your house; just exactly the same as you would have the right to get a school-house built in your district, no matter if you were to have the contract for making the brick. You have a right to say what you please in favor of education, no matter if you are an architect and expect to be employed to build the schoolhouse, and any other doctrine is infinitely absurd.

There is another charge: That a false oath was filed on the 24th of May. The affidavit was made by Mr. Peck, and I believe it has been admitted that Mr. Peck never did anything wrong. Then there is alleged to be a fraudulent order for increase, signed June 26, and they never introduced the slightest evidence tending to show that there was fraud in the order. It was made in accordance with the petitions. It was made in accordance with what we believed to be the policy of the Post-Office Department. And allow me to say to your Honor that I think that the general policy of the Post-Office Department, as disclosed in the documents that have been presented in the reports made to Congress that have become a part of this case, I think even from that evidence I have the right to draw an inference as to what the policy of the department was.

The Court. I have no doubt in the world as to the views of the Post-Office Department in regard to that subject. The Court refused to receive evidence on that subject in defence, for the simple reason that the Court was of opinion that no Second Assistant Postmaster-General had the authority to establish any policy for this Government or for any branch of this Government. The policy of the Government is to be found in its laws, and the Court was unwilling to allow a Second Assistant Postmaster-General to set up his policy in his defence against a charge in this court. He had no right to have a policy.

Mr. Ingersoll. We never set up the policy of the Second Assistant. We never asked to be allowed to prove the policy of the Second Assistant. We never imagined it, nor dreamed of it, nor heard of it until this moment. What we wanted to show was the policy, not of the Second Assistant, but of the Postmaster-General. But I am not speaking now upon that branch.

The Court. The Postmaster-General by law is the head of the department of course. But several assistants were given him by law, and he had the authority to apportion out the business of the department amongst those several assistants. The particular business of the department pertaining to the increase of service and expedition of routes belonged under this apportionment to the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. His acts, therefore, are to be looked to.

Mr. Ingersoll. I do not claim, if the Court please, that his policy had anything to do with it. I simply claim that from the orders that have been introduced, not of the Second Assistant, from the books that have been introduced, showing the views of the Postmaster-General, not of the Second Assistant. I also admit that if the Postmaster-General had ordered by direct order the Second Assistant Postmaster-General to expedite every one of these routes, even then there could have been such a thing as a conspiracy to expedite them too greatly, and to receive money from every man for whom they were expedited. I understand that. But in the absence of any proof that it is so, all I have ever insisted was that the general policy of the head of the department might be followed by any subordinate officer without laying himself open to the charge that he had been purchased. That is all.

Now, gentlemen, all these things had been asked. They had been earnestly solicited by hundreds of Congressmen, by Senators, by Judges, by Governors, by Cabinet officers and by hundreds and hundreds of citizens.

Now, let me recapitulate all the overt acts—and I have gone over them all now excepting one, and I will come to that presently. In the indictment there are twelve charges as to filing false petitions. There are ten charges as to false oaths. There are seven charges as to fraudulently filing subcontracts; and the evidence is that the ten oaths are substantially true; that it is impossible to fraudulently file a subcontract; and as to the petitions, that every one is absolutely genuine and honest with the exception of three. They prove that the words "schedule, thirteen hours," were inserted; that is, they tried to prove that by Mr. Blois, who is an expert on handwriting, as has been demonstrated to you. One with thirteen hours inserted in it, and the very next paragraph in that same petition begs for faster time. I have not the slightest idea that that ever was inserted by anybody. I believe it was in there when it was signed. And why? There would have teen, there could have been, there can be, no earthly reason for inserting those words. You cannot imagine a reason for it.

Now, that is thirteen hours. Then there is another one they say had some names of persons living in Utah, and we say that that is not described properly; not only that, but that it was never acted upon, and in my judgment that whole thing is a mistake and not a crime, because there were plenty of petitions without that. There was no need of it. All the other petitions have either been proved, or have been admitted to be absolutely genuine.

Now, I have gone over every overt act except payments, and when it was said here in court, or when the objection was made to these being proved as overt acts, the Court will remember that again and again and again, the prosecution denied that they were offered as overt acts.