LS signed “J. A. Garfield,” three pages on two sheets, 7.75 x 9.75, January 31, 1873. Letter to Dr. John Peter Robison in Cleveland, in part: "Yesterday the express brought the side of Bacon, which you were so kind as to send me. It came in excellent condition and we tried some of it this morning for breakfast. All the family join in thanks and kindest regards. The bill for the Vienna Exposition, of which you wrote in yours last, has gone to a Conference Committee, between the two Houses, and it is impossible to tell what shape it will take. The House, however, agreed to fix the appropriation at $200,000, instead of $300,000, as the Senate passed it. I do not know what shape the Asst. Commissioners are left in, in the bill, but shall know, whenever, the report of the Conference Committee comes in.
The new phases, which the Credit Mobilier Investigation have assumed, are as ugly and devilish as man's ingenuity could well devise. Two facts are at the bottom of it. First. Mr. Ames found he was to be sued by the company and required to deliver up the stock he had pretended to sell, and, in order to prevent that, he suddenly has new memories, and tries to fasten the sale of the stock on every man he can; the Second, is that General Butler, and a few others in the House, are doing what they can to break down the present leaders, and make way for themselves, in the next Congress. I bide my time in silence, and shall speak at the proper moment. I do not wish to to push into the papers, nor into the House, until the proper moment. I do want my friends to stand by me, and not to be stampeded, by the slobbering drivel of an old villain like Ames, or a plotter like Butler. Ames' testimony is full of the most glaring contradictions, and shameless falsehoods. But, bad as he has attempted, to make the case, he still admits that I never demanded, nor did he ever tender me any stock or dividends, beyond the $329, which he now alleges was not a loan, but was paid on account of the stock.
I do not think that twelve years of public life without a stain, or a charge of wrong, can be broken down in a day by such rascality as this. These things are for your own eye and for those friends to whom you choose to communicate, in the strictest confidence." Includes the free-franked mailing envelope addressed in another hand, and franked by Garfield in the upper right, "J. A. Garfield, MC." In very good to fine condition, with heavy intersecting folds to the letter, and creasing and soiling to the free-franked envelope.
In 1867, during the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, Congressman Oakes Ames had distributed cash bribes and discounted shares of Credit Mobilier stock to other congressmen in exchange for votes and actions favorable to the Union Pacific Railroad. When this corruption was revealed to the public in 1872, the so-called 'Credit Mobilier Scandal' became the greatest political storm of the Gilded Age. Garfield was among the politicians implicated in accepting stock, casting a blemish on his good name. Although he was never exactly exonerated from the claims, and Democrats attacked him with talk of the scandal during his run for president in 1880, the Credit Mobilier crisis ultimately had little effect on Garfield's political career—indeed, his "twelve years of public life without a stain" allowed his constituents, and the country at large, to forgive any hints of wrongdoing in the Credit Mobilier matter. A lengthy and desirable letter boasting outstanding content.
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