nion Pacific Railroad construction, and it was
charged--and proven, I believe, afterwards--that he secured the
concessions for the railroad by undue influence,--the use of money,
gifts of stock, etc.,--and the whole thing finally culminated in
what is known as the _Credit Mobilier_ scandal, the exposure of
which came after I retired from the House.

Ames was a member of the Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth, Fortieth,
Forty-first, and Forty-second Congresses, and I knew him very well
during my six years' service. I was made chairman of the Committee
on Territories in the Forty-first Congress, by Mr. Blaine, who was
then Speaker. Ames annoyed me very much by coming to me almost
every day in the interest of legislation in the Territories affecting
the Union Pacific, and I asked him one day, being a little out of
temper, whether he was so absorbed in the Pacific Railroad that he
had not time to devote to anything else. He made some light
rejoinder; sometime later the exposure came, and I found that he
was engaged in most unfortunate and unlawful practices in securing
legislation in the interest of his road.

I never believed that Oakes Ames was naturally a dishonest man,
but the proof was against him, and the scandal resulted in his
death, as it also did in the death of James Brooks, of New York,
and the ruination of other public men.

I knew S. S. Cox ("Sunset" Cox, as he was called), as a member of
the Forty-first Congress. He had served in some previous Congress
as a member from Ohio; but when I knew him he was serving as a
member from New York.

Cox was an able man, as a speaker, a writer, and a diplomat. He
was always listened to with great respect and attention when he
addressed the House, but a considerable amount of fun was poked at
him after a certain occasion when he had interrupted General Butler
a time or two in debate, and the General, finally losing patience,
replied to one of his questions with the admonition: "Shoo, fly,
don't bodder me!" I was present at the time; the galleries were
filled, as they always were in those days; and when General Butler
uttered this reproof the whole House, galleries, and floor, was in
an uproar, maintaining the confusion for some minutes. When it
seemed like subsiding, it would break out again and again, and so
it continued for quite a while. When order was finally restored
Cox undertook to reply; but he could not do so. He had been so
crippled by the response of the