amounting to more than $1,000.
In two or three instances the people thought there was want
of candor or frankness in telling the full transaction to
the public, when the newspaper charges first made their appearance.

Henry Wilson never had any of the stock. But some of his
friends made a present of a small sum of money to Mrs. Wilson,
and the persons having the matter in charge invested a portion
of it in Credit Mobilier stock. As soon as Wilson heard of
it, he directed that the stock be reconveyed to the person
from whom it had been received, and gave his wife a small
sum of money to make up the difference of what turned out
to be the value of the stock and the value of the investment
which had been made in its place. There was no lack of the
most scrupulous integrity in the transaction. Wilson met
at a great public meeting Gen. Hawley, who was one of the
speakers. Hawley told Wilson on the platform just before
his speech that he understood that his name had been mentioned
in the papers as the owner of Credit Mobilier stock. Wilson
answered that he never had any of it. Thereupon Hawley in
his speech alluded to that matter and said he was authorized
by Mr. Wilson to say that he never owned any of the stock.
Mr. Wilson did not get up and say, No, I never owned any.
But my wife once had a present of a little money which was
invested in it, and as soon as I heard of it, I immediately
had it returned to the person from whom it came, and I made
up the loss to my wife myself. Such, however, was the public
excitement that his omission to do that was held in some quarters
as culpable want of frankness.

All the persons who received any of the stock and told the
story frankly at the investigation were acquitted of any
wrongdoing whatever, and never in the least suffered in esteem
in consequence.

But Schuyler Colfax and Senator Patterson of New Hampshire
were found by the Committee, and believed by the people to
have been disingenuous in their account of the transaction.
The Senate Committee of investigation reported a resolution
for the expulsion of Senator Patterson. The case was a very
hard one indeed for him. The Senate adjourned, and his term
expired without any action on the resolution, or any opportunity
to defend himself.

Schuyler Colfax was also held to have given an untruthful
story of the transaction. But the public attention was turned
from that by the discovery, in the investigation of his acco