IC-NRLF 
 
 HE 
 
 r A ii- n< >r f n ; CON si M n 
 
 TNITK!) STATICS 
 
 H(/dJn#t 
 THOMAS ,), l;K.M)V AND OTHKIJS. 
 
 OPKXINC ADDHKSS 
 
 Q i: IM, i ss. 
 
 \\'ASIII\(; TON. I). ('., DiicjiMni:!; II. !">. is. AND li ? issi>. 
 
GIFT OF 
 
ST\AJR ROUTE 
 
 UNITED STATES 
 
 against 
 THOMAS J. BEADY AND OTHERS. 
 
 OPENING ADDEESS 
 
 OF 
 
 GEORGE BLISS. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 14, 15, 18, AND 19, 1882. 
 
 las 
 

 \1 
 
OPENING ADDRESS OF GEORGE BLISS. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT, AND YOU, GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY : 
 
 It has been assigned to me to state to you the grounds upon which the 
 Government will ask that you pass your judgment upon the action of 
 the defendants in this case, and to call your attention in some detail 
 to the evidence which we shall present to you to sustain the charge 
 which we make against them. That charge, gentlemen, is. what is 
 .known as conspiracy, and it is founded upon a statute of the United 
 States which is substantially this : There was an amendment of the 
 statute in 1879. A portion of this charge relates to a period prior to 
 1879, and a portion to a period after 1879 ; so far as the operative portion 
 of the statute is concerned it remains unchanged. It was the same in 
 both periods. The statute is this : 
 
 If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United 
 States, or to dffrand the United States in any manner, or for any purpose, and one or 
 more of such parties do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, all of the 
 parties to such conspiracy shall be liable 
 
 to a penalty specified. That is the amendment to section 5440 of the 
 Revised Statutes of the United States, passed on the 17th of May, 1879. 
 It provides, you will see, gentlemen, that if any two or more persons 
 conspire to defraud the United States in any manner whatever or for 
 any purpose whatever, and if any one of them does any acf, all of them 
 are guilty under the statute. We expect to show you that these par- 
 ties did conspire to defraud the United States out of large sums of money 
 in connection with the postal service of the United States, and that one 
 or more of them did various acts in pursuance of the conspiracy, arid 
 that they are all guilty under the statute. And we shall with consider- 
 able confidence ask a verdict of guilty at your hands after the evidence 
 on both sides shall have been closed. 
 
 These defendants, gentlemen, are persons who have some of them 
 heretofore occupied prominence in the community. One of them is an 
 ex-United States Senator from the State of Arkansas. Another one of 
 them was the Second Assistant Postmaster General, who, by virtue of his 
 office, had charge of the whole business of making the contracts for the 
 mail service and regulating the rate of pay which could be allowed for 
 carrying the mails. Another one of them is the brother of the ex-United 
 States Senator of whom I have spoken. Another is the brother, in law. 
 The brother-in-law is not before you practically, because he is dead, 
 though I think there is no formal evidence upon that point. Another one 
 is the friend and, to some extent, the business associate of the ex-United 
 States Senator. The last one was his clerk and confidential employe. 
 That is the relation which those gentlemen bear to this case ; and I may 
 say here at the outset that the theory of the Government is that the 
 conspiracy to defraud the United States, the method of defrauding the 
 United States, and the original idea had its birth in the mind of the ex- 
 Senator, Stephen W. Dorsey, and that the first steps towards itsexecu- 
 
 370840 
 
4 
 
 tion were taken fry him; that it was impossible to carry out the con- 
 spiracy unless he got orders for the payment of money from the Treas- 
 ury of the United States, which orders had to be for an extravagant 
 and improper amount in order to make the conspiracy profitable, and 
 that he obtained those orders from the Second Assistant Postmaster- 
 General, and by corrupt means. The other parties were the pawns in 
 the game. It was necessary to have bidders to get the contracts in 
 form. .As Stephen W. Dorsey was then a Senator, he was forbidden by 
 the statute of the United States to take a contract in his own name. 
 It was necessary, therefore, to bring here to Washington the brother, 
 who was a humble mechanic in Vermont; and the friend, who was en- 
 gaged in some business in Ohio. It was necessary to use the name of 
 the brother-in-law, who was lying sick with a disease which brought 
 him to his grave, who was utterly unfit to attend to business, and who 
 rarely, if ever, attended to anything in this matter except to sign his 
 name to papers, many of them in blank, and all of them papers in the 
 preparation of which we believe he took no active part. The conspir- 
 acy, therefore, included the Senator, his representatives and dum-. 
 mies, and it included the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, whose 
 co-operation was necessary to enable the conspiracy to become success- 
 ful financially. I said that the Senator was forbidden to take any con- 
 tracts in his own name. The statute upon that subject is, I think, sec- 
 tion 3739, and is as follows : 
 
 Xo member of, or Delegate in Congress, shall directly or indirectly, himself or by 
 any other person in trust for him, or for his use or benefit, or on his account, under- 
 take, execute, hold, or enjoy, in whole or in part, any contract or agreement made or 
 entered into in behalf of the United States by any officer or person authorized to make 
 contracts 011 behalf of the United States. 
 
 The belief of the Government is that we shall satisfy you that the 
 Senator in form obeyed this statute, and that lie took no contracts in 
 his own name, but took them in the names of his brother, his friend, 
 and his brother-in-law. We shall show you that lie was interested in 
 the contracts all the time. The contracts commenced on the 1st of 
 July, 1878. On the 4th of March, 1879, he ceased to be a Senator and 
 became ex-Senator, and within a brief ten or fifteen days after that time 
 he became avowedly and admittedly interested in these contracts, which 
 we say were obtained for his benefit long prior to that time and in vio- 
 lation of the statute. We say that the conspiracy started at the very 
 outset with a direct violation of another statute than the conspiracy 
 statute I have read to you, to wit, the statute which forbade a Senator 
 of the United States to have any interest in any contract, or to have 
 any person hold an interest in his behalf or for him. This Senator, as 
 we say, having conceived a scheme, and having brought his friends into 
 it, went on and aided it in every way in his power, concealing his interest. 
 He vised his position as United States Senator to write letters on official 
 paper recommending the things necessary for the perfection of the con- 
 spiracy and its successful carrying out. He did all that until he ceased 
 to be Senator, and then he became more openly participant in it. 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, this indictment is confined to some nineteen 
 contracts upon nineteen separate mail routes which were awarded at 
 what is known as the letting of February, 1878, to take effect on the 1st 
 of July, 1878, and to be for four years. Those contracts were let after 
 public advertisement, and were subject to competition with other bidders. 
 They aggregated in amount $41,135 a year. The contractors were to 
 perform the mail service called for under those contracts for that sum. 
 Under the fostering orders of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, 
 
Thomas J. Brady, the contracts within about two years after they were 
 obtained were so transformed that they required that there should be 
 paid by the Government of the United States for the performance of the 
 service under them $-448,670.90. Contracts starting at $41,135 were ill 
 two years run up to $448,670. You will bear in mind that these were an- 
 nual sums, and the contracts had an average of about three years to run 
 at these increased rates. So the result of the whole thing was, bringing it 
 down to very close figures, that the orders Mr. Brady made in behalf of 
 these gentlemen on these nineteen routes alone were to cost the Govern- 
 ment during the period the contracts ran between nine hundred thousand 
 and a million dollars in excess of the original sum. That shows you, in 
 this case, gentlemen, confining ourselves, for the moment, simply to the 
 routes named in this indictment, that there was paid from the Treasury, 
 under the improvident and corrupt orders of Mr. Brady unnecessarily 
 and improperly made, close on to a million of dollars. When I say that 
 I speak only of the nineteen contracts in this indictment. This combina- 
 tion had a hundred and thirty four contracts in all, and upon them there 
 were other large sums of money taken from the Treasury of the United 
 States. The order of Mr. Brady that a contract should be increased 
 was an absolute open sesame to the Treasury of the United States, and 
 took from the Treasury the money that he said should be taken from 
 it without the pow r er in any officer of the Government to say nay. If 
 there was Mr. Brady's order that it should be paid out, that order was 
 sufficient and it was paid. 
 
 I have said these gentlemen were concerned in a hundred and thirty- 
 four routes. There were other allowances made about the same time. 
 There was a carnival of corruption in the Second Assistant Postmaster- 
 General's office, as the result of which the Government are prepared to 
 show you that the United States was defrauded of close on to $5,000,000. 
 
 Gentlemen, that is a general outline of this case, and will give you 
 some idea of its importance and the reason why those of us who are, 
 concerned in it, whose duty it is to present to you the Government's 
 views and the Government's evidence, feel at once the weight of the 
 reponsibility under which we are laboring, and feel also the importance 
 of your giving to this case your most careful attention. And you 
 should bring to the decision of the case not only your careful attention, 
 but your honest, unbiased judgment. 
 
 The provisions of law applicable to this subject I will call to your 
 attention. By section 388 of the Kevised Statutes of the United States, 
 which relates to the organization of the Post-Office Department, it is pro- 
 vided that 
 
 There shall be at the seat of Government an Executive Department to be kno\yn 
 as the Post-Office Department, and a Postmaster-General, who shall be the head thereof, 
 and who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of. 
 the Senate. 
 
 By the next section it is provided that 
 
 There shall be in the Post-Office Department three assistant postmasters-general, 
 who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the 
 Senate, and who may be removed in the same manner. 
 
 Then there is the general provision of the Eevised Statutes, section 
 161, which relates to all the executive departments of the Government : 
 
 The head of each department is authorized to prescribe regulations, not inconsistent 
 with law, for the" government of his department, the conduct of its officers and clerks, 
 the distribution and performance of its business, and the custody, use, and preserva- 
 tion of the records, papers, and property appertaining to it. 
 
6 
 
 Under that authority to the Postmaster-General there have been, 
 from time to time, various regulations made and various assignments 
 and distributions of duty, the language of the statute being 
 
 The distribution and performance of its business. 
 
 Among other things there were assigned to the Second Assistant 
 Postmaster -General the duties which 1 will read to you that you may see 
 the breadth and scope of them. The copy of the regulations from which 
 I read is the edition of July, 1879, but they were substantially the 
 same regulations which prevailed before that time. These contracts 
 were bid for in the fall of 1877, and were awarded in the winter of 1878, 
 and commenced the 1st of July, 1878. Of course the regulations prior 
 to 1879, as well as those of 1879, may come into play, but I think it will 
 be found that in no point where they differ do they affect this case. 
 Thomas J. Brady became Second Assistant Postmaster General on the 
 23d of July. 1870, and lie continued as such down to about the 1st of 
 April, 188lJ not long after the incoming of General Garfield's adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 The regulations of the Postmaster-General as to the distribution of 
 duties to the Second Assistant Postmaster-General contain the follow- 
 ing : 
 
 THE OFFICE OF THE SECOND ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL. 
 
 To this office is assigned the business of arranging the mail service of the United 
 States, and placing the same under contract, embracing all correspondence and pro- 
 ceedings respecting the frequency of trips, mode of conveyance, and times of depart- 
 ures and arrivals on all the routes, the course; of the mails between the different sec- 
 tions of the country, the points of mail distribution, and the regulations for the gov- 
 ernment of the domestic mail service of the United States. It prepares the advertise- 
 ments for mail proposals, receives the bids, and has charge of the annual and miscel- 
 laneous mail-lettiugs, and the adjustment and execution of all the contracts. All appli- 
 cations for mail service or change of mail arrangements and for mail messengers 
 should be sent to this office. All claims .should be submitted to it for transportation 
 s'ervice. From this office all postmasters at the end of the routes receive the state- 
 ment' of mail arrangements prescribed for the respective routes. It reports weekly to 
 the auditor all contracts executed and all orders affect ing the accounts for mail trans- 
 portation; prepares the Statistical exhibits of the mail service, and the reports to 
 Congress of the mail-lettings, giving a statement of each bid; also of the contracts 
 made, the new service originated, the curtailments ordered, and the additional allow- 
 ances granted during the year. The rates of pay for the transportation of the mails 
 on railroad routes, accordiugto the amount and character of the service', are adjusted 
 by this office. It also directs the weighing of the mails on the same, and authori/es 
 new service on railroad routes. The issuing of mail- locks and keys, mail-pouches and 
 sacks, and the supervision of the construction of mail-bag catchers is also in charge 
 of this office. To it is attached the division of inspection, to which is assigned the 
 duty of receiving and inspecting the monthly registers of arrivals and departures, re- 
 porting the performance of mail service; also special reports of failures or delinquen- 
 cies on the part of mail contractors or their agents, and of noting such failures and 
 delinquencies, and preparing cases of lines or deduct ions by reason thereof; of con- 
 ducting the correspondence growing out of reports of failures or delinquencies in the 
 transportation of the mails: of reporting to the Auditor of the Treasury for tin; Post- 
 Office Department, at the closeof each quarter, by certificate of inspection, the fact of 
 performance or non -performance of contract or recognized mail service, noting therein 
 such lines or deductions as may have been ordered; of authorizing the payment of all 
 employ6s of the railway mail service ; also the payment of such acting employes as 
 may be employed by this office through t;he superintendent of railway mail service in 
 cases of emergency, and of authorizing the auditor to credit postmasters with sums 
 paid by them for such temporary service ; and such other duties as may be necessary 
 to secure a faithful performance of the mail service. All complaiutsagainst mail con- 
 tractors or their agents, relating to failures or other irregularities in the transporta- 
 tion of the mails, whether made by postmasters or others, should be promptly for- 
 warded to the Second Assistant Postmaster-General marked " Division of Inspection." 
 
 You will therefore see, gentlemen, that to the Second Assistant Post- 
 master-General is assigned the whole power over the transportation of 
 
the mails, the making of the contracts for them, the decision of the 
 question whether the contractors perform their service properly or not, 
 and the imposition of fines upon them if they have not performed them 
 properly. You will also see as I go along, that by general language the 
 Second Assistant Postmaster-General is given the right to make extra 
 allowances in various forms, which extra allowances are practically the 
 source of the fraud upon the Government of which we complain in this 
 case. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, bearing in mind these provisions that I have read 
 to you, the condition of things under the statute, as we regard it, is 
 this : It is the duty of the Postmaster- General to provide for the carry- 
 ing of the mail. That duty is imposed in general terms upon the Post- 
 master-General, and then, under the special power given by the statute 
 which I have read to you, it is assigned by him to the Second Assistant 
 Postmaster-General, and his power is plenary. The statute provides, 
 however, some limitations and considerations which must prevail in 
 connection with the question of carrying the mail, and amongst others 
 is this. I read from section 3965 of the Revised Statutes: 
 
 The Postmaster-General shall provide for carrying the mail on all post-routes es- 
 tablished by law, as often as he, having due regard to productiveness, and other cir- 
 cumstances, may think proper. 
 
 The discretionary power given to the Postmaster- General was trans- 
 ferred to the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, but he is required 
 to have u regard to productiveness and other circumstances." Pro- 
 ductiveness is the only circumstance specified in the statute. 
 
 The Second Assistant Postmaster- General having, we will suppose, 
 decided that the mails are to be carried on a certain route and at 
 a certain rate of speed, and a certain number of times a week, what 
 is his duty and what is the scheme of the law as to how that plan shall 
 be carried out? It is in general terms this: That the opportunity for 
 carrying the mail shall be thrown open to the whole world ; that there 
 shall be public advertisements inviting everybody to bid, and that when 
 they do bid the contracts shall be awarded to the lowest bidder. The 
 whole scheme and scope of the law is that as to all post-office contracts 
 the service shall be thrown open to public competition, and contracts 
 shall be awarded to the lowest bidder. There are also in the laws cer- 
 tain provisions, which I shall read directly, which are intended to pro- 
 vide for unforeseen contingencies which cannot be covered by the or- 
 dinary advertisements. It was by a perversion of these that Mr. Brady 
 and Mr. Dorsey and his associates succeeded in defrauding the United 
 States. Section 3941 of the Revised Statutes, as it then stood, pro- 
 vided : 
 
 The Postmaster-General shall cause advertisements of all general mail lettings of 
 each State and Territory to be conspicuously posted in each post-office in the State 
 or Territory embraced in said advertisement for at least sixty days before the time of 
 such general letting, and ;io other advertisement of such letting shall be required ; 
 but this provision shall not apply to any other than geueral mail Jottings. 
 
 Then, to meet the contingency, there comes section 3957, which pro- 
 vides : 
 
 Whenever, by reason of any error, omission, or other cause, any route which should 
 properly be advertised for the regular letting is omitted, it shall be the duty of the 
 Postmaster-General to advertise the same as soon as the error or omission shall be 
 discovered, and the proposals for such route shall be opened as soon as possible after 
 the other proposals in the same contract section ; and the contract made under such 
 supplementary advertisement shall run, as nearly as possible, from the beginning to 
 the end of the regular contract term, and during the time necessarily lost by reason 
 of such error, omission, or other cause, the Postmaster-General shall provide for the 
 carrying of the mail on such route at as low rate as possible without advertising. 
 
8 
 
 You will see that this section, keeping up the spirit of the statute, 
 provided that where anything has been accidentally omitted from the 
 advertisement there shall be a supplemental advertisement throwing 
 it open to public bidding, and that the Postmaster-General is author- 
 ized to provide for the carrying of the mail on that omitted route only 
 during the period when the new advertisement is running. Referring 
 to a phrase which appears in that statute, it is proper for me to say to 
 you. gentlemen, that under the practice of the Post-Office Department 
 the whole country is divided into contract sections, and that what is 
 known as the Pacific section, which covers substantially all the terri- 
 tory west of the Mississippi River, is the section within which the routes 
 were contained in connection with which the frauds alleged against 
 these defendants were perpetrated. In these contract sections it is the 
 practice for the convenience of the department to let the contracts at 
 different times. All contracts run for four years, but they let the con- 
 tracts last year for the Pacific section, perhaps next year for the New 
 England section, and so on. The contracts in the Pacific section, to 
 which these frauds relate, were let to take effect on the 1st of July, 
 1878, and those contracts expired on the 30th of June, 1882, when new 
 contracts were made for the Pacific section. By section 3958 it is pro- 
 vided : 
 
 Whenever it becomes necessary to change the terms of an existing contract for car- 
 rying the mail otherwise than as provided 
 
 in two other sections to which I will call your attention directly 
 
 notice thereof shall be given and proceedings had thereon the same as at the letting 
 of the original contract. 
 
 Then by section 3944 of the Revised Statutes it is provided : 
 
 Proposals for carrying the mail shall be delivered, sealed, and so kept until the 
 bidding is closed, and shall then be opened and marked in the presence of the Post- 
 master-General and one of the assistant postmasters-general or two of the assistant 
 postmasters-general, or of any other two officers of the department, to be designated 
 by the Postmaster-General. 
 
 By section 3948 of the Revised Statutes it is provided that 
 
 The Postmaster-General shall have recorded in a book to be kept for that purpose 
 a true and faithful abstract of all proposals made to him for carrying the mail, giving 
 the name of the party .offering, the terms of the offer, the sum to be paid, and the 
 time the contract is to continue; and he .shall put on tile and preserve, the originals 
 of all such proposals. 
 
 Then section 3950 provides that- 
 No contract for carrying the mail shall be made with any person who has entered, 
 or proposes to enter, into any combination to prevent the making of any bid for car- 
 rying the mail, or who has made any agreement, or given or performed', or promised 
 to give or perform, any consideration whatever to induce any other person not to bid 
 for any such contract; and if any person so offending is a contractor for carrying the 
 mail his contract may be annulled. 
 
 You will see running through all the same provision for public ad- 
 vertisement, free, open bidding, and the imposition of penalties for any- 
 thing which prevents free and public bidding. Then comes section 
 3951 of the Revised Statutes. This section makes provision for a case 
 where, after the award of the contract, the con tractor .does not take the 
 service up. It provides for temporary service and new* advertisement : 
 
 Whenever an accepted bidder shay fail to enter into contract, or a contractor on a 
 mail route shall fail or refuse to perform the service on said route according to his 
 contract, or when a new route shall be established, or new service required, or when 
 from any other cause there shall not be a contractor legally bound or required to per- 
 form such service, the Postmaster-General may make a temporary contract for carry- 
 ing the mail on such route, without advertising, for such period as may be necessary, 
 not exceeding six mouths. 
 
Therefore, if new service is required because of the refusal of the con- 
 tractor after he has been awarded the contract to enter into it, or if he 
 fails to perform the contract after he has entered into it, there is the 
 right of the Postmaster- Gen era! to see that the mails are carried by 
 temporary contract, which, however, can continue only six months. It 
 is worth while perhaps, gentlemen, to show you how thoroughly the 
 idea of public advertisement and open public bidding runs through all 
 the postal laws, and to call your attention to the fact that when you 
 come to a class of service where from the nature of the case there can- 
 not be competition, such service is exceptedby special statute, leaving 
 the remainder as it was before, and thus emphasizing the scheme. We 
 all know that in railroad service there is ordinarily no opportunity for 
 competition, because there is ordinarily only one railroad between given 
 points. Therefore it is that special powers are given to the Postmaster ^ 
 General by sections 3942, 3956, and 3970, with reference to the railway 
 mail service and steamboat service : 
 
 The Postmaster-Genera] may enter into contracts for carrying the mail with rail- 
 road companies without advertising for bids therefor. 
 
 When from any cause it may become necessary to make a new contract for carry- 
 ing the mails upon any water-route between ports of the United States upon which 
 mail service has been previously performed, the Postmaster-General may contract 
 with the owner or master of any steamer for carrying the said mail upon said route 
 without advertising. 
 
 Those are the provisions which, in connection with another provision 
 as to steamboat routes, are, I think, the only provisions which give the 
 Postmaster-General power to make contracts for carrying the mail with- 
 out advertising and open public competition. You will excuse me if I 
 emphasize the fact that you may plainly see the scheme to be one of ad- 
 vertisement, an opportunity for free and open public bidding, and a pro- 
 vision for the different contingencies in case of a contractor failing to 
 enter into contract, or to carry it out, for temporary service extending 
 simply over six months, and in this way making provision that the mail 
 shall be carried, come what may. Now, these provisions, your own judg- 
 ment will tell you, mean precisely what the Supreme Court has said in 
 the case of Garfielde against The United States, in 3 Otto : 
 
 The object of the statute was to secure notice of the intended post routes, of the 
 service required, and the manner of its performance, that bidders might compete, 
 that favoritism should be prevented, and that efficiency and economy in the service 
 should be obtained. 
 
 We think you will be satisfied before we get through how wise the 
 statute was, because we shall show you overwhelmingly that when fa- 
 voritism is allowed to come in efficiency and economy cease to exist in 
 the service. 
 
 This being the scope of the law. gentlemen, what were the duties of 
 the Second Assistant Postmaster-General with reference to the arrange- 
 ment to carry the mail "? Very obviously, first, to ascertain the proba- 
 ble necessities of the service during the four years for which he was 
 about to advertise. He had abundant means of ascertaining chose ne- 
 cessities. He knew, in the first place, what the existing service was 
 which was about to expire. He had postmasters at every town, each 
 one of whom would certainly not err in understanding the amount of 
 service required. Each man in his locality would certainly see that the 
 claim of the locality to the requisite amount of service was brought to 
 the notice of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. Beside that 
 the Second Assistant Post master- General is provided with a corps, 
 known as post-office inspectors, whose business it is to go to the regions 
 
10 
 
 in question and see precisely what the condition of the locality is, what 
 service is required, how it is performed, and everything of that sort. 
 They are his eyes. I want here to say that in view of the practice, 
 which seems to prevail in these days, of assuming- that every branch of 
 the public service is incompetent and corrupt, that I do not believe 
 there is any private corporation or any private citizen who lias so effi- 
 cient a corps of men under him as the corps of post office inspectors 
 in the Post-Office Department of the United States, taking them as 
 they have been certainly within the last two years. The Second 
 Assistant Postmaster-General has these means of finding out how 
 much service should be advertised for. Having ascertained that, 
 it is his obvious duty, as an honest public officer, to advertise for 
 all the service required, so as to submit it to public bidding. If he 
 could advertise for only a portion of the service and then, under some 
 of those laws which I have read to you, or under others to which I will 
 directly call your attention, could, by private proceeding behind the 
 door, arrange for contracts with other parties without competition, of 
 course he could nullify the practical objects of the law. He must, 
 therefore, advertise for all the service required. He must advertise for 
 the number of trips per week which, according to the best information 
 he can get, is likely to be required. He must advertise for the rate of 
 speed which, according to the best information he can get, is proper for 
 the locality. We all understand that in certain unfrequented regions 
 and in certain mountainous countries it is very absurd to ask that the 
 mail shall be carried without the aid of railroads, six, eight, or nine 
 miles an hour. In certain regions it may be proper not to carry the 
 mail at a higher rate of speed than three miles an hour. Perhaps I 
 ought to say here in passing, that when it comes to speaking of service 
 at a certain number of miles an hour, you must bear in mind that under 
 the rules of the Post-Office Department when a .man is required to 
 transport the mail at the rate of four miles an hour that includes all stop- 
 pages, and that every postmaster at whose office he stops to leave and 
 obtain mail is authorized to detain him not to exceed seven minutes; so 
 that if there is a single post-office the hour would be reduced by seven 
 minutes, and so on. Xo\v, if the Second Assistant Postmaster-General 
 believes that four miles an hour is a proper rate of speed he has no 
 right to advertise for three miles and then expect under some provis- 
 ion of the law to increase it. He is bound also under the law which I 
 read to you in fixing the proper amount of service to have regard to 
 "productiveness and other circumstances," productiveness being the 
 only circumstance specified. He must make up his mind upon that 
 subject, and then, having made up his mind and having advertised and 
 having received bids, he must award the contract to the lowest bidder. 
 It is provided in section 3949 of the Kevised Statutes : 
 
 All contracts for carrying mailsshnllbe in the name of the United States, and shall 
 be awarded to the lowest bidder tendering sufficient guarantees for faithful perform- 
 ance without other reference to the mode of transportation than may be necessary to 
 provide for the due celerity, certainty, and securiry thereof. 
 
 Gentlemen, in those three words, celerity, certainty, and security, we 
 find the origin of the phrase " star route." Prior to 1845, I think, the 
 Postmaster-General, in awarding contracts, was authorized to take into 
 consideration other matters $ among other things, if I remember right, the 
 conveniences that the contractor had for transporting passengers. This 
 led to great abuses, and in that year there was passed a statute in which 
 the words celerity, certainty, and security appear. And when contracts 
 were awarded under that law and came to be carried on to the Post-Office 
 
11 
 
 records, instead of putting in those three words, celerity, certainty, and 
 security, they carried them on the books under three stars, hence came 
 the phrase about which you will hear so much in this trial. 1 fear some 
 of you may think you will hear too much about it. 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. Your honor, this is the hour for-recess. 
 
 The COURT. This seems to be a convenient time and we will take a re- 
 cess for half an hour. 
 
 Accordingly at this point (1 o'clock and 8 minutes p. m.) the court 
 took its usual recess. 
 
 AFTER REOESS. 
 
 Mr. Bliss resumed his address as follows: 
 
 But, gentlemen of the jury, notwithstanding all these provisions for 
 advertising and for supplementary advertising and for temporary con- 
 tracts the law looks to the possibility that there may still be some 
 accident unprovided for by which the mails may fail to be carried, and 
 it considers it necessary, therefore, to make further provision. It may 
 be that the circumstances under which a contract is awarded the cir- 
 cumstances in the country through which the route runs may have 
 changed, rendering it advisable to increase the number of trips per 
 week, or to decrease the trips, or to increase the rate of speed, or de- 
 crease the rate of speed. The condition of the country may change by 
 a railroad penetrating the country which takes up the ordinary railway 
 mail service, and necessarily dispenses with the star-route service which 
 previously supplied the locality ; or it may be that' some mining region 
 has been proved to be productive, and a population has rushed in there 
 with the rapidity with which we know it has done in many of the Western 
 States, and it may be necessary there to make additional mail service ; 
 or a mine may ' play out," and it may be proper to reduce the service. 
 There may be a dozen contingencies which may arise and which ex- 
 perience shows do arise which may render it desirable in the eye of the 
 law-maker, and wisely render it desirable, to make other provisions so 
 that by no possibility should the real needs of any locality in mail service 
 fail to be supplied. It may be also that after advertising, as I have al- 
 ready called to your attention, a contractor fails to perform the service, 
 or fails to enter into a contract, and there is a right given to make a. 
 temporary contract; but there is another provision of law to meet that 
 case, and that is section 3951 of the Revised Statutes, which provides 
 that- 
 Iii all cases of regular contracts hereafter made the contract may, in the discre- 
 tion of the Postmaster-General, be continued in force beyond its express terms lor 
 a' period not exceeding six months, until a new contract with the same or other 
 contractors shall be made by the Postmaster-General. 
 
 In other words, the Postmaster-General, under a contract about to 
 expire on the 30th of June, 1878, could, under that provision of law, as 
 of right, require it to be extended for six months at the same rate of 
 pay, to give him time to make any arrangements for carrying the mail 
 over the same route after the six months expired, if for any reason, by 
 failure of advertising, or failure of the contractor to enter upon the 
 service, or anything .else, the service is not performed under the ad- 
 vertisement. 
 
 Then we come, gentlemen, to other provisions, which are those which 
 come chiefly in question in this case. There are two provisions taking 
 their origin from one provision o f law, originally passed, I think, in 1825, 
 
12 
 
 and subsequently separated and put into two, to which pro visions I now 
 desire to call your attention. One of the provisions looks to providing 
 for an increase of the number of trips per week. If a contract has been 
 made, say, for three trips per week, one of the provisions looks to an in- 
 crease of those trips possibly to seven trips a week, or to such number as 
 may be decided by the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. The other 
 provision looks to tne idea of increasing speed. Where a contract has 
 been let at an average rate, say, of three miles an hour, it provides for 
 increasing the s\>eed to, say, four miles an hour, and for the adjustment 
 of the compensation. One of the increases is usually spoken of as an 
 increase of trips or of service, while on the other hand the provision 
 looking to' an increase of speed has come to be spoken of familiarly 
 and you will constantly hear it in this case spoken of in that way 
 as expedition ; increase of speed or expedition simply relates to the 
 same number of trips as are provided for in the contract, but the 
 making of them in less time than is provided for in the contract, while 
 on the other hand the question of the increase of trips does not 
 relate to speed, but only to the number of trips per week. You not 
 infrequently "will find in the orders of the assistant postmaster gen- 
 eral, to which I shall call your attention, that there is first an increase 
 of speed and then an increase of expedition. Section 3M5() of the Re- 
 vise d Statutes provides and let me say before I read this that you 
 will notice as to both these provisions of law that they do not them- 
 selves confer any power whatever. They simply limit a power which 
 is recognized as existing, and jet it is a power which so far as I have 
 been able to find has never been expressly conferred by statute, but 
 has been by various statutes recognized as existing, and therefore is an 
 undoubted power. Yet the statutory pro visions on the subject, it 
 should be noted, are not provisions conferring the power. They are 
 provisions recognizing it as an existing power and limiting its exercise. 
 Section 31)00 provides that 
 
 Extra compensation for additional service in carrying the mail shall not be in excess 
 of the exact proportion which 1 he original compensation bears to the original service ; 
 and when any such additional service, is ordered, the sum to be, allowed ther. -for shall 
 be expressed in the order, and entered upon the books of the department; and no 
 compensation shall be, paid lor any additional regular service, rendered before the 
 issuing of such order. 
 
 Now, you will perceive, gentlemen, that this provision simply limits 
 the compensation. 
 
 Compensation for additional service in carrying the mail shall not be in excess of 
 the exact proportion which the original compensation bears to the original service. 
 
 Under that the practice has grown up, and probably a correct prac- 
 tice, that if there was a payment, for instance, of a thousand dollars a 
 year for one trip a week, and the trips were then increased to two trips 
 a week, this law is recognized as saying that the amount to be allowed 
 when there are two trips shall not exceed two thousand dollars, two 
 trips being twice as much as one trip, and two thousand dollars being 
 twice one thousand dollars. The law provides that that limit, shall not 
 be exceeded. It is not a provision, you will perceive, that they shall 
 allow twice as much for double service, but only that they shall not 
 exceed it. This provision gave rise to a phrase which you will con- 
 stantly hear in the course of this trial, and that is pro rata. When it 
 is said that so much increase is allowed, "being pro rata," it is intended 
 to assert that where the service has been doubled the compensation is 
 doubled, and where it has been trebled the compensation is trebled, 
 and this allowance is pro rata. 
 
13 
 
 That section relates, you will see, to an increase of trips. Section 3961 , 
 which I am about to read, relates to increase of speed. It introduces a 
 little more complication into the statement and carries us back, to our 
 school days when in arithmetic the rule of three was the stumbling 
 block to a good many of us : 
 
 No extra allowance shall be made for any increase of expedition in carrying the 
 mail unless thereby the employment of additional stock and carriers is made neces- 
 sary, and in such case the additional compensation shall bear no greater proportion 
 to the additional stock and carriers necessarily employed than the compensation in 
 the original contract bears to the stock and carriers necessarily employed in its execu- 
 tion. 
 
 You will see, gentlemen of the jury, in the first place that there is no 
 right to pay a cent of extra compensation unless the increase of speed 
 necessarily involves the employment of additional stock and carriers. If 
 it does involve the employment of additional stock and carriers, then you 
 may not allow any more additional compensation than the compensation 
 in the original contract bears to the stock and carriers necessarily em- 
 ployed in its execution. As to the effect of that I shall have occasion to 
 call your attention to it in a moment. But I now pause to remind you 
 of the fact that these provisions of law complete the scheme of the Post- 
 Office law r s so far as they relate to carrying the mails. First, ascertain 
 what service is likely to be needed during the four years of the contract 
 term. Then advertise for it. Advertise fully ; cover all the service there 
 is reason to believe will be required. Award the contract to the lowest 
 bidder. If an emergency arises, give a temporary contract under the 
 provision allowing it to be done for six months, until an advertisement 
 can be made, so as to open it to the lowest bidder, or meet the emer- 
 gency if it occurs within six months after the commencement of the new 
 contract term by extending the former contract at the same rate for six 
 months ; or when these fail, meet it under these two last exceptional 
 provisions to which I have referred relating to an increase of trips and 
 to an increase of speed. 
 
 You will see that under these there is a limitation that you shall not 
 allow beyond a certain amount. It is not said who is to do it or any- 
 thing about who is to decide whether there is to be an increase of serv- 
 ice, who is to decide whether there is to be an increase of speed, nor 
 who is to decide how much is to be allowed for compensation, either 
 for increasing the service or increasing the speed. All that is covered 
 by the general provision which I read to you which vests in the Second 
 Assistant Postmaster-General the entire charge of everything con- 
 nected with the transportation of the mails and the amount to be al- 
 lowed therefor. 
 
 These provisions Avhich I have read to you, called provisions for in- 
 crease of service and increase of speed, we claim were intended to be 
 exceptional provisions only to be resorted to in exceptional cases. I 
 said on the last trial, and I can fairly repeat it here, that they were in- 
 tended to be the medicine of the postal service, and that Brady made 
 them his daily bread. He resorted to them constantly, habitually, un- 
 necessarily, and corruptly. He based his action upon pretended evi- 
 dence, showing the necessity of increased service, which evidence was 
 not only false, but which he knew to be false, and which bore on its 
 face the evidence of its own falsity. He based his action as to the 
 allowances to be made for increased speed upon papers which were not 
 only false, and which he must have known to be false, but which no 
 man with sufficient capacity to read them would ever accept as genuine 
 and proper documents to base action upon. He based his action upon 
 
14 
 
 documents which were sworn to in blank. He based his action upon docu- 
 ments full of erasures and changes, all of those erasures and changes 
 being made in the precise spots and in the precise manner where they 
 would take the greatest amount of money from the Treasury if they 
 were accepted as genuine. He went to the extreme limit of the law. 
 Where the law said you shall not allow more than a certain amount for 
 increase of service he habitually, yes, uniformly, almost without excep- 
 tion, went to the ^extreme limit of the law, when it is perfectly obvious 
 that there was no justification even if the service was to be increased, 
 in paying so much for it. Accepting the statements which were made 
 to him as to the number of stock and carriers necessary to make in- 
 creased speed, accepting those, alte red as they were, cheating, as they 
 were obviously intended to be, as true, he went to the extreme limit of 
 the amount that the law allowed to be given for increased speed. 
 Moreover the law expressly says, and I read it to you again: 
 
 No compensation shall be paid for aiiy additional service rendered before the issu- 
 ing of the order. 
 
 Yet he made orders which expressly and on their face provided for 
 the allowance of compensation for weeks previous to the ia date of the 
 order. Probably we shall confine our evidence on that subject to 'two 
 or three instances ; it may be to one. The one I have in my mind will 
 show conclusively that there was an order by which compensation was 
 directed to be allowed at a large amount for some six or eight weeks 
 prior to its date, directly in the face of this statute. Though there is for 
 a portion of that service and a portion of that time some reason to claim 
 that a .telegraphic dispatch might be treated as a prior order, yet ac- 
 cepting the dispatch as all that can be claimed, Mr. Brady still, in that 
 case, made the order expressly allowing a large amount of compensa- 
 tion from a period prior to the date of any order that was issued, and in 
 direct and express violation of the statute. We say, gentlemen of the 
 jury, that Mr. Brady made these orders unnecessarily, improvidently, 
 corruptly ; that he directly benefited by them, and that he made them 
 at the instigation of and divided the profits of the transaction with some 
 or all of the other defendants. He so acted, as I said at the outset, 
 and that action was entirely under these two provisions, the provision 
 for increase of service and the pro vision for increase of speed. He so 
 acted under those provisions of law that the original contracts, having 
 been made with these parties by which they were to receive $41,155 a 
 year for performing the service on these nineteen mail routes, they were 
 run up, without advertising and by virtue of the secret arrangement with 
 Brady, so that he allowed to them $448,670 90 a year. He multiplied 
 them considerably more than ten times over, and he did that, as we 
 say, by availing himself of these exceptional provisions of law and in- 
 troducing a practice into the Post-Office Department which had never 
 prevailed there before, to wit, the practice of using these provisions con- 
 stantly, and as I said, as the daily bread of the postal service instead of 
 its occasional food or medicine. We shall show you, gentlemen of the 
 jury, that under John L. Routt, who was Second AssiNtant Postmaster- 
 General from the 1st of January, 1872, to the 30th of June, 1875, being 
 three years and a half, there were in those three years and a half but 
 fifteen cases in which resort to this provision as to increase of speed 
 was had ; that under James N. Tyuer, who was Mr. Brady's immediate 
 predecessor, and who was in office for a year 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER. [Interposing.] Mr. Bliss 
 
 Mr. BLISS. [Continuing] there were but five cases of expedition. 
 
15 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER. Your honor, I ask that Mr. Bliss may stop. He pays 
 no attention to me. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I did not hear the counsel. 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER. I tried to make myself heard. I understood that on 
 the former trial of this case an offer to compare the administration of 
 the Post-Office Department and its business with former and subse- 
 quent administrations was not permitted by your honor as a rule of 
 determining whether this business was properly or corrupt!}' conducted ; 
 and inasmuch as the gentleman is pursuing that same theory now and 
 undertaking to compare what was done under the administration of 
 General Brady with an administration which preceded him, we say it 
 is not a subject of proof, and it is not a subject of statement before the 
 jury, and we object to it. 
 
 The COURT. It may or may not be competent. The proper time has 
 not come to make that point. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I simply say that it is proper evidence, and we shall claim 
 it to be proper evidence, as showing that Mr. Brady introduced a new 
 practice, and shall ask the jury to infer from that, in connection with 
 other evidence, that it was done improperly. 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER. If your honor please, it cannot be any evidence of a 
 crime that one administration 
 
 Mr. BLISS. [Interposing.] The point has been ruled upon, and I ob- 
 ject to further interruption. 
 
 The COURT. I cannot undertake to pass upon Mr. Chandler's ques- 
 tion now. 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER. I only raise the point because your honor ruled it out 
 before. ^ 
 
 Mr. BLISS. He has ruled it in now. 
 
 The COURT. This ca'se is being tried de novo, and I must decline to 
 restrict counsel. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Gentlemen of the jury, I told you that Mr. Koutt in three 
 years and a half had only fifteen cases of expedition, and that Mr. Tyner 
 in a year had only five cases of expedition. Mr. Brady came into office 
 on the 23d day of July, 1876. Prior to the 30th of June, 1877, being 
 less than one year, he had had fourteen cases of expedition, or one less 
 than Mr. Eoutt had in three years and a half. M r. Brady, in the year from 
 June 30, 1878, to June 30, 1879, had seventy cases of expedition ; and 
 in the period from the 23d of July, 1876, to the 30th of April, 1881, 
 being four years and nine months, Mr. Brady resorted to this statute 
 as to expedition in one hundred and twenty distinct and separate cases, 
 while Mr. Eoutt and Mr. Tyner together, in four years and six months 
 just about the same time resorted to it only in twenty cases. We 
 shall ask you, gentlemen, in connection with other evidence upon that 
 subject, to say that Mr. Brady coming into office in the way he did, 
 and finding this exceptional instrumentality, which had previously been 
 resorted to only in exceptional cases, used it improperly and wrongfully. 
 He went to work and availed himself of it to the extreme and great 
 extent that I have mentioned, and we shall ask you to infer from that, 
 in connection with other evidence, that Mr. Brady's course was dictated 
 by improper motives. 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, let me call your attention to one single effect 
 that the resort to that practice had upon the Government. When an 
 advertisement is made for a postal contract it is provided that the con- 
 tractor shall enter into a bond. That bond is made to bear a certain 
 fair proportion to the amount paid for service upon that same route 
 during the previous con tract term. If the payment for service upon the 
 
16 
 
 route, for instance, be $2,500 a year the bond will be $1,500, or something 
 of that kind. The bond is necessary to the Government for this reason: 
 If a contractor gets a contract at the lowest rate he may be several hun- 
 dred dollars below the next bidder. He enters into service and com- 
 mences it, and then fails to perform it. He is declared a failing con- 
 tractor. The Post-Office Department then has to make an arrangement 
 with some other man, and uniformly is compelled to pay an increased price 
 for the service. They have then to look to the bond of the original con- 
 tractor lor the amount that they have lost thereby ; but they can only 
 resort to that bond for the amount specified in it. We shall show you 
 routes in this indictment where the original contract sum was less than 
 $2,500, I think I am right in saying that, where the bond required was 
 about $1,500, and where, under the orders of Mr. Brady, the amount al- 
 lowed for service was run up within a year to about $50,000, and yet all 
 that the Government had after the increase w.as a paltry bond of $1,500, 
 adequate to the original bid, but not at all adequate to the increased com- 
 pensation. 1 call your attention to that merely as showing that under 
 the provisions of the law, by applying this exceptional power as to expedi- 
 tion, Mr. Brady put the Government in a position to suffer great loss 
 without the possibility of resorting to that protection which the law in- 
 tended the Government should have for the enforcement of the con- 
 tracts for mail service. 
 
 You will see as to this provision for increase of trips that the statute 
 says the Postmaster-General shall not pay in excess of the exact pro- 
 portion which the original compensation bears to the original cost. If 
 Mr. Brady, or any Second Assistant Postmaster-General, habitually vio- 
 lates the law in this respect, if he does it without due inquiry, if he 
 does it in cases where increase of service is obviously unnecessary, if 
 he allows for it excessive sums, all that is necessarily and positively 
 proof of misconduct of some nature on his part. All you gentlemen, as 
 business men, must know that an increase of trips does not neces- 
 sarily nor ordinarily involve a proportionate increase of the price ; 
 that if a man has undertaken to carry the mail once a week 
 and is called upon to carry it twice a week, it does not cost him 
 twice as much money to do it. Take a short route, for illustration, that 
 is gone over in a day. You have to have your horses and your wagons, 
 and it will not cost you twice as much to go over that route twice a 
 week as it will to go over it once. Suppose it is a route that you are 
 required to run over once a week each way, which will take your horses 
 two days in a week, and all the rest of the time they are standing and 
 " eating their heads off," to use a common expression. If you are called 
 upon to go over that route four times a week instead of twice, you will 
 see plainly that doubling the trips does not double the price. But if 
 the contractor is lucky enough to have some convenient Brady make a 
 secret order about it he can get his pay doubled when his service is 
 doubled. We all understand that on the longer routes there are other 
 expenses the expense of supervision, the expense of rent, of stables, 
 the expense of hostlers, and many other expenses which are not doubled 
 in such a case. All of you, as business men, know that it will not cost 
 you twice as much to keep two horses in your stable as to keep one. 
 There is not any question about that. Yet we shall show you by evi- 
 dence in connection with the very cases in this indictment, that 
 although Mr. Brady and these defendants knew these facts, they 
 habitually and constantly, for their own benefit, acted in viola- 
 tion of that knowledge; and that Mr. Brady allowed sums which 
 he knew to be in excess of the fair cost for the increase of serv- 
 
ice. We shall show you that these defendants themselves recognized 
 it, recognized it by documents formally executed, and which they 
 placed upon the Hies of the department. There is a provision of the law 
 to which I shall have occasion to call your attention by and by, known 
 as the subcontract law, under which, when a mail contractor not carry- 
 ing the mail for himself, arranges with somebody in the locality to carry 
 it, and makes a suocontract with him, that subcontract can by the sub- 
 contractor be placed on tile in the department. These subcontracts 
 to which I am going to call your attention were on file in Mr. Brady's 
 office, and showed Mr. Brady that these defendants themselves recog- 
 nized the fact that an increase of trips did not necessarily or ordinarily 
 involve a proportionate increase of expense. For instance, we shall 
 show you one case where the subcontract made by these defendants 
 with a subcontractor in the locality, provided that the subcontractor 
 should be allowed $1,400 a year lor one trip, if there were two trips 
 that he should be allowed $2,000 a year, and if there were three trips 
 that he should he allowed $3,700. If there were six trips he was 
 to be allowed $7,000, and if there were seven trips $7,500. I give 
 you that particular instance, and I can readily refer you to others 
 showing you that they are not exceptional. On another route we 
 find by their subcontract that they allowed $700 for one trip, $1,300 
 for two trips, $1,800 for three trips, and $3,300 for six trips. On an- 
 other route they allowed for one trip $2,500 ; for two trips, $4,000, and 
 for three trips, $5,100. On another route they allowed for one trip, 
 $1,500; for two trips, $2,850; for three trips, $4,055, and for six trip*, 
 $8,017. On another route they allowed for two trips, $5,500 ; for three, 
 $7,500 ; for six, $ 15,001), and for seven, $17,000. The subcontracts made 
 by these defendants for service upon these routes show that they recog- 
 nized the fact that the increase of service did noc necessarily involve 
 a corresponding increase of expense. Many of those subcontracts were on 
 file in Mr. Brady's office convey ing that same information to him. Wesub- 
 mitthat if he knew what he was bound to know if fit for his place, and what 
 he was bound to know if he had any knowledge of the simplest business 
 matters, that he should have used this knowledge for the benefit of the 
 Government. Moreover, Congress has expressly recognized this principle 
 in making appropriations years ago before we had any Pacific Railroad for 
 transporting the mails overland to California. They put in the law a clause 
 by which they provided $300,000 a year for semi-monthly service, $450,000 
 a year for weekly service, and $(>00,000 a year for semi- weekly service. 
 It is so obvious, so well known, that that must be the result, that I 
 think we may almost say the court would take judicial notice of the 
 fact. This being the condition of things, Mr. Brady habitually and 
 uniformly, when he was making an order for increase of service, went to 
 the extreme limit allowed by the law. We shall show you on the routes 
 in this indictment, as far as increase of service is concerned, twenty- 
 nine separate orders made under Mr. Brady. In twenty-six of them he 
 deliberately and on their face provided that there should be allowed 
 the extreme amount authorized under the law. When he increased one 
 trip to three he multiplied the compensation by three. When he in- 
 creased two tiips to six he multiplied it by three. For illustration, if 
 the original compensation for one trip was $1,000 and he ordered seven 
 trips, he allowed $7,000. That was almost his uniform practice, and 
 that happened in twenty -six of the twenty-nine orders he made. The 
 remaining three orders were cases in which he mixed up the sum he 
 allowed for increase of speed and increase of trips so that it is 
 d fficult to say how much was allowed for one and how much 
 
 2GB 
 
18 
 
 was allowed for the other. I think I shall be able to satisfy you 
 that in two of those three cases he allowed for the increase of service 
 the extreme amount which could by any possibility come in under the 
 law. In twenty-eight of the twenty-nine orders made on the routes 
 specified in this indictment Mr. Brady went to the extreme limit au- 
 thorized by the law. You will bear in mind, gentlemen, that I am as- 
 suming for the moment that the increases of service which Mr. Brady 
 authorized were properly authorized, but 1 am calling yourattention to 
 the fact that when Mr. Brady came to decide how much should be 
 paid and the decision rested entirely with him he went uniformly to 
 the extreme limit, and that is a thing which no honest, provident, and 
 faithful officer could do under the circumstances. 
 
 As to expedition or increase of speed you will bear in mind that, 
 in the first place, no allowance of extra compensation is under the 
 statute lawful unless by such increase of speed additional stock and 
 carriers are necessary. If additional stock and carriers do not be- 
 come necessary there can be no allowance whatever for the extra speed. 
 We shall show you, gentlemen, cases where Brady did make large allow- 
 ances for increase of speed, and yet we shall put upon the stand before 
 you drivers who were carrying the mail over that route both before and 
 after the extra allowances made by Mr. Brady; canying it on the 
 original rate of speed, and on the increased rate of speed, and who will 
 tell you that they did not use any additional stock or carriers, but that 
 the identical horses and men went over that route day after day at the 
 increased speed that went over it with the original speed j and yet 
 Mr. Brady paid large sums for the i-xpeditiou. We wtall show you 
 cases, gentlemen of the jury, where the unfortunate subcontractor went 
 on doing this business, and though he had a provision in his subcon- 
 tract by which, if the speed was to be increased, he was to get a certain 
 percentage of the increased compensation allowed, these defendants 
 went on drawing from the Post-Office Department the increase of com- 
 pensation and paying him only his original compensation. The first 
 knowledge some of these contractors had that the Government had ever 
 allowed any additional amount was from the inspectors whom we sent 
 out there to investigate in connection with this indictment. They in- 
 formed the contractors that Messrs. Dorsey and others had, under the or- 
 ders of Mr. Brady, been for years drawing thousands of dollars a year for 
 additional compensation for service which the subcontractor had rendered 
 at the original price and with the same horses and the same men. And 
 here let me say, gentlemen of the jury, that you will find in this case 
 that there was a great distinction between these defendants and many 
 other people engaged in the mail service. That with a single exception 
 they were not mail carriers ; that they did not go into this business 
 with the idea of carrying the mail ; that they went into the business 
 with the idea of getting contracts here at a low price, in many cases 
 bidding lower than it was possible for the service to be rendered, 
 lower than any honest bidder could bid, with the intention in the 
 first place of arranging with some subcontractor in the locality to 
 carry the mail. In carrying out that intention they arranged with 
 these subcontractors not infrequently to pay them more than they 
 themselves were getting from the Government. In such an event they 
 took care immediately to obtain from Mr. Brady orders for expedition by 
 which what were originally losing contracts to a small extent became at 
 once most enormously profitable contracts. Of this additional amount 
 which they got they gave to the subcontractor, who really performed 
 the service, only an insignificant proportion. They kept all the rest 
 
19 
 
 for themselves simply for their expenses in carrying on business in 
 Washington ! We shall show to you in that connection some rather 
 extraordinary things. As I said, the Second Assistant Postmaster-Gen- 
 eral had 110 right to pay any increased compensation unless increased 
 stock and carriers were required. Mr. Brady made allowances where 
 no increased stock and carriers were allowed. Moreover, Mr. Brady 
 made allowances even where increased stock and carriers were required 
 greatly in excess of the proper amount. He constantly and habitually 
 allowed sums in excess of the stock and carriers needed, and he allowed 
 sums in excess of the stock and carriers which even were stated to be 
 needed on the evidence before him. This provision as to stock and car- 
 riers originated I think in the statutes in 1825. It was there a provis- 
 ion both as to increase of service and increase of speed. It reads in 
 this way: 
 
 That no additional allowance shall be made by the Postmaster-General to the con- 
 tractor or carrier of any mail, on any route, over and beyond the amount stipulated 
 in the contract entered into for the transportation of the mail on such route, unless 
 additional service shall be required; and then no additional compensation shall be 
 allowed to exceed the exact proportion of the original amount to the additional duties 
 required. 
 
 After this statute had been in force some ten or twelve years there came 
 up a post-office scandal, and the question was raised as to whether the 
 statute of 18.J5 applied not only to increase of service but also to in- 
 crease of speed. There was an investigation in Congress on that sub- 
 ject, and it seems to me to have been unlike an investigation to which 
 I shall have occasion to call your attention a thorough one and there- 
 upon there came reports irom Congress and reports from the Post- 
 master General. 
 
 The Postmaster-General at that time said : 
 
 For expediting the mail in point of time there can be no rule for determining the 
 pro rata. The actual increase of expense, agreeable to an ancient provision made 
 in contracts, is the rule which governs. It is frequently done at a less rate, but when 
 that full rate is demanded some evidence of the increased expense is required before 
 the allowance is made. 
 
 Congress said: 
 
 All that is necessary is to ascertain the expense of the original service and what 
 will be the expense of the additional service. The rule would then be: As the 
 amount of the expense of the original service is to the compensation therefor, so is 
 the amount of the expanse of the additional service to the pro rata additional allow- 
 ances. 
 
 That was the view which was taken in Congress and by the then Post- 
 master-General as to the provisions then applicable to the subject. 
 
 In this case we shall show you that upon the routes in this indict- 
 ment Mr. Brady made fifteen orders for expedition. There are nineteen 
 routes in the indictment and he made fifteen orders. Twelve of the or- 
 ders on their face purport to make allowances up to the full limit, gauging 
 that limit by the alleged evidence he had before him. That is to say, 
 if he had a statement before him that a certain number of stock 
 and carriers was then actually required and that a certain number 
 would be required, he applied the rule of three laid down in the 
 statute to it and gave the extreme limit. I shall have occasion to 
 call your attention presently to the absurdity of that evidence that he 
 had before him on the three remaining orders. In one case he allowed 
 less than the limit. Taking all the time the evidence on which he 
 claimed to base his action the amount less than the limit in one case 
 was merely nominal. In another case it was only $1,300. In a third 
 
20 
 
 case it was very large; but it was large because of the monumental 
 swearing of one of the defendants in this case, John K. Miner, who 
 swore that an increase of trips would require an addition of one hun- 
 dred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses, when his counsel 
 will not dare to pretend before you that there were any additional men 
 more than forty necessary. Yet Mr. Brady makes his order in that 
 case as being less than the limit, or less than pro rat a, as he chooses 
 to put it, because he accepts Mr. Miner's monumental perjury of one 
 hundred and fifty men as true. Gauged by that, it is less than pro 
 rata. Gauged by what was necessary, it is greatly in excess of pro 
 rata. I shall have occasion to call your attention to some other things 
 in connection with that affidavit. 
 
 I have said that this evidence upon which Brady chose to act in 
 making his allowances for increase of speed was false. Much of it 
 was absurdly, transparently false. Assuming that an application was 
 made to the Second Assistant Postmaster-General for an increase of 
 speed on a given route, what would he as an honest, faithful officer do? 
 Would he not ascertain how much stock and how many carriers were then 
 actually employed in the first place, and could he not readily ascertain 
 that by sending to the postmasters upon the route ; by getting state- 
 ments from the men who were carrying the mail over the route, and if 
 need be by sending one of his inspectors to find it out? Having ascer- 
 tained that as a fact he has one of the elements necessarily entering 
 into the question as to how much should be allowed. There was no 
 difficulty in finding that out, gentlemen. It involved no trouble to Mr. 
 Brady. It involved no expense to the Government, and is it not the 
 obvious, the natural thing to do to find it out, and to find it out on the 
 spot, from the people who were carrying the mails, how many men and 
 horses they were using in so doing ? Would it occur to anybody to 
 make that inquiry of the men who were here in Washington, who never 
 were on the route, who knew nothing about it, to find out from them 
 what they said was the number of stock and carriers then employed, 
 and to accept their statement as final and conclusive? Would any or- 
 dinary business man think of doing a thing of that sort? And let me 
 show you here, gentlemen, just the importance of this condition of 
 things. The statute says : 
 
 The additional compensation shall bear no greater proportion to the additional 
 stock and carriers necessarily employed than the compensation in the original 
 contract hears to the stock and carriers necessarily employed in its execution. 
 
 You have to find out how many are employed at the moment under 
 the original contract, and then how many will probably be employed 
 under the increased speed. One is a question of fact, the other a mat- 
 ter of opinion. Now, suppose a contract provides that they shall carry 
 the mail three miles an hour at $5,000 a year, and it is proposed to make 
 an increase of that rate to four miles an hour. The question of course 
 is how much additional stock and carriers are necessary. If in fact on 
 the existing rate of speed it requires ten men and carriers, while it will 
 take on the increased rate of speed twenty men and carriers, then by the 
 rule of three laid down in the statute, $5,000 being the sum allowed for 
 the original service, $10,000 would be the sum allowed for the increased 
 service, because it takes twice as many horses and carriers on the in- 
 creased speed as upon the original speed. 
 
 But accepting that as the true state of the fact, suppose that in 
 making up the calculation instead of taking those items, and instead of 
 saying that it now takes ten men and horses to carry the mail on that 
 route, Mr. Brady says it now takes five men and horses to carry the 
 
21 
 
 mail on that route, and it will take twenty men and horses on the in- 
 creased service. In that way he has understated the number of men 
 and horses by five, just half, and he is taking the increased number of 
 men and horses as the same in each case. What is the result! The" 
 result is that instead of allowing $10,OUO for the increased speed where 
 $5,000 was the original allowance, Mr. Brady allows $20,000 when he 
 should have allowed $10,000. He has doubled the amount taken from 
 the Treasury by the simple expedient of understating by one-half the 
 number of men and horses whicli were then actually used. 
 
 You see, gentlemen, the importance of getting at that fact, and get- 
 ting at it accurately: " How many men and horses are now used when 
 I am about to make this order for increase of speed is the question, 
 because if I understate the number of men and horses, then 1 allow 
 from the Treasury a sum in excess of the legal amount." But the Gov- 
 ernment could be, and was, defrauded in the other way; that is, 
 stating the number of men and horses that were used at the moment cor- 
 rectly, say, when ten were then actually in use. In fact it would have 
 taken twenty to perform the increased speed, but Mr. Brady estimated 
 upon thirty, and in that way you tind, following out my comparison of 
 $5,000, if Mr. Brady takes and states correctly the number of horses 
 actually employed, but increases the number that will be employed to 
 thirty instead of twenty, the result is that instead of allowing $10,000 
 from the Treasury he allows $15,000, and on the face of the thing it is 
 all pro rata. The rule of three works very well if his elements going to 
 make it up are correct. It was in that way that Mr. Brady's most mag- 
 nificent exploits were performed. He understated the number of men 
 and horses actually employed then, and overstated the number of men 
 and horses that would be employed. You will find that in place of 
 $10,000 which could have been legitimately taken from the Treasury, 
 $30,000 was the allowance, and yet on the face of the thing it was all 
 straight; he had applied it all right and he had only gone to the limit; 
 he said ft ve men and horses are now employed, when, in fact, ten were 
 employed, and he said thirty would be employed, when in point of fact 
 twenty were all that were needed for the increased speed. So that you 
 will see, gentlemen, that these two little elements and this little arith- 
 metical rule put into the statute gives the means by which by a slight 
 change in figures the Government can be very largely defrauded. Put 
 the original figare too small or the future figure too large as tothe num- 
 ber of men and carriers arid you cheat the Government. Either put one 
 too small or put the other too large and you cheat the Government. Put 
 one too small and the other too large and you treble the cheat substan- 
 tially. 
 
 Now, what did Mr. Brady do in ascertaining these most important 
 numbers? Did he do as any honest man would do, as any fair official 
 would do ? Did he make any effort to find out what those numbers 
 were? Did he send tothe locality and find out how many men and 
 horses were then actually being used $ Did he inquire of people ex- 
 perienced in the business', and not interested in the sums to be allowed, 
 as to how many would be used on the increased service f No, gentle- 
 men, he did this, and only this, and I want you to bear it in mind, for 
 it is literally true: He went to the man who was to be benefited by 
 the allowance, who was to get the money from the Treasury, and he 
 received from him a brief affidavit not larger than that [exhibiting a 
 folded paper], in which the man said that the number of stock and 
 carriers now employed on a given route are so many, and the number 
 that will be employed on an increase of speed will be so many. He 
 
22 
 
 took the statement of that interested man as the sole evidence upon 
 which he acted, and upon such affidavits he made orders under which 
 he took thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars from the 
 Treasury of the United States, and put them into the pockets of the 
 men who made those affidavits, barring and excepting the toll that he 
 took for his own pocket as he went along. 
 
 I say, gentlemen, that that is literally true. We have searched in 
 vain to find a case where Mr. Brady prior to making an order for in- 
 crease of speed inquired of any human being how many men and 
 horses were then being used on the route, or how many men and horses 
 would be .used on the route, other than of the man who was to be di- 
 rectly benefited by the order he was to make and who was therefore 
 interested to misstate in both respects. 
 
 Gentlemen, if there were nothing else in this case than Mr. Brady's 
 action in that way upon those papers we should ask you to say that 
 Mr. Brady had so acted as to deserve from you a verdict of guilty, 
 But there is. gentlemen, much more than this. There appears in the 
 Regulations of the Post Office Department, published in the year 1879, 
 a provision which was obviously enforced by Mr. Brady prior to that 
 date, and yet we are unable to say when it was first applied. It does 
 not appear in the Regulations of the Post-Office Department published 
 in 1873. It does appear in those published in 1879. It was applied by 
 Mr. Brady, or availed of by Mr. Brady, in every expedition that he 
 made after he came into office in July, 1876. While I do not think it 
 was used before that time I am not prepared to assert that it was not. 
 It may possibly have been in existence before that time, but it was not 
 ordinarily used. That provision is this : 
 
 When it becomes necessary to increase the speed on any route the contractor will 
 l>e required to state under oath the number of horses and men required to perform the 
 service according to contract schedule and the number required to perform it with the 
 proposed increase of speed. 
 
 That provision is of course a very proper provision to be made in 
 such a case that the contractor who is to be benefited should be re- 
 quired to give his own statement, and to give it under oath, of the 
 number of men and horses he is then using and the number that he 
 believes he will use. But I ought to call your attention to one fact. This 
 regulation speaks of the number of men and horses that will be used. 
 The statute speaks of the number of stock and carriers, and in the prog- 
 ress of this case you will see that it will be claimed that this regula- 
 tion is broader than the statute, because while the statute says you can 
 only take the number of stock and carriers engaged in carrying the 
 mail, in your estimate under this provision, which it is claimed is broader 
 than the statute, you can take men who were employed as hostlers 
 and everybody else who was directly or indirectly engaged in the mail 
 carrying, even to the extent of reckoning in the men who were employed 
 in driving the wagons that hauled the oats on which the horses were 
 fed, though they never saw or touched a mail. That regulation, if 
 it is thus broader than the law, was habitually resorted to by Mr. 
 Brady, and, if thus broader than the law, is very clearly an illegal regu- 
 lation. Yet it was a very proper regulation in some form to get from the 
 contractor his statement, as the party-interested, of what he claimed it 
 would be. Of course we all know that human nature is weak, and that 
 if we were to be benefited by an increase of compensation we should 
 be apt to be pretty liberal. We probably would try to state correctly 
 the number of men and horses we are now using, but I think our judg- 
 ment would be a good deal biased in getting at the number we should 
 
23 
 
 be likely to use; and tliat ought always to be borne in mind in refer- 
 ence to this matter. But Mr. Brady, under that regulation, took from 
 the contractor, or claimed to take from the contractor, his affidavit of 
 the number actually used, and the number that would be used, and he 
 took nothing else. He took that affidavit of the contractor. He sought 
 no evidence anywhere else, and upon the basis of that affidavit he 
 made his orders allowing to the contractor the extreme limit which 
 that affidavit showed him entitled to. And he said that was a fair and 
 provident administration of the Post-Office Department of the United 
 States. 
 
 But not only that, you will bear in mind that this affidavit says that 
 the contractor will be required to state under oath the number of 
 horses and men required. But when it suited Mr. Brady's conven- 
 ience, when these defendants wanted their order for expedition, so that 
 their increased pay might commence promptly, and the contractor was 
 probably not available to 'make the affidavit, they quietly had some- 
 body else make the affidavit and Mr. Brady accepted it. If that some- 
 body else had been somebody who had been on the route, who knew 
 anything about it, there might have been some justification for it. 
 But the order was made upon the affidavit of somebody who had 
 no connection with the route, who had never been near the route, and 
 knew nothing about it. I do not wish to make a general statement of 
 that kind without referring to specified items. I am referring only to 
 routes in this indictment 
 
 On the route from Pueblo to Eosita, No. 38134, the contract was the 
 contract of John II. Miner, one of these defendants. So far as the 
 Post-Office Department knew, outside of the illegitimate knowledge 
 which Thomas J. Brady had, John E. Miner was the only person con- 
 nected with that contract for carrying the mails. Yet, when they wanted 
 to increase the compensation, Mr. John W. Dorsey, another of these 
 defendants, unknown to the Post-Office Department so far as this route 
 was concerned, made the affidavit called for by that regulation. Mr. 
 Brady accepted it as conclusive, and upon that affidavit made the or- 
 der for an allowance of a large amount of extra compensation. 
 
 On route 38140, from Trinidad to Madison, John E. Miner was in like 
 manner the contractor. Did he make the affidavit! And let me say, 
 gentlemen, you will find in the progress of this case that it was not 
 from inability to swear that Mr. Miner did not make the affidavit in this 
 case. Instead of his making the affidavit in the case Mr. John W. Dor- 
 sey again came to the front and made the affidavit which Brady took 
 as a sufficient voucher for taking from the Treasury a large amount of 
 money. 
 
 On the route from Vermillion to Sioux City, No. 35015, the contractor 
 was the same John E. Miner, I think. I do not remember who the 
 contractor was there. Whoever the contractor was, Mr. Harvey M. 
 Vaile, another of these defendants, who was the subcontractor, made 
 the affidavit upon a sheet of note paper with the heading of the National 
 Hotel upon it. He made it in this city, and made it when he never had 
 been upon the route and never knew anything about it, except that he 
 was going to make by that affidavit a good, round, handsome profit. He 
 made that affidavit as subcontractor, though it was not in accordance 
 with the regulation at all, and Mr. Brady accepted it and took it as his 
 sole basis for his order taking money from the Treasury. 
 
 On route 38113, from Eawlius to White Eiver, in like manner Mr. 
 Perkins, the subcontractor, made the affidavit ; but Mr. Perkins had 
 this advantage over anybody else in this case who made an affidavit 
 
24 
 
 upon which Brady acted : Mr. Perkins had been on the route. No other 
 human being who made one of these affidavits upon which Mr. Brady 
 acted had at the time he made the affidavit ever been upon the route to 
 which it related or had any knowledge as to the number of men and 
 horses actually employed, and, other than Mr. Vaile, none of them had 
 by experience a right to say how many would be needed, for none of 
 them other than Mr. Yaile had ever been a mail contractor. They were 
 nothing, gentlemen, but a set of speculators in mail contracts, and never 
 expected to carry the mails, but expected to get the contracts at a 
 low price, get them expedited, and get the service performed by sub- 
 contractors, to whom they would pay an insignificant proportion from 
 the amount that they drew from the Treasury of the United States. 
 
 What is the result of allowing such affidavits, so made by these par- 
 ties, to be accepted ? Why, the result was, and we shall place before 
 you the witnesses who will show it, that the statements were almost 
 uniformly false of the number of men and horses then actually in use, 
 they being almost uniformly understated, and the number of men and 
 horses to be required on the increased service almost uniformly over- 
 stated. We are not going to ask you to come to that conclusion on any 
 question of opinion. We are going to put before you the men who 
 drove the horses before and after the increase. And we are going to 
 have them tell you in their frank and honest way precisely what were 
 the facts. 
 
 These affidavits, made by contractors or subcontractors who had 
 never seen the route, and which Mr. Brady chose to accept I am not 
 permitted in my opening to show you the papers, gentlemen, for they 
 are not yet identified we shall have occasion to show you, and I think, 
 from the mere inspection of them, you will he able to see that not only 
 no honest man. but no man who was not going on in a career of fraud 
 and corruption, under the impression that he would never be investi- 
 gated, would have made orders upon such papers. They are altered. 
 They are erased. They are changed. They bear all the insignia of fraud 
 upon their faces. 
 
 But that is not all, gentlemen. We find this extraordinary condition 
 of things. On route 38134, from Pueblo to Kosita, which, 1 think, is the 
 same route upon which the obliging Mr. John W. Dorsey, as I have just 
 stated to you, was allowed to make the affidavit i?istead of Mr. Miner, 
 we iind that there were actually on file in Mr. Brady's office when he 
 made the order for expedition, two oaths, both made by John W. Dorsey, 
 both sworn to before the same man on the same day the 21st day of 
 April, 1879 and in one of them he says, "The number necessary to 
 carry the mail on that route on the existing schedule is two men and 
 six animals;" and in the other affidavit he says, " The number neces- 
 sary to carry the mail is three men and twelve animals." Those two 
 affidavits were before Mr. Brady, made by John W. Dorsey on the 
 same day, and yet Mr. Brady chose to pick out one or the other of 
 them and say, "I believe that as the absolutely conclusive statement 
 of the number of men and animals that are now in use upon that 
 route, and upon that affidavit I will make my order taking from the 
 Treasury thousands of dollars of money." You will see that the first 
 affidavit made the number two men and six animals, making eight 
 as the number of stock and carriers then in use ; but the other one 
 called for three men and twelve animals, making fifteen as the number 
 then in use, and therefore, according as he accepted one or the other, 
 by the rule of three, to which I called your attention just now, there 
 
25 
 
 would be twice tlie amount of money allowed from the Treasury under 
 the one affidavit that there would be under the other. 
 
 But the point to which I am calling your attention now is, that Mr. 
 Brady chose to accept one of the affidavits as true when he had before 
 him the two affidavits, and one or the other must have been square per- 
 jury. Yet, as I say, he accepted the affidavit of a man not connected 
 with the route, when he had the evidence before him that that man had 
 committed square perjury in swearing. 
 
 The COURT. Which of those affidavits did he use ? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Well, sir, for the moment, I cannot say. My own im- 
 pressions about it are. and I think, on reflection, we shall be able to 
 show it to you, that it was concluded that the one stating- the small sum 
 was a little too bad, and that that would not do, and that the other 
 was put on file. I do not remember at this moment how that was. 
 These routes get a little mixed in my memory. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. You do not recollect which he acted on ? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I do not, sir. 
 
 Mr. INGERSOLL. The affidavit requiring the least money was the one 
 acted on. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I undertake to say, as a matter of fact, that that was 
 not so. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. Very well. 
 
 Mr. BLTSS. The only doubt in my mind is precisely this : Whether 
 the result of the application of the rule of three to the two affidavits 
 did not make the amount required under each of them substantially 
 the same by understating one and the other. They did not balance- 
 But I do say that I am very clear that he did not act upon the affidavit 
 which gave a less amount than the other affidavit would have given. 
 It may be that both the affidavits would have given the same sum. 
 I do not know whether that is true or not. The only doubt in my 
 mind is as to that. But, gentlemen, the point to which I am directing 
 your attention now is not how r much money was taken from the 
 Treasury upon these affidavits, but I am directing your attention 
 to This: That a man who could, on the same day, swear to two 
 affidavits which are so inconsistent as these, and who had therefore 
 as to one of them committed a perjury, was the only witness whom 
 Mr. Brady accepted as satisfactory to him as to how much money 
 should be taken from the Treasury of the United States. I do not care 
 whether they took the smallest or the largest sum. They took it upon 
 the evidence of a man whose perjury stared Brady in "the face, and 
 Brady chose to say that was sufficient. Now, as to the other affidavit. 
 In one of them he swore that on the increased rate of speed there 
 would be required six men and eighteen animals. In the other affidavit 
 he swore that on the increased rate of speed there would be required 
 seven men and thirty-eight animals. The total, you will see, is in one 
 case twenty-four, and in the other case forty-five. Having sworn to 
 two affidavits, both of which could not be true, and one of which must 
 be a lie, it was. natural that he should go on and swear that in his 
 opinion, and in his experience, there would be required in the one case 
 twenty four men and animals, and in the other case forty-five men and 
 animals There was falsity necessarily in one or the other of those 
 affidavits, and in both branches of one or the other of the affidavits. 
 It may be that the rule of three, as worked out between them, would 
 result in taking from the Treasury only the same amount of money. 
 That I do not care about on the present occasion. The point I ain 
 making is that the affidavits showed Mr. Brady that that man was not 
 
26 
 
 a safe man to take as bis guide. He was not the contractor and he was 
 not the subcontractor. He had no relation to the routes, and yet Mr. 
 Brady picked him out because he happened to be conveniently available 
 to set in motion the machinery by which, at the earliest possible moment, 
 money was to be taken out of the Treasury of the United States. One 
 of those affidavits was filed on the 6th of May, 1879. Another of them 
 was filed on the 8th of May, 1879. The order was made after the latter 
 date when both affidavits were on file. 
 
 Mr. Dorsey, it is true, having put the first oath on file, on the 6th of 
 May wrote a letter in which he asked permission to withdraw the first 
 affidavit. He was apparently afraid that Mr. Brady would not have 
 his attention called to the fact that he was a perjurer. So he asked 
 permission to withdraw the affidavit to correct an error therein. The 
 next day he corrected the error by putting on file the second affidavit, 
 and so far as the correction of the error was concerned you will see 
 that there is not a single figure in the two affidavits which is identical; 
 not a single figure. The number of men and horses actually used is 
 given in each and the figures do not agree, and the number of men and 
 horses which would be required is given in each and the figures do not 
 agree there. That is what he calls correcting an error. But the same 
 Mr. John W. Dorsey made another error. On the llth of March he 
 swore to an affidavit on route 38145, from a place down iu New Mexico 
 called Ojo Calieute to Parrott City, that the number then necessary to 
 carry the mail was three men and seven animals. He took that oath 
 up in the pure air of Vermont, gentlemen, and six weeks later he got 
 into the contaminating atmosphere of Washington and then he found 
 out that instead of three men and seven animals, it would take five 
 men and fifteen animals. In the one case the aggregate was ten which 
 was to be used as the factor in estimating the amount to be taken 
 from the Treasury, and in the other case the aggregate was twenty 
 which was the factor to be used. You will see those figures agree pre- 
 cisely with the supposititious case which 1 took up when 1 was trying 
 to illustrate to you the effect of this rule of three in the statute as to 
 expedition. 
 
 The COURT. According to that the lower the figure the more the 
 money ? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. The lower the figure as to those actually in use the more 
 the money. The higher the figure as to those to be used the more the 
 money. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. As I understand it the point contended for is that they 
 lowered the past and increased the future. 
 
 The COURT. Yes. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. They lowered the present. 
 
 The COURT. For example, take one as the original figure. If six is 
 the second figure, it would be multiplied by one. If the original figure 
 is two and the next figure six, that would be three times more than two. 
 So that it was to the interest of the contractor to reduce the first num- 
 ber and increase the second number. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. He has already stated that several times, your honor. 
 
 The COURT. I know. 
 
 Mr. INGERSOLL. There is no doubt about that. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. It is a mathematical calculation. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. There is obviously an excuse for the two affidavits being 
 on the record on this route, because the first affidavit, made iu Vermont, 
 was made when Mr. Dorsey and his associates were looking to an idea 
 of getting the speed so increased that the time would be reduced from 
 
27 
 
 one hundred and twenty hours, I think it was, to eighty hours. The 
 second affidavit was made when they had become more enterprising, 
 and had concluded, six weeks later in Washington, that they would get 
 the time reduced, not to eighty hours, but to fifty hours. You will see 
 that no matter to what time they proposed to reduce the time, no mat- 
 ter what the rate of increase of speed was proposed to be, yet in both 
 cases in the affidavit which stated the number of men and horses then 
 actually in use they should have stated the same number. There was 
 no change there. But there would undoubtedly be more horses required 
 in the future to reduce the schedule to fifty hours than were required 
 to reduce the schedule to eighty hours. Therefore there was a reason 
 for Mr. John W. Dorsey's getting two affidavits on the files of the Post- 
 Office Department, and it was not an error that he had to correct. The 
 only error was that he forgot when he made the second affidavit what 
 he had stated in the first affidavit as to the number of men and horses 
 actually in use. Those two affidavits were both on file, both staring 
 Mr. Brady in the face, and both in the very envelope on which Mr. 
 Brady indorsed his order allowing increase of pay. He based his or- 
 der upon the papers which he recited were inside of the envelope. They 
 could not both be true. Mr. Brady chose to accept the man who made 
 those two affidavits, both of which could not be true, as his sole author- 
 ity for taking money by thousands from the Treasury of the United 
 States. There is no escape from that, gentlemen. 
 
 There is another case. On route 38113 John W. Dorsey was the 
 contractor. A letter was written by Montfort C. Kerdell, one of the 
 defendants, a clerk of Stephen W. Dorsey, then still a Senator. That 
 letter was written on paper of the Senate of the United States. It was 
 written to Perkins, the subcontractor at Rawlins, Wyo., sending him 
 an affidavit to be sworn to in blank by him as subcontractor. He 
 directed him to swear to it just as it was, leaving the blanks unfilled. 
 Perkins swore to it just as it was, and he sent it back here with the 
 blanks unfilled. Immediately afterwards the blanks were filled in and 
 the affidavit was filed in the department. It is in Mr. Brady's order 
 recited as the affidavit upon which he based his order for expedition 
 and allowance in that case. We shall place before you the notary 
 public who took the affidavit. We shall place before you Mr. Kerdell's 
 letter directing it to be taken just as it was, without change. We s*hall 
 place before you the man who swore to it. They will all tell you that 
 that affidavit was sworn to in blank, was sent here to these defendants, 
 was by one of them filed in the department, and was made by Brady 
 the basis of the order upon which he directed tens of thousands of dol- 
 lars I think it was to be taken from the Treasury of the United 
 States. 
 
 But, gentlemen of the jury, we shall show to you a still more ex- 
 traordinary condition of things. We shall show you that the ability to 
 make two affidavits which were inconsistent was not confined to John 
 W. Dorsey. On route 35051, from Bismarck to Fort Keogh, you will 
 find a good many queer things, but I will now only ask you to remem- 
 ber one : John E. Miner, by an oath filed on the 4th of October, swore 
 that to carry the mail over that route in eighty-four hours, which was 
 the original time, took twelve men and thirteen animals, making twen- 
 ty-five in all, and that to carry it in sixty-five hours, which was about 
 twenty hours' reduction, would take one hundred and fifty men and one 
 hundred and fifty animals. Now, in that affidavit he did not expressly 
 say that he was referring to an eighty-four hour schedule, but he was 
 making an affidavit for the purpose of getting the time reduced to sixty- 
 
28 
 
 five hours, and he did so tinder a regulation compelling him to state 
 the number which would be required. That is the route on which I 
 told you that Brady, acting upon the evidence of this monumental 
 swearer, said that this allowance was less than pro rata. By mak- 
 ing the allowance less than pro rata he still carried the original 
 compensation of, I think, $2,250 up to $27,950. He said, allowing 
 him $27,950, and assuming that it would take three hundred men and 
 horses to carry the mail on the increased rate, that that was less than 
 pro rata. Well, it was less thaii pro rata upon that basis. But what 
 do we find? We find this condition of things: In the Post Office De- 
 partment, as in other public offices, the papers relating to a given route 
 are tiled away in what is practically a long envelope cut open at the 
 ends, and is known as a jacket. When Mr. Brady made an order it 
 was made on the back of the jacket, and referred to the papers which 
 were inside. The order recites that upon such and such papers it ap- 
 pears so and so, and therefore it is ordered so and so. Mr. Brady's 
 practice was to look over these papers, and then to indorse ordinarily 
 in pencil on the back of the jacket "Do this Brady." That indorse- 
 ment was the voucher on which some clerk went to work and wrote out 
 a formal order, which was indorsed on the back of the jacket, reciting 
 the papers; and that was the authority under which money was taken 
 from the Treasury of the United States by hundreds of thousands and 
 millions. Kow, in the very jacket on which Mr. Brady indorsed the 
 allowance of $27,950, and felicitated himself that it was less than pro 
 rata, accepting Mr. Miner's statement that it would take three hundred 
 men and horses, we find this condition of things : We find inside of the 
 jacket another jacket which contains an indorsement reciting precisely 
 the same petition of the same officers and the same papers in every 
 respect all the way down, agreeing almost absolutely, and yet when we 
 come to see on what it is based we find this : The contractor, that is, 
 Miner 
 
 Furnishes sworn statement that for service three times a week on the present 
 schedule eleven men and twelve animals are required. 
 
 That was not much different from the affidavit which was finally used, 
 which is twelve men and thirteen animals, making twenty-five in the ag- 
 gregate instead of twenty-three. But he also furnished a sworn state- 
 ment that thirty seven men and seventy-three animals would be required 
 on a sixty-five-hour schedule. He swore that a hundred and fifty men 
 and a hundred and fifty animals would be required on the eighty-four- 
 hour schedule, and Mr. Brady accepted that and made an order upon 
 it, felicitating himself that it was less than pro rata, and that he had 
 saved a few hundred or a thousand dollars ; but he had before him at 
 that time the affidavit of the same John R. Miner that to make a speed of 
 sixty-five hours it would require only thirty -seven men and seventy-three 
 animals, making a hundred and ten as the factor to be used in calcu- 
 lating the amount, and not three hundred, as it was made under the 
 affidavit which Mr. Brady chose to accept. The existence of that affi- 
 davit is recited upon the paper in the very jacket on which Mr. Brady 
 made his order. That affidavit has unfortunately disappeared, how or 
 when we cannot say; but we shall place before you the man who in- 
 dorsed that jacket to which I referred as on the inside and he will 
 tell you that that affidavit was there, that he made that indorsement 
 upon the inside jacket, and that the inside jacket so indorsed was in 
 Brady's possession at the time he made the order. When he was making 
 an order upon John K. Miner's affidavit he had the statement before him 
 
29 
 
 that it would require a hundred and fifty men and a hundred and fifty ani- 
 mals to carry the mail at a certain rate, and yet John E. Miner had also 
 filed an affidavit stating that it would take but thirty-seven men and 
 seventy three animals to do the same service. Brady chose, with that 
 evidence staring him in the face, to accept Mr. John E. Miner's affidavit 
 as sufficient to justify the making of an order carrying up an allowance 
 of $2,250 to $27,950. Gentlemen of the jury, we shall ask you from that 
 evidence, from evidence such as that, and from evidence other than that, 
 to draw the inference that Mr. Brady's action in this matter was not 
 that of an honest, incorrupt official. 
 
 On the nineteen routes in this case there were on file eighteen affi- 
 davits used for expedition. On one of the nineteen routes in this indict- 
 ment there never was any expedition. The fraud upon the Govern- 
 ment there consisted in paying twice over for the same service. One 
 of the eighteen affidavits was made by Vaile. I have already told you 
 that it was made on National Hotel paper and made in this city, and 
 was made and filed although Vaile did not pretend ever to have been 
 on the route or to have known of his own knowledge anything that he 
 swore to. He did have the advantage over the other defendants of be- 
 ing a mail contractor, and therefore had some experience upon which 
 to judge on a statement of facts by others, as to what would probably 
 be required. But he had no knowledgeas to what number was actually 
 required. That affidavit of Vaile's is an unaltered affidavit. It will 
 come before you with no evidences of alteration upon it. There is an- 
 other affidavit made by Miner which will come before you without any 
 alteration. Every one of the remaining sixteen affidavits which were 
 used as the basis for making orders to take money from the Treasury 
 of the United States will come before you bearing upon their face evi- 
 dences of alterations, erasures, or insertions. They are sworn to in. 
 regular form, and yet erased and with insertions so made that no busi- 
 ness man would accept them. They would not be accepted in any court 
 or by any business man without some explanation. Why are these al- 
 terations there J ? Why are all the affidavits full of erasures T The era- 
 sures and the alterations are in every case with regard to the figures, 
 which were the elements which determined how much should be taken 
 out of the Treasury of the United States. We think we shall be able 
 to satisfy you that these affidavits present evidence of the growing greed 
 of these parties, that they were made at a time when they were content 
 to take from the Treasury one amount of money illegitimately, but as their 
 immunity went on and their greed increased, they thought they would 
 have more money from the Treasury. It may be, that their expenses 
 were greater. It may be tbat they, had to make larger u divvies.' 7 At 
 any rate their greed increased, and then they altered the affidavits by 
 putting in, larger figures. However that may be the affidavits were all 
 made except that of Perkins, which was sworn loin blank by men who 
 were never on the routes. Sixteen of the eighteen were altered on their 
 face, and those affidavits were the only evidence which Brady had be- 
 fore him, on which the allowances to these defendants were run up from 
 $41,000 a year to $448,000 a year. We shall ask you on that evidence 
 of course, in connection with other evidence to say that the acts of 
 Brady and these other defendants were the acts of men engaged in a 
 corrupt conspiracy to defraud the United States. Brady violated not 
 only the spirit of the law, but he violated its direct letter. He acted 
 upon insufficient affidavits. He acted upon altered affidavits. He left 
 it to the person benefited to be the sole judge of how much he should 
 have from the Treasury. He accepted evidence which could not have 
 
30 
 
 been accepted by any honest man if he was not blind. He made allow- 
 ances on that evidence in excess of what the evidence called for. He 
 made allowances in violation of the statute by antedating the effect of 
 the orders. All this we shall show you by the records of the depart- 
 ment, which there will be no attempt to impeach. 
 
 I said that he ran up the amount from $41,000 to $448,000 qn such orders 
 and based upon such affidavits. I was not entirely correct in that state- 
 ment. That amount is the aggregate amount of increases not only 
 for expedition which had affidavits as its basis, but it also included in- 
 crease of trips for which no affidavit was required. Trips were in- 
 creased at Brady's own sweet will, because the law only said that the 
 pay should not exceed the proportionate amount of increase. As to expe- 
 dition, the l;iw said there must be this arithmetical calculation. Hence 
 the device of these deceptive affidavits to comply seemingly with the 
 law. ' In point ot fact Brady made, I think, thirteen orders for expedi- 
 tion, carryiiiii' up service already incurred to $159,299.95 to $317,718.54, 
 or just about double. At the same time, and without affidavits, he 
 made the increase of trips carrying it up to $448,000. 1 may have got 
 confused on these figures to some small extent. 
 
 Some of these orders were not his in form, but were so in fact. But, 
 gentlemen, these affidavits told their own tale in another direction, the 
 taleot their absurdity, the tale of the impropriety of Brady's undertak- 
 ing to base anything upon them. Take route 35051, from Bismarck to 
 Fort Keogh, upon which Miner made these two affidavits. On the 
 original schedule the speed was three and sixty one-hundredths miles an 
 hour. On the expedited schedule it was four and sixty oue-hundredths 
 miles an hour. Practically an increase of one mile an hour. On theorig- 
 nal schedule, judging in each case by Miner's oath, each horse had to 
 travel twenty three miles a day not an excessive distance. But on the 
 expedited schedule, assuming that as many horses were needed as Mr. 
 Miner swore to, each horse would have to travel only two miles a day. 
 Mr. Brady accepted the statement that it was necessary on that route 
 to have such a number of horses that no horse should travel more than 
 two miles a day. If they had used double teams they would have had 
 to have gone four miles a day. I am obliged to use an illustration not 
 arithmetically correct, because if you reduce anything a hundred per 
 cent, you wipe it out; but it will probably carry to your minds the idea 
 I want to express when I say that they made an increase of speed of a 
 mile an hour and thereby reduced the capacity of each horse four hun- 
 dred and fifty per cent., and upon that route, gentlemen, this was 
 done ; the route being started at $2,350 a year, by the addition of in- 
 creased trips $14,100 was added ; then by the addition of the increased 
 speed of one mile an hour $55,000 more was added, and the result was 
 that that route, let to Miner after public bidding, which originally 
 started at $2,350 a year, before he and Brady got through with it, was 
 run up to something over $70,000 a year, and run up, gentlemen of the 
 jury, as to all except $14,000 of that amount upon the affidavit of John 
 II. Miner, which the papers on file in Mr. Brady's office showed him 
 could not be true, because there were two inconsistent affidavits there, 
 and a mere analysis of the affidavits showed it could not be true, be- 
 cau.se it proceeded upon the basis that each horse would have to travel 
 only two miles a day. 
 
 Now take another route. On the route from Pueblo to Eosita, by the 
 original schedule, the speed was three and twenty-six one-hundredths 
 miles an hour, and on the expedited schedule it was four and nine one- 
 hundredths miles, therefore increasing it somewhere about three-quar- 
 
31 
 
 ters of a mile an hour. On the original schedule every horse would 
 have to travel sixteen and one-third miles a day. To make three quar- 
 ters of a mile more in an hour over that short route, it was necessary 
 to reduce the daily travel of each horse from sixteen and one-third 
 miles to five and four-ninth miles a day. The horses that that affi- 
 davit said would be necessary for the increased speed would have to 
 travel to make it only five and four ninths miles a day. Does anything 
 need to be said, gentlemen, to show you that it is not necessary for 
 hors s in carrying the mails at a rate of about four miles an hour that 
 they shall travel only five miles and a half in a day 1? 
 
 On the route from Silverton to Parrott City, on the original schedule, 
 evei*y horse would have to travel thirteen miles a day only thirteen 
 miles a day, mind you. I am taking the statement of the men and 
 horses in actual use. And on the expedited schedule every horse would 
 have to travel four and one-third miles a day. 
 
 On the route from Mineral Park to Pioche, on the original schedules, 
 every horse would have to travel six and sixty-four one-hundreths 
 miles a day. On the expedited schedule the horse would have to travel 
 six and twenty one-hundredths miles a day. Does anybody need any 
 argument to show that either on the original or on the expedited sched- 
 ule it is absurd to suppose that a horse could g > onl} T six arid one third 
 miles a day f On that route it is right to say that the fraud did not 
 chiefly come in in that connection. They had some queer inconsistencies 
 in these affidavits. They might have sometimes benefited themselves 
 by being more consistent. 
 
 On the route from Toquerville to Adairville every horse on the orig- 
 inal schedule would have to travel twenty-four miles a day, but on the 
 expedited schedule he would have to travel only thirteen and one- 
 third miles a day. On the original schedule the rate was two miles an 
 hour. You will see how they understood it there. Accepting the state- 
 ment of horses actually in use, every horse that they stated was in use, 
 to have got over the route in the schedule time of two miles an hour 
 would have to travel twenty-four miles every day. Every horse 
 would have to travel all the time every day, week in and week out, if 
 t ley only had that number of horses alleged. And yet Mr. Brady ac- 
 c ipted that as conclusive. And if on t..at route there had been put on 
 soven trips a week which the affidavit was seeking to get, and that affi- 
 davit was made upon the basis thatt here would be seven trips a week, 
 every carrier would have to travel eighty miles in a day, and what is 
 the climax of absurdity, he would have had to travel forty hours in 
 every twenty-four. That is the affidavit, gentlemen, that Mr. Brady 
 accepted. That is the sole affidavit and the sole evidence that he had 
 and on which he took thousands of dollars from the Treasury. 
 
 On the route from Eugene City to Bridge Creek, on the original 
 schedule, according to the affidavit, each horse would have to travel 
 nineteen and seven one-hundredths miles a day, and on the expedited 
 schedule he would have to travel only five and nine one-huudreths miles 
 a day. 
 
 On the Canyon City and Camp McDermitt route, on the original 
 schedule, accepting the affidavit always, each horse would have had to 
 travel eight and sixty eight one-hundreths miles a day. On the expe- 
 dited schedule he would, according to the affidavit, have had to travel 
 only three and fifteen one-hundreths miles a day; and on that route, 
 gentlemen, to carry the speed from one and eighty-seven one-hundredths 
 miles an hour, which is a little less than two miles an hour, up to two 
 and one-half miles an hour, Mr. Brady, upon such aii affidavit as I have 
 
32 
 
 just described to you, ordered paid to these defendants $29,950. To 
 carry the speed up on that route in Oregon through an unfrequented 
 region one-half a mile an hour he paid $29,1)50, and, to be accurate, gen- 
 tlemen, 06 cents. 
 
 On the route from Julian to Colton, if we take the oath as correct, on 
 the original schedule each horse had to travel twenty and six one-hun- 
 dredths miles a day. On the expedited schedule, if we take the oath as 
 correct, he only had to travel five and seventy-two one-huudredths miles 
 a day. 
 
 On the route from Bedding to Alturas on rhe original schedule a horse 
 had to travel twelve and eight one-huudredths. On the expedited sched- 
 ule, taking the affidavit as correct, he had to travel only tive and seven 
 one-hundred the a day. 
 
 On the route from Saint Charles to Greenhorn, on the original sched- 
 ule, a horse had to travel twenty-seven and forty-three one hundred ths 
 miles a day, and when it came to the expedited schedule that horse had 
 to travel only six and eighty-five one-hundredths miles a day. And yet, 
 gentlemen, we shall show you that it was the same horse all the time, 
 and that he went over that route in the same way ; that there was no 
 increase of horses and no increase of men, and we think the affidavit 
 was in fact a lie, just as all these affidavits showed to Mr. Brady, or to 
 any officer, or to any man who chose to examine them, that on their 
 very face they were lies. Yet those affidavits were the sole evidence 
 upon which Mr. Brady took enormous sums from the Treasury of the 
 United States. I could go on and give you additional details of those 
 affidavits. You must believe, gentlemen, for the present certainly, that 
 they are all of that same general nature. They are all cases where the 
 affidavit showed upon its face that it was not and could not be true. 
 
 But, gentlemen of the jury, Mr. Brady had before him at the time 
 he made these orders other evidence showing that he was doing what 
 no honest officer could do. 
 
 I have already referred to the law as to placing the subcontract on file. 
 I think there is but one of the nineteen routes which was run by any of 
 these parties. Upon all the others they had subcontracts, as I recollect, 
 though in some cases the subcontracts were not put on file, and I shall 
 presently have occasion to show you why they were not put on file. The 
 subcontracts that they made were on a form that they had prepared and 
 had printed themselves and contained provisions that the subcontractor 
 agreed to carry the mail on the existing schedule and at the existing rate 
 of speed, the same number of trips, and the same amount of speed, for so 
 much money. Then they contained the provision that, supposing the 
 original schedule is one trip and two trips shall be ordered, they will carry 
 it for a given sum, which is less than double the amount. If three 
 trips shall be ordered that they will carry it for a given sum, which is 
 less than three times the amount. And then, also, most of them con- 
 tained the provision that in case the speed should be increased, they will 
 carry the mail at the increased speed for a certain percentage of the 
 amount allowed by the Government. I think in no case is it stated 
 at over (>5 per cent, of the amount to be allowed. You will bear in 
 mind, gentlemen, that the law said that Mr. Brady could not allow 
 any sum in excess of a given amount. His duty, as an honest officer, 
 was to get it as much below that sum as he could get it and have the 
 service fairly and properly performed by someone who would feel that he 
 was adequately compensated for the service rendered. And yet you will 
 find this condition of things : that when Mr. Brady had before him on 
 the files of his department subcontracts which said that a certain man 
 
33 
 
 was actually carrying the mail at three miles an hour, that he agreed 
 to carry it at four miles an hour for 65 per cent, of the additional 
 allowance from the Government, Mr. Brady would make an order say- 
 ing that there shall be allowed for carrying the mail on the increased 
 service $10.000, and of that $10,000 $4,500 shall ,go to the man who has 
 actually to carry the mail, and $6,500 shall go to the man who is to sit 
 here iii Washington, and make the arrangements to get this expedi- 
 tion ordered. Mr. Brady having those subcontracts on tile in his de- 
 partment, where he saw that people agreed to do the expedited service 
 at 65 per cent, or a given percentage (I think in some cases they agreed 
 to do the expedited service for a round sum, but I am not sure about 
 that), made orders for those large sums and actually put into his order 
 that only a fragment of that amount should go to the man who was to 
 carry the mail, and the remainder was to go to the man who was to sit 
 here in Washington and not carry the mail, and did that under that 
 law which I have read to you, and I suppose claims that that was an 
 honest exercise of his powers. You will bear in mind that he did not 
 voluntarily do that. When a subcontract got on file, under the sub- 
 contract law, the money that the subcontract called for had to be paid 
 to the subcontractor, and therefore when Mr. Brady made an order for 
 expedition in a case where a subcontract was on file he had to pro- 
 vide in his order how the money should be distributed. But, gentle- 
 men, these parties took pretty good care not to have very many of these 
 subcontracts on file. They made it, as we shall show you, a condition 
 in a large number of cases where there were subcontractors, that they 
 should not put their subcontracts on file, and for fear that the subcon- 
 tractors might become acquainted with the character of the parties with 
 whom they were dealing and violate their agreements and put their sub- 
 contracts on file, these defendants resorted to this little device: On 
 a given route the post-office contract was with John E. Miner, on an- 
 other route with John M. Peck, and on another route it was with 
 John W. Dorsey. Well, what was done with these? John E. Miner 
 on his route would make a subcontract with John W. Dorsey as a sub- 
 contractor, and would put that on file, and as the law did not allow but 
 one subcontract on each route, if the subcontractor out in the locality 
 sent his contract here, as some of them did, to have it filed they would 
 be answered, " We cannot file it ; there is another one on file." John 
 W. Dorsey in turn on his route would make John E. Miner the sub- 
 contractor, and then John M. Peck on his route would make John W. 
 Dorsey the subcontractor. Occasionally they would vary the matter 
 by making their clerk, Montfort C. Eerdell, the subcontractor and file 
 his subcontract. Arid after Stephen W. Dorsey got out of the Senate 
 and he thought it was safe for him to throw off the cloak, then Stephen 
 W. Dorsey would come in occasionally as subcontractor. Every one 
 of these men were interested in some of these contracts and in this 
 conspiracy ; but no one of them was a mail contractor; no one of them 
 ever carried the mail a mile. No one of them ever expected to be a sub- 
 contractor in fact, and as to many of these routes these bogus subcon- 
 tracts were placed on file instead of the existing subcontracts with the men 
 who were carrying the mails. When Dorsey became the subcontrator 
 for Miner, or Miner for Peck, or John W. Dorsey for brother Stephen, 
 they always made a subcontract by which they were to have the full 
 amount awarded under the contract, including all that was to be given 
 for expedition or increase of service. They were to have the whole 
 thing. So that it was not necessary in these cases, when Brady came 
 to make his order, to put in any specification how much of the amount 
 
 3GB 
 
34 
 
 that lie awarded for expedition was to go to the man who was to run 
 the mail ami how much to the man who sat here in Washington doing 
 nothing, because Mr. Brady made his order that the whole amount 
 should go to the subcontractor who was sitting here in Washington 
 doing nothing, except making little arrangements, applying a little 
 " greaf-e," and doing what was necessary to get these things through 
 the Post-Office Department. In that way the subcontract law was, in 
 the ordinary language, "beat," and Mr. Brady was prevented from the 
 necessity of making any undue exposure of his own corruption in his 
 orders for expedition, because he had not to say in* those cases that any 
 money should go to the man who was not in form at least carrying the 
 mail. 
 
 "With reference to that let. me call your attention to one of two in- 
 stances. On the route from Julian to Colton Mr. Brady made the order 
 for expedition, directing that $17,964 should be allowed for the expedi- 
 tion, and that only $10,500 of that should go to the man whom he knew 
 was actually performing the service, and he directed that the remain- 
 ing $7,404 should go to the man whom he knew was not performing 
 the service. 
 
 So, on the route from Eawlins to White Biver, the contractor got 
 $13,706.25, and the unfortunate subcontractor got $5,100. , There was 
 a later stage in that case at which the contractor got $31,000, giving 
 $23,000 to the subcontractor and kept $8,000 to himself. 
 
 There are a series of those cases which I have here t<j which I shall 
 have occasion to call your attention where Mr. Brady put it squarely 
 into the order that they should get only those amounts, and in this con- 
 nection it is well for me, perhaps without reference to his orders, to call 
 your attention in connection, with this subcontract law to another point 
 of view. 
 
 On the route from Kearney to Kent the contractor received before 
 expedition the. contractor, I think, was John W. Dorsey $888. He 
 agreed to pay $700 to the man who carried the mail the subcontractor. 
 He got ifc expedited so that he received $4,302.65. He paid out to the 
 man who was carry ing the mail, $1,587. 40, and kept for himself $2,715.25. 
 The man who was doing the service got $1,587, and the man who was 
 sitting here in Washington got $2,715, and that under Brady's orders 
 for increase of service and expedition. 
 
 On the route from Pueblo to Kosita the contractor under Brady's 
 orders got $8,148. By a subcontract on file from the outset of the con- 
 tract the service was performed for $3,100. So that there was a case 
 in which $5,048 went into the contractor's pocket as appeared by the 
 papers on tile in Mr. Brady's office at the time he made his order, and 
 this subcontractor who was getting $3,100 had such a good thing of it 
 at that price that he got somebody else to perform the service at $2,600 
 and put $500 in his own pocket. Thus the man who did the service was 
 paid $2,600, and the Government was paying for it under Brady's or- 
 ders $8,148. 
 
 On the route from Toqnerville to Adairville the contractor got 
 $20,894.22. The subcontractor who did the service got $8,444. The 
 man who sat here in Washington therefore got for himself and his ex- 
 penses $12,450 without any cdst. Gentlemen, right here let me call 
 your attention to this fact : Under all the subcontracts that they made, 
 if there was any deduction for not performing the service ; if there was 
 any fine for not arriving on time ; if there was anything taken off by 
 the Post-Office and no man can run the mail service without exposing 
 himself to some deductions every dollar of fines and every dollar of 
 
35 
 
 deductions was taken off from the pay of the subcontractor, while the 
 contractors, Dorsey and company, sitting here in Washington, got their 
 sum net. These conspirators, I ought to say, sitting here in YVashing- 
 ton, got their sum net, for we do not believe you will think on the evi- 
 dence we shall show you that Mr. Brady was foolish enough to let the 
 contractors have all the money. 
 
 On the route from Ojo Caliente to Parrott City the contractor got eventu- 
 ally $31,343.76, and the subcontractor got at one time $(5,200 ; at another 
 time, $7,300; and when the subcontractor wrote to Mr. Stephen W. Dor- 
 sey that to do the service for which he (Dorsey) was getting $14,333, 
 though the subcontractor did not know it, it would cost $12, 000, and there- 
 fore said, U I am not getting enough when you give me only $6,200." 
 Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey wrote him back in almost substantially this lan- 
 guage : " You are a fool ; don't talk so. It would not cost any such sum 
 to carry the mail on that route." And yet the sum that this man said 
 it would cost to carry the mail on that route which Dorsey said was 
 nonsense was only $12,000, and Mr. Brady was ordering paid from the 
 Treasury to Mr. Dorsey at that very time $14,300 for carrying that mail. 
 Mr. Dorsey either lied to his subcontractor or Mr. Brady was an un- 
 faithful officer. 
 
 The COURT. Adjourn the court. 
 
 At this point (4 o'clock p. m.) the court was adjourned until to-mor- 
 row morning at 11 o'clock. 
 
 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1882. 
 
 t 
 
 The court met at 11 o'clock. 
 
 Present, counsel for the Government and for the defendants. 
 
 Hon. GEORGE BLISS resumed his address to the jury, as follows: 
 At the adjournment yesterday, gentlemen, I had called your atten- 
 tion to the scheme of* the laws as to advertising, to the provision for 
 public competition and the letting to the lowest bidder, to the provis- 
 ion made for cohering omissions and contingencies under the statute, 
 to the fact that Brady had resorted to the exceptional power and provis- 
 ions as to expedition and increase of service greatly in excess of any- 
 thing that had ever been done before in the history of the department, 
 but I failed in that connection, gentlemen, to state to you a most sig- 
 nificant fact which I ought to have stated: that from the time Mr. 
 Brady went out of office as Second Assistant Postmaster-General down 
 to the present time, there has been no instance of a resort to expedition 
 in the history of the Post Office Department, and that the mails have 
 been successfully carried, and without complaint, through the entire 
 country at a saving, and that, therefore, Mr. Brady's large use of that 
 power could not have arisen from any change of the circumstances, but 
 that the condition of things was practically not changed from that 
 which prevailed before he became Second Assistant Postmaster-General, 
 when it was necessary to resort to these provisions only very rarely 
 twenty times in five years and that while within the last year and a 
 half it has been not necessary to resort to them once, yet Brady, in about 
 four years and a half found it necessary, or claimed to find it necessary, 
 to resort to them one hundred and twenty times. I called your attention 
 also to the fact that Mr. Brady when he did make increases made them 
 up to the extreme limit allowed, and how he made them on improper evi- 
 
36 
 
 dence; bow lie accepted affidavits erased and altered; how he founded 
 them on the statements of affiants, which contradicted themselves by 
 other affidavits also before him at the same time, and how he sought no 
 other affidavit; how the affidavits on the face of them showed that they 
 were absurd, and that when they stated that so many horses and men 
 were necessary they made a statement which showed that they assumed 
 that each horse was to travel only from two to four miles a day; how he 
 allowed increases greatly in excess of the proper amounts, and how it 
 was shown by his own orders that this was so because he directed in 
 his orders that only a portion of the sum should be paid to the men who 
 were carrying the mails, and a very large portion, very frequently the 
 largest proportion, to the men who sat here in Washington and did 
 nothing towards carrying the mails. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I must follow this thing along further. We say that 
 he paid for expedition where there were very great misstatemeuts in 
 the affidavits as to the number of men and horses either then required 
 or which would be required. For instance, upon the route from 
 Eugene City to Mitchell, No. 44140, up in Oregon, the oath is that 
 for three trips on the then existing schedule it required four men 
 and nine animals, and that on a fifty-hour schedule it would requiie 
 ten men and thirty animals. In point of fact that affidavit did not 
 greatly misstate the number of men and animals then actually em- 
 ployed. We shall show you, by the man who carried the mail after the 
 increase, that instead of giving it correctly when they gave it, as re- 
 quiring forty, in point of fact it icquired only twenty six, and that 
 therefore the increase originally was from four men and nine animals, 
 a total of thirteen, to a total of twenty-six, when they made the state- 
 ment that it would require forty, nearly double, the result of that being 
 that by the application of the rule of three in that matter there was 
 allowed under that order in that case for expedition nearly twice as 
 much as should have been allowed had the affidavit truthfully stated 
 the fact as to the number of men and horses which would be required; 
 even taking twenty-six as the number which were actually used, it only 
 required each horse to travel fourteen miles a day. 
 
 On the route from Pueblo to Greenhorn, 38135, the oath was that to 
 make three trips a week required one man and one animal; that to 
 make three trips on a less schedule, or seven hours, would require two 
 men and four animals. In other words, it required two at that time, 
 and it would require six to increase the schedule. That was the oath, 
 and yet we shall show you that from the commencement of that service 
 down to the present time, when it was on the long schedule and when 
 it was on the short schedule, it has always been run by the same num- 
 ber of men, the same number of horses, and by identically the same 
 horses, the only change being that sometimes one man became a carrier 
 and sometimes another. We shall put before you those men who were 
 successively the carriers upon that route, and they will tell you that 
 fact, and you will see, gentlemen, that this was the result. Not only 
 was Mr. Brady's allowance, based upon this affidavit from the interested 
 contractor, an excessive allowance, but, under the statute, it was an 
 allowance he had no right to make at all, because there was no right to 
 make any allowance unless the result of an increase of speed was the 
 necessity ol using additional stock and carriers; and there were no 
 additional stock and carriers rendered necessary in carrying it at the 
 increased speed. 
 
 On the route from Yermillion to Sioux Falls Mr. Vaile swore that it 
 would require three men and twelve horses to make three trips upon 
 
37 
 
 the then existing schedule, which was a schedule of fifteen hours, I 
 think ; that to make the trips in ten hours would require five men and 
 ten horses. In point of fact it required three men and twelve horses; 
 and you will bear in mind, gentlemen, in that connection, that here, as 
 everywhere, we propose to give you the men who 'actually did the work, 
 not the evidence of somebody who has heard, never having been on the 
 route, that such and such things occurred, but the men who did the 
 work. 
 
 On the route from Pueblo to Bosita, Dorsey swore that on the then 
 present schedule it would take three men and twelve horses in one of the 
 oaths pr sented. In the other oath he presented he swore it would take 
 two men and six horses. In point of fact to carry the mail alone we 
 shall show you that it took only one man and three horses. When they 
 came to increase to seven trips, Dorsey swore that on a ten hours 7 sched- 
 ule it would take seven men and thirty-eight animals Then he changed 
 that to six men and eighteen animals. In point of fact we shall show 
 you that it took two men and fourteen horses, making in all sixteen, 
 while Dorsey said in one oath forty-five, and in the other twenty-four. 
 
 On the route from Silverton to Parrott City, No. 38156, Mr. Dorsey 
 swore thaton the then schedule of seven trips it would take three men and - 
 ten horses, and that was substantially correct as to the number of men 
 and horses then in use. But he said to reduce it to a fifteen-hour sched- 
 ule it would take six men and thirty horses, when in point of fact it took 
 only four men and twelve horses, making sixteen against Mr. Dorsey's 
 statement of thirty-six more than double, and resulting therefore in a 
 cost to the Government of nearly three times as much as it ought to 
 have cost. There never were used beyond the four men and twelve 
 horses in point of fact, and at times there were used only three men and 
 nine horses. Four men and twelve horses was the outside limit with 
 bad roads and everything of the kind. 
 
 Mr. Miner's oath on the Bismarck and Fort Keogh line, in which he 
 swore that 150 men and 150 horses would be required, I have already 
 had occasion to comment upon. It is sufficient to say that it cannot be 
 established by any evidence, the most liberal allowance that can be 
 made, that there were ever needed upon that route for carrying the 
 mail over 75 horses, and that there were never needed for carrying 
 the mail over thirty-five men instead of 150. I might go on, gentle- 
 men, and give you other instances of the same thing, but it is unneces- 
 sary at present to worry you with them, and I pass on therefore to 
 another feature of this case. 
 
 You will bear in mind, gentlemen, that I called your attention to the 
 fact that the statute, in providing for the transportation of the mail, says 
 that it is the duty of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General to have, 
 regard to productiveness, that being the only consideration actually 
 specified. Now, what was the regard that was had for productiveness 
 by Mr. Bradyf 
 
 , n the mail route from Garland to Parrott City, 38145, the amount 
 paid for carrying the mail was brought up by Brady to $31,343.76 
 a year, and yet the average receipts of all the offices upon that route 
 for the three years during which this order of Brady's continued were 
 about $1,200 a year, and excluding offices otherwise supplied $194.96. 
 Under Mr. Brady's order he made the Government pay $31,343 for 
 carrying a mail, while the post-offices supplied by that route pro- 
 duced but $194.96. And here let me say, gentlemen, that of course 
 we do not claim that each mail-route is to pay its way. We only claim 
 this: that in the language of the statute "due regard" shall be "had 
 
38 
 
 to productiveness." We understand perfectly well that the pioneer in 
 tlie West, the miner, is entitled to his mail facilities, entitled to means of 
 communicating with his friends at home and with the business w^orld 
 of the East, and we understand perfectly well that it is true economy 
 on the part of the Government to give him those mail facilities. But we 
 say in these allowances that Mr. Brady made upon mere local routes, in 
 the way that I shall show you he utterly disregarded every consider- 
 ation of productiveness, and that the only consideration of productive- 
 ness that entered into his mind was how much the routes could be made to 
 produce to the contractors and to himself. The productiveness of a given 
 post-office, let me say, gentlemen, is ascertained in this way: It is the 
 amount of stamps canceled on mail matter sent from that office, the theory 
 being that the offices sending to a given office are to be credited with 
 what they send. The office is to be credited with what it sends out, and 
 that is treated fairly as the productiveness of the office. It is of course 
 possible that in sending from an office there may be less mail matter 
 going from it than to it; but in the long run the things must be just 
 about equal, and that is the only way in which productiveness is ar- 
 ^rived at. 
 
 On the route from Tres Alamos to Clifton the original pay was $1,568. 
 Mr. Brady carried up the amount to $27,913.59. The net revenues on 
 that route, including every office located on the route, were in the first 
 year $403.42, in the second year $513.41, and finally $789.12, so that on 
 that route, originally contracted for at $1,568, the average of the re- 
 ceipts did not exceed between $500 and $600, and Mr. Brady by 
 his order made the Government pay for carrying the mail over it 
 $27,913.69. 
 
 On the route from Mineral Park to Pioche the original contract price 
 was $2,982. Mr. Brady carried it up by his orders at one time to 
 $52,033.38. The average revenue on that route was $670.68 a year. All 
 the offices on that route were supplied by other mail routes, and yet I 
 have credited, in making up the $070 to this route, every dollar of the 
 revenues of all the offices upon the route. The service cost $52,000. The 
 Government received $ ;70. The year after Mr. Brady made his order 
 carrying it up, the revenues of the office, instead of increasing, ran from 
 $761 down to $597, so that increase of speed reduced the revenue of the 
 Government ; and that was an order of Mr. Brady's, made under a statu te 
 which required him to have due regard to productiveness. 
 
 On the route from Silverlon to Parrott City the original contract 
 price was $1,488. Under Mr. Brady's order it was run to $15,796, and 
 the revenue there did get to something in four figures. The average 
 revenue ot that route was $2,979.49, but it cost the Government to get 
 that revenue about $15,800. 
 
 On the route from Trinidad to Madison, 38140, the original price was 
 $338. Mr. Brady carried it up by his order to $4,290, and the average 
 revenue for the three years of the dependent offices was $141.90. 
 
 On route 38135, from Saint Charles to Greenhorn, which was originally 
 let at $548 ; under Mr. Brady's order it was carried up to $3,945.60 a 
 year. The average income of all the offices on that route during the 
 three years was $102.72 a year. 
 
 On route 44140, from Eugene City to Bridge Creek, in Oregon, the 
 original contract was $2,468. Mr. Brady carried it up to $21,460.89, 
 and the average yearly income of the route was $198.88. 
 
 On route 41119, from Toquerville to Adairville, in Utah, the original 
 contract price was $1,168 a year. Mr. Brady carried it up to $20,894.22. 
 The annual income was $1,241, including all offices. 
 
39 
 
 I think I have given yon, gentlemen, a sufficient number of specimens 
 showing- how entirely, how absolutely, Mr. Brady disregarded product- 
 iveness^ but perhaps I ought to call your attention a little in detail to 
 one or two of these routes. They will at least present some amusing 
 feat tires which will while away the tediousuess of your service. 
 
 On the route from Mineral Park to Pioche, less than six months after 
 the service commenced, an order was made adding two trips to the 
 service and reducing the time from 84 hours to 60 hours, and he added 
 to the original compensation of $2,982 the sum of $19,318. On the 23d 
 of July, 1879, six mouths later, four more trips were added, and the 
 original compensation of $2,982 was carried up by $29,733.39 more. 
 That route, gentlemen, is a route in Wyoming, between the Central 
 Pacific and the Southern Pacific Railroads, and running north and south 
 between them, or was so. It was urged that there ought to be an in- 
 crease upon that route of mail service because it formed a connection 
 between the two lines, and yet we shall put before you the postmaster 
 at Mineral Park, who opened every mail-bag that passed over that 
 route either way, and he will show to you that that mail constantly 
 arrived there without a single thing in the bag. There was nothing in 
 the bag absolutely no mail matter; no postal^cards, no letters, no 
 newspapers; nothing carried over that route, day in and day out, which 
 was run up by Mr. Brady in this way from $2,982 to $52,000. The 
 Post-Office Department introduced a system of what was known as 
 mail bills, which were intended to show this. They were intended to 
 show how many mail pouches started from a given place, the terminus 
 of the route, and then show what time they got to the end of the route; 
 otherwise it was possible for the post-office to be deceived in that a 
 mail-bag delivered one day might have been the bag that ought to have 
 been delivered on a previous day. For the purpose of timing the de- 
 liveries they introduced this system of what was called mail bills. The 
 mail hills were a printed form sent to the postmaster, and they were 
 intended to show simply the number of pouches, but not intended to 
 show the number of letters. To be faithful to their duty, these post- 
 masters went to work and put on those mail bills a detailed statement, 
 each day, of the number of letters, postal cards, and newspapers in the 
 mail, and w r e have those mail bills, and shall produce them to you, for 
 some 30 days, between the 19th of November and 24th of December, 
 1879. YoiTwill bear in mind that that was after Mr. Brady's expedition 
 had all been. made. In 18 of the 39 days the mail started from Mineral 
 Park to go to Pioche without a letter or a postal card in it. It arrived 
 at the other end without a letter or a paper or a postal card. In 18 of 
 the 39 days therefore the mail went over that entire route, starting with, 
 nothing, picking up nothing on the way, and arriving with nothing, 
 and that was a route run up to $52,000, with due regard to productive- 
 ness. In 21 of those 39 days there were carried over some portion of 
 the route, going north, 9 postal cards and 29 letters, every one of those 
 letters stopping at a way station and no one of them going through; 
 the alleged inducement for making the increase being that it was ft- 
 through route, connecting two railroads. There arrived at the other 
 end, Pioche, during those 39 days, 133 letters, papers, and postal cards, 
 and every one of those started from way stations, Io one of them 
 came from the terminus of the route. 
 
 On the route from Kearney to Kent, which was a route running north 
 and south between two railroads which went east and west, the fact was 
 that the mail going from Kearney towards Kent was always larger than 
 the mail going the other way. it never was over 100 pounds in weight, 
 
40 
 
 * 
 
 and of that 100 pounds all but 10 pounds were delivered before it got 
 30 miles away from Kearney, and the remaining mail going over that 
 route did not exceed on an average 10 pounds. For the service upon 
 that route, commencing originally with one trip at $808 a year, Mr. 
 Brady added first two trips and $1, 122.41, and then having given the 
 three trips, he increased the speed 13 hours and added $2,200 for that. 
 And yet, excluding Kearney and Kent, both of which were on railroads, 
 and both of which received their revenues and their mail from the east 
 and west communication, and not to any extent from the north and 
 south communication, the entire revenues averaged from $227 to $513. 
 On the Toquerville to Adairville route, in Utah, the mail started with 
 100 pounds. Leaving Toquerville, it dwindled down to 10 pounds, tiieu 
 sometimes, at a way station, went up as high as 25 pounds, though after 
 it got 30 miles away from its original starting point it rarely exceeded 
 an average of between 5 and 10 pounds. And yet upon that route 
 $12,718.22 was paid to reduce the time from 60 to 33 hours, and $7,000 
 was paid to add 5 trips to the original one, which cost $1,108 ; so that 
 that route which originally started with $1,168 was run up to $19,311, 
 and the revenues, deducting the offices which were on other routes, 
 averaged from $386 50 in one year to $767 in another year, and uniformly 
 decreasing as expedition and the sums paid by the Government increased. 
 1 -On the route from Dalles to Baker City, in Oregon, the largest mail ever 
 carried, which was composed chiefly of public documents, was five or six 
 hundred pounds. That was carried, starting from Dalles and going east 
 towards Canyon City. At the outside, between Baker City and Canyon 
 City, the other half of the route, the largest amount was 200 pounds, 
 the smallest 30 to 40 pounds, and the average certainly not over 50 
 pounds. One witness will state the average, 1 think, as not being over 
 20 pounds. And yet on that route from Dalles to Baker City, which 
 started at a compensation of $8,288, it was run up to $72,520, and it 
 was not only not a through route, but it was so slow a route that mat- 
 ter starting from the east end of the route and intended to go to the 
 west end of the route was never sent over the route, but was sent by a 
 longer and quicker route ; and in the same way, matter starting from 
 the west end of the line, and intended to go to the east end, was never 
 sent over it, but sent around this way [illustrating]. And not only that, 
 gentlemen, but the two stations east and west from the terminal sta- 
 tions that is to say, the station which was about 12 or 15 miles west of 
 the eastern end, and the station which was about 10 or 12 miles east of 
 the western end sent their mail matter east and west, roundabout, 
 around by the other way in preference to going over this route, be- 
 cause it went more rapidly. And yet that route, so thoroughly local 
 and so thoroughly without any necessity for any such rate of speed 
 or compensation, was carried up by Brady to $72,520. 
 
 On the route fiom Pueblo to Kosita, which was down in Colorado, the 
 contract price starting originally at $338 was run up to $8,148. The 
 mail matter that went from Pueblo, about half way, weighed from 40 
 to 60 pounds, and, in the language of the witness in reply to a question, 
 "beyond that the mail was light." He seemed to think that a mail that 
 weighed from 40 to 60 pounds was a heavy one. The through mail did 
 not consist usually of more than three or four letters, because theteiini- 
 nal points were getting their mails by other routes more satisfactorily, 
 and the only considerable intermediate place had another communica- 
 tion also, by which it got a considerable portion of its mail matter. 
 The entire revenues of offices dependent on that route were $2,179; but 
 
41 
 
 after Mr. Brady had put on these large increases the revenues ran down 
 to $1,57^ 
 
 On the route from Trinidad to Madison the original pay was $338. 
 It was run up to $4,290.30, and in the letter of John W. Dorsey asking 
 for expedition, he states to Mr. Brady, and Mr. Brady accepted it as 
 true, though his own record showed him it was not true, that the 
 mails were heavy, and that heavy mail was an average of 20 pounds, 
 and that 20 pounds was sufficient to take in the way of expedition, 
 through Brady's kindness, $2,758 a year out of the Treasury. 
 
 On the route from Rawlins to White Eiver, out in Wyoming, almost 
 precisely the same condition of tilings existed. I will not go over those 
 in detail. The same is true of other routes, Vermillion to Sioux Falls, 
 Canyon City to Fort McDermitt, and others which I 'have here on my 
 memorandum, but I forbear to trouble you with them. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, there was another condition of things. Mr. Brady 
 made orders for expedition and paid large sums for expedition where 
 he got nothing for it and where his own record should have shown him 
 that he got nothing for it. On a route in California, from Redding to 
 Alturas, the original contract price was $5,988; Brady ran it up to 
 $41,916.66. Let me say in passing here that I sometimes say Brady ran 
 a thing up. You will find occasionally that the formal order is 
 actually signed by Brady's chief clerk; but I hold Brady responsible 
 for all of these increases, and I think that I shall be able to show you 
 that I properly do so. Now, he ran that up to $41,916.66. He did it in this 
 way: Within five months after the contract went into effect he added 
 two trips and reduced the schedule time from 108 hours to 72 hours, 
 and added to the existing pay of $8,982 the sum of $29,940.60, making a 
 total of $38,922, of which sum $17,964 was paid for the alleged increase 
 of speed. The nominal result of the order in that case, looking at it on 
 the paper, was to increase the speed from 1.65 to 2.58 miles an hour. 
 And yet, gentlemen, it is an indisputable fact that that mail, when Brady 
 made his order to pay $17,964 for reducing the time to 72 hours, was in 
 point of fact being carried over that route in somewhere about 40 hours. 
 The Government was paying $8,000 and the mail was being carried in 
 from 41 to 44 hours in summer and 65 hours in winter. The Government 
 was paying $8,000 for getting its mail carried in that way. The nom- 
 inal time was 120 hours. But Mr. Brady stepped in, and with the 
 liberality that he exercised with other people's money, he paid $17,964 
 under the pretense that it was for getting the mails carried in 80 
 houis, when, in fact, they vere already being carried in from 40 to 
 44 hours in sum mer and 65 hours in winter. The parties themselves were 
 not carrying the mall at that time, and they had a sub-contract with 
 people owning a line of stages, and those people, from their interest in 
 carrying passengers and carrying express matter, were required to go 
 over that route in from 41 to 44 hours, and they had to take the mail 
 at that rate. But Mr. Brady stepped in and with great liberality paid 
 seventeen thousand and odd hundred dollars, when they were entirely 
 satisfied with their $8,000 for that. I am speaking of the sub contract- 
 ors. I shall have occasion to call your attention to the fact that of 
 this seventeen thousand and odd hundred dollars which Mr. Brady was 
 paying for getting the mails in thirty-odd hours longer than that they 
 wi-Te being carried in, the larger portion went into the pockets of the 
 parties here in Washington who got the expedition, and only an incon- 
 siderable portion into the hands of the men who were actually carrying 
 the mail. Brady at a later day added $5,988 more. 
 
 There were other cases where the mail was expedited, and large 
 
42 
 
 sums paid for it, only to have it arrive at its terminus where it was to 
 connect with another route, just too late to go out, and where all the 
 time of expedition was lost by lying over Avaiting for another and con- 
 necting route, where really, in point of fact, nothing was gained save 
 what might have been gained at the little local post-offices along the 
 route. Nothing was gained in any manner practically. There are a 
 series of those cases. I will not stop to call your attention to them in 
 detail now. You will be presented with the evidence as to them as it 
 comes along. 
 
 There are other cases, gentlemen, where Mr. Brady made orders re- 
 quiring the mail to be carried in an impossible time a time that the 
 postmasters, the contractors, and everybody on the route represented 
 to him it was impossible to carry it in and Mr. Brady, in spite of remon- 
 strances, insisted upon that being the schedule time. He sent to the post- 
 masters directions to make a schedule of departures and arrivals which 
 should come within the time he fixed, and they kept sending them back, 
 putting the schedule days longer than he fixed, and telling him it was 
 impossible to do it in the time he said. He repeated right over that it 
 must be done in that time; and, finally, one witness said he got so dis- 
 gusted with Mr. Brady's sending him schedules to fix it within impossible 
 time, that when he used to get these schedules, postmaster as he was, 
 and disrespectful as the conduct was, " I took the thing and threw it 
 into the waste-paper basket, and paid no attention to it." The result was 
 that the mail could not be carried in time. It then became necessary 
 to impose fines for not carrying the mail in time, and to a considerable 
 extent fines were imposed ; but the result was that the unfortunate 
 sub -con tract or who had made a sub-contract with Mr. Dorsey to carry the 
 mail had to pay all the fines and Mr. Dorsey sat here in Washington 
 and received his money net, the result being that in' one or two quarters 
 the unfortunate contractor had to pay the United States practically 
 something for the pleasure of carrying the mail, while Mr. Dorsey sat 
 here in Washington and got several thousand dollars put into his 
 pocket. I have mentioned one route, that is, a route in New Mexico. 
 There is a route in Oregon where substantially the same thing was done ; 
 and as to that route Mr. Brady did wake up to the fact that it was impossi- 
 ble to carry the mail on the time he fixed, certainly in winter, and therefore 
 he made a movable schedule, which he said was the same. In the first 
 place, he paid a large sum for reducing the time for carrying the mail 
 from sixty hours to forty hours. In the winter it was utterly impossible to 
 carry it on that time. In the summer it might possibly have been carried. 
 So he made an amendment of his order, and provided that in winter 
 it should be fifty hours and in summer it should be thirty hours. He 
 said that made an average of forty hours, and therefore he would pay 
 the same amount as he paid before, and he assumed that it was the 
 same thing to the people out there if they got their mail matter in 
 the summer in thirty hours instead of forty, und in the winter in fifty 
 hours instead of forty. 
 
 There is a single instance, possibly two instances, of another class of 
 frauds upon the Government under Mr. Brady's action. There were 
 two routes in Colorado as originally established, one coming from here 
 [indicating on map] and running up to- Lake City and then crossing- 
 over to Ouray. There was another which started from Lake City, went 
 up to Barnum, and out to Los Pjnos [indicating on map]. The 
 route across the mountain was altered by an order so as to go around 
 the mountain instead of across it. It probably was a wise order to 
 make j but you will see that Mr. Brady was paying for carrying the 
 
43 
 
 mail over that route before. That route was a six-times-a-week route. 
 He transferred the other route over precisely the same track, the mail 
 matter on both being carried by the same man, in the same wagon, or 
 on the same horses. The postmasters along the route assumed that 
 there was but one route there, and that, of course, the other had been 
 discontinued, and therefore they only made returns on one route. Mr. 
 Brady sent to them with some indignation to know why they did not 
 make returns upon the other route. One of them sat down and wrote 
 Mr. Brady a long and detailed statement, showing that the mails on 
 the alleged two routes, which were identical in every way, were carried 
 by the same man, upon the same horses, or with the same wagon, as the 
 case might be, and that he could not believe it was possible that the 
 department was going to do so absurd a thing as to pay a man twice 
 over for doing one service. Those letters remained on the files, no at- 
 tention being paid to them for months and years; the double payment 
 continuing, until finally the scandal became so great that it was neces- 
 sary to revoke the order and make only the single payment. 
 
 There were a large number of other orders, petty in their character, 
 and yet significant as showing the spirit which prevailed in the Post- 
 Office Department during the time that Mr. Brady was Second Assistant 
 Postmaster General. For instance, we find this condition of things: 
 On the route from Verm illion to Sioux Falls, after there had been the con- 
 tract made and everything of that sort, there came an order to add 
 Brighton to the route and to give the contractor an additional sum for 
 supplying it. It was a small sum originally, but applying the geomet- 
 rical proportion resulting from expedition, it became at one time a con- 
 siderable sum. But no matter about the size of the sum; the point is 
 that the mail always went directly through Brighton, and it was no 
 addition to the route to supply Brighton ; yet they considered it an ad- 
 dition, and Brady directed that payment should be made for it. A little 
 further on the post-office of Kidder was moved. The moving of that 
 post-office reduced the route three miles. There never was any reduc- 
 tion for the saving thus made. If there was an alleged increase of two 
 miles in the one case it was paid for; if there was an actual decrease 
 of three miles in the other case it was not deducted. 
 
 On the route from Trinidad to Madison we find this condition of 
 things : The route, as originally established, started from Madison and 
 went here [indicating on the map], and then over to Trinidad, which is 
 here [indicating]. Certain parties living up at Eaton petitioned to have 
 mail service given them from that route [indicating], a distance of about 
 seven miles. Instead of making the order, Mr. Brady made an order 
 that this route should be wrenched around and Eaton supplied from it, 
 making the additional distance about twenty- three miles, and he paid 
 for twenty three miles of service instead of paying for seven miles. He 
 supplied the people less directly and less to their satisfaction, and by 
 twisting the route around in that way he made it so long that at the 
 existing rate of speed the mail did not get through in a day. So he 
 had a good excuse for issuing an order for expedition and increasing the 
 speed, and the result was that there was an allowance of two or three 
 thousand dollars, and perhaps more, simply to get the mail through in 
 the day time, when, if he had complied with the request of the peti- 
 tioners and supplied that post-office from the other route, it would have 
 gone through in the day time and the money would have been saved 
 and the people better satisfied. In point of tact, when Mr. Brady went 
 out, that service at Eaton, which cost under him something over three 
 
44 
 
 thousand dollars, was contracted for from the other route at something 
 like two hundred and eighty dollars a year. 
 
 There was another case, in which a post-office called " Agate " was 
 added to a route by a spur on it. They could not get the mail carried 
 for the amount which the law authorized to be paid for carrying that 
 distance, and there never was a single mail carried over that route. 
 Mr. Brady's attention was called to the fact that there never was any 
 mail carried over the route, th%t they could not get it there by any pos- 
 sibility; and yet, under a perversion of a provision in the law which 
 requires that when you discontinue service you shall allow the con- 
 tractor a month's pay for the discontinue service on the ground that 
 you have thereby inflicted some injury upon him, Mr. Brady first or- 
 dered the service on, and left it on a couple of months, paying for the 
 service, though there was none, and though the contractor never went 
 over the route one trip. He then ordered it discontinued on the repre- 
 sentations of the postmaster that there was no mail, and paid the con- 
 tractor the month's extra pay for the injury that had been inflicted 
 upon him by discontinuing a service which he never had performed. 
 
 There is another case on the route from JSilverton to Parrott City. 
 Animas City was alleged to be added to the route, and to extend the 
 route some ten or twelve miles, and for that a very considerable sum 
 was allowed to the contractor. It was a considerable sum originally, 
 and was increased by expedition considerably more. Yet, in point of 
 fact, the mail was all the time carried through Animas City, and the 
 postmasters had notified Mr. Brady constantly that the mail came 
 through Animas City. The official records of the department show that 
 the mail passed from point to point naming them and one of those 
 points was Atrimas City. Yet Mr. Brady, under some pretense, claimed 
 that to include Animas City added ten or twelve miles, and on that ac- 
 count allowed a very considerable sum out of the Treasury. 
 
 There is another case on the route from Toquerville to Adairville, 
 in Utah, where we have this extraordinary condition of things: The 
 terminal post-office at Adairville was discontinued by the Post-Office 
 Department, say, in August, and Mr. Brady was notified of that fact. 
 That took off ten miles at one end of the route, and the mail after that 
 time stopped at Pahreah. Now, what did Mr. Brady do ? He wanted 
 to expedite the speed upon that route, and to allow the contractor a 
 very considerable sum for doing it. Therefore, he made an order expe- 
 diting the service over the entire route, including the ten miles which 
 was practically discontinued because the post-office was abolished, and 
 of which he had notice. He directed that the order expediting the serv- 
 ice take effect over the entire route, and paid for the expedited service. 
 This order was, say, of the 1st of September. Then, four days after- 
 ward, he made an order cutting off the service from Pahreah to Adair- 
 ville, which had, in point of fact, been cut off weeks before, as the 
 records of his own department showed him. Then he allowed the con- 
 tractor a month's extra pay, but reckoned it upon the increased allow- 
 ance caused by the expedition, and not upon the original pay. If he 
 had cut off that end of the route and allowed the month's extra pay 
 before he made the expedition, he would have paid the contractor for 
 the month's extra pay but one or two hundred dollars. He waited until 
 he had made the expedition, though he had the evidence in his office 
 that the route was to be shortened, and then allowed the month's 
 extra pay, and the result was to carry the amount which was allowed 
 the contractor as a bonus up to a thousand dollars, as I recollect it. 
 There was in all these things, gentlemen, an utter disregard of the 
 
45 
 
 interests of the Government. There never was a time, so far as I can. 
 see, and I think we shall satisfy you, when the interests of the govern- 
 ment were considered under Mr. Brady when they came in conflict with 
 the interest of these contractors. In that case every construction was 
 given against the Government and every opportunity embraced to take 
 money out of the Treasury for the benefit of these defendants. 
 
 There is another class of cases: The contractors, as I have said to 
 you, bid very low; on many routes they bid so low that they could not 
 afford to perform the service. So low, as I shall have occasion to show 
 you, that they had to make contracts with others to carry the mail, 
 and to pay more than they were getting from the government. Hav- 
 ing made those contracts, they were bound to commence service on 
 the 1st of July, 1878. If they did not commence service on a route 
 they were liable to be declared failing contractors. A man who becomes 
 a failing contractor upon one route is, under the law and practice of the 
 department, a failing contractor upon all routes, and all the money due 
 him upon any route or that may become due him on any route is taken 
 to supply the deficiency, and he is debarred from any service under the 
 department. Now, several of the routes upon which they bid so low 
 they did not start on the 1st of July, nor for a long time afterward. 
 There were all sorts of excuses. There were, to keep the records 
 straight, threats from Brady that he would declare them failing con- 
 tractors if they did not $tart it. In point of fact, we shall show to you, 
 to your satisfaction, that Mr. Brady stood by and let these contractors 
 fail to perform the service, while they were getting up petitions and all 
 the paraphernalia needed to apparently justify Mr. Brady in making 
 orders for expedition by which he could run up and transform a losing 
 contract into a contract largely profitable; and yet in the mean time 
 they did not perform the service, because it would have been a losing 
 service. In those cases you will bear in mind also, when it comes to the 
 affidavits for expedition, that inasmuch as the contractor had not done 
 a minute's service on the route, his affidavit in which he swears to the 
 number of men and horses then being used, is necessarily a false affi- 
 davit, because there was no number then being used, and Mr. Brady 
 knew from the records of the department that there were none being 
 used. 
 
 Now, gentlemen of the jury, I will pass all this class of frauds, and 
 direct your attention to some other kinds of misconduct which prevailed 
 in connection with this mail service. I wish to avoid repetition as 
 much as possible, but I must do a good deal of it. To seemingly jus- 
 tify Mr. Brady in doing this sort of thing there had to be some- 
 thing as a pretense and as an excuse for it. What was the excuse, gen- 
 tlemen? Petitions! petitions from alleged people living along the 
 routes; petitions gotten up by the contractors; petitions known by 
 Brady to be so gotten up ; petitions transmitted in some cases by Dor- 
 sey, the United States Senator. He was not interested on the record 
 in the matter, but sent a man out himself, with his own letters, to get 
 up petitions and everything of that kind. The work was done, the pe- 
 titions were obtained, and they were sent to Stephen W. Dorsey, the 
 United States Senator, and Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey, this disinterested 
 man, forwarded them to the Second Assistant Postmaster General, with 
 a letter on United States Senate paper, as a disinterested man looking 
 after the interests of some people who were not even his constituents, 
 and saying that these were petitions which had come into his hands 
 and which seemed to make a strong case for expedition, and he hoped 
 it would be granted. Now, as to these petitions, of course we recog- 
 
46 
 
 nize two things : the first is that everybody has a right to petition, and 
 the next is that almost everybody will sign any petition that is thrust 
 in their face. Certainly everybody along any mail route will sign any 
 petition which looks to the idea of an increase of mail service, provided 
 it is not to be done at their expense, but at the expense of somebody 
 else. We would all of us like mail service if we happened not to live 
 in a city. We would like to have the mail come by our door at least 
 two or three times a day, and would deem ourselves perfectly justified 
 in honestly signing a petition urging the Second Assistant Postmaster- 
 General to make arrangements of that kind. We understand perfectly 
 well that the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, when one of those 
 petitions comes to him, if he is an honest and efficient officer, will say: 
 "This seems to me to represent the wishes of the people along the 
 route. They state what they want entirely without regard to the claims 
 of other localities upon the money which Congress has appropriated. 
 Their statement is made without regard to the question as to who is to pay 
 the expense. They are frequently, almost always, without any knowledge 
 of what the increased expense will be. Now I, as an honest Second As- 
 sistant Postmaster-General, will look the field over. I have these peti- 
 tions, which I assume tobe genuine" Lshall show you directly that hehad 
 no business to assume that "and to represent the wishes of the people. 
 Now ought they to be granted? What is the productiveness of this 
 route? What is its character? Through what part of the country 
 does it run ? What is the population there? 'What justification have 
 I for taxing the people of the East to give daily mail service at a high 
 rate of speed along a route in a Western Territory where twenty-one days 
 out of thirty-nine there does not pass a letter over the route ?" I shall 
 show you snch a case as this, gentlemen, and yet there were petitions 
 in favor of expedition on that route. His duty, we submit to you, as an 
 honest Second Assistant Postmaster-General, in view of these petitions, 
 was to look the field over and to decide what ought fairly and properly 
 to be done. He ought to have said with regard to the case I last men- 
 tioned, "This I cannot do; it is absurd to pay $20,000 or $30,000 for 
 increase of either trips or speed when there is no mail matter going 
 over the route ; I cannot do it, it makes no difference who comes to me 
 urging it." It will be contended, and it is undoubtedly a fact, that 
 members of Congress and Senators signed papers urging an increase. 
 They w r ere representing their locality. They were representing the 
 interests of their constituents. But we shall show to you that at least 
 one United States Senator urging such increase was the paid agent of 
 these defendants. 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. Who was that? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I will show you if you dare to put him on the stand. 
 
 [Mr. Chandler made a remark in an undertone which was inaudible 
 to the reporter.] 
 . Mr. BLISS. [To Mr. Chandler.] What do you say ? 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. He says you should give his name. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I have not given the names of any witnesses so far, and 
 I do not propose to pick him out and give his name. He will get noto- 
 riety enough when he comes, if he comes. I simply say we propose to 
 show it. But I will further say that I do not believe he will come. 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER. Was he here before ? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I will not specify him. Senators would come and Mem- 
 bers would come, or they would sign petitions or do something of that 
 sort, and Mr. Brady 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER. [Interposing.] If your honor please, I wish to ask 
 
47 
 
 whether it is proper for Mr. Bliss to go on and argue the case now. 
 We have listened here for at least twenty minutes to an argument pure 
 and' simple as distinct from a statement of the facts which he proposes 
 to prove. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Not at all. 
 
 The COURT. 1 understand this to bean anticipatory statement of the 
 facts. 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER. No, your honor; it is an argument as to what is the 
 duty of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. It is not a state- 
 ment of what Mr. Bliss is going to prove, but it is a statement of what 
 he would do and how he would manage were he himself in this high 
 office it it should ever be his fortune to reach it. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Misfortune. 
 
 Mr. CHAKDLI R. I do not think it is proper for him so to proceed. 
 He is not upon facts. 
 
 The COURT. He is applying the facts which he expects to prove. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. [Resuming.] Then again on the other side, gentlemen, as 
 to petitions, we shall claim to you that while these defendants had a 
 perfect right to get up petitions they had not a right to resort to decep- 
 tion of Government officers in getting them up. They had not a right 
 to direct petitions to be gotten up by one man but not to be in the same 
 form, because that tact might show that it was a mere bogus piece of 
 business. They had not the right to do that. They had a perfect right 
 to represent the case to the Postmaster General and to seek to get 
 from him increase or expedition, iopking out for their own interests as 
 we all do. But they had not the right, unless they wanted to get them- 
 selves into trouble, to go into a system of deception in .connection with 
 these petitions. They had not the right to alter petitions or to present 
 petitions with forged or altered names. Now let me tell you, as to the 
 petitions, that we shall present to you a witness who will tell you of Mr. 
 Brady's declaration that they were a mere sham and pretense, intended 
 to cover and protect him, and 'that was all there was in them. Take 
 for instance the route from Kearney to Kent. On that route we have 
 this remarkable condition of affairs: The people desired an increase of 
 trips. They did not care for an increase of speed. A petition was sent 
 from here by one of these defendants, Miner, I think, for circulation 
 to parties on the route, asking for an increase of trips. The petition 
 was circulated a little, and then by a careless accident an inkstand was 
 upset njjon it which blotted it so badly that the party to whom it was 
 sent would not return it. So he himself wrote, or got a friend to write, 
 another petition, which was a precise copy of the first. That petition 
 contained no word about an increase of speed. It contained only a 
 request for an increase of trips. It was generally signed and sent here 
 and there was obtained upon it the indorsement of a United States 
 Senator. The petition was tiled in the Post Office Department, but be- 
 fore it was filed there was inserted in it in an entirely different handwrit- 
 ing, at the end of a paragraph where there was a blank space on the line, 
 the words, "Ami thirteen hours," so as to make it a petition not only for 
 an increase of trips, but for an increase of speed; yet that alteration 
 would almost stare a blind man in the face, and was obvious to every- 
 body. There was not another paper on iile in the department which 
 said anything about increase of speed except the affidavit of one of 
 these defendants in favor of it and stating the, number of men and 
 horses. There was not a paper of any kind with reference to increase 
 of speed in the department except the affidavit and this altered petition 
 taken by Mr. Brady as his sole authority for ordering an increase of 
 
48 
 
 speed, which took from the Treasury a large number of thousand dollars. 
 We shall place before you the man to whom that petition was sent, the 
 man who wrote the petition to take the place of the blotted paper, the 
 man who returned it here. We will place before you some of the people 
 who signed it. All will say to you that there never was on that peti- 
 tion, up to the time it was sent here to one of these defendants, a sug- 
 gestion of any increase of speed that the words were added here by one 
 of these defendants. I think we shall be able to show you who added 
 them. We shall be uncharitable enough, gentlemen, in that connection 
 to ask you to believe that if the petition originally sent West had not 
 been so destroyed by being blotted, but had come back here, the words 
 "And thirteen hours," if added, would have been added in the hand- 
 writing of the petition and the ear-marks of the fraud would not be so 
 obvious. 
 
 There are other routes upon which the same sort of business was 
 done. There are petitions where the words u faster time" are inter- 
 lined and various things of that sort more or less obvious upon them, 
 all either over erasures or in different and easily distinguishable hand- 
 writing. In one case we shall show you this: There were two routes, 
 one from Mineral Park to Pioche, the route over which there. were no 
 letters passing, as I have already told you, and the other from Min- 
 eral Park to Ehrenberg. Both routes terminated at Mineral Park. 
 Mr. Brady ordered expedition on both of those routes, and lie ordered 
 it upon petitions which bear on their face the evidence that they were 
 not prepared for use as applicable to those routes. The terminus of 
 the route and the territory in which it is situated are altered on each of 
 those petitions and the signatures to the petitions are the same. The 
 petitioners state that they get mail matter along that route. The names 
 are identical. And yet the fifty or sixty names I believe you will be 
 satisfied from inspection were all written by not exceeding six or seven 
 persons. The same names are on both petitions, both petitions are 
 altered, and both petitions are so altered that the most casual examina- 
 tion will indicate that they could not have been intended to apply to 
 the route to which they are made to apply. Mr. Brady used both of 
 those petitions as his basis for making orders which took from the 
 Treasury large sums of money for expedition. And that, gentlemen, 
 ought to dispose of the subject of petitions. Why, there is not "cover" 
 enough in them to protect Brady in an indictment for indecent exposure. 
 
 As to these petitions, there are some other things that I desire to call 
 to your attention. The route from Bismarck to Tongue Kiver runs 
 through the region where General Ouster was killed. It was 301 
 miles long, and over the whole length there was not a person living; 
 there was not a cabin. The Indians roamed over it so freely that 
 after Mr. Miner had entered into a contract to run the route for $2,350 
 a year, which was very much less than the work could be done for, 
 he came in and filed all sorts of petitions to show that it was impos- 
 sible to run the mail over the route without a company of soldiers to 
 protect the mail carrier from Indians ; that there was no mail matter 
 and no necessity for the route anyway; yet, within sixty days after- 
 wards, this same Mr. Miner w r as coming in with affidavits alleging that 
 the country was so full of people, that they were so intelligent, and that 
 they wanted mail facilities so much that there was great need for expe- 
 dition and increase; and I think before he got through he ran the orig- 
 inal sum of $2,350 a year up to $70,000 a year. When they commenced 
 on that route they had to send a party out to build their stations. They 
 employed a man whom we shall place before you, a sturdy, respectable, 
 
49 
 
 and well-to-do contractor of considerable means and large experience^ 
 to go over the route with a party of twelve or fifteen men and build a 
 station every seventeen miles. They sent there to superintend the 
 business at different times John W. Dorsey and Mr. Eerdell. Mr. Eer- 
 dell, as the representative of these parties, went to the contractor, Mr. 
 Peunell, and said to him, "I want you to take your gang of men and 
 have them sign a petition stating that they are residents of a town or 
 settlement which is some forty or fifty miles north of our line, and that 
 they want mail service from their residence down to our line, and rec- 
 ommend that one of your gang be made the postmaster at this suppo- 
 sititious place, and we will get an order to have the service put on and 
 will get pay for it." The contractor was too honest a man to do any- 
 thing of that kind, but the proposition shows what these parties were 
 doing and how they were getting up petitions. 
 
 We shall show to you, gentlemen, on one route a petition for an in- 
 crease of service in Oregon, which petition occupies half a sheet of fools- 
 cap paper, coming down to within three or four lines of the end of the 
 paper. There are then some three or four names, and then there are 
 pasted on to it several sheets of signatures of people. We shall show 
 to you that every one of those signers lived in Utah, more than a thou- 
 sand miles from this route, and had no connection with it in any way, 
 but that the names pasted on to that petition were signed for an entirely 
 different purpose, and being in the petition mill of these contractors 
 they were undoubtedly taken from the heading where they were origi- 
 nally placed, attached to this piece of paper, and made to do service as 
 a petition of citizens living along the Oregon route, recommending ex- 
 pedition and increase of service, when in point of fact none of the men 
 lived within a thousand miles of the route. I doubt whether any of the 
 signers ever heard of either terminus or of any post-office on the route. 
 We shall show you another case where the petition that came here 
 was a petition asking for a reduction to thirty-six hours as the sched- 
 ule time, and yet that the affidavit of the contractor is an affidavit, 
 looking to a reduction to twenty-six hours; and we shall show you that 
 Mr. Brady promptly made the order reducing the time to twenty-six 
 hours, and providing for the paying of a large sum of money into the 
 contractor's pocket by the reduction. When the order got out into the 
 locality the postmasters, contractors, and everybody said "this cannot 
 be intended; we do not want a tweiity-six-hour schedule; it is an ab- 
 surdity ; we have not asked for it ; it does not improve our connections 
 or benefit us at all ; there must have been some mistake of a copyist or 
 something of that sort." So they performed the service in thirty-six 
 hours for weeks, thinking they were doing everything they ought to do, 
 but they finally found out that Mr. Brady, in the beneficence of his 
 generosity, had chosen to reduce the service over the route ten hours 
 less than any petition had asked for, and that the only man who ever 
 mentioned the time of twenty-six hours as desired upon that route was 
 the contractor here in Washington, who made affidavits as to the num- 
 ber of men and horses that would be needed to carry the mail in twenty- 
 six hours, and yet who had no knowledge on the subject. I may say in 
 passing that the affidavit was a gross misstaternent. 
 
 Now, Mr. Brady did not do these things ignorantly. He did them 
 after remonstrance in many cases. For instance, on the route from 
 Pueblo to Eosita Mr. Brady was informed by a Mr. Magrue on the 30th 
 of August, 1878, that a petition was being circulated for three trips; 
 that the mail did not go over that Eosita route, and that it went by 
 railroad. On the following 17th of March the postmaster at Green- 
 
 4GB 
 
50 
 
 wood, the only intermediate station, advised the discontinuance of the 
 service on the route, on the ground that the mail could be carried 
 quicker and better in another way. Yet, on the 8th of July, 1879, 
 three months after the remonstrance of the postmaster, Mr. Brady, 
 in disregard of this notice, and disregarding the suggestion that 
 Ihe route be abandoned entirely, increased the trips from one to six 
 times a week, and reduced the time from fifteen hours to ten hours, 
 increasing the pay, which was originally $388, to $8,148. That is the 
 route on which I told you that the subcontractor, by his contract on file, 
 was to perform the service for $3,100, for which Mr. Brady, in spite of 
 the remonstrance of the postmaster, had agreed to pay $8,148, and the 
 isubcontractor had so good a thing of it that he let it out to somebody 
 else for $2,600. Mr. Brady insisted on paying the contractors on tfyis 
 Toute about $6,000 for doing nothing. 
 
 On the 8th of May, 1880, the postmaster at Greenwood, by this time 
 another man there had been a change in the office advised the dis- 
 continuance of the service on that route, and stated that in so advising 
 he had the concurrence of the postmasters at Eosita and at Pueblo, 
 which offices were all the offices upon the line, and that the route be 
 supplied in a different way. Mr. Brady not only paid no attention to 
 that advice, but I think he went on and made a further increase upon 
 the route. 
 
 On route 38135, from Saint Charles to Greenhorn, the postmaster at 
 Pueblo called attention to the fact that the route as advertised ended 
 at a pump ; that there was no town and no reason for its ending where it 
 did ; and that the proper terminus of the route should be Pueblo. Mr. 
 Brady's attention was called to that fact before the contract was let ; was 
 called to it by one of his own post-office inspectors. He went on and let 
 the contract to Saint Charles, and then there was a temporary arrange- 
 ment made by which they got the mail from Pueblo to Saint Charles. 
 Then Mr. Brady extended the service to Pueblo ; but after he had extend- 
 ed it the route w^s just as long as it was advertised at. He had not 
 lengthened it a particle. The mistake had been made in the advertise- 
 ment. By some mistake or other they had inserted Saint Charles when 
 they should have inserted Pueblo, though they gave the correct distance 
 to Pueblo. Yet Mr. Brady added twelve miles, I think it was an 
 alleged twelve miles, a fictitious twelve miles to that route from Saint 
 Charles to Pueblo, gave the contractor for carrying the mail an increased 
 allowance on that twelve miles, made that increased allowance largely 
 more than his own records showed the mail was being carried for over 
 those twelve miles under a temporary service. And then having done 
 that, and having got his route well extended to Pueblo and got it in 
 good shape for expedition, he made an order for expedition and gave to 
 the contractor a large sum of money for making expedition, and then 
 arranged a schedule by which the mails arrived at Pueblo (Pueblo being 
 a large railroad station) just after the trains left, and they laid over 
 there a good many more hours than he had saved time by his pretended 
 expedition. 
 
 On the route from Ojo Galiente to Parrott City I have already called 
 your attention to the fact that Mr. Brady insisted upon having a sched- 
 ule of impossible time when his postmasters told him it could not be 
 done in that time. He insisted upon having it done. 
 
 On the route from Eawlins to White River, in Wyoming, the post- 
 master at White Eiver, on the 22d of January, 1879, wrote to him saying 
 that the time of five days ought to be made 66 hours in winter and 56 
 hours in summer. Yet on the 1st of May, 1879, four or five months after- 
 
51 
 
 -wards, Mr. Brady, in the face of the recommendation of the postmaster 
 -at the principal office, reduced the time to 45 hours, less than two days, 
 though the postmaster had written him that the existing time ought to 
 foe lengthened to six days in winter and five days, in summer. 
 
 On the route from Verinillion to Sioux Falls this thing occurred. 
 The route had been let as fifty miles long when, in fact, it was seventy- 
 five miles long. That was a mistake. The original schedule was four- 
 teen hours. Mr. Brady reduced it to ten hours and allowed $3,680 in 
 -consequence of the reduction. That made ten hours in which to go 
 seventy-five miles, and there being ten post-offices on the route, and 
 each postmaster being entitled to detain the carrier seven minutes, the 
 result was that they were obliged to make seventy-five miles in less 
 than nine hours, which is pretty good time as we should all think. On 
 the 15th of December, 1879, every postmaster on the route advised 
 that the time should be extended to sixteen hours. They sent that pe- 
 tition to Judge Bennett, the representative of the Territory in Congress, 
 the man who stood in the position which it will be urged to you was all- 
 powerful with Brady a Congressman or a Senator 5 and it will be 
 claimed that their recommendation was conclusive. Judge Bennett 
 sent that remonstrance of the postmasters, requesting that it be made 
 sixteen hours, to the Post-Office Department, and Mr. Brady indorsed 
 upon it in his own handwriting 
 
 " WRITE JUDGE B. IT CANNOT BE DONE." 
 
 That was the sole answer he gave to the representations of the people 
 out there 
 
 " WRITE JUDGE B. IT CANNOT BE DONE." 
 
 Except that he added 
 
 "It would be unjust to the other bidders." 
 
 What that injustice might be I cannot understand. That it would 
 be unjust to anybody I cannot see, unless there might have been a little 
 injustice in taking from the contractors an increased sum which they 
 were receiving for expedition when they had already expended a large 
 portion of that sum in paying the necessary expenses in the Post-Office 
 Department for getting the expedition. There might have been in a 
 certain sense a little injustice there, but it was not an injustice which 
 concerned the public. 
 
 On the route from Toquerville to Adairville, in Utah, the original 
 schedule of sixty hours was, by an order made the 8th of July, reduced 
 to thirty-three hours. All the petitions asked for forty-eight hours. 
 No one of them asked for thirty-three hours. There is no evidence of 
 thirty-three hours being desired by anybody, except in the affidavit of 
 the contractor. There is not a syllable in any petition asking for thirty- 
 three hours. The postmaster at one of the chief towns on the route, on 
 the 21st of December, 1879, advised a return to sixty hours, and in the 
 following March all the postmasters on the route advised a return to 
 sixty hours, and Mr. Brady paid no attention whatever to it, but con- 
 tinued on with this service not desired by the people in the locality. 
 That, gentlemen, by the way, was the route on which, as I told you, he 
 insisted upon making his order for expedition just before he made his 
 order cutting off ten miles from the end of the route in order to give the 
 contractor the extra sum. 
 
 There are other cases. I think I have already referred to a case 
 where in spite of the law, which says that no order for increased serv- 
 ice shall be antedated so as to take effect before it is made, Mr. Brady, 
 in direct opposition to that, made an order which was antedated and 
 took large sums of money from the Treasury. Moreover, the petitions 
 
52 
 
 asked for an increase of service or expedition only upon a portion of 
 that route, and they denned that portion. The petitions asked for an 
 increase on a portion of the route, and they gave good reasons why 
 they wanted it only on a portion. In the progress of time a railroad 
 had been built, so that if they could have an increase over the portion 
 of the route simply between the station of the railroad and a promi- 
 nent place beyond they would save time and gain a good deal in the 
 reception of their mail matter. The petitions asked only an increase 
 on that portion of the route. Mr. Brady used those petitions as his 
 alleged authority for ordering an increase on the whole route. He- 
 ordered an increase on the whole route, I think, nearly two hundred 
 miles long, when the petitions asked for an increase only upon about 
 sixty or seventy miles. 
 
 Now, gentlemen of the jury, all this class of frauds which I have 
 stated to you we expect to prove, and prove by witnesses who will not 
 and cannot be contradicted. We also propose to call your attention, 
 gentlemen of the jury, to some facts in connection with those things- 
 which will show to you that this business was a prearranged matter; 
 that it was not an accidental thing. We shall show to you on route 
 after route that when these parties went out onto the route at the com- 
 mencement of the service, they stated to parties with whom they were 
 arranging for subcontracts, and so forth, that the trips would be in- 
 creased, that the speed would be increased. They specified precisely 
 what would be done. They told how many trips would be added. 
 They told how much the speed would be increased, and they told within 
 what time it would be increased, and the result showed that they told 
 correctly. We shall show to you this : That affidavits for increase were 
 made which referred to the precise time which was subsequently 
 allowed by Mr. Brady's order, and those affida dts upon their face were 
 sworn to months before there was ever a petition started or ever any 
 suggestion made of an increase upon the route, when the idea of an in- 
 crease rested only in the minds of these parties. They armed them- 
 selves with affidavits, and in those affidavits they were able to fix the 
 preciee time which, when petitions came to Brady subsequently, upon 
 the alleged faith of which he acted, he ordered to be put into practice. 
 Even when the petitions asked for thirty-six hours, the affidavit made 
 beforehand, dated beforehand, asked for twenty-six hours, they were 
 able then, way back before this thing had been stirred, in some way or 
 other to say, that Mr. Brady would like to know how many men and 
 horses would be necessary to carry the mail in twenty-six hours, and 
 they made their affidavits stating how many would be necessary to make 
 that time. We shall ask you, gentlemen, from that condition of things 
 and some others of that sort to draw the inference, from which there 
 does not seem to be any escape, that this whole matter was prearranged. 
 
 We shall show to you, gentlemen of the jury, that on many of these 
 routes they paid at the outset more than they got from the Govern- 
 ment, and we do not suppose it will be claimed that these defendants 
 were such patriotic citizens, that the humble mechanic from Ver- 
 mont came down here and went into the mail service for the pur- 
 pose of paying out to some subcontractor more money than he got 
 from the Government, and that he did it for the purpose of relieving 
 the Government from the burdens under which it was laboring. W T e 
 shall show to you, for instance, that on the route from Pueblo to 
 Eosita they got only $388. They originally made a contract with the 
 subcontractor by which they were compelled to pay him $700 for car- 
 rying the mail, and yet they were rewarded for their bread cast upon 
 
53 
 
 the waters. For Mr. Brady promptly came to their assistance and car' 
 :ried the original sum of $388 up to $8,148, and thus transformed a 
 losing contract into one which was largely profitable. On the route 
 from Silverton to Parrott City we shall show to you that Mr. John W. 
 Dorsey received from the United States for carrying the mail $1,488; 
 that he made a contract by which he agreed to pay $2,280 to somebody 
 -else for doing that thing for him, and that he was therefore losing 
 money at a pretty fair rate for a man not a very heavy capitalist ; but 
 he got himself even very soon, for Mr. Brady proceeded to run up his 
 $1,488 to $14,870.01. And you will bear in mind that in no case does it 
 appear, I think, that a subcontractor performing the service ever got 
 more than about 65 per cent, of the increased sum allowed for expedi- 
 tion. So that this increase which Mr. Brady made, carrying it up from 
 $1,488 to $14,870.01, redounded largely to the benefit of the contractor, 
 Mr. Dorsey. There is the route from Eugene City to Bridge Creek, in 
 Oregon. Mr. Peck, Mr. Dorsey *s brother-in-law, was the contractor 
 there. He was not quite so liberal. He got from the Government 
 $2,468, and he agreed to pay $2,700 for carrying the mail, and was 
 therefore at a loss of about $250. But Mr. Brady promptly came to 
 his assistance and carried up the sum which the Government paid to 
 Peck from $2,468 to $21,460.89. The route from Mineral Park to Pioche 
 was let at $2,982. John W. Dorsey went out there and made an 
 arrangement by which he agreed to pay $4,700 for doing what the 
 Government paid him only $2,982 for doing. But he made at the same 
 time a contract with the subcontractor by which, on an increase, 
 the subcontractor who was to do all the service was to get $12,600, 
 but Mr. Dorsey was to get on the increase $9,700 net. The subcon- 
 tractor was to pay all the flues and deductions, and Mr. Dorsey was to 
 get $9,700 net, and after he got away from Wyoming, I think it was, he 
 wrote a letter to his subcontractor in which, in goiug over the terms, 
 he told him what a good thing he would have on an increase, and said 
 to him that it was " the most liberal trade that he had made with any 
 subcontractor since he left home." A trade by which he got $9,700 net for 
 doing nothing, where the contractor was to get $12,600 for carrying 
 the mails, and a trade on a route where at the time the contractor was 
 being paid $4,700 and Mr. Dorsey was getting from the Government 
 only $2,900. On the route from Kawlius to White River the contractor 
 
 fot from the Government $ 1,700. He arranged to pay the subcontractor 
 2,500 a net loss of $800, but he promptly covered himself, for he got 
 from Mr. Brady orders for expedition and increase under which he, the 
 contractor, got $8,600 for doing nothing, and the subcontractor $5,100 
 for doing the service; and by and by there came a further increase, so 
 that the Government was paying for a service which started at $1,700 a 
 year no less than $31,981.25 a year. I shall ask you to infer, gentlemen, 
 that these contractors did not go into this business of carry ing these mails 
 with the intention of being at a loss, and that they had some under- 
 standing or arrangement by which they knew that after they got the 
 contracts well made, in some cases before the service was commenced, 
 they could get an expedition or an increase of service which would run 
 up the sums coming to them largely, and it would convert what was 
 a small, losing contract into a large, profitable one. 
 
 On the route from Bismarck to Fort Keogh, as showing the absolute 
 ecessity of belief that they had some prearraugement, we shall show 
 ou this condition of things: Mr. Miner's contract gave him from the 
 Government for the aggregate of the four years during which the con- 
 tract was to continue, $9,500. To perform the service on the original 
 
54 
 
 schedule time there had to be stations built for changing horses and 
 stabling horses once in thirty-five miles. The route was 301 miles long. 
 They set to work and at the very outset made a contract with a man, 
 whom we shall place before you, under which they arranged to have 
 stations for changing horses every seventeen miles. They built their 
 stations there, and when asked why they did it, said that when they 
 came to increase the service they should have to change horses every 
 seventeen miles, and that they were going to have an increase of service 
 and wanted to arrange for it ; and they built those stations at every^ 
 seventeen miles. When the service first commenced they used only 
 every other station. In building stations, and for things other than the 
 horses used on the route, they spent $6,000, though the aggregate 
 amount that they were to receive under the contract in the whole four- 
 years was only $9,500, and this was a trackless prairie. They spent 
 $6,000 for building their stations, but their faith was rewarded, for their 
 $2,350 was shortly carried up by Brady to $70,000. That route, gentle- 
 men, is the route upon which they proposed to the contractor, Mr. Pen- 
 nell, to get up this bogus petition to be signed by his party of people.. 
 I have a memorandum here of something else in connection with that 
 route, to which I desire to call your attention. 
 
 On that route John W. Dorsey, the same man who made those incon- 
 sistent oaths sworn to on the same day, to which I have already called 
 your attention, went out there and got the route in operation when the 
 pay was only $2,350. John E. Miner was the contractor. John W_ 
 Dorsey went out there to set the route in operation. M. C. Rerdell, an- 
 other of the defendants, went with him or joined him there. He wanted 
 Mr. Pennell, the contractor, whom we shall place before you, to become 
 a partner on that route and to take a half interest in it. Early in 
 July, 1878, he made him that proposition, and he told Mr. Pennell 
 that there would be an increase of not less than $25,000; that 
 he had a brother in Washington who would help it through; that 
 there would surely be two increases inside of a year; that the 
 second increase would be to six or seven trips a week, and that the 
 time would be reduced to sixty-five hours. That conversation, gentle- 
 men, occurred early in July, 1878, and on the 4th of October, 1878, there- 
 was an increase of trips, and the time was reduced to precisely the time 
 that John W. Dorsey said it would be sixty-five hours and there 
 was allowed for that $27,950. He told Pennell that there would be an 
 increase of at least $25,000. Brady saw it, and went him $3,000 better. 
 He wanted Pennell to go into partnership with him, furnish the money r 
 and run the route, and he mentioned as the reason why he should da 
 so that there would be this increase, and that what would be obviously 
 a losing route would become a paying route. Mr. Pennell did not be- 
 lieve this condition of things, or if he did believe it he did not want to* 
 have anything to do with a matter which on its face seemed of such 
 doubtful propriety, and he did not go into it. He was told there would 
 be two orders in the year and $25,000 increase. One of the orders was 
 made on the 24th of October, 1878, within three months after, making 
 the increase to two trips, and reducing it to the precise time to which 
 Mr. Dorsey said it would be reduced. But Mr. Dorsey did not quite 
 come to time on his second order. He was going to have his two orders 
 within a year. The conversation occurred early in July, 1878, and it 
 was not until the 2d of August, 1879, that Mr. Dorsey came round with 
 his second order. But he got these two orders ; he got just the increase 
 that he said he was going to get, and he got them from Mr. Brady. 
 That conversation occurred in July, 1878, at the very time when John 
 
55 
 
 W. Dorsey and M. C. Rerdell were out there making arrangements for 
 putting on the service. Mr. Miner was, by his agents here, putting into 
 the Post-Office Department affidavits to show that there was no ground 
 for any mail service at all upon that route; that there were no post- 
 offices, no inhabitants except the Indians, and that no mail could be 
 run over that route unless every carrier was accompanied by a company 
 of soldiers. That conversation occurred out there with John W. Dorsey 
 at about the same time that Miner at this end of the route was making 
 that kind of a statement. The fact is shown that they had taken that 
 route at greatly less than it could be run. They had got to get rid of 
 a loss in one way or the other. They could not get rid of it by get- 
 ting it discontinued. They could then get Pennell or some man out 
 there to be fool enough to go into it with them, or they could go in and 
 get expedition ; and when they had to run the route, owing to the in- 
 sistence and urgency of the Delegate from Dakota, there was no remedy 
 for them to save themselves and to make their profits except by getting 
 these two increases that Dorsey said they would get, and getting this 
 reduction that Dorsey said he would have. 
 
 At this point (1 o'clock p. m.) the court took a recess for half an hour 
 
 AFTER RECESS. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. [Resuming.] I was calling your attention, gentlemen, at 
 the adjournment, to some of the evidence which we should present to 
 you, showing pre-arraugement in this matter, and I had called your at- 
 tention to the circumstances connected with the route from Bismarck 
 to Fort Keogh. I now pass for the moment to the route from Kearney 
 to Kent. That is the route upon which the petition, altered to thirteen 
 hours, was presented. But it is to another phase of it that I desire now 
 to direct your attention. The earliest papers on that route that reached 
 the department, looking either to increase of trips or increase of speed, 
 reached there on the 30th of April, 1879. All the other papers in the 
 case got there in May. As early as the first day of February, 1879, 
 Mr. Peck, the contractor, out in New Mexico, had somehow or other 
 found out that thirteen hours was to be the precise time to which the 
 schedule was to be reduced, and he had made his affidavit of the num- 
 ber of men and horses that would be required on a time of thirteen 
 hours. In other words he knew, before any paper came to the depart- 
 ment, and there never was any paper in the department relating to 
 thirteen hours, except that altered petition, and that altered petition 
 was not sent here until the 13th of April, 1879 and yet on the first 
 day of February, 1879, in New Mexico, Mr. Peck knew that thirteen 
 hours was the time that Mr. Brady was going to order. 
 
 On route 44140 from Eugene City to Bridge Creek, the same Peck, on 
 the 22d of January, 1879, made his oath referring to a schedule of fifty 
 hours three times a week. He transmitted it in a proposal which re- 
 ferred to a schedule of sixty hours. That paper did not get on file till 
 into April, and in April for the first time did any paper looking to expe- 
 dition appear on file. Those were papers asking for 100 hours ; no one of 
 them referred to fifty or sixty hours ; and though Mr. Peck's oath, made 
 on the 22d of January, speaks of fifty hours, and though fifty hours was 
 the time fixed by Brady in his order dated the 22d of June, 1879, there 
 was not a paper on file in the department, either before or after Mr. 
 
56 
 
 Peck made his oath way back in January, which looked to any such 
 period of time. But Mr. Brady made his order that fitted Peck's affidavit 
 made in the preceding January. 
 
 On the route from Toquerville to Adairville, Peck made his oath on 
 the 22d of January, 1879, asking for seven trips and thirty-three hours. 
 The petitions asking for expedition were not received until the 25th of 
 June. The order was made on the 8th of July. The petitions asked 
 for forty-eight hours, There is not a paper that asks for anything 
 smaller than forty-eight hours. Mr. Peck's oath, made the 22d of Jan- 
 uary, looked to thirty-three hours, and Mr. Brady's order, made on the 
 8th of July, is an order for thirty-three hours. 
 
 On route 38156, from Silverton to Parrott City, Mr. John W. Dorsey 
 made his oath on the 21st of April, 1879. He transmitted it on the 
 5th of May, 1879. It refers to a schedule of fifteen hours and seven 
 trips. Of the papers on file, a letter dated April 24, three days after 
 the date of Dorsey's oath, says, u a daily service and fast time." One 
 of the 5th of May says, u daily service and faster time." One on the 
 25th of April says, "three trips and faster time." One on the 26th of 
 April says, " daily and faster time ; " there being, as you will perceive, 
 in these papers no reference to any particular time. Three trips is men- 
 tioned, but usually only " faster time" or "fast time." Dorsey, on the 
 5th of May, 1879, made his affidavit for fifteen hours and seven trips. 
 Dorsey having made his affidavit on the 5th of May, 1879, for fifteen 
 hours, on the 12th of June, 1879, Brady makes his order for a fifteen- 
 hour schedule, when there is not a paper on file that specifies fifteen 
 hours in any manner. How did Dorsey happen to hit upon the figure 
 of fifteen hours ? The then existing schedule was thirty-three hours. 
 Brady reduced the thirty-seven hours to fifteen hours on the 12th of 
 June, 1879, and that was the precise figure that John W. Dorsey had 
 selected from the whole schedule of thirty -seven hours down, on the 
 21st of April, 1879, as that to which the reduction was to be made. 
 
 On route 44155, from Dalles to Baker City, Peck made the oath on 
 the 15th of December, 1878, and specified seventy-two hours. The 
 schedule then was 120 hours. The order was made on the 29th of 
 October following, and was for seventy-two hours. The petitions 
 naming that time are dated at the end of September. They did not 
 reach the department until the 20th or 23d of October. On the 23d of 
 October the order was made, and yet those petitions and the orders 
 specified the precise time, seventy-two hours, which Mr. Peck had in 
 his affidavit fixed way back in December, 1878, nearly ten months pre- 
 viously. 
 
 On route 38113, from Kawlins to White Kiver, Mr. M. C, Rerdell, one 
 of these defendants, wrote on the 8th of February, 1881 : 
 
 I can get the increase to six or seven trips if you will send me petitions so as to 
 liave them here before the 4th of March. 
 
 You will bear in mind that General Garfield was to come into office 
 on the 4th of March, and Mr. Brady's tenure of office as Second Assist- 
 ant Postmaster-General was not likely to be very permanent after that 
 time. 
 
 I can get the increase to six or seven trips if you will send petitions so as to have 
 them here before the 4th of Marcb. 
 
 They did not get here quite on time. I shall show you how they were 
 got up. They got here on the 5th of March, and on the 8th of March, 
 Mr. Brady being still Second Assistant Postmaster-General, but Thomas 
 L. James having become Postmaster-General, Mr. Brady made an 
 
57 
 
 order for an increase to seven trips, precisely what Mr. Kerdell said 
 he could get if he got the petitions. They were filed on the 5th, and, 
 as I say, on the 8th Brady made the order. That order was entered 
 upon the journal of the department as all proceedings of the depart- 
 ment are. At the end of the day the journal is brought to the Post- 
 master-General for signature. The last order of the day put on there 
 was this order that Mr. Brady had made, that the trips should be in- 
 creased to seven and a large allowance made for it. Mr. James saw it. 
 He directed that that order should be revoked. The clerk to whom he 
 gave the direction conveyed that information to Mr. Brady. Mr. Brady 
 came to Mr. James and wanted 1o know if that was to be the policy of 
 his administration of the Post-Office Department. Mr. James told him 
 it was. Mr. Brady left. Mr. James supposed that that order had been 
 revoked, and it was not until way down in August, afte'r Mr. Brady 
 had been compelled to leave the Post-Office Department, that it was by 
 accident discovered that Mr. Brady had left that order uurevoked, and 
 that there had been drawn from the Treasury thousands of dollars on 
 the basis of that order which Mr. Brady had thus made upon petitions 
 which Mr. Eerdell said he must have here before Mr. James could be- 
 come Postmaster-General, and which Mr. Brady had made, and which 
 Mr. Brady had taken care not to revoke. 
 
 On the route from Ojo Caliente in New Mexico to Animas City, just 
 prior to the 30th of April, 1879, an order was made increasing the serv- 
 ice to three trips. Mr. S. W. Dorsey on that day wrote to the contractor 
 saying that he expected to get it made daily as early as July, giving a 
 further increase of trips. He did not succeed quite in his anticipations, 
 but in the following February he succeeded in getting it made daily; 
 and in that same connection the firm of Miner, Peck & Co., composed 
 of Mr. Miner, Mr. Peck, and more or less of these other parties who 
 were interested in the contract, wrote a letter, which we shall show to 
 you, in which in a somewhat significant way they say they do not make 
 any boast of "being solid" with anybody, but they can get what is 
 reasonable. Mr. John W. Dorsey told one of the subcontractors out in 
 Utah that he had influence in Washington by which they could get done 
 what they wanted, and he specified various people, including some of 
 these defendants. 
 
 On route 38140, from Trinidad to Madison, the only paper on file, 
 when Mr. Brady made his order for expedition, which asked anything, 
 was a paper written by a gentleman in New York who had formerly 
 been prominent in Colorado. It asked only for faster time and three 
 times a week; but yet there was there the same foreknowledge of the 
 contractor, because long before that time and before Brady made his 
 order the contractor made an affidavit for precisely the same time that 
 Mr. Brady subsequently ordered. 
 
 Another class of evidence showing the understanding that must have 
 existed we will show to you in the form of subcontract which they had 
 printed. These defendants had printed a form of subcontract which 
 was the first of that form that people concerned in the post office busi- 
 ness and of large experience in post-office business had ever seen. They 
 put into it an express provision providing for cases of expedition and 
 increase of service that might subsequently be made. They arranged 
 with the subcontractor to carry the mail tor so much. They put into 
 their contracts a provision as to how much he was to have for increased 
 service and how much he was to have for increased speed. So far, I 
 think, as relates to increased service that clause in the subcontract was 
 not unusual. So far as it relates to a provision for expedition that 
 
58 
 
 clause was unusual, never having been known by any of the people con- 
 cerned in the post-office business. And you will see that that must Ijave 
 been the case when I remind you that during nearly five years of the 
 postal service preceding Mr. Brady's entrance upon the business there 
 never had been, all told, over twenty cases of expedition, and therefore 
 it was not likely that there should be put into any printed form of sub- 
 contract any provision upon the subject. But when, on the 1st of July r 
 1878, these parties took these contracts and set about carrying out 
 their scheme the first thing they did was to prepare and print a sub- 
 contract which contains this provision as to future expedition. 
 
 Now, as to another feature of this thing. These parties bid expressly 
 as we say, with reference to routes which could be expedited. They 
 bid upon routes which were advertised at a low rate of speed, so that 
 there was room for expedition. They bid upon routes with only a small 
 number of trips a week, so that there was room for an increase of trips ^ 
 and then having got contracts on such bids as those, they went in and 
 got the expedition and the increase of trips. Leaving out, for the mo- 
 ment, the matter of their bids, and taking only the contracts which 
 they got, of 134 routes upon which they got contracts, 98 were route* 
 upon which the service advertised for was only one trip a week; 24 
 were routes upon which contracts were advertised for at two trips, and 
 12 were contracts at three trips per week. They obtained 134 con- 
 tracts, and on these 134 contracts their trips were increased, or speed 
 was increased, in 68 different cases. Upon 29 of the routes it is true 
 that at some period of time there were slight reductions made by cutting 
 off some portion of the route; but while the aggregate increase on the 
 68 routes amounted to $750,000 on a bidding of $41,000, the aggregate 
 decrease amounted only to $2,452. That took place upon 29 routes, and 
 upon those 29 routes, while there was a decrease in that amount of 
 $2,452, there was either preceding it or succeeding it an increase of a 
 good deal more than the decrease. The result is that on 20 of their 
 contracts which remained diminished in a sum amounting in the aggre- 
 gate to less than $20,000, it was a diminution simply by cutting off some 
 portion of the route usually, because railroads had come in and put an 
 end to star service. But they gained on 69 routes $750,000. I have 
 stated, now, what the condition of things was as to the routes which 
 were awarded to them. In their bidding they bid on 281 routes where 
 the service was once a week; on 159 routes where the service was twice 
 a week; on 121 routes on which the service was three times a week; on 
 22 on which it was six times a week, and 1 on which it was seven times 
 a week. They did not get any of the service upon the routes where the 
 trips were frequent, undoubtedly, because upon those routes where 
 there was no room for increase of trips or expedition they bid higher 
 than other bidders. On the routes which they did get they got them 
 because they were the lowest bidders, and they bid lowest, as we shall 
 ask you to believe from the evidence, because they had a prearrange- 
 ment, an understanding, by which their low bids were to be run up to a 
 profitable sum. 
 
 Mr. Brady made, or there were made and I think in this statement 
 all of them were made by Mr. Brady, but it is possible that in that 
 respect some of them were made by his chief clerk as applicable to 
 their 134 contracts during the year 1878 alone (the contracts did not 
 take effect until the 1st of July, 1878), 66 separate orders increasing the 
 pay of these defendants. In the year 1879 there were made 72 more 
 orders increasing the pay of these defendants. Those are the two first 
 years, or the first year and a half, of their contracts. 
 
59 
 
 There are, gentlemen, one or two other things to which I may as well 
 call your attention before I pass from this branch of the case, as indi- 
 cating acts of these defendants showing that they were engaged in 
 some disreputable proceedings in connection with the department. 
 
 On route 44160, from Canyon City to Fort McDermott : On the 15th 
 of April, 1881, John E. Miner, one of these defendants, wrote a letter, 
 which letter was upon the paper of u The Northern Overland Mail 
 Company," or something of that sort, which described another of these 
 defendants, Mr. Vaile, as the^president, and Mr. Miner as its secretary f 
 which letter, in substance, says that "he finds out by accident that one 
 S. H. Abbott, " who was postmaster at a little place on that route called 
 Alvord," has written to the department that you do not pay your bills, 
 and that there is no use of having a weekly mail." Now that was on, 
 the route where they ran it up from one trip a week at $2,888, and it 
 went to six trips a week at $50,166, and here was this postmaster writ- 
 ing that there was no necessity for anything more than a mail once a 
 week. That letter, Miner says, was sent by the postmaster at Alvord to 
 the department. Miner knew of that letter. That letter has disappeared 
 from the files of the department. There is no evidence in the depart- 
 ment that the letter ever was there. Our only knowledge of it is from, 
 the letter of Miner, which we shall put before you. What does Mr. 
 Miner say f " I want to have you see this man and pay him. Give him 
 what is necessary to shut his mouth. We do not want him to write any 
 more such letters to the department. We have got $50,000 on a route 
 which we bid for at $2,800, and we don't want any postmaster oat there 
 writing that it is not necessary. It is an inconvenient document to 
 have on the files of the department. Somebody may find it." This is 
 the substance of the letter. I cannot read the letter at this stage. 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. Do you pretend to say that is the substance of the 
 letter? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I pretend to say that is the purport of the letter. I will 
 read the letter if you have no objection to my reading it. 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. I have no objection to that. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. [Reading:] 
 
 I wish you would see this man at once, and satisfy him. Pay him whatever is rea- 
 sonable, and report to R. C. Williamson at The Dalles. 
 
 E. C. Williamson was the superintendent of Vaile, Miner & Company. 
 I suppose that is what he is after. He knows nothing of the through mail 
 
 Of course he did rot know anything about that. The evidence was 
 that only ten or twelve pounds went over that route, and there was no 
 through mail. 
 
 and probably a weekly is all he needs; but more likely he wants some money. He 
 complained once before to the department that he had to make a special trip to Camp 
 McDermott to make his returns. 
 
 They did not perform the service, and in order to make his quarterly 
 returns to the department, which he ought to have been able to put in 
 the mail at his own office and send to the department, he had to make 
 a journey to Fort McDermott to get his own ofiicial letter in the mail. 
 
 He complained once before to the department that he had to make a special trip 
 to Camp McDermott to make his returns, and I sent him $30, and it was all right. 
 Now I suppose he wants a little more money. 
 
 Here was this postmaster writing that a weekly mail was all that was 
 needed. What harm was he doing to them? Why was it necessary to 
 do anything with him to make it "all right," if it was not the desire to 
 
60 
 
 shut up his mouth f That was all there was to it and all there could 
 be to it. 
 
 But that transaction does not stand alone, gentlemen. There was a 
 Mr. Johnson, who was a subcontractor out in Utah. We shall place 
 him before you, and you will believe every word that he says. He car- 
 ries honesty and truth upon his face. There had been a change made 
 on a route, running the speed up beyond what the people in the locality 
 and Mr. Johnson, the subcontractor, thou^dat was necessary. He wrote 
 to the department complaining, and thereirpon one of these defendants 
 wrote him that they had concluded voluntarily to increase his pay some- 
 thing like $2,000 a year, but that they wanted him to stop writing to 
 the department; that he had been complaining to the department about 
 the matter, and that they wanted him to stop, and wanted him also to 
 write to his Delegate in Congress and beg the Delegate to withdraw cer- 
 tain papers he had placed on file. They wrote two letters to Mr. John- 
 son to that effect. Mr. Johnson got his $2,000, and somehow or other 
 those papers, which it appears of record the Delegate had placed upon 
 the files of the department, have disappeared from those files. 
 
 This being the condition of things, what do we find in another point 
 of view! I desire now to refer to a subject which I have already 
 touched upon to some extent. It may be supposed, or it may be 
 claimed, perhaps, that although Brady made these excessive allow- 
 ances to which I have called your attention, yet the money was appro- 
 priated to carry the mail, and that it was paid for carrying the mail, 
 and so there ought not to be any particular objection to it. We 
 shall show you upon the Kearney and Kent route that while the con- 
 tractor got $2,715.08 for sitting in Washington and doing nothing, the 
 subcontractor, who did the service, got only $1,587.40; that on the 
 Pueblo and Eosita route the contractor who sat still in Washington got 
 $5,048, the subcontractor got $3,100, and he had so good a thing of it 
 that he got somebody else to carry the mail at $2,000. You will bear 
 in mind in all cases that the contractor here in Washington got his 
 money net and clear, and that it was the subcontractor who had to pay 
 all fines and deductions, and that the sole interest of these contractors 
 here in Washington, so far as the question of fines and deductions is 
 concerned, was that the fines and deductions should not be so great as 
 to more than exhaust the money that went to the subcontractor. We 
 shall show you in one case a feeling remonstrance from Mr. S. W. Dor 
 sey to a subcontractor that if he did not look out he would subject him- 
 self to so many fines that he would not only lose all his money, but 
 actually affect the money coming to the contractors here in Washing- 
 ton, and that would be an outrage that ought not to be endured for a 
 moment! 
 
 On the route from Saint Charles to Greenhorn, Mr. John K. Miner, as 
 contractor here in Washington, got $3,945.60. He made a contract 
 with a Mr. Farrish to carry the mail for $840. When Mr. Farrish gave 
 it up he made another contract with Mr. McDaniel to carry it for $900, 
 and he performed all the service for $900, and Miner got $3,045 net. 
 On the Toquerville and Adairville route which, by the way, is the 
 route as to which Mr. John W. Dorsey writing to the subcontractor 
 with reference to the arrangement he had made with him, told him 
 that that was nearer pro rata than any trade he had made since he 
 left Washington the contractor got $12,450.22 for doing nothing, and 
 the subcontractor who did the work got only $8,444. On route 38140, 
 from Trinidad to Madison, the contractor got $2,402.25 for doing noth- 
 ing, and the subcontractor got $1,550 for carrying the mail not out of 
 
61 
 
 the $2,400. You will bear in mind that the sums received by the con- 
 tractors are over and above what they paid to the subcontractors. 
 
 On route 38156, from Silverton to Parrott City, the subcontractor who 
 did the work got $9,400, and the contractor here in 'Washington got 
 $7,112.20. On route 38145, from Garland to Parrott City, at one time 
 the contractor got $5,438.08, and the subcontractor who did the work got 
 $8,000. At another time the subcontractor got only $6,200. Subse- 
 quently the contractor got $7,244.08 net, and was kind enough to allow 
 the subcontractor $10,666.f 4. In that case the whole record is set out in 
 Mr. Brady's order. It is there recited that the United States Govern- 
 ment ought to pay a certain additional amount for carrying the mail, and 
 then he followed it up, as he had to follow it up for the subcontract 
 was on file by saying he would pay only about one-half of the amount to 
 the man who actually carried the mail. The balance, he said, was nec- 
 essary for payment to a man who sat here in Washington and did not 
 do anything for this was the effect of his declaration. 
 
 On the route from Eawlings to White Elver, No. 38113, the con- 
 tractor at one time got $13,706.25 net, and the subcontractor, who did 
 the work, got only $5,100. The contractor got an excess of $8,606.25 
 for doing nothing. At a later stage the subcontractor got $10,000 out 
 of $13,706.25, and he will tell you that that $10,000 paid him handsomely 
 for carrying the mail. At a later stage, on the same route, $31,981.25 
 was paid by the Government, of which the subcontractor got $22,333.37, 
 and the contractor, who did nothing, $8,647.92. Mr. Eerdell, in commu- 
 nicating to that subcontractor the fact that he was to be allowed 
 $23,333, while the defendants kept $8,600 additional, wound up his letter 
 by a suggestion that the subcontractor had got a good thing, and he 
 wanted him to understand that he, Eerdell, had obtained it for him, and 
 insinuated that if anybody was to be compensated, he wanted the sub- 
 contractor to remember that the credit was due to him. Mr. Eerdell 
 carefully avoided saying anything about the fact that he and the other 
 people whom he represented here in Washington were making out of 
 the contract $8,647.92. On the route from The Dalles to Baker City 
 the contractor at one time got $21,460, and the subcontractor- got $7,400, 
 leaving the contractor an excess of $14,060. On route 44160 the sub- 
 contractors got $10,000, and the contractor got $40,166.66. The subcon- 
 tractors got $10,000, to be divided between two, or $5,000 apiece. Yaile, 
 who was the contractor, got $50,166.66, giving them $10,000. Where 
 did the odd $40,000 go? On the route from Eeddiug to Alturas, the 
 contractor got $17,964, and the subcontractor $10,500 of that. I think 
 that was clone-under an order not signed by Mr. Brady, but signed by 
 his chief clerk. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, what was the result to the Government and to these 
 defendants of all this series of orders made by Brady for their benefit ? 
 There were, at the end of 1880, 9,225 star routes in the country. They 
 had an aggregate length of 215,480 miles. They cost $6,401,000.84 to 
 the Government annually. This was the service upon which Brady 
 operated with his orders for increase of trips and increase of speed. 
 From January 1st, 1872, to June 30, 1875, under Eoutt, as Second As- 
 sistant Postmaster-General, three years and six mouths, I have already 
 called your attention to the fact that there were only fifteen orders for 
 expedition. The amount allowed under those fifteen orders was 
 $144,729.83. Under Tyner, in a year from June 30, 1875, to June 
 30, 1876 there were five orders for expedition, and an aggregate 
 allowance of $12,620.60. Brady came into office on the 23d of July, 
 1876, and down to the year ending June 30, 1877, twenty-three days 
 
62 
 
 less than a year, he made thirteen orders for expedition, covering 
 $158,418.59, being nearly $15,000 more than Routt had ordered in his 
 entire three years and a half. For the year ending June 30, 1878, 
 Mr. Brady's second year, he ordered expedition to the extent of only 
 $27,923. For the year ending June 30, 1879, Mr. Brady had seventy 
 cases of expedition, and made orders which took from the Treasury an- 
 nually $905,912.91, and those orders were made with reference to routes 
 as to which the existing pay before he commenced to operate upon them 
 was only $588,150.13. In other words, to $588,000 he added over 
 $900,000. For the year ending June 30, 1880, Mr. Brady made twenty- 
 five orders for expedition, and by those orders he added to the money 
 taken from the Treasury of the United States $307,426.84 a year, and 
 added it upon routes upon which the existing pay was only $107,974.22 
 to April 30, 1881. The balance of the year before he went out, being 
 two months less than a year, he made nine orders for expedition, which 
 cover only $13,749.46. You will perceive, gentlemen, that by that time 
 the material upon which orders for expedition could fairly operate was 
 pretty well worked out. The contracts in the Pacific section and it is 
 in that section I ought to say that all the orders for expedition were 
 made, except a single one on a route in North Carolina had been ex- 
 hausted by the prior orders for expedition. The routes were let in July, 
 1878, and the contracts were to expire in June, 1882, and there was very 
 little room for further expedition. So we find that when Mr. Brady's 
 career was cut off on the 30th of April, 1881, he had only been able in 
 the last ten months to make nine cases of expedition, and those for the 
 trivial sum, according to his idea, of $13,749.46. Brady, in four years 
 nine months and seven days, made one hundred and twenty orders of 
 expedition, by which he added to contracts made after public bidding, 
 which called for $907,780.45, the sum of $2,321,211.25. By public bid- 
 ding, bidders said they would carry the mail over those routes for 
 $907,780.45, and Mr. Brady, by secret arrangements made in his office, 
 gave to those bidders $2,321,211.25 in one year. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. May it please your honor, I desire to inquire whether 
 it is proper, in the opening statement of this case to the jury, to make 
 statements with reference to matters that are in no way whatever con- 
 nected with this indictment, not mentioned in the indictment, and not 
 competent as evidence on the trial of this case. I make the inquiry at 
 this stage of the case in order that there may be no misapprehension as 
 to the character of the opening that may be made on behalf of the de- 
 fendants. I do not want to have it transpire in this case, as it did in 
 the other trial, that when the defense come to state the facts, and come 
 to point out to the jury the misrepresentation of the facts, that we shall 
 be interrupted by anybody by saying, in the way of objection, that we 
 are stating matters not pertinent to the case. I make the point right 
 here, if your honor please, because the counsel for the Government is 
 now stating to this jury matters that are absolutely disconnected with 
 this case, matters which have not the slightest relation to this case, and 
 as to every one of which, if they were before the court, we would have 
 an opportunity to make answer. Mr. Bliss is going wholly outside of 
 this indictment, and stating that which I say, on my own responsibility, 
 is a misrepresentation of the truth of this matter. I want now not to 
 stop him, but I do not want the court to stop us when our time comes 
 to tell this jury the truth about this case. Now the court, thus having 
 had its attention called to the matter- 
 
 The COURT. [Interposing.] What particular part of the opening of 
 Mr. Bliss do you object to? 
 
63 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Your honor will bear in mind that Mr. Wilson did this 
 precise thing on the previous trial in almost the same language at this 
 point in my opening. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I have the floor for the present. Mr. Bliss is stating as 
 to expeditions and increases of service that were made during the 
 administration of the office of Second Assistant Postmaster-General, 
 by General Brady, with reference to routes that are in no way con- 
 nected with this transaction. Now if they are in issue in this case let 
 Mm go on ; but do not stop us when we come to reply to them. And if 
 your honor please, if it comes to that, we shall claim the right in the 
 progress of this case to take up every one of these routes that was ex- 
 pedited or increased during the time that General Brady was in office, 
 and we shall claim the right to show to this court and to this jury that 
 in not a single one of them did he ever make an increase or an expedi- 
 tion that was not clamored for by the best men in this country. Now, if 
 it is proper to state this to the jury, it is proper to answer it. If it is 
 proper to state it to the jury, it is proper for them to prove it. If it is 
 proper for them to prove it, it is proper for us to meet it with counter- 
 proof. If it has no relation to the case, so be it. I am not asking to have 
 it stopped, but I do want to notify the court that if he goes into this 
 thing we shall claim the right to meet it if it takes until the 1st of Jan- 
 uary a year hence. 
 
 The COURT. Then I do not understand you to object. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I am simply giving the court notice that he is going be- 
 yond the case and has been doing so, as my associate says, for some 
 time. I have not been here. I happened to come in just now and heard 
 him stating these things to the jury, which are as foreign to this case as 
 the south to the north pole. 
 
 The COURT. I accept your notice. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Very well ; that is enough. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Your honor, I presume it is necessary that this trial should * 
 proceed in the same way that the other did. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. No, sir. 
 
 The COURT. I do not mean to adopt that rule. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I simply want to say that at just about this stage in my 
 opening before, Mr. Wilson gave, nominally for the benefit of the court, 
 but really for the benefit of .the jury, precisely the same notice. We 
 will accept it and I will proceed. 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER. If your honor please, I do formally object to any state- 
 ment of expedition on any route not mentioned in this indictment. Mr. 
 Bliss is going over what he calls a hundred and twenty expeditions and 
 increases of service. There are only nineteen mentioned in the indict- 
 ment, and I now formally object to his saying anything 
 
 The COURT. [Interrupting.] I do not understand him to be going over 
 them seriatim. 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER. But he is charging official perfidy and corruption 
 concerning the whole hundred and twenty. They are brought in here 
 for some purpose. They arc either to be investigated, or they are 
 brought here to prejudice the minds of the jury touching the nineteen 
 at issue. Is that the proper way ! Has he a right to undertake to bring 
 matters in for this purpose if he does not expect to offer any proof about 
 them? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I do expect to offer proof about them. 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER. About routes not mentioned in the indictment? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. If you will allow me, I will state that I expect to offer 
 proof to this extent : It may be claimed that Mr. Brady, in making these 
 
64 
 
 orders for expedition, simply followed the current practice of the de- 
 partment and went on in that way. I propose to ask the court to let 
 me show this jury that Mr. Brady was not following the practice of the 
 department, but was introducing a new and exceptional system. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. If your honor please, I want to say a word in reply to 
 that. Mr. Bliss has been talking to this jury about all these expeditions. 
 If the court permits this to go on, I shall claim the right, in behalf of 
 the defendants, not only to talk of it to the jury but to prove the fact. 
 I shall claim the right to prove that one of these very routes that he is 
 talking about here; the largest, not only in this country, but in the 
 world ; a route fifteen hundred miles long, was expedited by the Post- 
 master-General himself, over the opposition of General Brady. I shall 
 claim the right not only to state to the jury, but to prove, that what 
 General Brady did was done after consultation with the Postmaster- 
 General 
 
 Mr. BLISS. [Interposing.] I submit, your honor, that that is not proper. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I beg your pardon. I have the floor. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I have a right to object. 
 
 The COURT. Yes. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I submit that it is not proper for Mr. Wilson, in making 
 an objection, to interject a speech of this kind. 
 
 The COURT. [To Mr. Wilson.] I think you and Colonel Bliss are about 
 square now. You have given notice. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. That is what I think. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. But, your honor 
 
 Mr. BLISS. [Interposing.] Your honor, Mr. Wilson wants to make an 
 argument in my place. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I do not want to do so. 
 
 The COURT. In making an objection you have no right to make an 
 argument against his opening. You may object to any particular part 
 of his opening, and the court will rule upon the objection. Unless there 
 is a specific objection, however, the court will take no notice of it. I 
 understood you as merely giving notice that you would claim the same 
 extent of privilege that he has claimed. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Yes, but 
 
 The COURT. [Interposing.] And that you waive all objection to the 
 character of the opening now being made. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. But if your honor will pardon me 
 
 The COURT. [Interposing.] I cannot permit an argument here. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I will not make one, your honor. 
 
 The COURT. You may make a specific objection if you choose to do 
 so. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. 1 will simply say this : that after I had given this notice 
 Colonel Bliss stated to the court, as I understood it, that he would offer 
 to prove these things in a general way. 
 
 The COURT. If you make that formal objection to his opening I shall 
 sustain it. But there is a class of evidence in regard to crime that par- 
 takes of a fraudulent character which, although not particularly pointed 
 to in the indictment, is yet admissible to show the corrupt purposes of 
 the defendant. And this evidence may relate to other acts of the de- 
 fendants than those specified in the indictment. There is a class of 
 evidence of that kind, and I understood the opening of Mr. Bliss so far 
 to refer to cases of that kind. Now, whether the court will admit evi- 
 dence of that kind when it comes to be offered, the court does not wish 
 to prejudge and will not prejudge. But counsel have their own theory 
 
65 
 
 in regard to their case, and they have a right to present it to the jury 
 and state the evidence upon which they expect to sustain it. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I quite agree with the court 
 
 The COURT. [Interposing.] The court cannot permit the discussion of 
 the admissibility of evidence to take place on an interruption of an 
 opening. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I agree with your honor entirely that this is not *he 
 time to settle what is competent or what is incompetent evidence. But 
 there is another class of evidence that is likewise admissible, if your 
 honor please, and that is evidence to show the motive of the party who 
 is accused, as in this case. That evidence would be such evidence as 
 would show tbat the head of the department was 
 
 Mr. BLISS. [Interposing.] I object, your honor, to the introduction 
 here of an argument in that direction. 
 
 The COURT. Very well. You can go on, Mr. Bliss, in your own way. 
 I cannot pass upon the question of the admissibility of the evidence at 
 this point. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. So that he can go on without restriction and the same 
 privilege is accorded to us. 
 
 The COURT. I do not say without restriction at all. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. I simply wish to ask the court's ruling. I object to 
 anything in the opening as to any route not mentioned in the indictment. 
 
 The COURT. I shall overrule that objection. 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. I understood your honor to say at the former inter- 
 ruption of my colleague, that the theory entertained by the counsel may 
 be presented without reference to any rulings made by the court at the 
 former trial. 
 
 The COURT. Why, certainty ; and if the court should be convinced 
 in the course of this trial that there were any errors committed on the 
 former trial one way or the other it is not going to be bound by the rules 
 laid down in the other case from any sense of pride. 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. Then, in our theory of the case we may be permitted to 
 state outside without regard to any ruling of the court in the former 
 trial. 
 
 The COURT. I have repeatedly said that. I do not wish to be restricted 
 at all to the rulings made on the former trial. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. With reference to these constant references to the former 
 trial I respectfully submit that they are all improper and that there are 
 cases where what has been done on a former trial being referred to was 
 held to vitiate what is done at the next one ; we have refrained carefully 
 from stating anything as to the former trial. A reference. to that has 
 not passed my lips, I think, in this case. 
 
 The COURT. 1 understand the reference to the rulings made on the 
 former trial to be made merely to the rulings of the court, and for the 
 purpose of ascertaining the ruling of the court upon the rulings in point; 
 and in answer to that I am prepared to follow the lights I may have in 
 this case. The court cannot forget the rulings in the former case; but 
 it will not follow those rulings, simply because they are rulings, or have 
 been rulings, but will follow them if they are deemed in this case to be 
 proper, and will not follow them if it thinks they ought not to be fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. [Eesuming.] Taking, gentlemen, the star service west of 
 the Mississippi River, Mr. Brady came into office on the 23d of July, 
 1876. On the 1st of July, 1878, after he had been nearly two years in 
 office and I start from that period simply because it happens to be a 
 little more convenient for me in getting the figures, and the defendants 
 
 5GB 
 
66 
 
 then began these contracts after he had during those two years prior 
 to July, 1878, added about $800,000 to the expense of the* star-route 
 service west of the Mississippi, either by increase of trips or by expedi- 
 tion, the aggregate cost of that star-route service west of the Mississippi, 
 on the 1st of July, 1878, was about $2,000,000. On tbe 1st of July, 1879, 
 under Mr. Brady, that cost had been increased to $3,706,977. To an 
 aggregate cost of two millions he had in the brief period of a year added 
 $1,700,000 ; and the preceding Congress having appropriated every dol- 
 lar that was asked for in the estimates of the Post-Office Department, 
 which estimates were made by Mr. Brady, having however cut down 
 all other appropriations, but made all the appropriations that Mr. Brady 
 asked for, for the star service, Mr. Brady was compelled to go to Con- 
 gress and ask Congress to make an additional appropriation of $2,000,000 
 to meet the deficiency over and above his own estimates, which he had 
 created by his career of extravagance and corruption during that brief 
 year. He got from Congress $1,250,000, and it may in the course of 
 this trial incidentally come in play to show 3^011 some features of the 
 manner in which he got it. 
 
 Mr. DAViDGrE. Well, now, I do not like to interrupt the opening of 
 counsel, but is there any human being on earth who will pretend that 
 a statement of that sort is pertinent ? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. What do you mean ; about Congress ? 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGKE. I mean the remark that you may have occasion to 
 point out some of the means whereby he obtained an appropriation of 
 Congress. Now, is not that a plain, patent abuse ? 
 
 The COURT. I do not know. I cannot tell what he is going to say. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Let me remind your honor that on the last trial a wit- 
 ness on the stand 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. [Interposing.] I thought you had not referred to that 
 trial. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I have not previously ; I said I had not. There was a 
 witness who referred to a conversation with Mr. Brady, which your 
 honor directly ruled in as applicable to this case. That was what I 
 meant might come in play. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGKE. I want to say a very words, your honor, and I think 
 you will concur with rne. I know that astute and adroit men can do a 
 great many things under the guise of opening a case which ought not 
 to be done. I know that the subject is one of extreme delicacy on the 
 part of the court, as you have intimated to-day. It is not for you to 
 say what theory may be entertained in respect of any trial over which 
 you may preside, and hence a very wide range must in the nature of 
 things be allowed to counsel. Now, personally, I have no particular ob- 
 jection to the ruling, if it may be so called, that fell from your honor a 
 little while ago. All that we ask is that you will pay especial attention 
 to the range of the opening on the part of the Government, and to the 
 fact that repeatedly, a score of times, this opening has been devoted 
 not to the statement of what the Government expects to prove at all, 
 but to an argument upon what it is anticipated will be proved on that 
 side and any defense that is anticipated on the other side. In other 
 words, it is obnoxious and objectionable, both as to its range and as to 
 its being argumentative. All that I have to say therefore is that I ask 
 that your honor's attention be directed to the wide range in respect of 
 what the Government undertakes to prove and in respect of the argu- 
 ment, and that you will allow the same liberality to the counsel for the 
 defense, as 1 feel sure you will do and must do. 
 
 The COURT. Oh, well, the court cannot make any promises. 
 
67 
 
 Mr. DAViDGrE. I do not want any promise except the promise that is 
 implied from the fact that your honor is listening to the character of the 
 opening on the part of the Government. 
 
 The COURT. I am listening. ' , 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGKE. It very often happens, as your honor is aware, that 
 the opening is left exclusively to the counsel, and the judge afterwards 
 says that if his attention had been drawn to it he would have stopped 
 the counsel. We at least ask the attention of your honor to the point 
 and to appreciate its character. 
 
 The COURT. I am listening. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. One of their difficulties in this case is that other people 
 than counsel are listening. 
 
 [Resuming.] On the 1st of January, 1880, the aggregate cost of the 
 star service of the country was $7,264,832. Mr. Brady ceased to be Sec- 
 ond Assistant Postmaster-General on the 30th of April, 1881. On the 
 30th of June, 1882, the cost of that service had been reduced to 
 $5,553,849. On the 1st of July there came the new letting of that 
 service which had expired on the 30th of June, 1882, being the Pacific 
 section upon which it had chiefly operated, and then the service was 
 still further reduced to $4.486,755, a service which under Brady had 
 cost $7,104,832 was reduced on the 1st of July to $4,486,75 ~>. One mill- 
 ion seven hundred and seventy- eight thousand dollars was saved 
 
 Mr. WILSON. One moment. I want to interrupt you. I wish now 
 to understand whether or not it is proper in this case to institute a 
 comparison between one contract term and another contract term. 
 That is to say, I wish to know whether it is proper for counsel to be 
 stating to the jury a matter of that sort when the star routes are con- 
 tinually changing, when hundreds and hundreds of miles of service are 
 taken out of the star service and become railroad service ? Therefore, 
 as between one contract term and another contract term, there can be 
 no possible similarity. I wish to know whether that is a proper mat- 
 ter to be stated to the jury. If the court thinks it is, all right. And I 
 wish to know, in addition to that, whether or not it is proper to com- 
 pare the expenses of routes, because if it is, then we want to have the 
 privilege of stating to the jury the exact facts in regard to these cases. 
 Now, if it is proper to go into this wide range and to cover the whole 
 country we want to know it. If the court says that I may go on 
 
 The COURT. [Interposing.] Do you make an objection ? 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I renew the objection made by Mr. Chandler that the 
 counsel is not confining himself to the case that is made by this indict- 
 ment. I make the objection because he is making a statement that 
 can have no other effect or purpose than to mislead this jury. 1 make 
 that objection now, if your honor please, so that when we < ome to re- 
 ply to that there may be no objection to the reply. And I make it, if 
 your honor please, for this reason : That while I was following right in. 
 the track of this same gentleman at the last term of the court I was re- 
 peatedly interrupted because I was not keeping myself within the limits 
 of the case. Now, I do not propose hereafter that that kind of objec- 
 tion shall be urged against my associate who will open this case, so far 
 as General Brady is concerned, without having laid the necessary founda- 
 tion for overturning that objection when it is made. 
 
 The COURT. The court ovei rules your objection, but at the same time 
 does not declare its opinion in regard to the competency of the evidence, 
 for the simple reason that that is a question which the court \\ill de- 
 termine in its proper place. The Government thinks that that kind of 
 evidence to which counsel is engaged in referring is competent to sus- 
 
68 
 
 tain the issue on its behalf, the court an an objection to that kind of 
 evidence made in the opening will not rule on the question of evidence 
 at all, but will allow the counsel to open in his own way. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. That ruling is for both sides'? 
 
 The COURT. I would have no objection to answering that question 
 anywhere but here, but here I reserve the decision of all questions un- 
 til the proper time comes. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Now, I entirely agree with the court, but 
 
 The COURT. [Interposing.] If you agree with the court let us have 
 no argument about it. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Just one word, I beg your honor : If this were a case 
 of larceny and the defendants were accused of stealing a horse and the 
 prosecuting attorney should get up here and talk about stealing a 
 steamship or committing piracy upon the high seas, you would not 
 hesitate for a moment to stop him ? 
 
 The COURT. I cannot answer that. I am not going to answer ques- 
 tions, except when they arise. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I know your honor will give us just as wide range as 
 you give them. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Your honor, if I considered it consistent with my own 
 self-respect to make personal charges of misrepresentation as broadly 
 as the counsel does, I should claim to refer your honor to the record of 
 the last trial as showing that the gentleman misstates what occurred 
 when he was opening. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Well, I should refer to the record to show that I have 
 not misstated it. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I have been reading it, sir. I have read it at recess, and 
 I have read it since I sat here. 
 
 The COURT. Go on in your own way, and unless you commit some 
 very great 
 
 Mr. BLISS. [Interposing.] I will do so. I certainty shall do nothing 
 that I do not think proper. I am going to meet squarely the objection 
 of Mr. Wilson about the railway service. He argued it on the last 
 trial. I propose to show the condition of things. 
 
 Now, I stated that the expense of the star service had been reduced 
 from $7,260,832 to $4,486,755. One million seven hundred and seventy- 
 eight thousand dollars of that saving was made by revoking the extrav- 
 agant orders of Thomas J. Brady and his chief clerk. The cost per mile 
 of the star service on the 1st of January, 1881, under Thomas J. Brady 
 was $ i 6.99. The cost on the 1st of July, 1882, after Brady went out of 
 office, was $8.62 per mile. The star-route service west of the Mississippi 
 River cost on the 1st of January, 1881, $2,844.165. On the 1st of Jan- 
 uary, 1882, it cost only $1,125,419. Between June 30, 1881, and July 
 1, 1882, there was a reduction of $2,001,189 of the cost, being 79J per 
 cent. The cost per mile was reduced until to-day it is but $7.82 per 
 mile against $16.99 under Mr. Brady. 
 
 On the 1st of July, 1882, new contracts went into operation in all the 
 Pacific section. Under those contracts, gentlemen of the jury, the en- 
 tire Territory of Dakota, with all its increased service, is supplied with 
 the mails for $9,500 only in excess of the amount which Brady gave to 
 a single route in that Territory. The entire Territory of Wyoming is 
 supplied with mails at one-half the amount of money which Brady 
 wasted upon a single route in that Territory. 
 
 It is claimed here you have just heard it claimed that a saving in 
 the star-route service was made because the railroads had come in and 
 taken up the star-route service and rendered that service unnecessary. 
 
69 
 
 Now, gentlemen, ill the Pacific section, west of the Mississippi, and ex- 
 cluding the States of Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas, and Minnesota there 
 has been saved on the star routes $1,991,000. There has been added to 
 the railway service in that region, even including the four omitted 
 States, only $294,513, and yet you are asked to believe that the 
 reduction of the star-route service since Mr. Brady went out of office 
 has been accomplished not by legitimate economy, but by transferring 
 the expense from the star-route service to the railroad service. There 
 has been $1,990,000 saved in the Pacific section. There has been an 
 addition to the railway mail- service of only $294,513 in the Pacific 
 section. 
 
 Under the new contracts, which took effect Julyl, 1882, I propose to 
 give you a few figures, confining them to cases where the number of 
 trips per week is the same, where the distance is the same, and where 
 the number of hours is the same, and let us see what Mr. Brady paid, 
 and what is paid under open competition. 
 
 On one route he paid $28,600. They now pay $11,700. On another 
 route he paid $34,200. They now pay $8,900. On another route he 
 paid $5,707. They now pay $2,283. On another route he paid $5,824. 
 They now pay $1,790. On another route he paid $16,770.16. They 
 now pay $5,620. On another route he paid $17,569.89. They now pay 
 $8,900. On another route he paid $11,752.85. They now pay $4,630. 
 On another route Brady paid $5,280. They now pay $2,620. On an- 
 other route, the J ulian to Colton route referred to in this indictment, 
 Mr. Brady carried the amount up to $8,910. That is the route, gentle- 
 men, on which, if I recollect aright, he made the increase for twenty- 
 six hours when they only asked for thirty-six. I think that is the route. 
 At any rate he paid $8,910. The route is now run in the same time,, 
 the same number of trips, and in every way the same for $3,488. I am 
 wrong. On that route the time is a little longer. The time under Mr. 
 Brady was twenty-six hours. The time now is thirty hours. On all the 
 other routes that I have read to you, the time, the number of trips and 
 everything is the same, differing only in the amount taken from the 
 Treasury. On another route Mr. Brady paid $19,359.99. Public com- 
 petition gets it done for the Government for $8,700. On another route 
 Brady paid $36,284.33. Public competition gets it done for $21,000. 
 On the route from Eawlius to Meeker, under the old contract as in- 
 creased by Brady, the amount was $31,981.25. On that route, as the 
 amount was reduced after Mr. Brady went out of office by his suc- 
 cessor, the sum allowed was $5,100. On public competition the con- 
 tract was awarded at $7,320, being $2,400 less than Mr. Brady paid, 
 but $2,100 more than was allowed b}~ his successor. On the route from 
 Pueblo to Greenhorn Mr. Brady paid $3,945. His successor cut it down 
 to $1,315.20. There is now paid, after public competition, $960. In 
 these cases, gentlemen, there has been acliarfge in time or trips, or both. 
 On the route from Trinidad to Madison Mr. Brady paid $4,290. It was 
 reduced by his successor to $1,014, and on public competition it was let 
 at $960. On the route from Saguache to Barnum Mr. Brady paid 
 $7,166.40. It was reduced by his successor to $1,454.55. Public competi- 
 tion got it done for $920. On the route from Gardner to Kosita Mr. 
 Brady paid $3,926.67. His successor reduced it to $1,916.33, and public 
 competition got it at $1,468. 
 
 I could go on and give you more of those routes; but the general re- 
 sult is this, gentlemen, and, I think, we shall show it to you beyond all 
 question, that the extravagant amounts that Mr. Brady allowed having 
 been reduced by his successor to the point which he thought was fair 
 
70 
 
 and reasonable,- when they came afterwards to be submitted to public 
 bidding, the routes were let at somewhere near about 18 per cent, less 
 than the amount to which Mr. Brady's successor reduced it, and they 
 were let at not over one-sixth of the amount Brady paid. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. Were they new contracts'? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. They were new contracts made alter public advertisement, 
 to take effect after the 1st of July, 1882. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. I did not hear you state that. , 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I did state it. 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. Do you mean to say they were for the same service? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I stated expressly that as to these routes I last mentioned 
 there was a difference in time and in trips. But I was about to go on 
 to say as an additional fact that while there had been the reduction of 
 time and trips on various of these routes you will search the Post-Office 
 records in vain to find half a dozen complaints coming from the localities 
 affected. The present service is entirely adequate. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. Who is at the head of the present service "I 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Richard A. Elmer, who was put there by Thomas L. James, 
 and was there during all these reductions after Mr. Brady was requested 
 to resign. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. Well, you have made a very good defense for him. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Precisely. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. Has anybody ever charged him with anything ? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I do not know whether they have or not. With the ability 
 which counsel have to throw out insinuations against everybody 1 do 
 not know but what they have done it against him. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDG?E. You need not defend him until w r e attack him. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I have not defended him. You are mistaken if you sup- 
 pose it to be a defense of him. It is a showing up of your client, 
 Thomas J. Brady. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. By contracts made four years afterwards. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. If you choose to say so. 
 
 Now, thirteen of these routes in the indictment, which, under Mr. 
 Brady, had been carried up to $219,886.46 a year were reduced under 
 the administration of Mr. James and Mr. Elmer to $32,603.88, and at 
 the recent letting they were let at $31,012, being about $1,500 less than 
 the amount to which Mr. James and Mr. Elmer reduced them, and be- 
 ing about $180,000 less than the amount that Mr. Brady paid. He paid 
 $218,000 for what at the public bidding was let at $31,'000. 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. Was that the same service ? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I have said distinctly it was not the same service. The 
 routes were let for the number of trips and the rate of speed which the 
 service called for, and that is all that ever should be done. 
 
 On route No. 38156, from Silverton to Parrott City, the time, trips, 
 and distance are identical. Mr. Brady paid $14,870.01, and at the 
 recent letting it was let for $4,240. On ten routes, where, so far as I 
 can ascertain, the service is substantially identical, Mr. Brady paid 
 $174,369.31, and that service has recently been let at $73,880. 
 
 Now, gentlemen of the jury, I think I have given you a sufficient 
 dose of figures for the present. I desire to pause for a moment and 
 survey the ground we have gone over. If we presented to you no other 
 evidence than that to which I have now referred we should have shown 
 to you that the practice of expedition was resorted to by Mr. Brady in 
 excessive and unnecessary instances ; that he made allowances for ex- 
 pedition and increase of pay to the very limit nominally allowed by the 
 law when it was utterly unnecessary and unfair to do so ; that he al- 
 
71 
 
 lowed expeditions solely on the statements of the parties to be affected 
 by them, and that those parties were allowed practically to say how 
 much they would take from the Treasury of the United States ; that he 
 allowed expeditions upon affidavits where the records show there were 
 contradicting affidavits by the same parties on file before him ; that he 
 allowed them on affidavits which showed such absurd results as that 
 they assume that one horse could only travel two miles a day ; that he 
 allowed excessive sums even if he took the affidavits of the persons who 
 made them; that he acted upon affidavits which were false; that he 
 disregarded the law as to productiveness ; that he paid large sums of 
 money for expedition where nothing was gained ; that he paid large sums 
 for expedition and increase of trips where neither expedition nor in- 
 crease of trips were needed ; that he ordered impossible expedition ; that 
 he paid twice for the same service ; that he made petty orders, adding 
 to the money to be taken from the treasury whenthefacts upon which they 
 were alleged to be based were untrue, alleging that there was an addition 
 of distance Avhen there was nothing of the kind, and similar cases ; that 
 he neglected to declare these parties failing contractors, and granted 
 them the liberty to continue, leaving the service to be provided lor by 
 the Government in other ways until they got ready with their petitions 
 and names for expedition, so as to make their losing contracts winning 
 contracts ; that he acted upon false petitions, petitions which upon 
 their face were false, and petitions which did not even answer his al- 
 leged purpose of being a cover or protection for himself. We shall un- 
 dertake, however, gentlemen, to show to you much more than this. 
 We shall place before you a gentleman not a willing witness for the 
 Government, but a witness whose testimony will have to be drawn from 
 him, who will testify, we think, to substantially this condition of things : 
 that he having made advances to parties concerned in the postal serv- 
 ice, and those parties having failed to carry out their contracts, for the 
 purpose of protecting himself and saving the advances which he had 
 already made, became a contractor upon a route under an order made 
 by Mr. Brady ; that that relation brought him into connection with Mr. 
 Brady, and that thereupon Mr. Brady, at various times, received from hirn 
 loans of money under such circumstances that his evidence in that respect 
 can be entirely corroborated; that after a time this gentleman being sub- 
 stantially broken up by his experience with the mail service, he called 
 upon Mr. Brady for a settlement and a repayment of the money advanced, 
 and that Mr. Brady refused to pay it, saying to him that that money was 
 simply bribes which he had paid to him for favors which he alleged he 
 had given him in connection with his mail service, and telling him also 
 that he haddoneno more than all other con tractors did; that they all had 
 to pay him ; that he did not suppose that the witness believed that he, 
 Brady, made these orders for the fun of the thing; that he made them 
 for the solid reason of getting an interest and percentage for making 
 them, and that when this witness referred to his supposition that he 
 made them on the basis of petitions which were filed, Mr. Brady scat- 
 tered the idea to the winds, and told him he ought to know better than 
 that. Said he, " You understand there were petitions filed in your be- 
 half, but I did not pay any attention to them. They had no effect upon 
 me. They were simply a cover giving me something to protect me in 
 doing this thing." I have stated briefly the evidence of a witness who 
 I feel confident will satisfy you that he 'is telling the truth. He can be 
 supported in the statements by various corroborative evidence. He is 
 not a swift witness in the service of the Government, but a man whom 
 we can bring here under subp<ena, and who will tell the truth upon the 
 
72 
 
 stand because it is his duty to tell the truth. And if his character is 
 attacked, we shall be prepared to show that it is beyond successful at- 
 tack. 
 
 But, gentlemen, we shall go further. We shall show" you that one 
 of these defendants, Montfort C. Eerdell, in the spring of the year 1881, 
 after Mr. Brady went out of office, and when this investigation in con- 
 nection with the star-route service was first commenced, having been 
 simply the clerk, the scribe, apparently with no direct pecuniary in- 
 terest I think he had an interest as to some of the routes but at any 
 rate being the humble servant and employe of these conspirators, 
 found this investigation was getting near home, and said, " 1 propose 
 to save myself, and I propose to save that one of the defendants, 
 Stephen W. Dorsey, to whom I peisonally owe the most allegiance and 
 for whom I have the most affection. He is the man w T ho brought me 
 from Arkansas here and who jmtineinto one of the departments of the 
 Government and who took me as his clerk to the Senate, who kept me 
 in the position and who has paid me my salary. Now, I propose to 
 make a clean breast of it and endeavor to save him and myself." In 
 following out that theory he met, on the street, Ex-Gov. Powell Clay- 
 ton, of Arkansas. I presume he sought him from the fact that he knew 
 that Governor Clayton had access to the then officials of the adminis- 
 tration, and he possibly might have been influenced by the fact that he 
 knew Ex-Governor Clayton had in the past not been friendly to Mr. 
 Dorsey. He told him he wanted to be brought into communication with 
 the Postmaster-General. Clayton told him he would arrange for the 
 meeting. He went to the Postmaster-General, and an arrangement was 
 made by which there was a meeting at the rooms of the Postmaster-Gen- 
 eral at the Arlington Hotel. Mr. Eerdell came there, and Mr. Eerdell 
 then made a detailed statement of the facts which he stated existed within 
 his own experience. Mr. James stated to him that he desired to have 
 him see the Attorney-General. An, appointment was made for a fur- 
 ther interview, and at that interview Mr. Eerdell renewed the state- 
 ments that he had originally made. The first interview was held in 
 the presence of Mr. James, Governor Clayton, and Mr. Woodward, an 
 inspector of the Post-Office Department. It took place early in June of 
 last year. Mr. Eerdell stated that he had been Stephen W. Dorsey's 
 confidential clerk ; that he had attended to the business of all these 
 contractors ; that it was perfectly well understood that they were di- 
 viding their profits with Mr. Brady; that there was a regular schedule 
 on which the division was made; that for increase of speed, which was 
 the large allowance, there was paid to Mr. Brady by the contractors a 
 percentage of either 33 or 40 per cent, of the amount; that in case Mr. 
 Brady remitted fines imposed upon contractors for failure to perform 
 service, he was to have 50 per cent, of the amount ; that at the time 
 when Congress, in 1880, was investigating this business Congress went 
 into an investigation when Mr. Brady made the request for the large 
 extra appropriation it was believed that the books of Dorsey and 
 Company would be called for, and that Mr. Eerdell would be the 
 witness required to produce them ; that he therefore shammed sick- 
 ness while time was given to prepare a bogus set of books ; that he did 
 not prepare hose books, but he gave instructions as to how they should 
 be prepared, marking the entries in the original books Avhich should 
 be changed; that in the original books Mr. Brady appeared as Smith; 
 and that a clerk in one of the departments appeared as Jones ; that 
 when the new set of books were made those items that went in in that 
 way were transferred to other accounts, mostly, I think, "to profit and 
 
73 
 
 loss;" that be, Eerdell, had on one occasion gone with Mr. Stephen W. 
 Dorsey to the bank, and that $7,000 had been drawn; that he had gone 
 with Mr. Dorsey to the door, either of the Post-Office or of Mr. Brady's 
 room at the Post-Office I will not undertake to say which Mr. Dorsey 
 stating to him that he intended to pay that money to Mr. Brady, and 
 that he, Dorsey, went in. Eerdell did not claim to have gone in and 
 seen the money paid. He produced certain abstracts, which he said 
 were abstracts from the books or the results of the accounts. He 
 said that he went before the committee finally, but that they did not 
 send for the books, and that therefore that labor was labor wasted; 
 that he had been remonstrated with by the defendants after his exami 
 nation by the committee, on the ground that he had told too much, and 
 that he replied that he had told nothing he could help telling, and that 
 his testimony was as guarded as it could be without incurring the dan- 
 ger of instant exposure if they went to the records and discovered its 
 error. There was a good deal more of the same nature. Mr. Eerdell then, 
 desired to see Mr. MacVeagh, and an arrangement was made.to have him 
 see Mr. MacVeagh on a subsequent evening. It was arranged that he 
 should communicate with Mr. Woodward, the Post-Office inspector, 
 under an assumed name. Mr. Woodward having ascertained as he be- 
 lieved that Mr. MacVeagh would not be in town on the night fixed for 
 Mr. Eerdell to go to his house sent Eerdell, through the post-office, a 
 notice to that effect; but in order to make sure, Mr. Woodward went 
 to the Attorney -General's house, and as he got to the steps he found 
 Eerdell in front of him, having just rung the bell, and having with him 
 certain books. On going in it appeared'Mr. MacVeagh had returned. 
 Mr. Eerdell repeated substantially the statement which I have made to 
 you. He said that these books which he produced were the letter- 
 books of the concern, and contained some letters written by him and 
 some written by Stephen W. Dorsey, and he showed to the gentlemen 
 certain press copies of letters which were identical with letters which 
 had been shortly beiore that discovered to have been sent to Oregon 
 by S. W. Dorsey, and the originals of which were at that time accessi- 
 ble. There were one or two other interviews upon that subject, and 
 Mr. Eerdell said that the tell-tale books were in New York, and he 
 would go there and get them, and would bring them, with other papers 
 which he could find as confirmatory of his statement, and leave them 
 with the Attorney-General. A few days afterwards Mr. James was on 
 the cars going to New York, and he found Mr. Eerdell upon the same 
 train. Mr. Eerdell told him he was going over to carry out his arrange- 
 ment as to the production of the books. They arrived in New York early 
 in the morning. That afternoon at 3.30 Mr. James left to come back, 
 and to his surprise found Mr. Eerdell upon the train. Mr. Eerdell 
 told him he did not want to have much conversation with him there, 
 because there was upon the train somebody interested in the star- 
 -route. business; but pointing to a bundle which he had, told him 
 he had those books with him. When they got to either Trenton or 
 Philadelphia the conductor came into the parlor car and called out the 
 name of Mr. Eerdell, saying that he had two dispatches for him. Eer- 
 dell took the dispatches and read them, and subsequently as Mr. James 
 was passing showed him those dispatches, which were dispatches signed 
 with the name of Stephen W. Dorsey. One of them expressed regret 
 that they had parted in anger and begged him to come back, and the 
 other beseeched him to pause in the course upon which he had entered 
 as it would result in the ruin of Dorsey 's family. Mr. Eerdell came back 
 to the city with the dispatches in his possession, stating that he was 
 
74 
 
 determined to carry out his agreement with the Attorney -General. 
 When he got here he fell into the hands of somebody, and from that 
 time on he lost all desire to protect himself and to clear his conscience, 
 but passed altogether under the influence of these defendants. Their 
 ranks were closed up and he stands before you now as one of the de- 
 fendants, whose testimony against himself will be accepted by the court 
 and by you as absolutely conclusive, and whose testimony will throw a 
 lurid light upon this conspiracy and the relations of the different parties 
 to it. 
 
 Your honor, I am about to begin upon new matter. Perhaps this is 
 a good time to adjourn. I hoped to get through to-day, and should, 
 I think, have been able to do so if it had not been for the interruptions. 
 
 The COURT. Adjourn the court. 
 
 At this point (3 o'clock and 55 minutes p. in.) the court adjourned 
 until Monday morning next at 11 o'clock. 
 
 MONDAY, DECEMBER 18, 188-2. 
 
 The court met at 11 o'clock. 
 
 Present, counsel for the Government and for the defendants. 
 
 Mr. BLISS resumed as follows : 
 
 May it please the court and you, gentlemen of the jury, on looking 
 over my memorandum I perceive that I stated somewhat inadequately 
 the evidence which we propose to offer as to the conversation of the 
 contractor Walsh with Mr. Brady, and it is perhaps right that I should 
 amplify that a little. I stated that the contractor after having loaned 
 &s he claimed money to Mr. Brady, and having come into a position 
 where he desired his money returned, called upon Mr. Brady to re- 
 turn it to him and made an appointment to meet him at a given place. 
 They there met. That he called upon Mr. Brady to return him the 
 money and gave him the amounts; that a discussion was opened as to 
 the amount of interest that was to be paid, the question as to interest 
 having been left unsettled, and that he was then inet by the statement 
 of Mr. Brady that he, Brady, owed him nothing; that in fact the con- 
 tractor, Walsh, rather owed him ; that Brady alleged that he had ben- 
 efited him very largely ; that he had given him a remunerative con- 
 tract, and that he did not think that he, Brady, was under any obliga- 
 tion to Walsh, and that when asked for an explanation, Brady said he 
 did not think any explanation was needed, that he thought Walsh knew 
 enough, had seen enough to understand what the usual arrangements 
 were. Walsh, professing ignorance, called for an explanation. Brady 
 then recited that Walsh's route had been expedited, the service in- 
 creased, and he must not suppose that he, Brady, did these things just 
 for amusement. Whereupon Walsh replied that he thought or supposed 
 he did it because of the petitions from people in the locality, &c., as to 
 the needs of the service, to which Brady replied that petitions had noth- 
 ng to do with it; that there was no use in arguing the matter, and 
 that if he, Walsh, professed ignorance of what the real arrangements 
 were that was mere affectation, and he then told him that as a rule 20 
 per cent, per annum was paid to him, Brady, on the amount of all ex- 
 peditious that he ordered ; and he then went into figures as to what 
 would result to Walsh on the application of that to the contract which 
 he had had. There was also a statement of some other sums, credits 
 that Mr. Brady claimed he was entitled to ; and that brings me to a 
 
$ 75 
 
 matter which I have not referred to heretofore, and that is the ques- 
 tion of remissions of fines and penalties. It .is in the power of 
 the Second Assistant Postmaster-General when any contractor has 
 been fined for not performing the service at all, or not perform- 
 ing it in the requisite time, for losing one trip or twenty trips, 
 or being behind time on one trip or twenty trips, it is in the power and 
 it is the duty of the Postmaster General to impose fines upon the party, 
 that he shall not receive money for service which he has not performed. 
 Those fines it is in the power of the Second Assistant Postmaster- 
 General to remit, and to remit substantially at his own will, it being 
 assumed under the law and the regulations of course that the Second 
 Assistant Postmaster-General will be a man of honesty and discretion. 
 In this discussion between Walsh and Brady there came up the ques- 
 tion of remissions of fines and penalties, or fines and forfeitures as 
 spoken of sometimes, which really are penalties, and Mr. Brady told 
 Walsh that he, Brady, was entitled to and he always got 50 per cent, of 
 all fines and penalties which he remitted. Mr. Brady told Mr. Walsh 
 that these arrangements were the general arrangements made with all 
 contractors for whom he made orders benefiting them by expedition of 
 service, or increase of service, or the remission of their fines, and in- 
 sisted that he, Walsh, must recognize that system which prevailed. Mr. 
 Walsh declined to recognize that system which prevailed, and claimed 
 that he was in entire ignorance of it. 
 
 The money was undoubtedly paid by Walsh to Brady. There can be 
 no question of that. We shall prove to you, beyond all question, by 
 the account of the banker in New York to whom the payment was made, 
 the payment made by Walsh to Brady on the precise day when Walsh 
 says it was made, and that money that Brady had of Walsh Mr. Walsh 
 says was money that he lent to him. Mr. Brady claims to retain it un- 
 der some undefined condition other than that. I mean he claims it in 
 court, but claims to Mr. Walsh, as Mr. Walsh states, that he had a 
 right to retain it because it was the usual percentage which he received 
 from everybody for whom he expedited or increased the service, and 
 that on the figures made in detail Mr. Walsh still owed him some money 
 instead of Mr. Brady owing Walsh for money loaned. 
 
 I have spoken, gentJemen of the jury, thus far almost solely of Mr. 
 Brady among these defendants. 1 have done that designedly, and, 
 in a great measure, from the necessities of the case. Mr. Brady 
 was the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. Dorsey might con- 
 ceive the scheme. He might bring into it his brother, his brother- 
 in-law, his business associate ; he might do all these things, and, 
 unless there was some arrangement by which orders were to be got 
 from Mr. Brady which would put money into the pocket of the con- 
 tractors represented by Dorsey and his associates, money in excess of 
 the fair needs of the service, money in excess of any return which they 
 made to the Government therefor, the conspiracy would be a useless 
 and futile thing, and therefore I have spoken of Mr. Brady so far, be- 
 cause it was his acts which became necessary to carry out the con- 
 spiracy, to give it any effect whatever in defrauding the United States. 
 There might be a conspiracy to defraud the United States and do 
 some act in pursuance of it which would bring the parties within 
 the statute which I read to you at the opening of my remarks, but at 
 the same time it would be an act which would not result in any actual 
 loss to the Government, unless Mr. Brady made the orders sought at 
 his hands. In this connection, I may perhaps as well call your atten- 
 tion to the fact that a conspiracy is a thing to be proved from the very 
 
76 
 
 nature of the case from an aggregation of apparently isolated facts. 
 People when going ftito a conspiracy to defraud the Government or to 
 defraud individuals do not sit down and enter into a contract under 
 seal and put it on record somewhere or distribute it around among 
 those that they think will go to work and do this thing to defraud 
 A, B, C, or the Government, but they make an informal verbal agree- 
 ment which is necessarily secret, made among themselves, arid which 
 is intended to be kept secret, and the knowledge of which can only be 
 acquired by the parties injured either by its results, and the draw- 
 ing of the inferences which you will be asked to draw from a large 
 number of facts which will be presented to you, or, in some cases, 
 from the confession of some of the parties concerned. For such a 
 conspiracy, as the court will tell you, to come within the law there must 
 be two persons. Two must conspire, and if either one of them does any 
 act in pursuance of the conspiracy then both are guilty. If there are 
 more than two it is not necessary that all should have come into the 
 conspiracy at the same time. It is not necessary that all should have 
 continued with the conspiracy through its whole continuance. Two 
 people may have formed a conspiracy, and finding that they needed 
 somebody else to come into it may bring in the third. They may bring 
 in a fourth or any indefinite number. In the same way parties who 
 have entered into a conspiracy may go along for a certain time and cer- 
 tain portions of them withdraw from it, and in those cases I assume 
 that the parties who withdraw from the conspiracy are not to be charge- 
 able with any act done after they withdraw, but still remain liable for 
 the acts done while they were in it. On the other hand, parties who come 
 into a conspiracy after it has commenced, and come into it in pursuance 
 of the conspiracy are chargeable, as I understand, for all the acts done, 
 even before they come in. That view is, so far as this case is concerned, 
 a theoretical question which will not trouble you, gentlemen. I have 
 spoken as I said of Brady chiefly, because of his necessity to the con- 
 spiracy to make it effectual in defrauding the Government. I have 
 spoken of him moreover, gentlemen, as the foremost, because, if guilty, 
 we regard him as the most guilty person of these defendants before 
 you, from the fact that he was, while making these orders, an officer of 
 the United States, and was faithless to the trust which was imposed 
 upon him. 
 
 As to the other defendants, who were they ? There was Stephen W. 
 Dorsey, a Senator of the United States from the State of Arkansas 
 down to the 4th of March, 1879. These contracts took effect on the 1st 
 of July, 1878. The bids were awarded, I think, in February, 1878. By 
 a statute of the United States, Mr. Dorsey, while a Senator, could not 
 be interested in any contract with the Govern ment, directly or indirectly. 
 Mr. Dorsey, while Senator, was, I think, chairman of the Committee on 
 Post Offices, and chairman of the subcommittee in charge of all the ap- 
 propriations. That brought him of course directly into connection with 
 i the Post-Office Department and its officials, and gave him, as we all 
 understand necessarily from the nature of the case, the possession of 
 some exceptional power over officials of the department greater power 
 than a Senator would have when occupying some other position. Mr. 
 John W. Dorsey was the brother of Stephen W. Dorsey, and was the 
 resident of a little town in Vermont Middlebury, I think it was and he 
 there carried on the trade of a tinsmith. Mr. John M. Peck was the 
 brother-in-law of*Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey, residing at or near a ranch of Mr. 
 Dorsey's in New Mexico, in so bad health/that, so far as we know, he took 
 little active participation in the conspiracy I mean active in the sense 
 
77 
 
 of moving about, though he signed an abundance of papers, and author- 
 ized others to sign an abundance of papers in connection with the mat- 
 ter. Mr. John E. Miner had been for years a resident of Sandusky, 
 Ohio. He had been there the business associate and friend of Senator 
 Dorsey. Mr. Rerdell was from Arkansas, brought here by Senator 
 Dorsey, and placed by Senator Dorsey in a position under the District 
 government, transferred from that, or performing in connection with 
 that, I think, the duties of a secretary to Senator Dorsey, and after 
 Senator Dorsey ceased to be Senator Mr. Rerdell at some time passed 
 into the position of clerk to him and manager, so to speak, of the mail 
 service which was obtained manager on the Washington end, of the 
 business of these several defendants in connection with these contracts 
 to which I have referred. 
 
 Mr. Yaile's relations to this conspiracy were different from those 
 of the others. All of these parties whom I have already mentioned to 
 you, you will notice, had no relation to the mail business. They ap- 
 parently knew nothing about it. In fact we shall show you that 
 they knew nothing about it. Mr. Vaile, however, was a large mail 
 contractor engaged in the business, not a speculator in mail con- 
 tracts like these other parties. He lived in Missouri. He came 
 into the conspiracy, as we claim, at some time after the contracts 
 were obtained, certainly before all the routes were put in operation, 
 and as we think before the time came for any to be put into operation, 
 and he took active charge, became the subcontractor, taking charge of 
 the routes I think of ail of the routes in the State of Oregon which were 
 awarded to these parties, and perhaps some others. 
 
 We think, gentlemen, that we shall be able to show you that as to this 
 conspiracy it had its origin in the brain of Stephen W. Dorsey ; that 
 from his position as United States Senator and a member of the Com- 
 mittee on Post-Offices he acquired knowledge which led him to think 
 that there was a chance tp make money. Then at a very early stage in 
 the case he brought into the service of the conspirators I do not say 
 into the conspiracy one Albert E. Boone, who had been a clerk in one 
 of the departments, and who going out of that had become a contractor 
 for carrying the mails, and who undoubtedly possessed both brain and 
 knowledge, and both of those were useful to Mr. Dorsey so far as related 
 to the mail service. Mr. Boone, so far as we know, commenced the busi- 
 ness by having been approached by Mr. Dorsey, and invited to come to 
 his house, and when he got there to take charge of the business of pre- 
 paring the bids for the contracts which Dorsey was seeking to ob- 
 tain. They put in a thousand or more bids. A part of those bids 
 were put in in the name of John M. Peck, part in the name of 
 John W. Dorsey, part in the name of John R. Miner none of 
 them, of course, in Stephen W, Dorsey's name, not many certainly 
 in the name of Rerdell, and I think none. The bids were prepared in 
 Mr. Dorsey's house in a third -story room. They were prepared there 
 tinder the supervision of Mr. Boone, Mr. Miner, I think, having a good 
 deal to do with it, Mr. John W. Dorsey little, or comparatively little, 
 Mr. John M. Peck having very little to do with it except that his name 
 appears to a large number of the bids. We think we shall be able to 
 show you who placed that name there. Prior to any putting in of the 
 bids and the preparation of them, Mr. Boone had attracted the attention 
 of the post-office inspectors so much that they had made a detailed ex- 
 amination of the facts and had made a report though not knowing to 
 what the preparations which were going on were intended to lead up. 
 They found that Mr. Booue was sending out circulars to postmasters all 
 
78 
 
 over the country asking them for information as to the nature of the 
 mail service, the nature of the route, the expenses for horse feed, and 
 all the details of that kind, and he was directing the information to be 
 returned to the firm to a particular box, which was box No. 714 in the 
 post-office, and that lock-box 714 you will find will play an important 
 part in connection with this conspiracy. That a large number of the 
 . papers which we shall have occasion to present to you came to box 714 
 ' after this conspiracy got well under way. The answers of the postmas- 
 ters were to be sent to James H. Keitner & Company at lock-box 714. 
 James H. Keitner was the step-sou of Boone, a boy about 15 or 16 years 
 of age. The inducement which Mr. Boone furnished to the postmasters 
 to take the trouble to give him this information was his promise that he 
 would do for them any business that they had with the department, and 
 every postmaster does have business with the department in the settle- 
 ment of his accounts and various things as to which it is desirable to 
 have a Washington agent. In all that Boone did in that way there 
 was nothing that could fairly be styled objectionable. At the same 
 time it was a gathering of information which was intended to be used 
 by these speculators in mail contracts and which attracted the attention 
 of Government officers. 
 
 The next step that appeared in that thing was this: The Post-Office 
 Department furnishes blank forms of proposals to bidders for the pur- 
 pose of having the law complied with, and having everything in form and 
 proper, instead of leaving every man to prepare his own proposal, which 
 is found in experience to result in great trouble arising from the question 
 whether a proposal is in accordance with the law or riot, which lead to com- 
 petition between conflicting claims of bidders. The Post Office prepare 
 and furnish to contractors or parties intending to become contractors 
 blank forms of bids. There is no obligation upon the parties to take them. 
 There isno obligation upon them to use them, but that is the practice. Itis 
 done in that way. For the purpose of being sfcre that they are properly 
 filled up, the Post-Office Department places upon those contracts or 
 those bids certain directions, among others, directions that proposals 
 alteied by erasure or interlineations will not be considered, directions 
 as to before whom the oath of officers should be taken. Then there 
 comes in the important question in connection with the sureties. By 
 the law, no man can bid for a post-office contract for carrying the mail 
 unless he accompanies his bid with a bond of sureties, which sureties 
 have to swear before a postmaster that they are worth a given sum, 
 adequate to the amount named in the bid, and on each route the Post- 
 Office Department in its advertisement fixes the security to be given. 
 Any bid to be given must have sureties, and those sureties are required 
 to become resp;>nsible, first, that the bidder will enter into the formal 
 contract with the Government, and second, that the bidder having 
 entered into the formal contract with the Government, will carry it out 
 faithfully during the four years of its term. It is a bid which, 
 therefore, imposes heavy responsibility upon the sureties, or may 
 impose heavy responsibility upon the sureties, and which, when 
 parties are going into the business of putting in bids for, say a thou- 
 sand routes, imposes a very heavy liability upon the sureties, and if they 
 are furnished in good faith and in accordance with the spirit of the law, 
 certainly makes it a very difficult thing for parties situated in that way 
 to get adequate bonds, because the amount becomes enormous. It is 
 a provision, I may say in passing, which seems to me a foolish and 
 unnecessary provision in so far as it extends the liability of a surety on 
 a bid beyond the time when the formal contract has been entered into. 
 
79 
 
 But it is the law. ^N"ow, the Post-Office Department, anxious to get 
 the bids all right, places upon the forms of proposals which it issues a 
 provision of this kind : 
 
 Sureties are liable during the whole of the contract ter,m. Postmasters will ob- 
 serve that tlie improper approval of the bond or the certificate of the sufficiency of 
 the sureties thereon exposes them not only to dismissal, but to fine and imprisonment. 
 Certificates must not l>e signed until the proposal is complete and a bond signed. 
 Postmasters must not divulge the amount of any proposal certified by them under 
 penalty of removal. 
 
 Mr. Boone went to the firm of Darby & Duval, in this city, early in 
 December, 1877, after he had been employed by Dorsey, and he ordered 
 a large quantity of these proposals printed, and he directed to be left 
 off of these proposals the clause I have read to you, the directions of 
 the Post Office Department placed upon them as to the way in which 
 the bonds were to be executed and the cautions to the postmas- 
 ters that they must not certify to any bond until executed by the 
 parties. And, gentlemen of tlie jury, you will see very clearly the 
 importance of that, because if a surety is to become responsible for 
 somebody, if he acknowledges it in a blank bond, the moment the 
 name is inserted after that it is an altered bond and he gets a defense. If 
 the name or amount is not there on the bond he becomes responsible 
 for something he knows nothing of ; he has become responsible for a 
 contract on a route he knows nothing of, and at any rate the changing 
 of it makes an alteration in the bond and discharges the surety. ^Now, 
 in that condition of things, having got these bids and bonds printed, 
 various postmasters in the State of Arkansas received early in Decem- 
 ber, 1877, and in January, 1878, large packages of these bonds and bids 
 sent to them in blank with directions or with the request to obtain 
 sureties upon the bonds and to have them signed. Those bids and 
 bonds thus in blank were sent to several of these postmasters by Ste- 
 phen W. Dorsey with letters desiring that they should be executed. 
 They were postmasters whom Mr. Dorsey had been influential in secur- 
 ing the appointment of to office. They were sent with letters request- 
 ing to have sureties secured and to fill up the bonds and return to him, and 
 emphasizing the statement of the letter that they must, under no cir- 
 cumstances, let anybody know that these papers came from him ; that 
 his connection with the case must be kept entirely secret. Such bonds 
 as that were sent to various postmasters, whom he obviously thought 
 he could rely upon. But human nature was better than he thought, 
 and various of these postmasters either disregarded his requests and 
 passed them by in silence or remonstrated with him. Among others 
 was a postmaster at Fort Smith, Mr. Cleudenning, who wrote Mr. Dor- 
 sey, calling his attention to the fact that it could not be that he remem- 
 bered the provisions of law and that he desired him to go on and do 
 this thing which he had requested in view of the law, and in requesting 
 it, let me say, he had sent in his own handwriting little pieces of paper 
 giving directions in detail how the whole thing was to be done ; what 
 was to be written in by the sureties and everything of that sort, and 
 all these bids that he sent there were absolute blanks. He requested 
 them to be filled up by the sureties in direct violation of law, and 
 in that connection it is significant that this direction from the Post- 
 Office Department to the postmasters that they must not fill up a bond 
 unless the bid attached to it was completed was omitted on the form of 
 blanks which Dorsey sent out. The postmaster at Fort Smith, among 
 others, remonstrated and declined to comply with Mr. Dorsey's request, 
 and it led to a rather animated correspondence. We shall put that cor- 
 
80 
 
 respondence before you, gentlemen. We shall put before you the orig- 
 inal paper sent by Mr. Dorsey. We shall put the postmaster before 
 you, and he will show you the whole condition of that matter. 
 
 As to all this, gentlemen, bear in mind the statute which forbade a 
 Senator to be interested in any contract. Mr. Dorsey was careful to 
 say that he was acting for a friend ; that he was doing a friend a kind- 
 ness, and had no interest in it ; but he was very particular that nobody 
 should even know he was doing that friend a kindness. He was not 
 going to let his right hand know what his left hand was doing. These 
 bids having been prepared in Dorsey's house, we find this condition of 
 things. Save in the single State of Kansas, Mr. Peck, John W. Dorsey, and 
 Miner never in bidding, 1 think there may be exceptional instances 
 came in conflict with each other. They put in in the aggregate a thou- 
 sand or more bids. Any two of them never bid upon the' same route. 
 There may be, and I think there are, one or two exceptional cases where 
 there apparently is a reason for it; but that is the rule. So that they 
 did not come into conflict with each other, and there is no question upon 
 that. They got under those bids one hundred and thirty-four contracts. 
 The contracts took effect on the 1st of July, 1878. Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey 
 will be shown to you as constantly interested, constantly intervening on 
 behalf of these parties, and of course the claim, I presume, will be made 
 that he was doing a brotherly act merely, but as soon as Mr. Dorsey went 
 out of the Senate, on the 4th of March, 1879, within, I think, less than 
 thirty days after that time, Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey appears publicly 
 as interested in all or a certain portion of these contracts which had 
 been obtained. I called your attention to the fact, gentlemen, that in 
 bidding for these contracts they bid only on the routes, as a general 
 thing, which were of slow time, \\here expedition could be obtained, 
 or where the service was infrequent one, two, or three trips a 
 W eek where an increase of trips could be obtained. In passing 
 let me say that Mr. Vaile, whenever he did come into the conspiracy, 
 probably as early as July, 1878, seems to have protected himself in a 
 measure by taking a large number of subcontracts, and so far as the 
 files of the department show, he appears as being as early as that the 
 subcontractor on some fifty or sixty of the one hundred and thirty-four 
 routes which these parties obtained, beinc: the subcontractor of record, 
 but not necessarily or generally the subcontractor who was performing 
 the service, but his subcontract was filed with the effect certainly ot 
 protecting the subcontractor who was performing the service from hav- 
 ing any recognition from the Government, or the terms of a real sub- 
 contract from ever becoming known to the Government. 
 
 I have said that these contracts were obtained, and that Stephen W. 
 Dorsey became openly interested in them as early as April, 1879. At 
 some time after that there seems to have been in form or in fact some- 
 thing in the nature of a division. They seem to have cut up their 
 routes in a measure. Miner seems to have taken certain routes, Stephen 
 W. Dorsey seems to have taken certain routes, and Peck seems to have 
 taken certain routes, but they also seem to have at once u pooled 
 their issues " in a measure. Miner and Vaile certainly acted from that 
 time together in all matters, and the parties continued apparently to 
 take an active interest even in the routes which had been in form 
 assigned to one of the others, and Mr. Brady recognized their authority 
 so to do. For instance, on the route from Pueblo to Kosita, Mr. John 
 W. Dorsey nominally stating himself to be the subcontractor, made the 
 affidavit upon which the expedition was obtained. He was not subcon- 
 tractor, he was not contractor. He was not in any manner connected 
 
81 
 
 with the route except as a fellow member of the conspiracy, a coconspir- 
 atpr ; knowledge of that was not a knowledge of course of record at the 
 Post-Office, but was a knowledge which was obtained of an illegitimate 
 relation, and yet the position was recognized by Brady as sufficient to 
 enable him to make the affidavit which the regulation, which is a law, 
 required to be made by the contractor, and he recognized John W. 
 Dorsey's authority to make it upon that route. On the route from 
 Trinidad to Madison, Mr. John W. Dorsey did precisely the same 
 thing, and yet had no relation to it. Miner was the contractor, and 
 Stephen W. Dorsey was the subcontractor by a contract not then filed, 
 but John W. Dorsey was the man who was recognized by Mr. Brady as 
 being sufficient to make the affidavit on which the expedition was based. 
 
 On route 38145, from Ojo Caliente to Parrott City, John it. Miner 
 writes a letter, which he says he does at the request of Stephen W. 
 Dorsey, then in the Senate. He makes the request in consequence of the 
 absence of John W. Dorsey, who was out in the Territories in connec- 
 tion with some of these other routes. Miner wrote at the request of 
 Stephen W. Dorsey, and on behalf of John W. Dorsey, to a personal 
 friend and acquaintance of Stephen's to take the subcontract, and carry 
 the mail upon that route. 
 
 Ou the route from Yermillion to Sioux Falls Mr. Harvey M. Yaile 
 makes the affidavit, though he was not the contractor. He was the nomi- 
 nal subcontractor, so far as the records of the department show, while 
 in point of fact the service was being performed by an entire I y different 
 person, whom we shall place before you. 
 
 On the route from Eugene City to Bridge Creek John M. Peck was 
 the contractor, and yet Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey appears in connection 
 with that route in a somewhat manifold capacity, which I will not stop 
 here to detail to you. 
 
 On the route from Mineral Park to Pioche Mr. John W. Dorsey was 
 the contractor. Mr. John M. Peck, in a letter written by John R. Miner, 
 requests the Post-Office Department to authorize him to sublet that 
 contract. Under the law no contract can be sublet without the con- 
 sent of the Post-Office Department. John W. Dorsey being the con- 
 tractor, John M. Peck, a man who, on the record, certainly had no con- 
 nection with the route, writes to Brady asking permission to sublet 
 that contract. Mr. Brady authorizes him to sublet the contract and 
 recognizes the contract which was made in pursuance of that provision. 
 And yet Peck, in whose name the letter was written, and Miner, who 
 wrote it, were equally strangers, so far as the Post-Office Department 
 knew, to the contract, and had no relation to it. They had a series of 
 firms and they were as miscellaneous as possible. There was Miner, 
 Peck & Co. ; there was Miner, Vaile & Co. ; there was Miner, Dorsey & 
 Co. ; there was J. W. Dorsey & Co., and the u babies were interchanged" 
 generally. There was no danger of their getting lost, however, because 
 the parties were all mutually interested. Subsequent to that time, and at 
 various periods as we go along, you will find Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey en- 
 gaged in getting up petitions, writing to his old triends, and calling 
 upon them to help him in getting up petitions and in writing letters to 
 aid in advancing these contracts and the interests of these contractors. 
 He did so at first with an entire concealment of his own interest 
 in the matter. But after he ceased to be United States Senator, and 
 the statute upon that subject ceased to apply to him, he threw off 
 the mask, and did the business more openly if not more generally. We 
 think we shall be able to show you, gentlemen, from tLeseaml other 
 facts which I will not stop to repeat, that all t'nese parties were inter- 
 6 G B 
 
82 
 
 ested in those routes, and that they continued interested in the routes 
 after the nominal division; but whether they did or did not continue 
 their actual interest is a matter of very little importance, if they entered 
 into the conspiracy and got from the Government certain contracts 
 which were their capital in business, which they were going to use in 
 defrauding the Government. It made very little difference whether 
 they took their profits by taking a portion of the joint profits of all of 
 the routes or whether they divided, so to speak, their capital, and each 
 one took all the profits on a particular block of the route. The loss to 
 the Government was the same, the fraud and injury was the same. 
 
 This being the relation of these parties to the conspiracy we then find 
 the actors all placed ready to perform their parts, and the question is 
 now what in detail did they do so far as concerns the different routes? 
 Therefore, gentlemen, 1 propose very briefly to take up the evidence 
 which we shall submit to you in connection with each one of the routes 
 named in this indictment. 
 
 On route 34149, from Kearney to Kent, the contract was let basing it 
 on the advertisement as a hundred and twenty-five miles, for service 
 once a week. John M. Peck became the contractor at $808 a year. 
 On the 24th of September, 1878, there, was made one of those little ad- 
 ditions of a town called Fitzalon, which was alleged to add fifteen miles, 
 more or less, to the route. That matter is a little complicated, arising 
 from a change of the route. We claim that the order was entirely un- 
 authorized. Primarily a small sum of a hundred and odd dollars re- 
 sulted as an emolument to the contractor, but after it was counted in 
 the problem in connection with expedition the amount was added to 
 very greatly. On the 10th of July, 1879, a year after the contract was 
 let, two trips were added over a portion of the route, that from Kearney 
 to Loup City. In consequence of the addition of those two trips there 
 was added to the original pay of $868, $1,122.41. At the same time 
 that the three trips were added the time was reduced to thirteen hours, 
 and there was added in consequence of that $2,200 to the contractor's 
 pay. That carried the whole amount up to $4,302.05. The post-offices 
 on that route produced an average of $o94 to the Government. The ter- 
 minal post-offices were situated upon railroads running east and west, 
 and the receipts of Kearney are not counted in this statement, as they 
 came from mail carried on the railroad. 1 have already called your 
 attention to the fact that the mail-matter, after it got out a few miles 
 on the route, amounted only to twenty or thirty pounds. Now, on that 
 route where they got originally $808, one French became the subcon- 
 tractor at $700. So that at the outset Peck, who was the nominal 
 contractor, had a profit of $108. When the contract was increased in 
 July, 1879, to three trips French received $1,587.40 in all, and did all 
 the service, and Peck received $2,715.08, and did no service. Mr. 
 French will be on the stand before you, and will testify as to the proper 
 amount to be allowed for the service and the condition of things there. 
 Mr. French made a contract, and we shall produce to you the letters pass- 
 ing between him and John W. Dorsey in connection with that contract 
 in which there was a stipulation that he was to have 05 per cent, of the 
 amount allowed for expedition. When expedition came for which $2.200 
 was allowed Mr. French received no portion of that sum, though he 
 knew that the schedule had been changed. It had been changed so little 
 that it made little, if any, difference in the time which he took in going 
 over the route. He was already going over the route in about the expe- 
 dited time. They corresponded with him and Miner, Peck & Co. re- 
 mitted him his quarterly pay? and left him in entire ignorance that 
 
83 
 
 there had been any payment by the department for expedition, although 
 he was entitled to 65 per cent, of the $2,200. Mr. French jogged over 
 that route with his horses day in and day out, and performed all the 
 service that was ever performed ; earned all the money that was ever 
 eamed and never learned that the department was paying $2,200 for 
 expedited time which he, if anybody, was making, but which, in point of 
 fact, did not change the time made to any serious extent, until after this 
 investigation was set on foot, when a post-office inspector going out on 
 his route conveyed, by accident, to Mr. French the first knowledge that 
 he had that there had ever been any expedition, and that he was enti- 
 tled to the 65 per cent, of $2,200 under his contract. Now that was simply 
 a private fraud upon Mr. French of which you cannot take any cogni- 
 zance. I only mention it in connection with this route as showing 
 the conduct of these parties, and showing how unnecessary it was to 
 pay money for expedition when the man who rendered the service was 
 to get none of it. That, gentlemen of the jury, is the same route on 
 which the other branch of fraud took place, to which I referred, Mr. 
 Peck having as early as February, and away out in Xew Mexico, found 
 out by some intuition that Mr. Brady was going to want to know just 
 how many horses would be required to make that service in thirteen 
 hours. So he made his affidavit in February to that effect, and there 
 was never any petition or paper of any kind on file asking for thirteen 
 hours, excepting the altered petition into which thirteen hours was boldly 
 inserted in a different handwriting after it was received hereby John K. 
 Miner. I think we shall be able to show by whom it was inserted. 
 That was the route on which the forged petition was. That forged pe- 
 tition was the only paper, and it was used as the basis of an order for 
 expedition which took $2,200 a year out of the Treasury to pay not to 
 the man who rendered the service, but to the men who sat here in Wash- 
 ington and did nothing. 
 
 Route 38135, from Saint Charles to Greenhorn, was originally let as 
 thirty-five miles long, at a schedule time of twelve and a half hours. In. 
 point of fact the distance from Saint Charles to Greenhorn was only twenty- 
 three miles. It ought originally to have been advertised as from Pueblo to 
 Greenhorn, because Saint Charles was merely a water-tank. There was 
 no village there at all. The tank was three or four miles from the 
 traveled road and on the railroad. At that water-tank the trains did 
 not generally stop. The advertisement was persisted in by Brady r 
 though his attention was called to it before the contract was let and 
 though a post-office inspector reported upon the subject to him. The dis- 
 tance, as I said, to Saint Charles was only twenty-three miles. By and by 
 Mr. Brady proceeded to increase the route by extending it from Saint 
 Charles to Pueblo. This added twelve miles, and made it, in point of fact, 
 thirty-five miles, which was just as advertised, but Mr. Brady treated it 
 as a lengthening of the route and allowed for that twelve miles an addi- 
 tional compensation of $328.80. My friend has drawn here substantially 
 a sketch of the route. [Exhibiting sketch to jury.| The contract was let 
 on that route at $548 a year. When Brady extended it from Saint 
 Charles to Pueblo he added $328.80 to it so as to make the con- 
 tract price $808, or a little over that. At the very time that he 
 ordered the additional pay there was on file in the department a tem- 
 porary contract made by the postmaster out there for carrying the mail 
 over the whole route for $612. So that Mr. Brady paid $868 while there 
 was on file the contract of the subcontractor showing that he was willing 
 to perform the service over the whole route for $612, and also showing 
 that the amount which Mr. Brady allowed for the added twelve miles 
 
84 
 
 $320 was greatly in excess of the amount which the subcontractor was 
 actually getting for it, and that by a temporary contract made by his 
 own postmaster. You will bear in mind that when anybody enters into 
 such a temporary contract with the Post-Office Department they must 
 necessaril}' expect to be paid more than a man does who enters into a 
 contract to carry the mail for four years, because the temporary contract 
 can be terminated at any time, subjecting the contractor to a loss. Now. 
 the service having been carried by Brady up to $868 a year, of which 
 the subcontractor got $612, it was increased by Brady on the 14th of 
 July, 1870, one year after the contract went into effect, to $3, 945. CO. The 
 supposititious twelve miles between Saint Charles and Pueblo, which 
 did not extend the advertised length of the route, and for which $320 
 was paid, was made, when it came to expedition, to take from the 
 Treasury $1,479.00 a year, being nearly three times the amount of the 
 original contract for the whole route. That contract continued in force 
 in those terms, except that the route was at one time run up to $4,314.50, 
 during the entire time that Thomas J. Brady was Second Assistant 
 Postmaster-General. If he had spent the money in giving to that route 
 a daily service instead of this pretended expedited time he could have 
 given daily service to all the people upon the route, although they did 
 not need it much more than they needed the expedited time, for a con- 
 siderable less amount of money than he chose to waste upon these con- 
 tractors for performing the service three times a week upon that alleged 
 expedited time. That expedition was obtained on the affidavit of John 
 E. Miner, who swore on the 7th of April, 1879, that on the then exist- 
 ing schedule it took one man and two horses to perform the service and 
 that when it was reduced to the time to which Mr. Brady reduced it, it 
 would take four men and seven horses. In point of fact it took only 
 one man and two horses to perform the original schedule, and in point 
 of fact it took only one man and two horses to perform the increased 
 service for which Mr. Brady paid two or three thousand dollars a year, 
 and it took the same man and the same horses all the time. There 
 was no change whatever. There was 110 authority under the law to pay 
 a dollar out of the Treasury unless there was an increase of men and 
 horses, yet we shall place before you the man who was performing that 
 service and driving the horses, and he will testify that there was no ad- 
 dition to the stock or carriers in consequence of the expedition. There- 
 fore the order of Mr. Brady for the benefit of these defendants was 
 clearly illegal. There was a little steal on that route to which I may 
 just as well call your attention in passing. I think I said something 
 about it before. They added the town of Agate, which was on a little 
 spur, and they allowed $369.90 a year for it. Not one pound of mail 
 ever went to Agate. The carrier never wei<t to Agate. There never 
 was a day's service performed or an hour's service. The postmaster so 
 reported, and after a time Mr. Brady countermanded the order for serv- 
 ice, after two or three months. He allowed for the service which had 
 not been performed and which the postmaster told him had not been 
 performed, and he also came in and allowed the mouth's extra pay which 
 is allowed upon the discontinuance of service that is being performed. 
 He allowed a month's extra pay there on service that was not being per- 
 formed as the record of his own department shows, because he was re- 
 scinding the order for the service upon the express ground that it had 
 not been performed. Here 1 ought to say that I told you that Mr. Rerdell's 
 lock-box 714 would appear in various places in this case ; it was to that 
 box or to box 706 that by notice filed in the Post Office Department 
 all communications were to be sent. This expedition, for which Brady 
 
85 
 
 paid two or three thousand dollars, was granted on a petition 
 which stated the necessity for communication with the outer world, 
 with the East, where lived the friends and correspondents of the 
 people of that section. It was not for the benefit of the population 
 along the route, communicating between themselves, but was for corre- 
 spondence passingbeyond. Yet Mr. Brady having made this expedition at 
 this expense, immediately proceeded to put in force a schedule so ar- 
 ranged that the mail arrived at Pueblo just after the mail east and west 
 had both left, and therefore there was no possibility of communication 
 either way. All the excuse, all the pretense for the order of expedition 
 was simply that the mails might reach the East quickly, and yet this 
 result was not reached because they laid over at Pueblo so many hours, 
 Pueblo being an important railroad station. On that route there were 
 but two intermediate offices, Greenhorn and Muddy Creek. Saint 
 Charles was no office. The revenue of the Muddy Creek post-office was 
 819.80 $ the revenue of the Greenhorn post-office was $145 ; making 
 an aggregate revenue on that route of $164.80, and yet Brady paid 
 83,945.60 for carrying the mail over it. Moreover the expedition was 
 made upon that route upon petitions looking to " quicker time," not 
 specifying any time in particular, upon petitions which are worded 
 identically and are in the same handwriting*, and were transmitted to 
 the department by Miner, the contractor to be benefited, and his 
 affidavit was, I think, taken and allowed to fix the amount which should 
 be paid to himself. That affidavit was grossly incorrect. Several of 
 the petitions upon that route were also interlined obviously after they 
 were prepared, and they are interlined in the handwriting of Moutfort 
 C. Eerdell, one of these defendants. 
 
 Route 41119, from Toquerville to Adairville, was let as one hundred 
 and thirty-two miles long. The schedule of time was sixty hours, the 
 number of trips per week one, and John M. Peck, the contractor, was to 
 receive from the Government $1,168 a year. Before the service com- 
 menced notice was given that the address was to be lock-box 714, care 
 of M. C. Rerdell. On the 8th of March, 1879, Harvey M. Yaile became 
 subcontractor by a contract dated the 1st of April, 1878. It was after 
 the contracts had been awarded, therefore, and before the contract term 
 commenced by two months, and that shows Mr. Yaile's connection at 
 least with that route as early as April, 1878, or else the subcontract is 
 a lie. That subcontract was signed by John R. Miner, as attorney for 
 John M. Peck. It was withdrawn on the 8th of May, 1879, after it 
 had been on file two mouths, and a subcontract was put on file with M. 
 C. Rerdell. That subcontract, like Yaile's subcontract, was also dated 
 the 1st of April, 1878. There were successively placed on file two 
 subcontracts in favor of two separate defendants, both of those subcon- 
 tracts bearing date, and claiming to have been executed, on the 1st 
 day of April, 1878, and each one being entitled to the whole amount 
 of pay on the route. Rerdell's contract pretends to be dated on the 
 1st of April, 1878, and specifies that the pay of the route is $3,504. 
 Xow, gentlemen, we have this extraordinary condition of things : The 
 Amount of pay on that route did not become $3,504 until the 10th d*y 
 of Xovember,'l878, and yet this contract dated on the 1st of April, 1878, 
 states the pay at that amount. Was the subcontract a fraud in its 
 date, or did Miner, Rerdell & Co. then know that they had perfecUMl 
 an arrangement with Thomas J. Brady, by which the amount to bo 
 paid to the Government was to be run up to $3,504.98 ? We are going 
 to ask yon to draw the latter inference from the facts. On the 8th of 
 May, Rerdell having put his subcontract on file, and forgotten, appar- 
 
86 
 
 ently, that he had already directed how he should be addressed, wrote 
 to the Post-Office Department to be sure and address everything- to 
 him. On the 12th of April, 1679, before the original contract had been 
 placed on file, and but a year after its date, Eerdell wrote as agent for the 
 original contractor assuming, apparently, that Peck had still some 
 interest to one Kephi Johnson, a subcontractor on the route, to get 
 up petitions, have them numerously signed, giving the precise form in 
 which the petitions were to be prepared. He said, " This is the gen- 
 eral form. Do not use the precise language. Give as many reasons as 
 you can for increasing the service and expediting the time. Get letters 
 to the Postmaster-General. Get your Delegate stirred up, and gen- 
 erally do everything you can to manufacture public opinion." On 
 the l()th of July, 1870, Mr. John W. Dorsey turns up as having some 
 kind of an interest in that route, and he writes to Johnson to the same 
 effect and incloses a petition which he wants to have Johnson sign and 
 then send it to Mr. Cannon, the Delegate from the Territory. On the 
 5th of May, 1879, after Rerdell had written his letter asking that the 
 petition should be gotten up, and before the letter of John W. Dorsey, 
 Mr. Stephen W. Dorse\, who had recently gone out of the Senate of 
 the United States and could therefore openly appear, wrote to Johnson, 
 urging him to keep on and guaranteeing him that he, Stephen W. Dor- 
 sey, would be responsible to him for the pay for the mail service, and 
 everything of that kind. A little later Mr. John W. Dorsey went out 
 there and had an interview with Mr. Johnson. He told Johnson that 
 certain parties in Washington were members of the combination and 
 that they had a great deal of influence in Washington. About the same 
 period or a little earlier for the dates and the different actors in this 
 matter are somewhat mixed on the 5th of May, 1879, Stephen W. Dor- 
 sey wrote to Johnson, inclosing a new contract, which was to be signed. 
 He gave as an excuse for wanting a new contract signed, there having 
 been one subcontract Avith him, that there had been a dissolution of the 
 firm. He did not tell what the firm was, but it was some firm of which 
 Stephen W. Dorsey had been a member, and which he had managed to 
 become a member of certainly a considerable time prior to the 5th of 
 May, 1879, for on that day it was dissolved. Mr. Dorsey was a member 
 of it when it was dissolved, and he had not gone out of the Senate until 
 the 4th of March, 1879. At any rate, he had got into the firm on the 
 record and dissolved it, and then he sent out to have a new subcon- 
 tract executed with Johnson, and that new subcontract contains some 
 printed clauses which were nicely calculated to entrap Mr. Johnson, and 
 which we shall have occasion to show to you. 
 
 On the 8th of July, 1879, a little later on, five trips were added to 
 the route. Then there was an expedition, and as the result $2,336 were 
 first added to the compensation, and after that $4,072 were added. 
 The time was expedited from sixty hours to thirty-three hours, and 
 they added $12,718.22, the result being that the original contract of 
 $1,108 got up in a little over twelve months to $20,890.22, and of 
 that sum the subcontractor who did the work got $7,444, and Stephen 
 W. Dorsey and his associates got $12,450. The increase of trips and 
 expedition on this route commenced on the 1st of August, but on the 
 June previous the terminal post-office had been discontinued and notice 
 given to Brady. Therefore there was no mail to go over ten miles of the 
 route, and no post-office to carry it to. Brady, on the 8th of July, made 
 the order giving expedition and adding for it 812,722. At that time he 
 had had notice that over ten miles of the route there was and could be 
 no service, and yet he made the order for expedition over the whole 
 
87 
 
 route. Having' made that order on the 8th of July, on the 14th of July, 
 six days later, he made his order cutting oft ten miles of service, and 
 said the contractor should have a month's extra pay. That order, in 
 effect, said, " By virtue of the order made on the 8th of July, long after 
 I knew there was no service on that part of the route, I will yet pay for 
 the ten miles a month's extra pay, and I will reckon the amount not on 
 the compensation of $1,168, but on the compensation of $20.890.22." 
 You do not need to be much of arithmeticians to see how nicely the 
 Government was cheated by that little transaction; nor can you tell for 
 whose benefit it was other than that of the contractors, unless it was for 
 the benefit of Thomas J. Brady. By going a little more into detail on 
 that route you will see that the expedition was obtained by an order 
 made in June or July, on the affidavit of Peck, dated in the January pre- 
 vious. Peck then knew just what schedule would be required. He 
 knew in January that Mr. Brady would want to know away down in 
 July how many men and horses it would take to carry that mail in thirty- 
 three hours. It might as well have been reduced to forty-eight hours, 
 or to twenty hours, or any other number; but somehow or other in the 
 previous January Mr. Peck knew that Mr. Brady would want to cut it 
 down to thirty-three hours, and he swore that to perform the service in 
 sixty hours would take three men and six horses, and in thirty-three 
 hours five men and eight horses. In point of fact, on a sixty-hour 
 schedule, it took about the number of men and horses he stated; it 
 took four men and ten horses. But with the thirty-three-hour schedule 
 it took seven men and fifteen horses. That expedition was ordered by 
 Brady, as I have stated, in July, 1879. After it had been done, a post- 
 master on the route reported to Brady that the expedited time of thir- 
 ty-three hours could not be made by any possibility; that the people 
 along the route did not care for it, and he added, in the innocence of 
 his heart, " it it costs the Government anything, I think you had better 
 discontinue it." 
 
 It cost the Government the difference between $1,100 and $12,000. 
 There had been a previous letter in which the same postmaster had 
 given the same information. This is the route, gentlemen, upon which 
 John W. Dorsey having been out there arranged that the subcontractor 
 should get $7,400, and that he and his associate should get $12,450. 
 Mr. John W. Dorsey wrote him that that " brought it nearer pro rata 
 than any trade he had made since he left home." From that you can 
 understand precisely what these defendants' ideas of pro rata were. 
 The idea is that the man who does the service shall get $7,500, and the 
 man in Washington who arranges for getting the orders, $12,400. That 
 petition which I said was sent to Johnson by these defendants was 
 duly signed, and it caine back just before the order was made. It is 
 on file in the department. We shall produce it to you, and we shall 
 show you just how many persons whose names purport to be upon it 
 lived along the route. And we shall show you, moreover, this extraor- 
 dinary condition of things: That the people out there asked for a re- 
 duction to only forty-eight hours, and Brady made the order to re- 
 duce it to thirty-three hours. Peck, in the previous January, six 
 months before, knew that Brady was going to make an order for thirty - 
 three hours, and Brady made it, basing it upon a petition which in ponit 
 of fact asked for forty-eight hours, and that only, ^sow, a little fur- 
 ther on, in April, 1880, Mr. Johnson having previously sent to the Post- 
 Office Department through Delegate Cannon a remonstrance signed by 
 all the postmasters on the route, stating that thirty-three hours' time 
 was unnecessary if not impracticable, and recommending a restoration 
 
88 
 
 to sixty hours, Mr. Camion apparently did his duty and apparently put 
 that paper on tile, for we find that on the 3d of April, 1880, Mr. Ker- 
 dell writes to Mr. Johnson, " We have increased your pay $1,500," a 
 voluntary increase of pay. Did they wish him to suppose they were 
 going* into the general benevolence business?* Then he goes on to say y 
 u We make this allowance in order to have the service remain as it now 
 exists. We understand you have been sending letters to your Delegate, 
 asking to have the time restored according to the old schedule. We 
 want you to write to him to withdraw the letters, as we shall lose 
 money if the service is changed back to the old schedule. As it is we 
 niakb a small profit," which means we get $12,450 and you get $8,400. 
 " We make a small profit." 
 
 Eerdell wrote again on the 9th of May to Johnson, in which letter he 
 wants Delegate Cannon to withdraw that remonstrance ; and, gentle- 
 men, when we came to search the files of the department a year ago,, 
 after Mr. Brady had gone out of office, that petition had disappeared 
 from the files of the department, though there was no way in which it 
 could legally or honestly, having been once filed there, disappear. But 
 it has gone, and the request of Miner that Johnson should write ta 
 Cannon and withdraw the remonstrance was carried out, and Johnson 
 did write to Cannon, because of this fifteen hundred and odd dollars a 
 year which they gave him, to have just that thing done. We shall ask 
 you to consider when you come to make up your verdict whether they 
 were not right in withdrawing that kind of remonstrance coming from 
 every postmaster along the route against their pay when Brady was pay- 
 ing them $12,400 for doing nothing. There had got to be some pretense 
 of keeping up appearances. That, gentlemen of the jury, ends all I 
 have to say upon that route, and I suppose this is as good a time for 
 relieving the jury for a brief period as any that will come. 
 
 At this point (1 o'clock and 45 minutes p. in.) the court took its usual 
 recess. 
 
 AFTER RECESS. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. [Eesuming,] On the last route, gentlemen, I ought to have 
 called your attention to the fact that John W. Dorsey, when he was 
 out in Utah upon that route, told Mr. Johnson that Peck, Miner & Co. 
 were interested with him ; that they had some two hundred contracts; 
 that they had a great deal of influence in Washington; that Brady 
 was a very fine man. And in his letter which he wrote him, sending 
 him petitions to be circulated, he told them they must all work together 
 or none of them would get along. 
 
 On the route from Garland to Parrott City, which was originally let 
 at 288 miles, the time to be seven days, and to be one trip in the week,. 
 John W. Dorsey was the contractor, at $2,745 a year. There, as else- 
 where, lock box 714 was the place of address for letters. There were 
 lock box 700 and lock box 714, which were used by these different par- 
 ties, Rerdell, perhaps, using lock box 706 the most after his original 
 experience with James H. Keitner & Co. 
 
 On the 1st of October, 1878, on this route, one J. H. Watts filed a 
 subcontract by which he was to get fifty per cent, of all expedition, 
 making a contract with the parties, therefore, as early as that looking 
 to expedition. On the 1st of January, 1879, a subcontract was made 
 with one Anthony Joseph, a gentleman whom we shall place before 
 you, a senator of the Territorial legislature of New Mexico. I think that 
 
89 
 
 contract was not filed, though made. His subcontract continued until 
 about the 27th of September, 1879, when the contract of a man named 
 Jaramillo was filed. That gentleman we shall also place before you. 
 On the 30th of January, 1880, the subcontract of one Sanderson was 
 filed. That is the history, of the subcontracts 
 
 On that route as early as the 10th of June, 1878, twenty days be- 
 fore the contract term commenced, Stephen W. Dorsey, being then 
 still in the Senate, wrote asking that the service be made daily, it 
 having been let at once a week. He asked that it be made three 
 times a week and that it be given a fast schedule, and claimed that 
 there was a mistake in the length of the route as advertised. On the 
 22d of December, 1878, to which I have called your attention in another 
 connection, Mr. John E. Miner, at the request of Stephen W. Dorsey, 
 who indicates his interest in this route, writes to Mr. Joseph that John 
 W. Dorsey was the contractor and wants Joseph to stock and run the 
 route. Senator Dorsey and Joseph were acquaintances, if not friends. 
 Joseph went on and stocked and commenced running the route without 
 any formal contract. Early in January, 1879, Mr. Eerdell went out to 
 ^ew Mexico and saw Joseph and made a formal contract with him. In 
 the following April Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey sent petitions to Joseph to 
 be circulated to get expedition and get increase of pay, and giving him 
 forms of them, and telling him that he had written to various people, 
 and everything of that sort, and saying to Joseph that he guaranteed 
 his pay for the service that he was performing prior to that time. Four 
 days before the service commenced at all the route had been reduced, 
 been cut off by the deduction of 116 miles at the east end of the route, 
 and no service having been commenced whatever, the month's extra 
 pay was allowed. That, I am bound to say, seems to have been in 
 accordance with the practice of the department, though working some- 
 what inequitably to the Government. Eighteen miles were taken off 
 at the other end, and Dorsey's pay was reduced to $1,467.78. By 
 the 23d of January, 1879, the route had been reduced to that point, 
 the service was one trip a week, and the time, which was originally 
 seven days, was reduced, as I recollect it, to between four and five. On 
 the 24th of April, 1879, twenty miles were added, and the amount of pay 
 was carried up correspondingly so as to become $1,658. That was the 
 condition in which the route was by the 1st of May, 1879. Then two 
 trips were added over the whole route at an expense of $3,316, and the 
 time was reduced to fifty hours. Having been reduced to ninety hours 
 by the cutting off of the route, it was further reduced to fifty hours, 
 and by the expedition $8,457.84 was added. It remained in that con- 
 dition until January 1, 1881, when the trips having been, as I said 
 before, carried up to three, were carried up to seven, and $17,910.72 
 were added, making the total pay from the Government on that route 
 $31,343.76, where the original amount was only $2,745, and where, by 
 deducting pro rata for the portions of the route which were taken oft', 
 the amount would have been only $1,467.78. There had been taken off 
 by these reductions 134 miles of its length, leaving it 134 miles long. 
 The record of productiveness was this : The average receipts of all the 
 post-offices upon that route in that year were $194.96. Of the amount 
 which was allowed for expedition at a time when there were only three 
 trips the subcontractor received $6.200 and the contractor and his asso- 
 ciates got $7,200, the subcontractor bearing all the fines and deductions 
 and the contractor getting his $7,200 net. Alter the route was carried 
 up to 831, 000 the result was I speak with a little caution here; I am 
 liable to make some slight errors, for though I am confident I am almost 
 
90 
 
 absolutely correct on dates and figures, there is in connection with this 
 route a peculiar slidiug-scale arrangement at one point, and, therefore, 
 I am more likely to err here than elsewhere after it was so carried up 
 the subcontractor at one time got $10,666 and the contractor got in 
 round numbers $20,000. Mr. Joseph, the subcontractor, found he was 
 running behindhand and that he could not perform his service for the 
 money he was getting; so he wrote to the department protesting that he 
 could not do the service for the price he was receiving, and suggesting that 
 there ought to be some change in that respect. Thereupon Mr. Stephen W. 
 Dorsey, in June, 1879, writes him a letter telling him not to write to the 
 department, but to deal only with him (Dorsey). Joseph went on carry- 
 ing the mail and was subjected to fines which substantially ate up his 
 entire pay, so that he made nothing for doing the service. Then he was 
 obliged to throw up the service,and these defendants, who had heen getting 
 $20,000 net made a contract with one Jaramillo. Jaramillo went on 
 for a considerable time performing the contract, and by and by he was 
 so eaten up by fines and penalties in the endeavor to carry the mail in 
 an impossible time that he was glad to get nothing for carrying the 
 mail and to pay $500 to the defendants for being let off from the con- 
 tract. This was the route on which I called your attentionto the fact 
 that the postmasters repeatedly and constantly notified Mr. Brady that 
 it was impossible to carry the. mail on the time required by him. When 
 ho sent them schedules in blank on which they were to fix a time of 
 departure and arrival from each end of the route and not to exceed the 
 time named, they continually returned them with a schedule that was 
 more than twice as long as he specified, and stating in express terms 
 that they could not fix a shorter schedule, and that it was impossible to 
 carry the mail in the time he named. Mr. Brady sent back schedule 
 after schedule, insisting upon it that it should be made to correspond 
 with his wishes, until finally one of the leading postmasters says 
 that when he got those papers he used to throw them in the waste- 
 basket. This is the route on which the contractor got $20,000, and 
 Joseph, the subcontractor, $10,000, and when Joseph *wrote to Mr. 
 Dorsey, saying there ought to be $12,000 allowed for carrying the 
 mail, Mr. Dorsey wrote him back that he thought it nonsense; that 
 it was perfectly absurd ; that it was not worth any such sum. 
 In that connection, Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey, as I recollect, wrote 
 Mr. Joseph that he must be particularly careful or he would be 
 fined; while it made very little difference if Mr. Joseph was to get so 
 far behind that the fines would eat up all his compensation, yet he 
 must look out and not go to the point where it would be necessary to 
 fall back upon the contractor's profit and apply the fines upon that. 
 That was a thing that could not be endured under any circumstances. 
 On that route the affidavit was made by John W. Dorsey, stating the 
 necessity for an increase of men and animals, and saying that there 
 would be 170 per cent, more men and animals needed. The petition, 
 however, on which it was alleged to have been based was a petition for 
 seven trips over only a small portion of the route, a little less than 
 half; but the order was made for an increase on the whole route. 
 Moreover, one of the orders made on that route was on a petition 
 which represented that a railroad had been built down here [indicating 
 on map], and that if they could have a mail put on across here [indi- 
 cating], and then have that portion of the route expedited, that they 
 would gain a great deal of time. Mr. Brady not only ordered 
 that, with expedition over the whole route, but he expressly pro- 
 vided that the order should take effect some six weeks before 
 
91 
 
 it bore date, and, therefore, that the contractor should be allowed 
 pay for six weeks before it bore date, though the law expressly 
 sni'd that no order should be made which gave pay prior to the day 
 of its making. They attempt to meet that by saying that there was a 
 telegraphic order which preceded the final order about three weeks. 
 But allowing the telegraphic order as the correct order of date for the 
 expedition, they are still, nevertheless, three or four weeks away from 
 the time. It is even then an antedated order, in absolute disregard 
 of the statute. Then, again, the order was an order extending over the 
 whole route, though the petition was for expedition on less than half of 
 the route, and the telegraphic order applied to only half of the route. 
 
 Mr. DAVIDGE. What route are you speaking of? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Eoute 38145, from Ojo Caliente to Parrott City. It was 
 originally from Garland to Parrott City, and was cut down at each end 
 so that it became from Ojo Caliente to Aniinas City. I mentioned the 
 fact that one of these contractors, Jarainillo, paid $500 for being let off 
 from his contract, besides having been fined all of his pay substantially. 
 Of those fines which were imposed upon him, a considerable amount 
 was remitted by Mr. Brady after Mr. Jaramillo had paid his $500 to be 
 released, and that amount so remitted, these contractors placed in their 
 pockets, and left Mr. Jaramillo entirely without any interest in it. 
 
 The route from Saguache to Lake City is in the indictment, but I 
 shall pass over it very briefly, because it need not be concealed from 
 you, gentlemen, that a large portion, if not all of the money, that was 
 derived from that route, passed into the pocket of a person not a defend- 
 ant in this case. Therefore, so far as the actual fraud upon the United 
 States is concerned, of which there was an abundance upon that route, 
 and in the inception of which these defendants were engaged, inasmuch 
 as the money did not go into their pockets, and inasmuch as there are 
 so much stronger cases, I do not care to take your time, either now, or 
 by the evidence to any great extent upon this route. It was ninety-five 
 miles long, was let for thirty-six hours' time, and three times a week; 
 Miner being the contractor at $3,426. There was, as I have stated, a 
 very considerable fraud upon that route, but it is not such that I care 
 to take any great amount of time with it. There is one feature in con- 
 nection with it, and another route to which I will call your attention. 
 It is route 38150. This route started from Saguache, and ran through 
 Barnum to Lake City. There was another route starting from Garland 
 and coming up to Lake City, and at that point going on to Barnum, and 
 overlapping from Barnum to Lake City, some twenty-odd miles of this 
 other route. At Barnum it turned west and went out to Los Pinos, a dis- 
 tance of about fifty miles. For this distance over the route the service 
 was identical. It was performed by the same .parties, and for a consid- 
 erable period Mr. Brady paid the same parties twice for doing the single 
 service. That money was not got back until after Mr. Brady had gone 
 out of office, and the administration that succeeded him came into office. 
 Then they compelled the subcontractor who had received that double 
 pay to refund. [Illustrating on map.] This other route came up to Lake 
 City and went on originally across the mountain to Onray. It was a 
 very difficult route across the mountains, and certain portions of the 
 year was undoubtedly practically impassable. It was almost across the 
 back-bone of the continent, the mountains being some twelve or thir- 
 teen thousand feet high. Therefore, af i er a time, that route which went 
 across the mountain was changed so that it went over the other route, 
 up to Barnum, making practically three routes for that distance; Lake 
 City to Barnum, and then up to Los Pinos, making two routes for that 
 
92 
 
 distance; ami then down to Ouray, going on three sides of a square, 
 as shorter in time and better than the one side, because the one side was 
 directly across the mountain. On that change we make no criticism ; 
 but what I desire to call .your attention to is this : that not only was 
 there the double service along that portion of the route from Barnum 
 to Lake City and the double payment, but there was also the double 
 payment from Barnum to Los Pinos, while there was only a single 
 service, the mail being carried by the same man on the same wagon and 
 with the same horses. When this change was made the postmasters 
 assumed, of course, that there was no intention to have double pay, and 
 they ceased to report one of these routes on their quarterly reports as 
 existing. They were called to account after a time by the Second 
 Assistant Postmaster-GeneraPs Office to know why they did not report 
 both, and thereupon one of the postmasters, a very intelligent gentle- 
 man, Dr. MacDouald, sat down and wrote Mr. Brady a long account of 
 the whole thing, showing how the service was identical, how he con- 
 sidered it was not possible that there could be any necessity for report- 
 ing both routes, and how there could not be any propriety in paying 
 for both. He was substantially told to mind his own business. The 
 service went on, the Government paying for both of those routes for 
 nearly two years after the remonstrance of Dr. MacDonald. and then, for 
 some reason, as to which there is apparently no evidence, an order was 
 made cutting off one of the routes, so that the contractor should get 
 pay only upon one. All we can say as to the origin of that order is, as 
 I recollect, that it was made about the time that public attention began 
 to be directed to star-route matters, and not very far from the time 
 when Mr. Brady had asked for an increase of appropriation, and there 
 had been a Congressional investigation. It was, I think, somewhat 
 later than that. It was not cut off until the summer of 1880, and the 
 investigation took place in the preceding winter. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. The money was all received by Sanderson and re- 
 couped. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. As to who received the money, and whether the success- 
 ors of Mr. Brady recouped it, is entirely unimportant in connection 
 with this case. However, the facts show the amount of service that 
 Mr. Brady put on and persisted in, in spite of the remonstrance of those 
 whom he ought to have relied upon, and continued for months and 
 years of time. 
 
 The route from Silverton to Parrott City, No. 38155, was let as sixty- 
 nine miles long, and for service twice a week. The time was thirty-six 
 hours and the amount paid $1,488. There was originally a subcontract 
 placed on file in October, 1878, by which John W. Dorsey, who was the 
 contractor, and received $1,488 from the Government, was to pay to 
 the subcontractor $2,280, about $800 more than he got. That subcon- 
 tract was made upon a printed blank, with the heading of Miner, Peck 
 & Co. It was made by the firm of Miner, Peck & Co., or J. W. Dorsey 
 & Co., I have forgotten which. On the 1st of October, 1879, Mr. 
 Stephen W. Dorsey became the subcontractor on that route at the full 
 amount. I have already mentioned to you that when any of these 
 parties to the conspiracy became subcontractors they were always sub- 
 contractors at the full amount, so as to leave the contractors with no 
 interest on the record. On the 21st of January, 1880, Mr. Dorsey's 
 subcontract was withdrawn, and a subcontract of a Mr. Steineger 
 was put on record for $9,400. Before Mr. Steineger became a 
 contractor the amount which the Government was to pay had been 
 run up from $1,458 a year to $16,512.28 a year. There was upon 
 
93 
 
 this route also a transaction of this kind, which took place as early as 
 February, 1879. Ten miles were added to the route, which started from 
 Silverton' and passed down to Parrott City. At about this poiut 
 [indicating on map], there was a trail that ran across over here [indi- 
 cating], cutting off an angle. It was an old trail not ordinarily trav- 
 eled, and in point of fact the mail was always carried by way of Ani- 
 mas City, which was a city of considerable size, and has now become 
 one of the largest towns in Southern Colorado Durango. Animas 
 City is on one side of the river and Durango is on the other. Mr. 
 Brady had sent circular after circular, calling upon the postmasters to 
 give him the distances between the post-offices. Those circulars had 
 been returned to him, each one of them specifying that Animas City 
 was on the route, and giving the distance. The mail had always gone 
 that way. There had always been a postmaster at Animas City, and 
 he had always opened the mail and taken out letters to Animas City. 
 Yet, on the 16th of February, 1879, ten miles were added for going to 
 Auimas City under the pretense that it added that distance because 
 there was a possible trail over which not only had there never been any 
 mail carried, but which Mr. Brady's own distance circular, sent him by 
 his own postmasters, showed him was never traveled. Mr. Brady began 
 by adding for this ten miles $215.65, and when it came to be multi- 
 plied by the expedition which subsequently came, the result was, 
 that the fictitious addition added $2,090 to the amount which Mr. 
 Brady directed to be taken from the Treasury. On the 1st of July, 1879, 
 five trips were added, and the time was reduced from thirty-seven hours 
 to fifteen hours. The allowances for this addition of trips and reduc- 
 tion of speed were fourteen thousand eight hundred and odd dollars, 
 carrying the total up to $16,512.28. There were changes on that route 
 at different times by which the Government finally paid out the reduced 
 sum of $14,870. At the time when the Government was paying $16,500 
 on this route the contractor got for doing nothing $11,500, and the sub- 
 contractor got for carrying the mail $5,400 and paid all the fines and 
 deductions. When the amount was reduced a little the subcontractor 
 did better. He then got $9,400 and the contractor got only $7,100. As 
 for the expedition for which this large sum of $10,500 was paid so far 
 as getting the mail to a point to go beyond the terminal station at 
 either end is concerned, it gained no time. The expedition from thirty- 
 five hours to fifteen hours did gain time for the little way stations ; but 
 as to the forwarding of the mail from Auimas City, which was on the 
 railroad this way, or Silverton, at the other end, nothing was gained 
 because the mail laid over night at both places. The result was, 
 gentlemen, that while the original time was thirty-six hours and the 
 expedited time was fifteen hours, after the expedition took place, a 
 letter required thirty hours to go over the entire route. The ex- 
 pedited time was lost by the stoppage and failure at Duraugo 
 and Silverton. On the llth of November, 1880, all the postmasters 
 united in recommending that the time be made at least twenty-four 
 hours and in this all the citizens of Silverton joined. Silvertou was 
 the chief place upon the route and one of the liveliest towns in Colo- 
 rado, as I am informed. That petition was transmitted by one of the 
 Senators from Colorado, with a strong letter recommending that it be 
 granted. Though you will hear, in the history of this case, that a Sena- 
 tor was apparently all-powerful whenever there was an increase to be 
 made and money to be taken from the Treasury, and though you will 
 find at least one order, if not two, taking an amount of money out of 
 the Treasury, made avowedly in part because it was requested by this 
 
94 
 
 very Senator, yet when that Senator, acting upon the petition of all the 
 leading people in the chief place upon this route, recommended that the 
 increased speed be dispensed with, his recommendation amounted to 
 nothing, and Mr. Brady went out of office leaving this increased speed 
 and this increased compensation for the benefit, not of the people of the 
 locality, but for the benefit of these contractors. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Will you be kind enough to tell the jury what case that 
 was? s 
 
 Mr. BLISS. That is Silverton to Parrott City. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. In this matter which you have just spoken about, be 
 kind enough to tell the jury what case you refer to. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. It is on the Silverton and Parrott City route, as I under- 
 stand it. That is my recollection of it. If I am incorrect about that, I 
 will be glad to be corrected. That route is No. 38156. The Senator is 
 Senator Hill, of Colorado. I do not think I am wrong as to the route, 
 but at any rate, if I am wrong as to the route, I simply say that as to 
 one of the routes in Colorado that transaction occurred. I do not think 
 I am wrong as to the route. 
 
 I may say to you, perhaps this may be a convenient occasion to say, 
 that the post-office routes are all numbered by a given thousand. For 
 instance, you will find all routes beginning with 38000 were in the State 
 of Colorado, each State having a thousand appropriated to it in that 
 way, Oregon's being, I think, 44000, and California's 46000. 
 
 Now, on the route 38140, which is from Trinidad to Madison, in South- 
 ern Colorado, Trinidad is here [illustrating on map]. The route as 
 originally run was from Trinidad over here to Barela, from Barela to a 
 place called Grinnell, and then down to Madison, which is on a river in 
 New Mexico the Cimarron . That route was let as forty-five miles long ; 
 one trip was to be made a week; John E. Miner was the contractor, at 
 thirteen hours. Before the service was commenced, instead of being 
 allowed to run across from there to there [indicating on map], the route 
 was bent around so as to go out here to Eaton, and then come around 
 there. The result was that, in consequence of that addition, the 
 original thirteen hours of time was extended to nineteen and three- 
 quarter hours, I think. Now, Eaton was put on there under these 
 circumstances. Here is a river valley going down there [indicating 
 on map]. There was mail service out here to a place called Pulaski, 
 and I think also to Greenwood. At any rate Eaton was situated in 
 that same valley, and was within eight or ten miles of mail service. 
 The people petitioned to have mail service from this direction [indi- 
 cating on map], coming down to Eaton as meeting all their convenience, 
 and that also, if I remember, was recommended by a United States 
 Senator. Instead of getting that service, which could have been put 
 on at the rate of two or three hundred dollars a year, this route here 
 was bent around. There was added to it some 23 miles of distance 5 the 
 time was extended 6 hours, so as to carry it up from 13 hours to 19 J 
 hours. Instead of two or three hundred dollars, which could have been 
 paid for that, you will see directly how the Government was made to 
 sutler by this twisting around, not in accordance with the petition pre- 
 sented and not in accordance with the convenience of the people. 
 
 Before I follow up the money matter, going a little into the history of 
 the route, we find this condition of things: Mr. Miner was the original 
 contractor; he wants all letters sent to lock-box 706; the original address 
 was lock-box 714; when sent to lock-box 714 they were to be addressed 
 to the care of M. C. Eerdell. On the 7th of December, 1880, a subcon- 
 tract of S. W. Dorsey's, which had been tiled on the llth of November, 
 
95 
 
 1879, and was dated on the 1st of April, 1879, was withdrawn. That 
 was on the 7th of December, 1880, though on the preceding 3d of April 
 Rerdell had directed that all communications should be sent to him. 
 On the 4th of June, 1881, Mr. Rerdell writes to one of the subcon- 
 tractors out there referring 1 to the delays and difficulties "we are 
 under in consequence of a change in the administration," and over- 
 hauling the post-office officials. Mr. Brady had gone out of office a 
 month previously. However, Mr. Rerdell had good trust. He 
 assured him that u this investigation now being made by the Post- 
 Office Department will come to nothing; it is simply a repetition 
 of that which was made by Congress a year ago." I think, gentle- 
 men, I shall not be drawing too largely upon you when 1 ask you to 
 draw the inference at least that Mr. Rerdell has since changed his 
 mind about this investigation. He thinks it a little different from the 
 investigation that Congress was making "a year ago." Mr. Rerdell r 
 however, at that time felt so confident that when by and by the new 
 administration cut off some portion of the expedition he notified the 
 subcontractor that he must continue to carry the mail on the old rate of 
 speed, for "we are going to contest in the courts the legality of their 
 expedition." They did not voluntarily go to work to make that contest 
 of legality, but we are in a certain form giving them that opportunity. 
 This distance that was added for Raton that I have spoken of was put 
 in as if 28 miles had been added. We shall show you in detail 
 that in fact it added only 23 miles; that the evidence was in the 
 department distinctly to show that it added only 23. But they re- 
 cited that it added 28 miles and paid on the basis of an addition of 
 28 miles; and moreover they paid for carrying that mail by Raton 
 from the 1st of July, 1878, though in point of fact no mail was ever 
 carried over that route until the- 17th of January, 1879. Six months 
 and seventeen days did they pay for carrying the mail over that 
 route, so wrenched around as to add 28 miles to the distance, before 
 any mail was carried there. But finally they had got it to suit them- 
 selves, and on the 1st of May, 1879, there were added two trips, and 
 then Mr. Brady put the thing back to where it was before he wrenched 
 it around and added on Raton. The original schedule time having been 
 thirteen hoars, which, by the addition of Raton, he extended to nine- 
 teen hours, he now, on the first of May, 1879, reduced the speed to 
 twelve hours, so that over that route the mail matter was carried in 
 twelve hours instead of thirteen hours that the original schedule re- 
 quired. But under the original schedule the Government was to pay 
 $338. Under the schedule with the decreased time the Government 
 was made by Mr. Brady to pay $4,290.30 for carrying the mail over 
 the same route. He could have supplied Raton at not exceeding $300. 
 He chose to supply it in this way, and the result was to get that route 
 to the same time before he put Raton on with the introduction of the two 
 extra trips, and he carried the expense to the Government up from $338 
 to $4,290.30. Of that amount of $4,290.30 the contractor who was car- 
 rying the mail received $1,550, and Dorsey & Company, for not doing 
 anything, received $2,402.30. The expedition- was obtained upon the 
 affidavit of John W. Dorsey, sworn to on the 26th of April, 1879. The 
 order was made five days later, on the 1st of May. Dorsey swore 
 that to carry the mail in nineteen and three fourth hours three times a 
 week took one man and four animals, and to carry it in twelve hours 
 would take three men and eleven animals. In point of fact the man 
 who carried the mail says that it took, to carry it in twelve hoars, three 
 trips a week on the expedited schedule, two men and six horses, and three 
 
96 
 
 of those were horses that he kept in reserve in case those in actual use 
 broke down. So, two men and six horses were actually used, making a 
 factor of eight, while John W. Dorsey swore that three men and eleven 
 horses were needed, making a factor of fourteen, and I need not remind 
 you how large a difference that would make in the amount taken from 
 the Treasury under the rule of expedition applied to it. 
 
 The route from Pueblo to Eosita, No. 38134, was advertised as forty- 
 nine miles long. It was let to John E. Miner at $388. The time was fifteen 
 hours, and there was to be one trip a week. The subcontractor was first 
 to pay $700, while getting from the Government only $388 I think. In 
 July, 1879, five trips were added, and for that $2,328 was added. Then the 
 time was reduced to ten hours from fifteen, and $5,432 was added. So 
 that a route commencing at $388 was carried up to $8,148. The annual 
 income of all the offices on that route was $1,464. On the 22d of October, 
 1879, there was filed the subcontract of one Hanson, by which he got $3,100. 
 Mind you, that was on file, and that left to the contractor net $o,048 
 for doing nothing. But the subcontractor Hanson had so good a thing 
 of it in carrying the mail at $3,100 and paying all fines and deductions 
 that he turned around and found a responsible contractor who carried 
 the mail for him for $2,600. So that while the Government was paying 
 $8,148, under Brady's orders for carrying the mail, the man who was 
 actually doing it was getting only $2,600. 
 
 Now that route from Pueblo to Eosita starts from Pueblo here 
 [indicating on map] and comes down here to Eosita ; the only inter- 
 mediate post-office was at Greenwood here [indicating]. Here was a 
 railroad running out here [indicating]. Greenwood gets its principal 
 mail quicker by getting it from another mail route here, that being- 
 rail and this a stage route [indicating on map]. The result was that 
 practically that route was only intended to supply Eosita and places 
 beyond it. And yet the mail came to Eosita by coming out here down 
 this way, that being all rail, quicker than it could from Pueblo. So 
 that, in point of fact, there was really no ground for the existence of this 
 route at all [indicating]. The intermediate station got its mail quite 
 as well from Florence, running out by the railroad quicker than down 
 there, and substantially no mail ever came to Eosita over that route. 
 All the mail matter that came from east of Eosita was put into the mail 
 bags on the cars and passed out here and came down here [indicating 
 on map]. It was not transferred at Pueblo at all. The only mail that 
 came from Pueblo to Eosita was practically such local matter as got 
 into the mail at a time after the mail going this way [indicating] had 
 closed and before another mail going the same way was about to start. 
 There were a few hours in the day when mail matter going to Eosita 
 was put into the bag to go over this route. That was all there was on 
 that route which was run up to $8,148. There was a certain time when 
 for a little while there was a post-office called Wetmore on the route, but 
 it was a trivial thing, and, as I recollect, it was discontinued. The pro- 
 ductiveness on that route, leaving out Pueblo, was something less than 
 a hundred dollars a year. 
 
 As to that route, Mr. Brady had been notified as early as the 30th of 
 August, 1878, long before he made any of his orders, by one of the post- 
 masters, that tri- weekly service was not needed. In the face of that 
 he went on and ordered six times a week's service. Again, on the 8th 
 of May, 1880, he was notified by the postmasters that the service was 
 not needed. That notice was given after he had made his order in- 
 creasing it, but he did not pay any attention to the notice of the post- 
 masters. He left that service, which the postmasters certified to him 
 
97 
 
 was not needed, in force until his successors came into office, when one 
 of their first acts was to cut it off. 
 
 The affidavit for increase on that route was made by John W. Dorsey, 
 who had no honest connection with the route no connection other than 
 being a co-conspirator with the others. John E. Miner was the con- 
 tractor. Eli Hanson was the subcontractor by a contract on file. Yet 
 Brady took the affidavit of John W. Dorsey, swearing that he was the 
 subcontractor. Dorsey swore that to carry the mail 7 times a week on 
 a 15-hour schedule took 2 men and 6 animals, making 8, and on a 10- 
 hour schedule 6 men and 18 animals, making 24. The man who car- 
 ried the mails says he never ran 7 times a week on 15 hours. His esti- 
 mate is that for 7 times a week and 15 hours it would take 7 men and 
 12 animals, though Dorsey, when his object was to make it as little as 
 possible, swore that it would take only 2 men and 6 animals, making 
 an aggregate of 8 against what the contractor says would have been 19. 
 Then the carrier says the amount as likely to be needed for the increased 
 speed was probably about correctly stated by Mr. Dorsey. It is a little 
 difficult on that route to get at those figures precisely, owing to the cir- 
 cumstance that at one time it became an important passenger route. 
 The mail was carried upon four-horse coaches, and it is impossible, 
 therefore, to say with any accuracy how many men and horses were 
 needed to carry the mail when they were also carrying a large number 
 of passengers and a large quantity of express matter. Therefore, as to 
 the discrepancy between the affidavit and the fact, it is a little less cer- 
 tain, perhaps, than as to some of the others as to which I called your 
 attention, or shall call your attention. 
 
 Route 40113, from Tres Alamos by way of Clifton, in Arizona, 
 was let to John W. Dorsey as 197 miles long, the trips to be made 
 once a week. Eighty-four hours were allowed for doing it, being a 
 little over two miles an hour. The contract price was $1,568. You 
 will find that as we go along through large portions of this correspond- 
 ence in connection with these routes, KerdelPs hand and Kerdell's brain 
 were being used, and being used in a subordinate capacity, while he 
 was representing the other men, Dorsey and others, who were putting 
 in their pockets the profits of the transaction and giving to Berdell a 
 portion of them which we are unable to define. On the 10th of May, 
 1879, Kerdell, writing in the name of John W. Dorsey, transmitted pe- 
 titions to the West to have them circulated for increase of trips and 
 speed, and in less than a month after, on the 2d of June, 1879, two trips 
 were added and $3,136 was allowed for them, and the time was reduced 
 from eighty- four hours to forty hours, and an allowance made for that 
 of $9,408, thereby carrying up the original pay of $1,568 to $14,112. 
 
 Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey's subcontract was filed on that route in Oc- 
 tober, 1879, and withdrawn in January, 1881. On the 2d of February, 
 1881, by one of the last orders, which fortunately for The Government 
 Mr. Brady was able to make, in about the last month of his official 
 time, he added four trips and allowed therefor $15,950.62. So that the 
 aggregate expense of that route which originally cost $1,568 was car- 
 ried up to $27,913.59, and that too after owing to a striking off of a 
 portion of the route there had been a deduction of $2,149. What cost 
 originally $1,568, as awarded by public, open bidding was, by Mr. 
 Brady's orders, under the pretense of expedition and increase out in 
 that desert region in Arizona, the character of which we shall show 
 you by witnesses from the spot, carried up to nearly $28,000 a year. 
 
 Turning for the moment to Oregon, let us take route 44140, which is 
 the. route from Eugene City to Bridge Creek. That was let as 207 
 
98 
 
 miles long on a schedule of 130 hours once a week. John M. Peck was 
 the contractor at $2,468. He first made a subcontract with a man 
 named Wycoif, by which he was to pay him $2,700 for that service for 
 which he, Peck, was getting from The Government only $2,468. But 
 that subcontract looked to the idea of an increase first of three trips r 
 and then to six or seven trips, and provided for all the contingencies as 
 to how much should be allowed with reference to each possible increase. 
 Kerdell and box 706 turned up as the proper address for the papers 
 connected with that contract ; and in that route we shall be able to 
 show you, I think, that Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey took great interest; that 
 he sent petitions there to be prepared; that he sent agents there to 
 work up public opinion; and that he was generally engaged in the be- 
 nevolent business of taking money out of the Treasury. 
 
 As early as the 26th of June, 1879, less than a year after the contract 
 term commenced, and a good deal less than a year after service was 
 commenced, as I recollect it, two trips were added, and the time was 
 reduced from 121 hours to 50 hours, the result of which was, that a 
 route which was let at $2,468 was run up to $21,460.89. But while, 
 under the original contracts, Mr. Peck was paying $232 more than he 
 got, he was now getting, under the expedited contract, $14,060.89 more 
 than he paid out himself, receiving that sum net, and giving to the 
 subcontractor $7,400 for performing the service, and the subcontractor 
 bearing the fines and penalties. After that came a series of petitions 
 from that route, and, as to those petitions, there is this fact, to which I 
 desire to call your attention. I mentioned to you that when Kerdell 
 came to Mr. MacYeagh and to Mr. James, and, under the effect of fear 
 or a quickened conscience, undertook to tell the whole story, so far as 
 he was concerned, and endeavored to procure protection for himself and 
 his patron, Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey, he produced a letter-book containing 
 the press copies of letters, some of which were written by him, and 
 some of which purported to be written by, and were stated by him 
 to be written by, Stephen W. Dorsey. Those letters, gentlemen, re- 
 lated to this route. They were letters written to an old acquaint- 
 ance in Arkansas, who had moved to Oregon, and were letters em- 
 ploying' him at a salary to go to work to get up petitions, and the 
 forms of petitions were inclosed to him, and directions given to him as 
 to everything that he was to do in the way of working up public opinion. 
 Mr. Dorsey *s relations to this gentleman were such that he addressed 
 him as "My Dear Frank," and he went on and did his work faithfully 
 He is directed to get up letters. He is directed to see that there are a 
 proper number of Democrats : " Write to the Democratic Senators " ; and 
 he is to see to getting articles in the newspapers, and, generally, he is 
 to work this thing up ingeniously and pervasively; and he did it. 
 I think Dorsey all this time was in the United States Senate ; that it 
 was not after Dorsey went out of the Senate. Wilcox transmitted 
 these letters, so far as he got them, to Mr. Dorsey, and Mr. Dorsey 
 sent them to the Postmaster-General, never pretending in any man- 
 ner that he had any possible relations to anybody connected with these 
 routes ; but he, as a public official in the United States Senate, had 
 received these letters from people out there, who, under the stress 
 of their own needs and the necessity of having more mail service, had, 
 among others, written to him, perhaps, as chairman of the Committee 
 on Post-Offices, and he transmitted them to the Second Assistant Post- 
 master-General, and the Second Assistant Postmaster-General continued 
 the benevolence by promptly proceeding to make orders upon them. 
 The total revenue of the route, the expense of which was carried up to 
 
99 
 
 $21,460.89, was $639.82. That route is in Oregon and runs east and 
 west through an unsettled country for forty miles. It is literally true 
 that there is not and never has been a soul residing there. For seventy 
 miles it is literally true there was not even a road. One village through 
 which it passes has six houses, another two, another fourteen, and an- 
 other four. It so happens that on one day we can show you the amount 
 of mail matter that passed over that route. It consisted of one letter, 
 one postal card, and one mail bill, which was a government record show- 
 ing what was in the bag. That route was not a through route. It was 
 a local route, and that was the way in which Mr. Brady treated it and 
 the way in which he had "due regard to productiveness." 
 
 Koute 44160, also in Oregon, from Canyon City to Fort McDermott, 
 runs north and south. I am not sure whether it connects with the Union 
 Pacific Railroad or not, but I think so. That was let as 243 miles long. 
 The time allowed was 130 hours. Peck was the contractor at $2,888. 
 The service was to have commenced on that route on the 1st of July, 
 1878. In point of fact it did not commence until long after that time. 
 The postmaster at the only intermediate post-office, Camp Harney, 
 reported that the mail commenced first on the 9th of December, 
 1878. The postmaster at Fort McDermott reports that it began on the 
 4th of January. On the 23d of December, twelve days before the serv- 
 ice had actually begun bearing in mind the distance of Oregon from 
 here before any knowledge of that service on any portion of the route 
 could have been received here, Mr. Brady made an order for the addi- 
 tion of two trips, and reduced the time from 130 hours to 96 hours, 
 when there never had been a mail over the route, and allowed on that 
 route, where the original pay was $2,888, from, the Treasury of the Gov- 
 ernment $21,500. He did this before a pound of mail had been carried 
 by these contractors over that route. Of the sum which he so allowed 
 $10,000 went to the contractors who were carrying the mail, and $11,500 
 went into the pockets of the parties here, or some of the parties here. 
 On the 1st of August, 1880, four more trips were added, and the 
 result was that a route which had cost originally on the public bid- 
 ding $2,888 was run up to $50,166.66, of which the subcontractor got 
 only $20,000 or $21,000. Where the other $30,000 went other than 
 the pocket of Yaile. he being the contractor of record, and some of 
 his associates, we cannot say, unless you count Thomas J. Brady in as 
 one of those associates. The net revenue of that entire route was 
 $114.50. Not a pound of through mail went over the route. There 
 was but one way post-office on the route. The letters and papers, 
 all told, would not average three pounds a day. Sometimes they did 
 not exceed half a pound, and save at Fort Harney, the single station 
 I pointed out to you, there was not over all the balance of the 243 
 miles a hut or a cabin. As late as September or October, 1878, the 
 officers at Fort Harney wrote Mr. Brady saying that they could not 
 get any mail matter; that passengers arrived there, that packages 
 came there, but they could not get their mail. You will see, I think, 
 in the course of time, that there will be some attempt to say that In- 
 dians were interfering with it. These officers say that passengers could 
 come easily and mails could come easily, and that they sent their mes- 
 sengers regularly to Canyon City. They said, ''Won't 3^011 make some 
 arrangement by which we can send up there and get our mail ourselves, 
 or do something of that kind, if you will not have the contractor bring 
 us our mail?" That letter got on to the files of the Post-Office Depart- 
 ment and was put into the jacket which I described to you as one of 
 these envelopes on the back of which Mr. Brady makes orders for expe- 
 
100 
 
 iiition and increase of trips. That letter was used as one of the vouchers 
 upon which Mr. Brady made an increase of trips and speed. The coin- 
 plaint of these officers, that they could not get the existing mail though 
 passengers and baggage could come there, is made one of the vouchers 
 on which Brady proceeds to order more mail and more trips and to pay 
 more money. He expedites and increases the number of trips on a route 
 which, so far as the people at Fort Harney were concerned, never ran 
 there. 
 
 Upon that route the petition business was used, and in connection with 
 it is rather a peculiar development I think I mentioned it to you. In one 
 of these petitions the written matter comes down to within four lines of the 
 bottom of a sheet of foolscap; then there are, I think, four names signed 
 there. The petition it self is, as we think, in a disguised handwriting, which 
 we think we shall satisfy you is that of John E. Miner. The first name 
 purporting to be signed to that petition is that of a postmaster at Canon 
 City, who will tell you that his name there is a forgery ; that he never 
 saw it, and never would have put it there if he had seen it. The ques- 
 tion who put his name there is a matter that we are going to take some 
 trouble to prove to you. I believe we shall show that it was put there 
 by John K. Miner. There are three other names on that piece of paper. 
 There is in that region a man named M. D. Elfresh, or some such name 
 as that. There is signed to the paper the name of D. M. Elfresh. No 
 such man is known in that region, or along that route. The other two 
 names are, as I understand it, equally unknown along the route. Now, 
 having reached the bottom of the paper, you find pasted on to it three 
 or four sheets full of names. There are fifty or sixty names, apparently 
 signed by different people, and all having the ajjpearance of genuine- 
 ness; and yet we shall show to you that those names on that paper, 
 pasted on, are not the names of persons who live in or who ever saw 
 Oregon, but they are all the names of people I will not speak as to 
 all, but they are scattered through in such a way as to indicate that 
 they are all the names of people who live away down in Southern Utah, 
 hundreds of miles further east and more than a thousand miles further 
 south than the starting-point of this route. They are people who never 
 saw the route, never had anything to do with it, and who did not sign 
 any such petition. They are people who signed some other petition 
 for increase of some route in Utah, or something of that sort, and the 
 names have been detached, as we shall ask you to believe from the 
 evidence, from the proper petition and pasted on to this one with these 
 three or four forged names upon it. This petition has been used by Mr. 
 Brady as one of the pretended vouchers under which he ran up this 
 route from about $2,880 a year to $50,166 a year. 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. Will you say that that petition does not state that the 
 signers are citizens living along the route? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I will give you the benefit of that. The petition does not 
 state they are citizens of Oregon. It does not state that they live on 
 that route, and, unlike some of the other lying petitions that were used, 
 it does not state that they get their mail matter over the route. But 
 what business had Mr. Brady to use as a voucher for taking $49,000 a 
 year, or any sum, out of the Treasury of the United States, a petition 
 signed by persons who did not live within thousands of miles of a route 
 which produced only about $150 a year? And what business had your 
 client, John li. Miner, to forge that petition, as forge it he did, when he 
 transferred that sheet of names from the place where the signers put 
 them, to the other heading. 
 
Mr. WILSON. Now, will you Dot be frank ^ndugii:co;teU-tojfckq jury that 
 that petition '/ ^ ;,,;;' '. > / % J /.;^ 
 
 Mr. BLISS. [Interposing.] ,1 will give you gentlemen a chance to tell 
 the jury anything you want to. I say that was one of the vouchers on 
 which Mr. Brady acted. I do not say it was the only voucher on which 
 he acted. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. It was put on file after he made the order. 
 
 Mr. HENKLB. You want to tell the whole truth, do you not ? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I think I shall state it truly. -It was not on file when 
 some of the orders were made. It was on tile before others of them 
 were made, if I am not incorrect in my recollection. The evidence will 
 show. I think it was on file, but even if it was not it does not help 
 Judge Henkle's client any. If he put an unnecessary forgery on the 
 files of "the Post-Office Department did he do it because he was in the 
 daily habit of so doing, or why? He put it there for some reason. It 
 may have been intended as an ex post facto voucher. I do not care what 
 it was. It was a square, bold, bare-faced forgery either to get money 
 out of the Treasury or to back up the act of Thomas J. ISrady in having 
 already ordered money to be taken out of the Treasury. Twenty-eight 
 thousand six hundred and sixty-six dollars of that $50,000 was ordered 
 to be paid out after the petition was filed. That is the route, gentlemen 
 of the jury, in which we have the transaction with the postmaster at 
 Alvord. Mr. Miner wrote to his agent out there, Mr. Williamson, "I 
 find that Mr. S. H. Abbott, postmaster at Alvord, is writing here, 
 saying you do not need any weekly mail. Go and buy him up. Shut 
 him up. Get rid of him. We cannot afford this sort of thing." That 
 is the meaning of the letter, as we shall ask you to infer. John E. Miner 
 knew that Mr. Abbott was writing to the department. John R. Miner 
 had so written to Mr. Williamson. That letter, when we came to make 
 an investigation after Mr. Brady had gone out of office, had disappeared 
 from the files of the department, and there is no evidence on file there 
 that it ever existed. We have only the word of John R. Miner that it 
 ever did exist there. But this is one of the rare cases when we shall 
 ask you to take the word of Mr. Miner. Mr. Williamson was told to go 
 and shut the mouth of that man by paying him, and Mr. Williamson 
 performed that duty, paid the money, and took a voucher for his pay- 
 ment. We shall have the pleasure of showing to you something about 
 that. 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. That will be explained. 
 
 Mr. MERRICK. You cannot explain it. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. You cannot explain it. You bought the man off once for 
 complaining of you because you had not run the mail, and he had at 
 least to have a mail in which to put his quarterly report. He had to 
 travel way up to Canon City to get his quarterly report in the mail, and 
 he complained to the department that it was pretty bad to have no 
 mail but still worse to have to travel twenty-five or thirty miles at his 
 own expense to put his quarterly report in the mail, and so they paid 
 him for his expenses in doing that thing. It was that transaction that 
 encouraged them to think they could go to work on the other one. They 
 did it and carried it out faithfully. That was one of the cases where 
 they paid right up. 
 
 Route 44155, from The Dalles to Baker City, was let as 275 miles on 
 a schedule of 120 hours, or five days, and two trips a week. John M. 
 Peck was the contractor, and he was to get from the Government $8,288. 
 Lock-box 714 was to be used as in the other cases. Service was not 
 begun until the 2d of September, 1878, though the contract required 
 
102 
 
 them to eoi>;i'U4}C'3 or- the 1st of July, 1878. Indian difficulties 011 a 
 portion of Hie vcute it is claimed existed. The service having been com- 
 menced on the 2d of September, 1878, on v the 1st of October Mr. Vaile 
 put his subcontract on file, and before the month of October had run 
 out petitions began to come in, and in less than two months after the 
 service was commenced it was increased by adding one trip and the time 
 was reduced from 120 hours, or five days, to seventy-two hours, or three 
 days. The result was that the pay was run up from $8,288 to $31,080. 
 On that route there was a little liberality in the sense that Brady's 
 allowance was less than pro rata. If you believe the oath of the con- 
 tractor, then Mr. Brady allowed less than pro rata, and instead of car- 
 rying up the route $31,080, as he did, adding the expedited pay to the 
 original pay, he could, under the oath, have carried it up to some sixty 
 odd thousand dollars, I think. That, however, was a little oversight, 
 and it was, as I recollect, corrected, for at a later period in the progress 
 of the contract it was carried up> if I am right, to $72,520. Later than 
 that there came off $10,360 for the reduction of a single trip. The fact 
 is, that in the spring of 1880 Mr. Brady directed one trip to be taken 
 off from all the star routes in the country which were over one trip 
 a week, and these contractors sent out a circular calling attention 
 to it and saying that Congress having failed to make the extra ap- 
 propriation asked, Mr. Brady, for the purpose of bringing the expend- 
 itures for the fiscal year ending the 30th of June within the amount of the 
 appropriation, was compelled to cut off one trip all around. "We give 
 you this notice, and we advise you to write to your member of Congress 
 and others." Brady estimated for $2,000,000 for the expense of the star- 
 route service for that year. Congress gave him every dollar he esti- 
 mated for, and yet he found himself obliged to go to Congress in the 
 December following the summer of his estimate and ask for $2,000,000 
 more, and when Congress hesitated to do it, and set on foot an investi- 
 gation which seems to me to have gone just up to the verge of discover- 
 ing these frauds and then to have stopped, Mr. Brady ordered one trip 
 a week cut off from all the star-route service of the country. These 
 contractors accompanied that notice with the intimation to everybody 
 concerned in transporting the mail that they should bring pressure to 
 bear upon their Congressmen to make the appropriation and restore the 
 service. Mr. Brady, when he cut off one trip a week from all the star- 
 route service of the country, which reduction was rendered necessary 
 by his fraudulent extravagance, put into his order not only a direction 
 that every contractor was to have a month's extra pay on all that service 
 just dispensed with, but they received this thirty days' pay for service 
 which they did not perform, and which Brady told them they could 
 not perform, because having estimated for $2,000,000 he had spent 
 $4,000,000. 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. Was not that the law ? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. It was the law to give the month's extra pay. I grant 
 you that. It was not the law for Mr. Brady to estimate for"$2,000,000, 
 run it up to $4,000,000 by these fraudulent orders such as I have called 
 to your attention, and then intimate to the contractors to bring pressure 
 upon Congress to get his extravagant appropriations and thus enable 
 you gentlemen to come in here and undertake to say that Congress has 
 condoned your offense. Now on that route the extra pay to the con- 
 tractor for the month amounted to several thousand dollars, as I rec- 
 ollect it. Having been cut off in April, this trip was on the 16th 
 of July restored. Brady had got in the mean time from Congress 
 $1,250,000, and he had also, which was of more importance, got into 
 
103 
 > 
 
 a new fiscal year with a new star- route appropriation to operate 
 upon for the whole country. Therefore he restored this trip, and 
 the result was that the contractors were at .most without the one 
 trip for two months and they got pay for it for one of those months. 
 Mr. Rerdell, I think it is, for he was a voluminous correspondent, 
 suggests to the contractors, in one of the letters we shall produce 
 to you, that it will probably be a beneficial thing for them to 
 have the trip taken off for a month because they can fatten up 
 their stock arid get them in better condition. 
 
 On the Ifcth of September, 1879, going back a little, Peck swore it 
 would take on the existing schedule eight men and ten horses to perform 
 the service on that route. It was 270 miles long and they had to go over 
 it each way twice in a week. They had therefore to travel 540 miles in 
 a week. Mr. Brady accepted Mr. Peck's oath that to do that would take 
 only ten horses. I will not say that ten horses could not have done it, 
 but I do say that those ten horses would have to travel a good many 
 times as many miles in a day as Mr. Brady said in his orders for expe- 
 dition was a proper number of miles for a horse to travel. He said on 
 one of the routes that two miles a day was all a horse ought to travel, 
 or four miles in double team, and from two to six miles a day ; that was 
 about all he allowed. But he accepts this statement of Mr. Peck of the 
 number of miles these horses ought to travel. Mr. Peck also swore 
 that to reduce the speed from 120 hours to seventy-two hours would 
 carry up the men from eight to twenty, and the horses from ten to sixty- 
 six. To go over that route in five days, twice each way, you need but 
 ten horses. To go over that route twice each way, in three days, you need 
 sixty-six horses. That is the statement of the oath. As to that route 
 we have this peculiarity : There is Baker City [indicating on the map] 
 and here is The Dalles [indicating] ; there was from Baker City another 
 route passing up by Pendleton and down to The Dalles. Every pound 
 of mail matter which came from the east bound to The Dalles, which is 
 a large place in Oregon, went over this latter route even though it arrived 
 at Baker City. It went from Baker City up around that way because it 
 was quicker'and more certain than to go by the other route. Every 
 pound of mail matter that went from The Dalles to Baker City or farther 
 east went around. Although longer, the route could be traveled quicker 
 and more certainly. The first station out of this route this side of Baker 
 City is Auburn, and a letter at Auburn which was intended to goto The 
 Dalles did not go over this route [indicating], but went the other way 
 east, and then around, and came west to The Dalles. A letter from 
 Auburn intended to go to the first station the other way from this end 
 of the route went first east, then north, then west, and then south. 
 Not only did not the matter from the terminal stations pass over the route 
 north ; matter coming from beyond the terminal stations, but the matter 
 which originated upon a portion of the route went around about out of 
 its way to strike another route so as to get to its destination quicker 
 and more certainly. That is the route which the facts show so clearly 
 was not a through route. It was a route that produced $2,300 a year, 
 and Brady ran it up to $72,520 a year. There were only three settle- 
 ments on the entire 270 miles. Those settlements were all in one val- 
 ley, within a compass of fifteen miles. They were all right in there [in- 
 dicating on the map], in the valley known as John Day Valley, \\ 7 hich 
 was a valley to which an alleged discovery of gold had brought a cer- 
 tain number of people. In point of fact, gentlemen, though expedition 
 was ordered in November, 1878, within two months after the service 
 actually commenced, there was no expedition performed on that route 
 
104 
 
 until November or December, 1879, and yet expedition was paid for all 
 that time at the rate of $72,000 a year. If it had got up to $72,000 
 as early as that, it is possible that some of the increases did not begin 
 so early. At any rate, expedition was paid for upon that route. I 
 think we shall be able to show you that there ^ere some curious devices 
 to get the evidence of a terminal postmaster that the mail had been 
 carried when it had not been carried at all. A petition upon which 
 that expedition was granted was interlined in a way to indicate that 
 there has been applied to it some of the peculiar abilities which are 
 shown to have existed in connection with other petitions on other 
 routes. 
 
 The route from Bismarck to Fort Keogh, 35051, was let at 250 miles 
 long, on a schedule of eighty-four hours of time once a week. John E. 
 Miner was the contractor. On the 2d of April, 1878, before the con- 
 tract term commenced, when John E. Miner was the contractor, Stephen 
 W. Dorsey, who was a Senator, writes to an engineer officer of the 
 Northern Pacific Eailroad I think it was with reference to the length 
 of the route and he gets a reply, which he places on file, showing that 
 in point of fact the route was 303 miles, instead of 250 miles, long. On 
 the 23d of December, 1878, three trips were added, and $4,700 allowed 
 for those, being pro rata. Then the service was reduced from eighty- 
 four hours to sixty-five hours, and $27,050 was allowed for that, making 
 a total of $35,000 ; and on the 2d of August, 1879, three trips more 
 were added, making $70,000 on a route where the original contract 
 price was $2,350. Miner swore that three trips would take twelve men 
 and thirteen animals on the then schedule ; that to reduce it to sixty- 
 five hours from eighty-four twenty hours would require one hun- 
 dred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty animals. Is not John 
 E. Miner the champion swearer of the universe, gentlemen ? There is 
 no pretense, there will not be any pretense, that that affidavit was cor- 
 rect. It was sworn to by a man who never saw the route. In that 
 respect, however, he is just like all the rest of these defendants. There 
 is not an affidavit on file from any one of these defendants who, at the 
 time he made the affidavit, ever had seen the route, as I am informed. 
 Miner swore that it would take three hundred men and animals to per- 
 form the service in sixty -five hours on a route in fact 303 miles long. It 
 would, he said, take a man and an animal to every mile to perform that 
 service. Now that statement was more than Brady could swallow. I am 
 stating ik pretty strong, gentlemen, I know, When I say that. But it was 
 more than he could swallow, and therefore in that case he did not make 
 expedition up to the limit. He made expedition considerably below the 
 limit. But you will remember, gentlemen, that in another portion of my 
 opening I called your attention to the fact that there appeared on file 
 proof of another affidavit of the same John E. Miner, in which he made 
 a statement entirely different as to the number of men and animals 
 which would be required, only about a third of what is stated in that 
 affidavit, and though Mr. Brady could not swallow this second affidavit 
 of Miner's and make the allowance up to the limit called for by it, he 
 compromised things by making an allowance somewhat in excess of the 
 first affidavit of Mr. Miner. 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. How much ? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Somewhat in excess ; about $2,000 if I remember right ; 
 and when anybody gets within $2,000 of Miner's figures he gets sur- 
 prisingly near them. 
 
 Now that affidavit of Miner's, gentlemen, was made within two months 
 after he had been putting petitions into the Post-Office Department de- 
 
105 
 
 Glaring that that route ran through trackless prairie, with 110 inhabitants, 
 which was true 5 with no call for the mail, which was true, except that 
 it was, as I ain going to show you presently, a route of growing impor- 
 tance between two terminal stations, and where it had been claimed that 
 he must have a company of soldiers to accompany every carrier over 
 the route in order to carry the mail safely, and if his 150 men had 
 actually been needed as mail carriers, he would have taken something 
 like half the Army of the United States to accompany his mail-carriers 
 over that route, if his affidavit had been true. 
 
 That route, gentlemen, was the route on which Eerdell made the 
 proposition to Pennell, the contractor, that when he got oat a hundred 
 miles or so he should pretend that there was, thirty or forty or fifty 
 miles north of it, a settlement, and that he should get up a petition and 
 have it signed by his gang of workmen, and that in that way they should 
 ask for mail service to connect with this route ; and that they should 
 ask for the appointment of one of their number as postmaster at this 
 supposititious place, on this supposititious route, and then they would 
 get their arrangement made in Washington to carry their mail over 
 this supposititious route they were going to make, and get an allowance 
 for fifty or sixty or seventy miles. Mr. Pennell was too honest for them. 
 He would not do it. He will come here and tell you the whole trans- 
 action, and you will believe every word he says when you see him. 
 That is the route, gentlemen, where they commenced by building a 
 station every seventeen miles, and when asked by the contractor why 
 they wanted stations every seventeen miles, they said that they were 
 going to have an increase, and when they got an increase of trips and 
 speed they would have to have stations every seventeen miles, which 
 was true. But they were so certain that they were going to have it 
 that they built those stations every seventeen miles, when, until they 
 got the expedition, they used only every other station. They spent in 
 building their stations, and for things other than the horses that were 
 to run the route, $6,600, before there had been an order for expedition; 
 before there had been any sign in the department that there was any 
 call for expedition, when the Indians were going over that trackless 
 prairie, according to their papers on file here ; and they spent $6,600 
 for these permanent improvements, while at their existing rate of pay- 
 ment they were getting only $9,500 in the whole four years of their 
 contract. That is the route, gentlemen, upon which John W. Dorsey 
 proposed to Pennell to go into partnership with him, and told him that it 
 was to be expedited, and told him that there would be two increases with- 
 in a year; that one of them would be an increase up to $25,000, and it 
 is the route, gentlemen, on which they got one increase within a year 
 which was up to $33,000 instead of $25,000, and on which they got a 
 second increase in thirteen months instead of within the year, which 
 carried it up to $52,000. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, that route, as I have said, was a route of consider- 
 able and growing importance. The reason why their efforts to have it 
 discontinued, on the ground that it belonged to the Indians and not to 
 them, did not succeed, was that the inhabitants of Dakota, represented 
 by their Delegate here, insisted upon it that there should be a mail route 
 from Bismarck to Fort Keogh, which was a military post within the Ter- 
 ritory of Dakota. There was, in that point of view, a justification of 
 the existence of the route. There may have been, possibly, a justifica- 
 tion of the increase of the number of trips to some extent. There never 
 was any justification of the increase of speed and expedition. The very 
 orders which Brady made refer to applications for increase corning from 
 
106 
 
 officers of the Army, which officers did not ask for any increase of ex- 
 pedition. They asked for increase of trips on the ground that they 
 wanted constant communication with what we may call the outer world. 
 They did not ask for increase of speed at all. Brady chose to take 
 those petitions as a means of ordering increase of speed. That route 
 was let at $2,350 for one trip. If he had made it seven trips a week 
 he could have run it up to but $16,000. That was too paltry a thing for 
 these gentlemen. They had to have orders for expedition and increase 
 of speed that could give him any justification, even if he did not believe 
 Miner's affidavit, in carrying the amount up to $50,000, and, therefore, 
 he chose to pervert the letters of the officers of the Army asking for 
 increase of trips into applications for increase of speed, and he will 
 tell you, probably, that one of the noblest officers of the Army, Gen- 
 eral Miles, whom it is one of the proudest recollections of my life that 
 I have something to do with enabling him to get into that position in 
 the lower grade of the military where he exhibited those capacities 
 which made him a brigadier-general in the Eegular Army, passing from 
 a simple clerk at the outbreak of the war in New England advised it. 
 General Miles made an application for an increase of service. They trans- 
 formed that into an application for increase of speed ; and a few others like 
 that were used for authority for this expedition. Do not understand 
 that there are not other papers there. There are other papers on file 
 asking expedition. There is no question about that. You all know, 
 and the court will take judicial notice of it, that you can get petitions 
 anywhere for anything. Of course you can get petitions anywhere in 
 the western territory from men who honestly and fairly, and from their 
 point of view property, sign petitions asking that they should have a 
 mail service every day in the week, twice a day if you choose, and that 
 it should run ten miles an hour if you choose, for the simple reason that 
 it is a convenience to them. It is not paid for by them. It is paid for 
 by the general public, which means the public of the East; and they 
 signed those petitions and sent them here because they believed, until 
 the developments of this cause, that they had a Second Assistant Post- 
 master-General who would look at the petitions and say, "This is the 
 representation of one interested side urging its wishes and its views ; I am 
 to judge of that judicially, with a view to the interests and demands of 
 the entire country, and with a view to the amount which Congress has 
 chosen to place at my disposal." 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. Won't you tell the jury what General Sherman said 
 about it ? 
 
 Mr. BLISS. General Sherman never said a word in favor of expedi- 
 tion, and, if I may refer to it, you heard and I heard General Sherman 
 say that expedition was not necessary. 
 
 Mr. MERRICK. [To Mr. Henkle.] Why do you not keep quiet ! 
 
 Mr. HENKLE. I want you to tell the truth. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I am telling the truth right straight along. You are in 
 the position of the sailor who said that what led him to prefer a par- 
 ticular kind of religious service was because he had a chance to jaw 
 back. Your time will come. 
 
 The route from Vermillion to Sioux Falls, 35015, was let as fifty miles 
 long and at fourteen hours time, trips once a week. It was really seventy- 
 five miles. Mr. John W. Dorsey was the contractor, and $398 was the 
 amount for which he undertook to perform the service. On the 1st of Au- 
 gust, 1878, he made a contract with a Mr. Leach to perform that service for 
 him, and he agreed to pay him $500 for it while he was only going to get 
 $398. But then lie agreed that if it was put up to two trips, foreseeing 
 
107 
 
 Brady's action, then lie would pay him $900 for it. On the 1st of Au- 
 gust, 1879, a new contract with Leach was filed, which provided for six 
 trips, and Leach was to get $2,150 in case of six trips. Lock -box 714 
 appeared there, and the address was to be the care of John K. Miner, 
 though John W. Dorsey was the contractor. There was an addition of 
 a couple of miles on account of some change in the post-office. Then 
 came the six trips provided for in Leach's subcontract. Then came the 
 expedition to ten hours, and by that time the $388 originally to be paid 
 by the Government was carried up by Brady's orders to something over 
 $6,000. On that route Mr. Vaile, who was nothing relative to it offi- 
 cially, was the man who made the affidavit for expedition. There were 
 various changes upon the route, to which I will not stop to call your 
 attention ; but in December, 1879, all the postmasters on the route con- 
 curred in asking an increase of the time to sixteen hours, representing 
 that the mail could not be carried in the then time. There was no other 
 mail over the route. The petitions in that case were sent out from some- 
 where, apparently from here, with blanks left in them. They were 
 signed with the blanks left in them for the hours as I recollect it may 
 have been trips ; for something and the petitions got back here and 
 part of them got on file and never had the blanks filled, up, and there they 
 are to-day with the blanks unfilled. But when these postmasters wrote, 
 asking that the time should be reduced on the ground that it was too low, 
 what was the result ? The postmasters sent the application through Judge 
 Bennett, the Delegate from the Territory; and a member of Congress, or 
 one occupying that position, is entitled to the consideration of an an- 
 swer. When I comnmeced my opening I supposed that that answer was 
 entirely lost. I knew that the original was lost. I supposed that there 
 was no evidence of its existence. But there has been found the answer 
 of Mr. Brady, and that answer of Mr. Brady, as appears to be indorsed 
 on the papers that we found, is : u Wirte Judge B. that it cannot be done." 
 He does not say why it cannot be done, except the obvious rule that 
 when a Delegate or Member of Congress or Senator asks an increase of 
 the amount of money taken from the Treasury, it can be done promptly, 
 provided the money is to go into the hands of contractors who have 
 made proper arrangements. If the Delegate, Member of Congress, or 
 Senator asks that the amount of money taken from the Treasury be 
 decreased, if it is to come out of the pockets of these same gentlemen, 
 the answer is: "Write Judge B. that it cannot be done;" and they 
 wrote Judge B. it could not be done, and then they went on arid added 
 this other remarkable reason : " It would be an injustice to other 
 bidders at the letting of the route." 
 
 Mr. Dorsey, or Mr. Miner, or whoever it was, having got this contract 
 as the lowest bidder, having then got the route expedited and got it 
 run up from $398 to six thousand and odd dollars, the postmasters 
 asked that that increase be taken off, and Mr. Brady says it cannot be 
 done, because it would be an injustice to the other bidders on the route. 
 What have the other bidders to do with that thing? John W. Dorsey 
 was the bidder. It the postmasters' request had been granted the 
 amount going into the hands of Dorsey and company would have been 
 diminished. Dorsey would have been still responsible to carry the 
 mail; still bound to carry the mail under his original contract; but Mr. 
 Brady says it cannot be put back in that position, though the post- 
 masters on the route, and there are ten or twelve of them, all say it 
 ought to go there. Mr. Brady says it cannot go there because it would 
 be injustice to other bidders on the route. Mr. Brady in giving that 
 
108 
 
 reason did not do justice to bis own abilities. He ought to have found 
 some better reason than that. 
 
 The fact is, gentlemen, that that petition, and that application to Ben- 
 nett to attend to it, was but the end of a long series of applications pro- 
 ceeding from the route, representing that the rate of speed required was 
 greater than the wants of the locality demanded, greater than could be 
 carried out, and that there had been irregularities consequent upon not 
 complying with the schedule. There had been that series of moves 
 right along from the locality, and finally Judge Bennett was written to 
 go and attend to it, and he went with that result to which I have called 
 your attention. 
 
 On the route from Eedding to Alturas, No. 46247. there were two trips 
 a week. The route was 179 miles long, and the time was 108 hours. 
 The agreement was to pay $5,988. Eerdell sent out the inevitable peti- 
 tions on that route, and lock-box 714 comes in. The first petitions for 
 increase bear date the 12th of April, 1878, three months before service 
 was to commence. On the 5th of October, 1878, when Major filed his 
 subcontract, he was to be paid $2,200 more than the Government was 
 paying to Peck, the contractor. But it contained a provision looking 
 to six trips. The provision was this, and it shows how unjust was Mr. 
 Brady's idea of allowing pro rata on trips: He was to do the six trips 
 for twice the amount of money for which he was to do two trips, and 
 he was to do seven trips for $17,000, when, if there had been pro rata, 
 he would have been entitled to have been paid $24,000. One trip was 
 added before the service began at all. It was added in June, 1878, and 
 an allowance of $2,994 was made for that. In December, 1878, the time 
 was reduced from 108 hours to 72 hours, and $26,946 was allowed for 
 that. So that a route starting at $5,988 was within less than six months 
 carried up to $35,925, of which sum the subcontractor got $21,000, ac- 
 cording to the order which Brady himself made, and $14,925 according 
 to the same order went to the nominal contractors here. By subse- 
 quent changes the contractor got $41,916, and the subcontractor, who 
 did the work, got of that only $23,000. And yet, gentlemen of the jury, 
 while all that money was being paid for a reduction from 108 to 72 
 hours, in point of fact the mail was being carried all the time before the 
 payment was ordered by Brady in 41 to 43 hours in summer and 60 
 hours in winter. Brady paid that large sum under the pretense that 
 thereby he was getting the time of carrying the mail reduced from 122 
 hours to 70 hours, when, in point of fact, the mail was being carried 
 in between 60 and 41 hours all the time. There was no pretense of ne- 
 cessity for paying that money money, mind you, that was paid without 
 getting anything for it; money, the great bulk of which went to parties 
 here in Washington with whom Brady was dealing, and did not go to 
 the contractor who was carrying the mail. They were doing a large 
 passenger and express business with four-horse coaches. They were 
 glad to take the mail, which was not large, along with their passengers 
 and express matter for the original sum which the contractor was con- 
 tent to give them and which he agreed to give them, reserving to him- 
 self a very handsome sum. Yet, in fact, the contractors claimed, and Mr. 
 Brady, obedient to their call, gave large increases, being liberal with 
 the money of the tax-payers of the country. 
 
 The route from Julian to Colton, 46132, was let as 120 miles long, on 
 a 54-hours schedule. John M. Peck was the contractor, and he agreed 
 to carry themail one trip a week for $1,188. Mr. Hayes was the first sub- 
 contractor, and was to have $ 1,069.20. That contract contained a provision 
 for a future increase to two, three, and six trips; that was withdrawn; 
 
109 
 
 then Mr. Vaile's subcontract went on file. Down in June, 1879, and less 
 than a year after tbe service commenced, two trips were added and the 
 time was reduced from fifty-four hours to twenty-six hours. I want 
 you to remember those figures, gentlemen. And $5,340 was added for 
 doing it. The mail is stated to have weighed about thirty pounds and 
 to be chiefly printed matter. It supplied, in all, about 140 families. To 
 the terminal station the mail went quicker by another route. The pe- 
 titions on this route asked for thirty-six hours. There was not a peti- 
 tion anywhere that asked for less than thirty-six hours. They asked 
 for it in different forms, but they all wound up with thirty-six hours; 
 and yet the affidavit which was made by the contractor had the fore- 
 knowledge that Mr. Brady was going to disregard the petitions and 
 give a schedule of twenty-six hours. He gave the schedule of twenty- 
 six hours. It so astonished the simple people out in the locality that 
 they did not believe it possible that he could mean it. They thought 
 he w r as doing what he told Walsh he was not doing making orders for 
 fun ; that he was u funning," as the boys say, and they went on for a 
 considerable time treating it as if it w r as intended to be an order for 
 thirty-six hours, because they gained nothing in twenty-six hours, and 
 all they cared for was thirty-six hours. They got twenty-six hours, 
 and yet, gentlemen, in that very order, we shall show it to you, the 
 twenty-six hours was undoubtedly originally written thirty-six, and, 
 for some reason or other it was altered into twenty-six ; so that the 
 putting it to twenty-six hours w r as not a mere careless error. There 
 has been a change in the order, which looks as if it was a change by 
 substituting tw r enty-six for thirty-six. But there is no dispute, for- 
 tunately, from other parts of the order, but that the one to which 
 Brady affixed his signature, and which he approved, was a twenty -six 
 hour schedule. 
 
 The COURT. I think we w r ill hear your peroration to-morrow. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. Your honor seems to insist upon it that my opening shall 
 have the regular ornaments. 
 
 At this point (4 o'clock p. m.) the court adjourned until to-morrow 
 morning at 11 o'clock. 
 
 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1882. 
 
 
 The court met at 11 o'clock. 
 
 Present, counsel for the Government and for the defendants. 
 
 Hon. GEORGE BLISS resumed his opening address to the jury as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, if I had not already occupied time so greatly 
 in excess of anything I expected, I should state with considerable con- 
 fidence that I should be able to relieve you from listening to ine within 
 a very short time. I think I shall be able to confine my remarks to an 
 hour this morning. 
 
 As to the routes of which I have not spoken I take up next the route 
 from Eawlins to White Eiver, which is route 30113. It is in the Terri- 
 tory of Wyoming, one hundred and eighty miles long. It was let on a 
 schedule of one hundred and eight hours, one trip a week. Mr. J. W. 
 Dorsey was the contractor, at $1,700, to be paid by the Government, 
 Nearly -at the outset a Mr. Perkins became the subcontractor at $2,500, 
 $800 more than the Government paid. On the 15th of April, 1879, and 
 again on tbe 9th of May, 1879, directions were given that all communi- 
 
110 
 
 cations on that route should be sent to the care of M. C. Eerdell. As early 
 as October 1, 1878, three months after the contract went into operation r 
 there was filed a subcontract with a man named Wright, by which he was to 
 be paid for two trips $2,850 ; for three trips, $4,065 ; for six trips, $8,317, 
 I think, and 25 per cent, of all expedition. That was the Wright contract. 
 I am wrong in saying it was filed. I think that contract was not filed. 
 On the 28th of December, 1878, in the same year, there was a subcontract 
 filed by Mr. Eerdell. There were also upon that route at different times 
 other subcontracts. On the llth of November, 1879, Mr. Stephen W. 
 Dorsey appeared as the subcontractor. As early as the 2d of May. 1879, 
 Mr. Dorsey telegraphed to Perkins, who was then performing the serv- 
 ice, that there had been an order for three trips a week, the trips to be 
 performed in fifty hours each ; the original schedule having been once a 
 week at one hundred and eight hours. Mr. Dorsey telegraphed that 
 there had been an order to that effect. There never was, in fact, any 
 such order made by the Post-Office Department, or made by Mr. Brady. 
 Mr. Dorsey, though, obviously, was at that early stage interested ID the 
 route. About the time that Mr. Dorsey telegraphed as to a change to 
 fifty hours there was in lact a change to forty-five hours. On the 7th 
 of February, 1879, Perkins's subcontract went on file with one of those 
 sliding scales paying him for increase of trips. On the llth of Novem- 
 ber in that year, as I have already said, Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey ap- 
 peared as the subcontractor. In December, 1879, Messrs. Foote 
 & Dalton appeared as the subcontractors, and some time in 1880 a Mr. 
 Taylor appears and then disappears and then appears again. All 
 this shifting about having taken place, it was on the 12th of May, 1879, 
 that two trips were added ; the time was reduced from one hundred and 
 eight hours to forty-five hours, and that was done at the cost to the 
 Government of about $12,000. On the 1st of April, 1881, seven trips 
 were added at a further cost of $18,275, carrying the total up to 
 $31,981.20 on a route which originally cost the Government only $1,700. 
 The contractor originally paid $800 to the subcontractor more than 
 he got from the Government, and there was a time in. the history of 
 those subcontracts where the route was transformed in such manner 
 that the contractor having originally paid out $800 more than he got 
 from the Government was receiving about $12,000 a year more than he 
 paid out. He always received between $8,000 and $9,000 a year more 
 than he paid after the arrangements for increase and expedition had 
 taken place. Upon that route, gentlemen, a Wank affidavit was sent 
 to Mr. Perkins, the subcontractor, in a letter from M. C. Eerdell. I 
 told you yesterday that Eerdell was the omnipresent correspondent on 
 behalf of these parties, writing in his own name, writing in the names 
 of Miner and of Dorsey and of everybody else, and writing as to their 
 contracts in turn. A blank affidavit for expedition was sent to Perkins 
 with a direction to Perkins that he was to swear to it just as it was, 
 the language being specific : 
 
 Swear to it just as it is. 
 
 The number of men and horses that were in use and the number 
 of men and horses that would be in use were equally left blank. Mr. 
 Perkins thought it an extraordinary thing, but he went before a notary 
 and swore to it. He sent that affidavit back here and at some time 
 that affidavit was filled up with the number of the men and horses, 
 both those then required and those that would be required, and it was 
 filed in the department, and in the order in which Mr. Brady makes 
 his order for expedition, he refers to the affidavit of the subcontractor 
 
Ill 
 
 as the basis of his authority for so acting. There was at that time 
 also another affidavit there as to men and horses, but it was not 
 referred to, as I recollect it, in the statement made in making the order 
 for expedition. But though referred to, gentlemen of the jury, as the 
 basis of the order which Brady made reducing the service to forty-five 
 hours, in point of fact Mr. Perkins's affidavit was for eighty -four hours 
 and not for forty-five hours at all. Brady pretended to base his order 
 upon that affidavit, but when he came to make his reduction and his 
 allowance he reduced it to forty-five hours, and forty-five hours was 
 the time covered by a subsequent affidavit put on file by Mr. Dorsey, 
 indicating, as we think, gentlemen, that when they sent that affidavit 
 to Wyoming to be sworn to, and when they started in originally they 
 started in looking to a reduction only of eighty-four hours, but when 
 they came to carry out their plan, either because their greed increased 
 and they wanted more money, or possibly because Mr. Brady saw that to 
 make an expedition to eighty-four hours and to allow the requisite sum 
 of money for it did not present such a gain in time as to anybody who 
 examined the case would justify any change whatever, for the one reason 
 or the other they reduced their time that they sought for to forty-five 
 hours, and Mr. Dorsey made the affidavit looking to forty-five hours. 
 But the indorsement on the papers had apparently been drawn with 
 the idea that it would be eighty-four hours, and therefore the reference 
 was made to Mr. Perkins's affidavit, but, in point of fact, when they 
 came to actually execute it they found it forty-five hours, and the only 
 authority for that was the affidavit of Mr. Dorsey. But they still left 
 the reference on the back, as made on the basis of Mr. Perkins's affida- 
 vit, which was for eighty-four hours. 
 
 That is the route, gentlemen, on which you may remember that early 
 in February, 1881, Mr. Eerdell wrote to Perkins or to Taylor, I have 
 forgotten which it was, in Wyoming, that if he could get the petitions 
 here before the 4th of March he had arranged to have the two trips or 
 three trips a week carried up to seven trips a week. The letter got to 
 Wyoming somewhere about the middle of February. The parties went 
 at once to work. At Eawlins they started out on the same day, 
 getting a petition written by some one there, and got signatures 
 through the bar-rooms and similar places there and started the pe- 
 tition back. The route was maintained, gentlemen, from Eawlins 
 down to White Eiver, because at White Eiver there was an im- 
 portant Government military station. It was the region where there 
 had been at one time, long prior to these orders, what we are all fa- 
 miliar with, the Ute outbreak, where there was a terrible massacre by 
 the Indians. The route was maintained solely for the purpose of com- 
 munication with the military post. There was little, almost no mail 
 matter passing over the route save for them. When they went to get 
 the petitions at the military post in obedience to the request of Mr. 
 Eerdell they tried the commanding officer of the post, but he refused 
 to sign. They could not get anybody to sign except there does appear 
 hereapetition signed by a lieutenant and somebody else. Buttheman who 
 was employed to get the petitions signed, after going to the commanding of- 
 ficer and others, and trying to get them to sign, found that they would not, 
 gave up the business, destroyed the form of petition which he had and did 
 not send it. Those petitions did not get back here by the 4th of March. They 
 got back here on the 5th of March, I think it was. On the 8th of March 
 Mr. Thomas, L. James, having become Postmaster- General on the 6th 
 entered upon his duties, I think, upon the 6th Mr. Thomas J. Brady 
 being still Second Assistant Postmaster-General, made the order allow- 
 
112 
 
 ing the carrying of the service up to seven trips the seven trips 
 which Mr. Eerdell in the preceding February said he had arranged to 
 have made, provided the petitions were here before the 4th of March. 
 Mr. Brady did not go back upon him. Mr. Brady made that order, 
 and when the order was, as everything that is done in the Post- 
 Office is, entered on a large blank book which is known as the daily 
 journal, and that journal was taken to the Postmaster-General by the 
 clerk in charge to have his signature as indicating his approval of 
 it, Mr. James saw that the order had been made. He signed the jour- 
 nal, and directed the clerk to see that that order, which was the last 
 order, as I recollect it, on the journal of the day, was revoked. That 
 that clerk communicated that information to Mr. Brady was shown by 
 the fact that soon after Mr. Brady came into see Mr. James to talk 
 about that order, and he wanted to know whether that directon to re- 
 voke that order indicated the policy of Mr. James as Postmaster-Geir 
 eral. He was informed that it did, and he left. Mr. James assumes 
 that he had obeyed the order that he had given him to have the ordei 
 revoked, and it was not until the last week in August, as I recollect it, 
 that it was discovered after Mr. Brady had gone out of office that 
 he had failed to revoke that order, and that it had continued in 
 operation all the time down to that time with its consequent result 
 of drawing from the Government money at the rate of $18,725 a year. 
 That order was made in that way, and then having been made by the 
 way, gentlemen, this letter of Mr. EerdelPs which I have referred to was 
 a letter we had great difficulty in getting at. We could hear of it 
 everywhere. We could not find it. The recipient had passed it to 
 somebody else, somebody else had passed it to another party, that 
 other party had mislaid it, or it was in his baggage at a distant place, 
 and everything of that kind ; but we finally succeeded in finding all of 
 the witnesses, and when we got them here, after their statement of the 
 contents of the letter, we did succeed in getting from the other side 
 the press copy of the letter. It is the only paper that they have ever 
 been willing to give to us as showing any of their actions in connection 
 with these contracts. We make no complaint whatever of it, gentle- 
 men. We simply call your attention to the fact that they have their 
 papers in their possession, and that we have not got them. Upon that 
 route, gentlemen, I call your attention to the fact that it may be claimed 
 to have been kept up in connection with the Ute outbreak. Now, 
 the Ute outbreak occurred in the fall of 1879. The orders that were 
 made upon this case of increase were made entirely without refer- 
 ence to that outbreak, because the first order adding two trips and 
 $3,400 was made on the 1st of May, 1870, long before the outbreak. 
 The order for expedition reducing it to forty-five hours was made on the 
 1st of May, 1879, and long before the outbreak. The order for seven 
 trips was made on the 8th of March, 1881, and long after the outbreak 
 had been quelled, and after the number of the military stationed at the 
 post had been greatly reduced. I state this because there is in the pa- 
 pers an attempt to show that these orders and the expedition upon that 
 route was made in view of the emergency or the circumstances created 
 by the Ute outbreak. The Ute outbreak was on the 27th of September, 
 1879. Orders were either made on the 1st of May, 1879, or on the 8th of 
 March, 1881. The order of March, 1881, undoubtedly had the approval 
 of the military authorities, or some of the military authorities here. 
 All the offices upon that route from Eawlins to White Eiveu, including 
 the two terminal offices, produced a net revenue which varied from 
 $1,245 to $1,724 in different years. Excluding Eawlins, which is on 
 
113 
 
 the railroad, and receivc'd its mail matter east and west entirely inde- 
 pendently of this route, and we find this, that the offices upon that route 
 in 1870 produced a revenue of $79.84, and in 1880, after the hiilitary 
 had been increased they produced $325.89, and in 1881, $301.51. And 
 yet the Government was made to pay upon that route, which admittedly 
 was a local route, sums as high as $31,981.25, and leaving a profit to the 
 contractor, who did no work, which varied at different times, but gen- 
 erally was about $12,000. On that route, also, let me remind you, gentle- 
 men, that after Mr. Kerdell had got his order increasing it to seven trips 
 in April, 1881, he writes back to the subcontractor out there calling his 
 attention to the fact in substance of what a good thing he had done for 
 him ; how much he, the subcontractor, was going to make by being al- 
 lowed to perform the service at $20,000, when the contractor was get- 
 ting $31,900, and confident that he would feel very grateful and anxious 
 to do something for somebody, for getting him so good a thing. Mr. 
 llerdell, at some little length, impressed upon him that he, lierdell, 
 got that arrangement made, and that the subcontractor out there must 
 not suppose that any attorney or anybody else had anything to do with 
 it; that he, Kerdell, did it all; that he, Eerdell, did so good a thing for 
 the subcontractor in arranging to give him $20,000 for performing the 
 service, while the contractor got $31,900; that he, lierdell that is the 
 substantial inference from tne letter wants to be paid for what he did. 
 
 The route from Mineral Park to Pioch^, gentlemen, is the last route 
 included in this indictment which I shall take up. It is route 40104. 
 It was let as being two hundred and thirty-two miles long. The time 
 was eighty-four hours, and it was one trip a week. John W. Dorscy 
 was the contractor, and the amount to be paid by the Government was 
 $2,982. On this Peck, with no relations to the route, in a letter written 
 by Miner, who had equally no relations to the route, asked leave to sub- 
 let the contract, and Brady allows it, John W. Dorsey being the con- 
 tractor. 
 
 There was a subcontract on file in IlerdelPs name here at one time. 
 There was another subcontract on tile in the name of McKibben, some- 
 times known as "Joe" McKibben, a well-known resident of Washington 
 Then there was a subcontract on tile in the name of Salisbury, a regu- 
 lar mail contractor. There had been originally made a subcontract with 
 one Jennings, and he had sent it here to the Delegate of the Territory, 
 Mr. Dagget, to be tiled under the subcontract law. That subcontract 
 was left at the ISecond Assistant Postmaster-General's office to be filed. 
 The clerk received it, with nointimationthatit could not be filed. Inpoint 
 of fact there was then on file a subcontract of Mr. Kerdell's, and under 
 the law there could not be two on file. Therefore that contract never 
 was filed. Mr. Jennings went on per forming or pretending to perform 
 tor I think he was singularly deiicient in his performing his subcon- 
 tract and assuming that he was to get his pay from the Government, and 
 when, after a time, he got no pay he came on here, two years afterwards, 
 I think it was, and for the first time then found that his subcontract 
 had not been filed. That resulted in a good deal of stir here, and a 
 good deal of what I suppose I may fairly call a row, and as the result 
 of it Mr. Brady undertook to make an order that Jennings's subcontract 
 should be placed on file, and should be placed on file as of the date 
 when it was originally brought here, thus cutting off' everything that 
 had been done since, and creating the greatest confusion, owing to the 
 fact that payment had been made after that time to the other subcon- 
 tractors who had their contracts on file, and presenting the question as 
 
 8GB 
 
114 
 
 to what Mr. Jeunings's relations were to the department under such 
 circumstances as that. 
 
 On the liith of January, 1879, six months after the contract went into 
 effect, two trips were added, and the time was reduced from eighty-lour 
 hours to sixty hours. On the 23d of July, 1879, such ;m addition was 
 made as to make the route from Mineral Park to Pioche a daily route, 
 and the result, therefore, was that from that time on a contract which 
 had been let by public bidding for $2,982, was run up to $52,033.37. 
 
 As to that route there are a series of remarkable facts to which 
 I desire to call your attention. In the first place, there is a petition 
 on file which was made the basis of one of Brady's orders, which 
 purported to be a petition of citizens furnished by the mail on that 
 route from Pioche, Nevada, to Mineral Park, Arizona, asking for more 
 frequent malls and a reduction from eighty-four hours to sixty hours 
 They describe- theni selves as citizens furnished mail by the United 
 States mail on that route. Of the signers of that petition, no one that 
 can be identified lives or ever did live on that route. No one of them 
 lived nearer than a place called Signal, a hundred miles south of the 
 southerly end of that route, and the postmaster at the southern terminus 
 of the route, Mineral Park, who opened every mail bag that went over 
 that route and examined every letter that went over that route and I 
 shall show you pretty soon that he had not any great labor to do it 
 that postmaster will say to you that he never knew of a letter passing 
 over that route going to or from Signal; that the inhabitants down at 
 Signal did not get their matter on that route at all. Thej' got it in an- 
 other way. They were not citizens " furnished by the mail "on that 
 route, and yet, gentlemen, some of those people honestly and squarely 
 and properly I believe signed a petition, but that petition is a forged 
 and altered petition. When you see it it will be obvious to everyone of 
 you that it is forged and altered ; that the route being 40104 there was 
 taken a petition from some other route which w ? as 40100 and something, 
 the numbers being in numerals, the figure at the end was altered from 
 the route for which that petition was signed so as to make it fit this 
 route with the termini of the route Pioche, Nevada, and Mineral Park, 
 Arizona, so altered, written over erasures, as anybody can see, and 
 written over erasures under such circumstances that anybody can see 
 that it related to a route not in Nevada and Arizona as there de- 
 scribed $ and moreover, that petition bearing some forty or fifty names, 
 you will all agree with me when you see it that the signatures on it 
 were made by not exceeding five, six, or seven different people. There 
 are not more than five, six, or seven different handwritings to all those 
 names, and it is a petition, as I said, of people claiming to be furnished 
 with mail matter on the route. All of the signers who can be identi- 
 fied lived elsewhere, and the petition is thus altered, as I have said. 
 But, gentlemen, the extraordinary things in connection with this busi- 
 ness did not stop there. There was another route, from Mineral Park 
 to Ehrenberg, Mineral Park being the terminus of both of those routes. 
 On the same day in which Mr. Brady made the order increasing the 
 service or expedition from Mineral Park to Pioche he made a similar 
 order upon the route from Mineral Park to Ehrenberg, and that peti- 
 tion is a precise duplicate of the petition on the Mineral Park and 
 Pioche route. The signatures are the same. Its language, as being 
 parties receiving mail matter on the route, is identical. The names are 
 obviously written by the same parties, and, gentlemen, it is altered 
 and erased and forged in precisely the same way. It never was made 
 for the Mineral Park and Ehrenberg route. Those two bogus petitions 
 
115 
 
 were on one and the same clay, when on their face any man who sees 
 them could tell that they were fraudulent, accepted by Mr. Brady as 
 his authority for directing I don't remember whether that is an increase 
 of trips or an increase ot speed ; at any rate, one or the other, which 
 took from the Treasury a large amount of money. The petitions are 
 altered not only in the route and the number of the route, but they are 
 altered iu the time and everything of that kind, so that they are com- 
 pletely diVerted from the use for which they are prepared ; but not only 
 that, gentlemen ; that increase up to $52,000 was made on the 29th of 
 Jamiary, 1879. The first increase was from $2,982 by the adding of 
 $19,318 for expedition and two trips, and then $29,733.33 was added for 
 four trips more. That expedition was made on the Mineral Park and 
 Pioche route one of the orders. The order for the addition of $29,000 was 
 made upon a single letter. The other order was made nominally upon the 
 petition to which I called your attention. The single letter was written 
 by Sidney Dillon, the president of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, 
 and it was a letter which asked for communication by the Mineral Park 
 and Pioche route, which was a portion of the route leading down to the 
 Southern Pacific Kailroad, a rival route of the Union Pacific. It was 
 requested on the ground that it would be of very great value in develop- 
 ing the Territories, and giving intercommunication between the people 
 along the line. Twenty-nine thousand dollars were taken out of the 
 Treasury on thi j single recommendation of the president of a railroad com- 
 pany representing the necessities and importance of a complete daily con- 
 nection on that route. And yet, gentlemen, upon the route we find this 
 condition of things: From the 10th October, 1879, to the 31st of Decem- 
 ber, in the same year, we are enabled, on thirty-nine days, to fix the num- 
 ber of letters and the amount of postal matter which went over that route. 
 We can fix it absolutely. The postmasters, misunderstanding their in- 
 structions, instead of counting the number of bags, counted the number 
 of letters. As there was only one bag, and they did not suppose any- 
 body ever thought there would be more than one, it never occurred to 
 them that what was required was the record of the number of bags; 
 so we find that in the whole thirty-nine days there went over that route 
 one way thirty-one letters. On twenty of the thirty-nine days no single 
 letter went over the route that way, but the mail-carrier, with the mail- 
 bags, passed over the route from end to end. The only effect of that trans- 
 action on his part was to aid these parties here iu drawing $52,000 a 
 year from the Treasury of the United States. On thirteen of those 
 thirty-nine days one letter went over the route in that direction ; on 
 three days two letters ; on one day four letters ; and on one day it got up 
 to the magnificent number of five letters. But, gentlemen, every one of 
 those letters during the thirty-nine days were way letters. In the other 
 direction the total was a little larger. There never was a letter during 
 the whole time that went over the en tire length, of the route that started 
 from Pioche at the north and reached Mineral Park at the south. The 
 letters were chiefly taken upat a little intermediate town, Saint Thomas. 
 That being the condition of things, and one of the increases having been 
 made upon the letter of Mr. Sidney Dillon representing the importance 
 of this intercommunication from road to road for through mails, what 
 do we find ? On the 22d of January, 1880, the increase having baen 
 made on the 23d of July, 1879, Mr. Brady makes an order, in which he 
 recites that these mail bills, showing that " there was little mail 
 matter passing over the route and that the service was irregularly 
 performed" (which latter fact the mail bills did not show at all), 
 therefore that the route should be reduced from the 1st of Febmary^ 
 
116 
 
 'this order having been made on the 22d of January back to its original 
 price, $2,982 ; that all the increase which he, Brady, had made by 
 which the sum of $2,082 had been run up to $52,000 a year should be 
 cut off, because the mail bills showed that there was little mail matter 
 passing over the route, and, as he said, that the service was irregu- 
 larly performed. He was so indignant that he would not even give 
 their and it is the only case I think where he failed to do it the 
 month's extra pay on the service cut off, though the contractor claimed, 
 and probably correctly, that under the law and the contract, if the serv- 
 ice was cut off he had a right to his mouth's extra pay upon it. 
 But here was Mr. Brady's honest heart so full of indignation because 
 he had been induced to put up the cost to $52,000, when there were 
 in thirty-nine days only twenty-one letters passing over the route- 
 that fact obviously having been brought to his attention that he cut 
 it all off with one fell swoop. And yet Mr. Brady's honesty did not 
 last him longer than the 28th of the same month, for on that day he 
 made another order reciting his order cutting it all down and then re- 
 citing that in view of the fact that the route formed a part of the direct 
 line of communication between the Central and Southern Pacific Kail- 
 roads it was deemed advisable to maintain a portion of the service. 
 The mail bills, which he had himself seen, showed him thatthe route did 
 not form any portion of a route for intercommunication between those 
 two roads, because it showed him that no solitary letter had ever left 
 the line of the Union Pacific Kailroad Company on the north and reached 
 the southern terminus of that mail route on the south. He recited, 
 however, that because that was so he would not cut the service all oft' 
 and reduce the payment down to the original sum of $2.980, but he would 
 reduce it to three trips a week and he would only deduct $29,733.33, 
 leaving the contractor with his twenty-odd thousand dollars clear. And 
 then his indignation was so far modified also that he gave the contractor 
 his month's extra pay on the service cut oft'. Having reduced the pay to 
 $2,982 six days previously on the ground that there was no mail matter 
 as appeared by the mail bills, he put it back six days later to twenty- 
 odd thousand dollars on the pretense that it was part of a through 
 route, when those very mail bills showed it was not any portion of 
 that route. Gentlemen of the jury, we shall show you some facts that 
 will perhaps give a reason for this action of Mr. Brady's consistent 
 with the belief that the original cutting-down order was not the result 
 of a spasm of conscience. The original cutting-down order was dated 
 on the 21st or 22d of January. On the 12th day of January, eight 
 days preceding, Mr. Brady had been called before an investigating 
 committee of the House of Eepresentatives and had been examined 
 somewhat in detail, but only partially, and he had been called upon to 
 account for his estimate of $2,000,000 as all that was necessary for the 
 star-route service made but a few months previously, while he was then 
 asking Congress to give him $2,000,000 more to cover a deficiency which 
 he had created, or which would exist under the orders which he had made, 
 if those orders continued in force to the end of the fiscal year. He 
 was called upon to give his reasons, and to give facts in connection 
 with them. He was allowed to go oft' the stand, but he was directed 
 to prepare and furnish certain tabular statements, and to give certain 
 detailed information which was subsequently to be furnished to the com- 
 mittee. He left the committee-room and went back to his office, and 
 soou afterwards we find him cutting oft this whole service and redue- 
 in" 1 it from $52,000 to $2,900. Undoubtedly in the momentary throw- 
 in* off of balance which would come over a man under such circum- 
 
117 
 
 stances when he found that an investigation was upon him and was ap- 
 parently beiug pressed by a committee whokuewsomethiug and meant to 
 know more, he made this order of red notion. But six days later there 
 came a little calm reflection, as we think you will infer from the 
 facts, and he came to the conclusion that if he 'allowed the record to 
 stand in that way the question would be, u How did you ever come 
 to put the price up to where it was! What justification had you for 
 that, if you say there is no mail matter on the route F So he put 
 the service back to the extent of three trips, and took from the 
 Treasury some twenty-three or twenty-four thousand dollars a year for 
 so doing. Upon that route, gentlemen, the net revenue in the year 
 1879 was $701.39. For the year 1880, after Brady's fostering ex- 
 pedition orders had been made, the income ran down to $597. In the 
 year 1881 it recovered to $653.67. If you take off the post-offices 
 which were not on other mail routes, Mineral Park, which was on three 
 other routes, and Pioche, which was on four other routes, and also on a 
 railroad, and take only the post-offices which were dependent upon this, 
 route for their mail matter, the entire revenues of all the post-offices of 
 this character were less than $50 a year, and for the supply of them Mr. 
 Brady directed the Treasury of the United States to pay, and it did pay, 
 at the rate of over $52,000 a year. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I will show to you that the order was persisted in 
 after the mail bills brought to Mr. Brady's notice the fact that there was 
 no justification for it. We shall present to you other evidence which 
 will show you that in point of fact Mr. Brady knew, or was bound to 
 know before any order was made, that there was no necessity for and 
 no propriety in any such order of increase or expedition. On the 26th. 
 of August, 1879, Mr. Bean, living not on the route but north of the 
 route, a lawyer well known in Nevada, wrote that the mail was an aver- 
 age of six letters a day, and that the population along the route was 
 from twenty to thirty at different stations ; and he says truly, because 
 he was in the same condition as a great many other people before this 
 investigation started, that he did not know the causes that led to the es- 
 tablishment of the route. He said it was not done in consequence of 
 any petition from the Pioche end of the route, which was the north end 
 of the route. I have shown you it was not, nor was it done in conse- 
 quence of petitions from the south end of the route. It was done under 
 the pretense of petitions from a point a hundred miles south of the south 
 end of the route. Mr. Bean says he is sure the orders could not have 
 been made by any one who knew the facts. He was wrong there, gen- 
 tlemen. However, he added " and advised without personal interest." 
 No man who advised without personal interest could have done the 
 thing that was done on that route. There are some other details upon 
 that route, but I will not stop to go over them. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I have gone through this case somewhat in detail, 
 and yet omitting much that will come out in the evidence concerning 
 these nineteen routes in this indictment. I have spoken to you, you wil I 
 undoubtedly think, at great length, and probably unnecessary length, 
 but I have spoken only in outline, as it will appear from the evidence,, 
 as to the facts applicable to this case, and the facts upon which we shall 
 ask you with great confidence, when the evidence closes, to render a 
 verdict of guilty against these defendants. I have stated nothing to 
 you, gentlemen, which I do not believe we shall be able to prove. I 
 have stated nothing which I do not believe the court should allow us ti> 
 prove. Yet, of course, you have already seen the indication that there 
 will be an attempt on the other side to exclude some portion of the 
 
proof. I have stated nothing, as I have said, so far which we do not 
 regard as entirely at our command; evidence which we are in a posi- 
 tion to place before you at any time. I now desire to call your atten- 
 tion to one single other piece of evidence wiiich we hope to place before 
 you, but as to which I am bound to say I cannot speak with entire cer- 
 tainty. 
 
 There is an ex- Senator of the United States, like Mr. Dorsey, a car- 
 pet-bagger from one of the Southern States. When the gentlemen 
 concerned in the present management of this prosecution came into the 
 case and took up the papers they found there had been left on the 
 record a detailed statement that this witness could testify to various 
 facts showing, among other things, the payment of money to Mr. Brady 
 by Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey. I do not desire to go into details further 
 as to what the witness would testify to, because it is possible that we 
 may not have him here, and for this reason, gentlemen, he is a ingi- 
 tive, with an order of this court for his arrest, and we are seeking to 
 serve him 
 
 Mr. WILSON. [Interposing.] Your honor, I want to know if this is a 
 proper statement to make. 
 
 The COURT. He is stating what he expects to be able to prove. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. No ; he is not. 
 
 Mr. DAvrt>GE. He says he does not expect to have him here. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I do not say so. I say we expect to have him. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. All right. Go on. 
 
 Mr. BLISS. I say, however, that he has been in concealment. I say 
 he has been concealed in Nevada, and we have spent a great deal of 
 money in trying to find him, and the first time that we heard of him after 
 emerging from concealment was when we were notified that he came east 
 on a train from Chicago. I do not know that he was in company with 
 him, but he was on the same train with a gentleman employed by the 
 defendants in this case. We heard that he Appeared in New York ; that 
 he went to Northern New Y^ork, with our agents in sharp pursuit, and 
 jumped over the line to Kingston, in Canada. There he was at the last 
 account protesting all the while that he could not testify to anything 
 that would do us any good, but at the same time running out of the 
 country to prevent being put upon the stand to see whether the state- 
 ments in the papers on file made by such reputable persons as Thomas 
 L. James and others of what he had told to them were true. He was 
 seeking to escape in that way. I believe, gentlemen, that before this 
 trial is over he will come to the conclusion that it is best to come here 
 and tell the truth and subject himself to any discipline that the court 
 may impose upon him rather than to subject himself to what must be 
 practic illy perpetual exile. The order of this court goes anywhere in 
 this country, and when found, places him liable to an immediate ar- 
 rest. I believe we shall have him here ; but I am bound to say that I 
 base my belief solely upon my knowledge of human nature and the cir- 
 cumstances of the case, and not upon any authority from him. If he is 
 here we shall place him before you upon the stand, and when we have 
 done so we shall ask you to remember that he is not a willing witness; 
 that he is not a witness who has, of late at least, assisted the Govern- 
 ment in any manner, but that he is a witness who has made certain 
 statements which he said he could swear to and which we believe were 
 true. That is the only evidence that I have referred to in my lengthy 
 opening statement which is not, as we believe, entirely at our control; 
 and I deem it but proper Avhile referring to it to call your attention to 
 
119 
 
 the facts which may result so that if we fail to present the testimony, 
 yon will understand it is from no fault of ours. 
 
 And, now, gentlemen, let me briefly recapitulate what I think we 
 shall be able to show to you. I think we shall be able to show you that 
 Mr. Brady resorted to expedition as the regular practice of the depart- 
 ment in contradistinction from all his predecessors who resorted to it 
 only in exceptional cases, and in contradistinction from his successor who 
 has never resorted to it. I think we shall be able to show you that he 
 resorted to it when it was wholly unnecessary, that he paid large sums 
 for expedition where none was needed, because after the expedition 
 the mail was not carried in any less time than it was before, for the 
 simple reason that it was previously being carried in less time than 
 that for which Mr. Brady paid large sums under the pretense of ex 
 peditiou ; that he paid large sums for expedition and for increase of 
 service where there was no mail and where the evidence that there 
 was no mail practically except the bag, was in Mr. Brady's own pos- 
 session and shown by the facts to have met Mr. Brady's own eyes. 
 We shall show how in every little thing the addition of a post- 
 office on a route, the taking off of a post-office from a route the con- 
 struction by Brady was against the Government; how, when service 
 was reduced, in a large number of cases no deduction was made, 
 but when a post-office with a mile or two of distance was added there 
 was always an increased allowance made. We shall show you allow- 
 ances for supposititious additions, when in point of fact those additions 
 were entirely false; when the mail went over the same road all the 
 time, and yet when Mr. Brady claimed that there was an additional 
 distance made by taking in some post-office or other, though his own 
 record showed him that the alleged addition was not made ; we shall 
 show you that Mr. Brady utterly and entirely disregarded the produc- 
 tiveness of a given route ; that there never was anywhere upon any of 
 these routes any evidence that he took into consideration productive- 
 ness but once, and that was when he took it into consideration in the 
 order of the 22nd of January, 1879, and cut down the Mineral Park 
 and Pioche route, reciting that there was no mail matter, and he changed 
 that all in six days afterwards by putting up the service again. We 
 shall show you cases, like that of Raton, where he wrenched a 
 route around to the inconvenience of the citizens and to the great 
 loss of the Government, and rendered it necessary thereby to have the 
 route expedited so that the mail might arrive at the end of the route 
 in the day time, and for that expedition large sums were taken out of 
 the Treasury, when, if he had left the route unchanged, he would have 
 needed no expedition, the mail would have gone over the route in the 
 time that the citizens desired, and if he had left Raton in its proper 
 connection it would have derived its mail matter by a mail route in 
 the way in which the people in the locality desired it. We shall show, 
 I think, that when he had occasion on such a route as that from Toquer- 
 ville to Adairville to cut off ten miles from the end of the route because 
 the First Assistant Postmaster-General had notified him that the post- 
 office was discontinued and there was no place to take the mail, that 
 he proceeded first to make an order for expedition, involving some 
 $12,000 a year to the Government, and then he proceeded within four 
 days afterwards, by an order, to cut off these ten miles and give a 
 month's extra pay, reckoning it on the increased pay instead of reckon- 
 ing it on the original pay. We shall show you, gentlemen, that he 
 habitually, I may say wjthout exception, because the only exceptions 
 are those whei\j we sliow you the circumstances so connected with the 
 
120 
 
 Iraiul that they cease to become exceptions, paid up to the limit of the 
 law, both for increase of service and increase of speed ; that the evi- 
 dence is clear and must be clear, in his own knowledge and yours, clear 
 from the records of his own department, clear from the subcontracts 
 on file there, that there was no necessity for paying up to the limit, 
 for the simple reason that the men who were performing the service 
 were willing to perform the service for a good deal less than they re- 
 ceived. We shall show you that in at least one case, in direct violation of 
 the law, he antedated an order and paid large sums from the Treasury 
 for service alleged to have been rendered before the order was made, 
 though the statute expressly provides that he shall not do so. 
 We shall show you, gentlemen of the jury, that he made his expe- 
 dition entirely upon the oaths of the men who were to be benefited by 
 it these contractors here in Washington, none of whom, at the time of 
 the making of the oath, had ever seen the route, and none of whom at 
 that time knew, of his own knowledge, how many men and horses were 
 then being employed, and none of whom, other than Vaile, was by ex- 
 perience calculated to say how many would be used for performing an 
 increased rate of speed. We shall show you that he acted upon the 
 oaths of the parties, though the only oaths before him were two incon- 
 sistent oaths of the same man, sometimes sworn to on the same day, 
 and at other times sworn to at a little different time, when one or the 
 other of those oaths must have been false, and the mere fact of the ex- 
 istence of those two oaths showed him that the man was not worthy of 
 belief for a'moment. We shall show you that he made an order on the 
 Bismarck and Fort Keogh route, which he plumed himself upon as be- 
 ing less than pro rata, but based it on Miner's absurd oath that it would 
 take one hundred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty animals to do 
 the service, when, in point of fact, there had been an affidavit of Miner, 
 in his office, showing that it would take thirty seven men and some 
 eighty animals, I think $ and when the order had been originally pre- 
 pared as based upon that affidavit and not upon the larger affidavit of 
 Miner; but if he had made the order allowing the amount he did allow, 
 instead of being less than pro rata it would have been over pro rata. 
 He however took that absurd oath, and upon it based an order to have 
 the exceptional pleasure of stating in his order that it was less 
 than pro rata. We shall show you that the oaths were lies upon their 
 face; that they stated that there were then in use a certain number of 
 men and horses ; that from the very nature of the case the statement 
 was false, because if the service was being performed it required more 
 men and horses to perform it. We shall show to you that the statemen ts 
 as to the number of men and horses that would be required to perform 
 the service were absurdly false, because they led to such results as 
 saying that a horse should travel only two miles in a day in carrying 
 the mail, and yet on the existing schedule the horses were shown to be 
 traveling anywhere from fifteen to twenty-eight miles a day. You will 
 bear in mind, gentlemen, that the Government was to be defrauded, 
 either by understating the existing number of men and horses which 
 were being employed, or by overstating the number of men and horses 
 which would be needed on the increased schedule ; that one being under- 
 stated or the other being overstated the Government would be defrauded ; 
 and if both occurred in the same case, one understating and the other 
 overstating, the Government would be defrauded in very large amounts. 
 We shall show you that he made orders on such affidavits as those made, 
 as I have said, by affiants who never were on the route ; made, as I 
 have said, by affiants who had no experience in the service, except 
 
121 
 
 Yaile. We shall show you that in direct violation of the regulations 
 which required the contractor to make his own statement of the number 
 of men and horses, not to be accepted as conclusive at all, but as his view 
 of the case, and that regulation made under a law which practically 
 made the regulation law, Brady utterly disregarded it when it suited 
 him and claimed to accept the affidavits of a subcontractor, that sub- 
 contractor being a man who was not in point of fact performing the 
 service and who had not at that time ever been upon the route. We 
 shall show you more than that, that he accepted the affidavits of men 
 pretending to be subcontractors who never were subcontractors, and 
 whom the record showed had no relation to the route whatever. We 
 shall show you, gentlemen, that he accepted affidavits which, on their 
 face, were altered, erased, and fraudulent ; that there were of all the 
 affidavits on the routes which he accepted but two which were not 
 erased on their face and obviously unreliable, to say the least, and of 
 those one was made by Miner and the other was the oath of Yaile, ac- 
 cepted by Brady in violacion of law. We shall show to you, gentle- 
 men, that he made orders for an increase of allowance which were il- 
 legal, because the statute expressly provided that he should make no 
 allowance for increase of speed unless the necessity for using 
 more men and horses was thereby caused. We shall show you by 
 the men who drove the horses all the time before and after Mr. 
 Brady's order that no increased number of men or horses was required, 
 but identically the same number of men and the same number of horses 
 continued jogging over the route from one week's end to another. We 
 shall show to you, gentlemen, the petitions which pretend to be the 
 excuse for making the orders in some cases, and that the petitions 
 were not only false in fact ; that they were not only gotten up by these 
 other defendants who directed that their interest in them should be 
 concealed and that the mode in which they were gotten up should be 
 concealed, but that the petitions bore on their face evidences of alter- 
 ation, evidences of change such as ought to have led Mr. Brady ? 
 and would have led any honest Assistant Postmaster-General, or any 
 man whoever expected that there would be any examination of his 
 acts, who did not suppose that these things would go along without 
 examination and without investigation, to hesitate greatly. We shall 
 show you, gentlemen of the jury, bristling all over this case evidence 
 of prearrangement with Brady and of understanding between Brady 
 and these other defendants or some of them. We shall show you the 
 statements of these defendants made in various places and to various 
 persons that the allowances paid by the Government would be increased. 
 We shall show you that these increases did actually take place in the 
 manner and at the time that they said they would take place. We shall, 
 show you a conversation with at least one man in which amounts of 
 future increases and all were specified and where the result proved 
 that tbe amount only was incorrect in being somewhat understated. 
 We shall show you affidavits made six, eight, and ten months in advance 
 of any applications for expedition, which affidavits stated the precise 
 number of hours which Mr. Brady subsequently recited to be the hours 
 tor which he would order service, and as to which he wished information 
 as to how many men and horses would be required to perform it in that 
 time; and those hours were picked out, gentlemen, entirely apart from 
 any designation of hours in the petitions, because the petitions which 
 pretended to be the excuse for the orders were not in existence 
 when the oaths were taken; and called for hoars entirely different. We 
 shall show yon that the defendants spent over $6,000 in building sta- 
 
122 
 
 tious on a single route where, if tlieir contract had remained unchanged, 
 they would, during* the entire four years, have received only about 
 $9,500 ; and yet they built twice as many stations as they should 
 want, avowedly, because they said they were going to have an increase, 
 and when they got the increase they should want the additional stations, 
 and they would not use the additional stations until they got the in- 
 crease ; and they did get the increase, and then they used them. We 
 shall show to you the payment by them of large sums, or considerable 
 sums, for performing the service in excess of the amount which they re- 
 ceived from the Government, and we shall show you in every one of 
 those cases, gentlemen, that the loss was promptly, and after a very 
 little time had elapsed, transformed by Brady's orders into contracts 
 which gave them great gains. We shall show to you that by their form 
 of subcontract, unknown in that respect until these men went into the 
 business of speculating in mail contracts, which form they had printed at 
 the outset of their career, they assumed that they were to have expedition 
 upon their routes, and they got expedition upon their routes, and they used 
 their form of contract under which the men who performed the service 
 were to get somewhere from twenty-five to sixty-five per cent, of the sum 
 allowed for expedition while these defendants were to pocket the differ- 
 ence of seventy -five to thirty-five per cent. In Brady's orders he was 
 compelled by the subcontract law to state the fact that he was allow- 
 ing thirty-five to seventy-five per cent, more for carrying the mail than 
 was necessary to be allowed for carrying it, because he was allowing 
 from thirty-five to seventy-five per cent, to the parties who, his own 
 contract showed, were not driving a horse or carrying any mail. He 
 was allowing only a small percentage to the men who actually were 
 performing the service. We shall show to you, gentlemen, as evidence 
 of prearrangement, the way in which the bids were arranged so as 
 to be upon routes where the trips were infrequent and the speed 
 was low, because those were the only routes which afforded an op- 
 portunity for their peculiar proceedings, which alone made their 
 business profitable in view of the low sums they bid, securing from Mr. 
 Brady increase of trips and increase of speed. We shall show you, 
 gentlemen, that they were allowed not to commence the service when 
 the law required them to commence it ; that they were not declared 
 failing contractors, as Mr. Brady's duty required him to declare them 
 so, until they could have time to get up petitions and get ready the ma- 
 chinery which was to be, in some sense, a justification, an excuse and 
 apology for Mr. Brady's orders for expedition, and that in some cases 
 the commencement of the service and the orders for increase of trips 
 and expedition coincide so nearly that it is impossible to tell which was 
 first. We shall show you, gentlemen, orders for expedition and increase 
 made by Mr. Brady in spite of the remonstrance of the people along the 
 line of the route and in spite of the remonstrance of his own officers. 
 We shall show you orders for expedition and increase of service perse- 
 vered in by Mr. Brady in spite of these remonstrances. We shall show 
 you that when it suited his convenience he found it very desirable to 
 appeal to United States Senators and Members of Congress as backing 
 him up and giving authority for doing what he did. I am not aware 
 that there is anything in the law or the Constitution that says that a 
 Member of Congress or a Senator who is sent here to legislate in yon- 
 der building has any right to possess more influence with reference to 
 mail service than you or I or anybody else. He has the right of the 
 citizen living in the locality and no more. We shall show to you that 
 while there was claimed to be given to those men undue weight when 
 
123 
 
 they requested increase of service and increase of speed, because they 
 took from the Treasury increased amounts of money, thnt when those 
 persons became satisfied that injustice had been done and there ought 
 to be a revocation of the order, then they could not procure its revoca- 
 tion ; that Senators and Members were told it could not be done, and 
 that absurd excuses were given, such as the excuse on the Vermillion 
 and Sioux Falls route, that it would be unjust to the other bidders. We 
 -shall show you double service paid for on the same route. We shall 
 show you expedition ordered and paid for when expedition was not made 
 and when there was no change of time. We shall show you trips or- 
 dered to be made in a time which all the postmasters on the route de- 
 clared to be impossible, which turned out to be impossible, and which 
 necessarily led to fines and penalties under the law, which fines and 
 penalties fell upon the subcontractors and not upon-the favored friends 
 of Mr. Brady, these defendants. We shall show to you that those fines 
 and penalties were remitted in some cases, and so remitted that the 
 contractors put them into their pockets and kept the money which had 
 been originally taken from the subcontractors. We shall ask you, in 
 that connection, to remember the statement of Mr. Rerdell to Mr. 
 James and Mr. MacVeagh, and the statement of Mr. Brady himself to 
 Mr. Walsh, that he was paid 50 per cent, of all the remissions that he 
 ordered. We shall show to you, gentlemen, cases where, as upon the 
 Mineral Park and Pioche route, Mr. Brady sawed the service up and sawed 
 it down, so far as the allowances were concerned, at his own sweet will, 
 upon excuses which the papers before him, to which he referred, showed 
 to be untrue, upon excuses which jnust have been untrue, and under 
 circumstances which showed beyontt-all question that he was acting in 
 utter disregard of the interests of the Government. We shall show you 
 the buying of the silence of postmasters and contractors who complained 
 and recommended a discontinuance of the service, where these con- 
 tractors were, beyond all dispute, making very large sums, because the 
 record shows that they were getting a very large amount more than 
 they paid to the subcontractors for performing the service. We shall 
 show to you, gentlemen, all these things and more. We shall show 
 them to you by absolutely. unimpeachable testimony, testimony which 
 will not be impeached, testimony which cannot be impeached, testimony 
 which there will be no attempt to impeach. We shall show all these things 
 and more to you, and when we have done that, we shall leave the case 
 in your hands, gentlemen, confident that you will vindicate the cause 
 of honesty and the cause of the honest administration of justice in the 
 District of Columbia by rendering a prompt verdict of guilty against 
 these defendants. 
 

 NIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 Books not returned on time are subject to a fine of 
 50c per volume after the third day overdue, increasing 
 to $1 00 per volume after the sixth day. Books not in 
 demand may be renewed if application is made before 
 expiration o'f loan period. 
 
 28 1928 
 
 APR 17 1939 
 
 AH * 18 1939 
 
 50m-7,'16 
 
YC 25109