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

by Robert Green Ingersoll

The next is, that whenever he discontinued a route or any part of a route, rather, he gave us a month's extra pay; you heard that, did you not? He was on that subject about a half a day. How did he come to do that? I will tell you. There is nothing like looking:

And in case of decrease, curtailment, or discontinuance of service, as a full indemnity to said contractor one month's extra pay on the amount of service dispensed with.

That is first the law, secondly the contract, and thirdly it was made in the interest of the United States. And why? Suppose the United States made a contract with a man to carry a mail from New York to Liverpool, and in consequence of that contract the man bought steamships to perform the service, and then the United States made up its mind not to carry the mail. That man might get damages to the amount of hundreds and thousands of dollars. Therefore the United States endeavored to protect itself and say the limit of damage shall be one month's pay, and that has been the law for years, and that law has been passed upon by the Supreme Court of the United States. It was passed upon in the case of Garfielde against the United States, where he claimed greater damages because he had all the steamships to carry the mail from San Francisco to Portland, and the Supreme Court said it made no difference what his expense had been. He was bound by the letter of the law and the contract, and could have only one month's extra pay as his entire damage.

Now, these gentlemen bring forward a law to protect the United States Government, and they bring that forward as an evidence of conspiracy, as evidence of a fraud. Nothing could be more unfair, nothing on earth could show a greater want of character. Now, let us see what else.

The next great charge is false affidavits. They tell you that we made lots of them; that we just had them for sale. False affidavits! And that Mr. John W. Dorsey made two false affidavits in two cases. The evidence will show that he did not. The evidence will show that he made only one in each case, when we come to it. But I want to call your attention to this fact, that in one case one affidavit was made where it said the number of men and horses then necessary was eight, that on the expedited schedule it would be twenty-four. Three times eight are twenty-four. The second affidavit said the number of men and horses then was fifteen, and the number on expedition and increase would be forty-five. Three times fifteen are forty-five. So that the amount taken from the Government would be exactly the same on both affidavits. You understand that. For instance, if it took five horses and men to do the then business, and would require fifteen to do the expedited and increased business, then you would be entitled to three times the amount of pay. So in this case one affidavit said it took eight and would take twenty-four, the other affidavit said it took fifteen and would take forty-five. Three times eight are twenty-four. Three times fifteen are forty-five. So that the amount of money taken from the Government would be exactly the same under each affidavit. Now, that is all there is of that.

In the next case, where he made two affidavits, I find that by the second affidavit it took, I think, thirteen thousand dollars less from the Government, and yet they call the second affidavit a piece of perjury. And here is one thing that I want to impress upon all your minds. Where you not only carry the mail but carry passengers, it is an exceedingly difficult problem to say just how many horses and men it requires to carry the mail, and then how many men and horses it requires to carry the passengers. It is hard to make the divide you understand—very hard. You can tell, for instance, the cost of mounting a railroad for a hundred miles, but it is very difficult to tell the cost of the bridges or what the spikes cost or what the deep cuts cost. You can take the whole together and say it cost so much a year. So in this case we can say it requires so many men and horses doing the business that we are doing, but it is almost impossible for the brain to separate exactly the passengers, the package business, from simply carrying the mail. As I said before, men will differ in opinion. Some men will say it will take ten horses, others twenty, others twenty-five, and then the next question arises, and I want to call particular attention to that question, and that is, whether the law means only the horses absolutely carrying the mail; whether the law means by carriers only the men who ride the horses or drive the wagons. Now, I will tell you what I mean. I undertake to carry the mail, we will say from Omaha to San Francisco. How many men will it take? Now, I will count all the men who are driving the stages, all the men who are gathering forage, all the men who are attending to that business in any way, and if on the way I have blacksmiths' shops where my horses are shod I will count those men. If I have men engaged in drawing wood a hundred miles, I will count those men. In other words, I will count all the men I pay, no matter whether they are keeping books in New York or carrying the mail across the desert. I will count all the men I pay; so will you. What horses will you count? All the horses engaged in the business; those that are drawing corn for the others, as well as the rest, will you not? There is an old fable that a trumpeter was captured in the war and he said to his captor, "I am not a soldier, I never shot anybody." "Ah," they said, "but you incited others to shoot, and you are as much a soldier as anybody; we want you."

Now, I say that we are entitled to count every man who carries the mail, and every man necessary to perform that service. So do you. Now, there we divide. The Government says we shall count simply the men carrying the mail, nobody else, and we shall count simply the horses in actual service. That is nonsense. For instance, you have got to have thirty horses. They are going all the time. Do you depend on just that thirty? No, sir. If one gets lame you cannot carry the mail. You have got to have twenty or thirty horses in your corral, in the stables, so that if one of the others gives out you will have enough. That is one great question in this case, gentlemen. What I say to you now is that on every one of these routes in which my clients are interested, or, I may say, in which anybody is interested, the evidence will be that the affidavits were substantially correct. In many cases there was a far greater difference between the men and horses then used and the men and horses that were afterwards necessary.

You must take another thing into consideration. In a country where there are Indian depredations one man will not stay at a station by himself. He wants somebody with him; he wants two or three with him, and the more frightened he is the more men he will want. On that route from Bismarck to Tongue River, as to which it was sworn it would take a hundred and fifty men, the statement was made at a time when the men would not stay separately; that they wanted five or six together at one station; that they wanted men out on guard and watch. You will find before we get through, gentlemen, that the affidavits do not overstate the number. You will find in addition that these petitions were signed by the best men; that that service was asked for by the best men, not simply in the Territories, but by some of the best men in the United States; by members of Congress, by Senators, by generals, by great and splendid men, men of national reputation. So when we come to that we will show to you that the affidavits made were substantially true. There is another charge that has been made, and that is that the affidavits in Mr. Peck's name were not made by him; that he never signed these affidavits.

Yet, gentlemen, we will prove to you as the Government once proved by Mr. Taylor, a notary public in New Mexico, that Mr. Peck appeared personally before him; that he was personally acquainted with Mr. Peck, and that he signed and swore to those affidavits in his presence. That we will substantiate in this trial as the Government substantiated it in the other. These gentlemen, are among the charges that have been made against us. I say to you to-day they will not be able to show that we ever put upon the files of the Post-Office Department a solitary letter, a solitary petition, a solitary communication that was not genuine and true. Not one. They cannot do it. They never will do it. You will be astonished when you hear these petitions to find the Government admitting that they are true. If they do not read them we will read them. That is all.

Now, I have stated to you a few of the charges made against my clients up to this point. I want to keep it in your mind. I want each man on this jury to understand exactly what I say. Let us go over this ground a little. I want to be sure you remember it. In the first place, S. W. Dorsey was not interested in these routes. All the bids were made by John W. Dorsey, John M. Peck, John R. Miner, and a man by the name of Boone. All the information was gathered by Mr. Boone by sending circulars to every postmaster on the routes. Upon that information John W. Dorsey, John M. Peck, and John R. Miner made their calculations and made their bids, numbering in all about twelve hundred. Of that number they had awarded to them a hundred and thirty-four contracts. Recollect that. After those contracts were awarded to them they were without the money to put the stock on all the routes, because more contracts were awarded than they expected. Thereupon John R. Miner borrowed some money from Stephen W. Dorsey and kept up that borrowing until the amount reached some sixteen or eighteen thousand dollars. Don't forget it. After it got to that point Mr. Dorsey started for New Mexico. At Saint Louis he met John R. Miner, then coming from Montana, and John R. Miner said to him, "We have got to have some more money of you;" and Dorsey replied, "I have no more money to give you." Miner then said, "You give your note or indorse mine for nine or ten thousand dollars." Dorsey replied, "If you will give me post-office orders and drafts, not only to secure the note I am about to indorse or make for you, but also to the amount of the money I have advanced for you, I will give the note." That was agreed upon. Thereupon he gave the note. It was discounted in the German-American National Bank, and Mr. Miner deposited with the note the orders on the Post-Office Department, not only to secure the note, but the sixteen thousand dollars that Dorsey had before that time advanced. Dorsey went on to New Mexico, and in May or July of that year another law was passed, allowing a subcontractor to put his subcontract on file. After he had advanced that money and indorsed or signed the note, they made the contract with Mr. Vaile, turning these routes over to him and giving him subcontracts on all these routes. When Stephen W. Dorsey came back from New Mexico in December of that year he found that the note at the German-American National Bank had been protested, and that his collateral security was at that time worthless, because the subcontracts had been filed and these subcontracts cut out the post-office orders or drafts. Thereupon he wanted a settlement. Matters drifted along until April, 1879, and a settlement was made. I have told you that from the time the routes were given to Mr. Vaile until that time nobody had the slightest thing to do with them except Mr. Vaile; that in April, 1879, the division was made; that Mr. Vaile paid the note at the German-American National Bank; that the division was made, as I told you, by Mr. Vaile drawing one route, Mr. Dorsey one, and Mr. Miner one, and keeping that up until they were all drawn. I forgot to tell you before that Mr. S. W. Dorsey had sixteen thousand dollars, to which, if you add the interest, it would be about eighteen thousand dollars; that John W. Dorsey had ten thousand dollars and John M. Peck had ten thousand dollars, and when that division was made Stephen W. Dorsey agreed to pay John W. Dorsey ten thousand dollars, and to pay John M. Peck ten thousand dollars for his interest. Gentlemen, he did pay John W. Dorsey ten thousand dollars, and he did pay the same amount to Peck, and from that day to this John W. Dorsey has never had the interest of one solitary cent in any one of these routes. He was simply paid back the money that he expended. Not another cent. John M. Peck never made by this business one solitary dollar. He simply received back the money he had expended. After he had paid back that money to both of these men, Stephen W. Dorsey took these routes with a debt to him of between sixteen and eighteen thousand dollars. Now, as to Mr. Rerdell. They say he was the private secretary of Stephen W. Dorsey. He never was; not for a moment, not for a single moment He attended to some of this business. I have no doubt that the Government imagine they can debauch somebody in order to get information. I give them notice now—GO on. There is no living man whose testimony we fear. There is no living lawyer who has the genius to make perjury do us harm. I want you to understand it. And I want them to understand that I know precisely what they are endeavoring to do. There is only one way for them to surprise me, and that is for them to do a kind thing.