h House sought refuge in a variety of
subterfuges. Some neglected to collect the increase, others who had
received the added sum, returned it to the Treasury upon a variety of
pretexts. Some endowed schools or libraries, and a minority received
what the laws allowed them and upon an assertion of their right to
receive it. Outside of the criminal classes there has but seldom been
a more melancholy exhibition of the weakness of human nature. The
members seemed not to realize that the wrong was in the votes for
which those members were alone responsible who had sustained the bill,
and that the acceptance of the salary which the law allowed was not
only a right but a duty. At the end those members who took the
salary and defended their acts enjoyed the larger share of public
respect. Indeed, not one of the shufflers gained anything by the
course that he had pursued. The public reasoned, and reasoned justly,
that they would have kept the money if they had dared to do so.

Similar conduct ruined many of the members of Congress who were
beneficiaries of the Credit Mobilier scheme. Mr. Samuel Hooper was a
large holder of the stock, but being a man of fortune the public
accepted that fact as a defence against the suggestion that the stock
had been placed in his hands for the purpose of influencing his
action as a member of Congress. With others the case was different.
Many were poor men. They had paid no money for the stock. Mr. Ames
made the subscriptions, carried the stocks, and turned over the profits
to those who had paid nothing and risked nothing. When the
investigation was threatened, many of those who were involved ran to
shelter under a variety of excuses and some of them hoped to escape by
the aid of falsehood which ripened into perjury when the investigation
was made. A few admitted ownership and asserted their right to
ownership. Those men escaped with but little loss of prestige. Of the
others, some retained their hold upon public office and some were
advanced to higher places, but they carried always the smell of the
smoke of corruption upon their garments.

Judge Hale defended Mr. Colfax, but at the end his condition was worse
than at the beginning.

There is something of error in our public policy. With a few
exceptions, the salaries of public officers are too low--in many cases
they are meager. This fact furnishes a pretext for efforts to make
money while in the public service. All these eff