honest. It never would have
occurred to them that because among one hundred thousand men
there are found some few who will not keep the eighth commandment,
'Thou shalt not steal,' which is a mandate for all the public
service, they should put in power men who have no regard for
the sixth, 'Thou shalt not kill.'"

There were several conspicuous instances of corruption with
which I had personally to deal.

1. One was the Credit Mobilier.

Two Committees were appointed to investigate the affairs
of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and the Credit Mobilier
of America. One Committee investigated the conduct of some
members of the two Houses of Congress against whom some charges
had been made. Of that Committee Judge Poland of Vermont
was the Chairman. The other Committee investigated the history
of the Union Pacific Railroad Company to report whether its
charter had been forfeited. Of that Committee Jeremiah M.
Wilson of Indiana, a very able lawyer and accomplished gentleman,
was Chairman. The next member to him on the Committee was
Judge Shellabarger of Ohio. Owing to reasons, stated later,
it fell to me as the next in rank to conduct the greater
part of the examination, and to make the report.

2. Another was the impeachment and trial of General William
W. Belknap, Secretary of War, for receiving a bribe for the
appointment of a Post Trader.

3. A third example of the prevalent laxity of morals that
occurred was the case of the Sanborn contracts. I was a
member of the House when they were investigated, but took
no special part in the proceedings.

4. A fourth example was the claim of Senators and Representatives
which had been asserted in Andrew Johnson's Administration,
and to which General Grant had partly yielded, to dictate
the appointment of executive officers. In that way a vast
army of public servants, amounting to more than one hundred
thousand in number, who were appointed and removed at the
pleasure of the Executive, became first the instrument of
keeping the dominant party in power, and afterward became
not so much the instruments and servants of party as the political
followers of ambitious men to whom they owed their office,
and on whose pleasure they depended for maintaining them.
I made, in a speech at West Newton in 1876, an earnest attack
on this system, and afterward in the Senate had a good deal
to do with framing the Civil Service Law, as it was called,
which put an end to it