, therefore, as admitted that the statements of the
public directors in the reports above mentioned are correct, and they
disclose the most alarming abuses on the part of the corporation and the
most strenuous exertions on their part to put an end to them. They prove
that enormous sums were secretly lavished in a manner and for purposes
that can not be justified, and that the whole of the immense capital
of the bank has been virtually placed at the disposal of a single
individual, to be used, if he thinks proper, to corrupt the press and
to control the proceedings of the Government by exercising an undue
influence over elections.

The reports are made in obedience to my official directions, and I
herewith transmit copies of my letters calling for information of the
proceedings of the bank. Were they bound to disregard the call? Was it
their duty to remain silent while abuses of the most injurious and
dangerous character were daily practiced? Were they bound to conceal
from the constituted authorities a course of measures destructive to the
best interests of the country and intended gradually and secretly to
subvert the foundations of our Government and to transfer its powers
from the hands of the people to a great moneyed corporation? Was it
their duty to sit in silence at the board and witness all these abuses
without an attempt to correct them, or, in case of failure there, not to
appeal to higher authority? The eighth fundamental rule authorizes any
one of the directors, whether elected or appointed, who may have been
absent when an excess of debt was created, or who may have dissented
from the act, to exonerate himself from personal responsibility by
giving notice of the fact to the President of the United States,
thus recognizing the propriety of communicating to that officer the
proceedings of the board in such cases. But independently of any
argument to be derived from the principle recognized in the rule
referred to, I can not doubt for a moment that it is the right and the
duty of every director at the board to attempt to correct all illegal
proceedings, and, in case of failure, to disclose them, and that every
one of them, whether elected by the stockholders or appointed by the
Government, who had knowledge of the facts and concealed them, would be
justly amenable to the severest censure.

But in the case of the public director it was their peculiar and
official duty to make the disclosures, and the call upon