What else did he have the morning after he was talking with MacVeagh? He had the tabular statement in the handwriting of Stephen W. Dorsey, and over the Brady column, "T. J. B., thirty-three and one-third per cent."
What more did that man have? He had the balance-sheets made out, as he swears, by Donnelly, of those books. Were the balance-sheets just as good as the books?
Now, just think what he had, according to his own testimony: A copy of the original letter, written by Dorsey to Bosler, in which he admitted his guilt; a copy of the tabular statement, written by Dorsey, in which he put down thirty-three and one-third per cent, to T. J. B. What more? Copy of the letter that he had written to Bosler on the 22d of May, 1880. He had all that, and he must have had this memorandum, though I will show you that he had not, and I think I will show you when he made it. And yet he was going to New York to get some more evidence. He was going to steal another book in New York that would simply create a suspicion, while he gave up a book that was absolute certainty. That is the theory. But they say, "Oh, he did not do that quite." What did he do? He went and had that copied. He swears that he had copied that letter of May 13, 1879, that Dorsey wrote to Bosler, in which he admitted that he gave twenty thousand dollars to Brady. Now, a copy would not show in whose handwriting the press-copy was, would it? That is a very important point. Who copied it? I think he said Miss Nettie L. White copied it. We never hear of Miss Nettie L. White again, though. These gentlemen admit that you are not to believe Mr. Rerdell on any point that is not corroborated, and when he swears that Miss Nettie L. White copied the letter you are not bound to believe there was such a letter unless they bring Miss White or account for her absence. They did not bring her. That is an extremely important point in their case, infinitely more important than whether the red books ever existed. Did Dorsey write a letter to Bosler in which he admitted his guilt? This man says that he had complete and perfect evidence of it in his own hand; that he gave that up; that he had that copied by Miss White. And they did not bring Miss White. Certainly he had no scruples about tearing it out. He says he tore out his letter to Bosler of the 22d of May, 1880. He had no scruples about that. He did not refuse to keep the book because it touched his honor, because in a day or two he was going to steal another not half as good as that one, not one-tenth part as good. Just think. He gave up evidence that was absolute and complete, and went to steal evidence that was secondary and of the poorest character. You do not believe it. He would have kept that book if he had kept any. If he was going to steal any evidence, and had the best, he would have kept it. The trouble was that there was no such letter in that book. There was his letter of May 22, 1880; no doubt about that; and that man tore it out, and then he made up one in his own mind, and had it of that date; that is all.
So he went to New York, and he swears that he went right up to the Albemarle Hotel; that it was early in the morning; that Dorsey was not then up; and that he had a conversation with Dorsey, in which Dorsey charged him with having had something to do with the Government, with having gone over to the Government. Dorsey had heard that there was something going on about that time, and I suppose he asked Mr. Rerdell about it. Rerdell denied it; said there was no truth in it; that nothing of the kind, character, or sort had ever happened.
Now let us just see whether I can demonstrate to you that Rerdell, in the conversation he had with Dorsey at the Albemarle Hotel, denied that he had gone over to the Government, or that he had done anything that was not perfectly honest, straightforward, and upright. I refer to it now, although I may come to it again.
And, gentlemen, I am sorry for you; I pity every one of you, that you have to hear all that has to be said in this case. But you must put yourselves, for the moment, in our places. You must remember that these defendants have borne this agony, have been roofed and surrounded with disorder for two years. You must remember that the agents of the Government have pursued them, they have watched over them and spied them night and day. You must remember that they have been slandered for years in the public press, although the tone of the public press is now changing, and changing in such a marked degree that one of the attorneys here for the prosecution claimed that we had bought up the correspondents. When you take into consideration what my clients have suffered, the position they are now in, fighting this great and powerful Government, I know you will excuse us for inflicting upon you every thought and every argument that we think may be for our defence.
I am doing for my clients what I would do for you, or any of you, if you were defendants, and I am doing for them what I would want them to do for me were I a defendant and they my counsel.
Now I am going to demonstrate this. When Mr. Rerdell got to Jersey City he telegraphed back, according to the evidence of Mr. Dorsey:
Up to this moment I have been faithful to every trust.
I believe Rerdell swears that he did not send that. He had a memorandum-book which he took out of his pocket. I think a leaf was torn from it, and he ran his pencil through this line on the page on which he had taken a copy of this dispatch, "Up to this moment I have been faithful to every trust," and says he did not send it. Why did he put his pencil through that? Because that line would not agree with the testimony he had given upon the stand. "Up to this moment I have been faithful to every trust" was in that dispatch. I want to ask you if you believe that Rerdell could have sent that dispatch to a man to whom he had admitted that very morning that he had gone over to the Government? Do you believe it? How perfectly natural it would have been for him to send a dispatch from Jersey City that harmonized and accorded with his denial of that morning.