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

by Robert Green Ingersoll

The next thing to do was to write false and fraudulent letters; to induce others to write such letters; the next thing, to make false affidavits; and the next thing, to make false orders—those to be made by Mr. Brady—and these false orders were to have, as a false foundation, false petitions, false letters, false communications, false affidavits, and fraudulently written representations.

That is the indictment. That is the scheme said to have been entered into by my clients with all of these defendants, and the object being to defraud the Government of the United States. Now, in order to establish that scheme, it would be necessary for the Government to prove it. Not to assert it. Neither have you the right to infer it. No man can be inferred out of his liberty. No man can be inferred into the penitentiary. That is not the way to deprive a man of his reputation and of liberty—by inference. They must prove it. They must prove that the petitions were false. They must prove that the letters were fraudulent. They must prove that the orders rested upon those false and fraudulent petitions, letters, and affidavits; and they must prove that Mr. Brady knew them to be false.

It is also stated in this indictment that service was to be paid for when it was not performed; that service was discontinued and a month's extra pay allowed; that fines were imposed and afterwards set aside because the contractors agreed to pay fifty per cent, of such fines to General Brady. I will speak of them when I come to them.

Now, there is a clear statement. What part, then, did my clients play in this scheme? I will tell you. It is charged in the indictment that John M. Peck was in this scheme, and, although he is dead, whatever he did, I imagine, can be established by the Government. A man can be found guilty, I understand, of having entered into a conspiracy with another, although the other be dead, and the living man can be convicted.

Now, it is stated in the outset that my clients never had been engaged in carrying the mail and that is regarded as an exceedingly suspicious circumstance. A man has got to commence some time, if he ever goes into the business, and if this doctrine be true, the first bid that a man ever makes is evidence that he has entered into a conspiracy. Suppose, on the other hand, my clients have long been engaged in this business. What would the Government counsel then have said? They would have said, gentlemen, that they had been engaged for years in the business. They knew all the tricks that were played, and consequently they were the very persons to form a conspiracy. And that is the wonderful thing about suspicion. It changes every fact. It colors every word it reads and every paper at which it looks; and no matter what are the facts, the moment they are regarded with a suspicious mind they prove what the man suspects.

So, then, the first charge is that we had never been in the business, and consequently our going into the business must have been the result of a conspiracy. Gentlemen, if the doctrine be laid down that it is dangerous for a man to make a bid the result of that doctrine will be to double the expenses of the Government in carrying the mails. All that will be necessary, then, is for the old bidders to combine. They will know that there is no danger of any new men interfering with them, because the new men will be immediately indicted for conspiracy and the old men will have the field to themselves. You can see that this is infinitely absurd. There is only one step beyond such absurdity, and that is annihilation. No man can possess his faculties and get beyond that absurdity, if it is evidence of conspiracy, because it is the first thing.

As a matter of fact, however, John M. Peck had been engaged in the mail business. He was engaged in the business before 1874. He had been interested with others before that time. He was interested in several important routes from 1874 to 1878. It was in the fall of 1877 that he made arrangements to bid at the next letting. He was a business man. He was not an adventurer. He was secretary at that time of the Arkansas Central Railroad. He had been, I believe, for two sessions a member of the Ar-kansas Legislature. He was in good standing, solvent, and regarded as an honest man. In 1874 he was interested in the bids and, as I said, was engaged in carrying the mails at the time these contracts were entered into. He became acquainted with John W. Dorsey, I believe, in 1874. When he made up his mind to put in more bids for the letting of 1878 he went after John W. Dorsey, and they met together in the city of New York, I believe, in the month of September, and agreed that they would put in some bids for the letting of 1878. Peck was acquainted with John R. Miner and had been acquainted with him for a considerable time. Mr. Miner wanted to go into some other business than that in which he was then engaged, and those three men made up their minds to bid. Was there anything criminal in that? Nothing. Any men anywhere have the right to combine; the right to form a partnership; the right to come together for the purpose of making proposals for carrying the United States mails. Of course you will all admit that. Now, that is what they did. There was nothing criminal, nothing secret, nothing underhanded. Everything was above board, open, and in the daylight. There is no conspiracy yet, and we will show that.

John M. Peck had been troubled with a lung disease. He had gotten much better in September, and thought that he was almost well. Later in the fall he took a severe cold and got much worse, and from that difficulty, I believe, he never wholly recovered. He went, however, to Colorado and New Mexico, and finally died.

Now, let us see about John W. Dorsey. I believe that great pains have been taken to say that he was a tinsmith, which is a suspicious circumstance. Why? Is there any law against a tinsmith bidding to carry the mails? Is there any such provision in the statute? And yet that has been lugged forward as one of the evidences of a conspiracy in this case, and it has been lugged forward in a way to cast some disgrace upon this man—simply because he was a tinsmith. Well, do you know I have as much respect for a good tinsmith as for a good anything. What is the difference? Sometimes I have thought I had more respect for a good tinsmith than a poor professional man—sometimes. In this country of all others labor is held to be absolutely honorable, and I think a thousand times more of a man who works in the street and takes care of his wife and children than I do of somebody else who dresses well and lives on the labor of others, and then is impudent enough to endeavor to disgrace the source of his own bread. I think the man who eats the bread of idleness is under a certain obligation to speak well of labor. And yet we have the spectacle in this very court of the Attorney General of the United States endeavoring to cast a little stain upon this man. As a matter of fact, and I am almost sorry to say it, John W. Dorsey is not a tinsmith. I am almost sorry to make the admission. He happened to be a merchant, which is no more honorable but somewhat easier. He dealt in stoves and tinware. That, gentlemen, is his crime, and upon that rests the terrible suspicion that he is a conspirator. And I want to say more, that his reputation for honesty, his reputation for fair dealing, is as good as that of any other man in the State in which he resides. He made up his mind to cast his fortunes with John M. Peck and with John R. Miner and make some bids for carrying the mails of the United States. That is all there is about it.

There is, however, another suspicious circumstance, and that is that John W. Dorsey was the brother of Stephen W. Dorsey, and Stephen W. Dorsey at that time was a Senator of the United States. That is another suspicious circumstance. Whenever you find a man with a Senator for a brother, put him down as a conspirator. Another suspicious circumstance, John M. Peck was the brother-in law of S. W. Dorsey, absolutely married a sister of Mrs. Dorsey, and that was the beginning of this hellish conspiracy. It was suspicious. He intended to rob the Government when he was courting that girl.