Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/526



“Your committee is of the opinion that the Commissioner did not act with a strict regard to the interest of the entire State in preferring the location on the east side of the river. Several of the witnesses refused to testify upon important points; but without this, sufficient evidence has been elicited to convince your committee that Mr. Pegram, one of the Commissioners, was influenced in making the location by personal and private considerations, and that he did receive a bribe or bonus in consideration of his vote for the location of the Capitol. With regard to Mr. Goodrell there appears nothing in the testimony implicating him in the frauds alleged in the second charge.”

George W. McCrary, the fifth member of the committee, did not unite with the others, but states his position in a separate report, in which he says:

“I do not desire that the Commissioners should suffer on account of having acted contrary to what I might conceive to be for the best interest of the State. As one of the committee, bound to believe that the Commissioners acted in accordance with their oaths, until the contrary is proven, the undersigned feels bound to say that, with the exception of Commissioner Pegram, he can see no sufficient evidence of a wilful disregard of the interests of the State. The undersigned believes that the charges are sustained by the evidence as to Commissioner Pegram, but not as to the others.”

All members of the committee, except McCrary, joined in recommending that the Attorney-General be instructed to institute proceedings against the commissioners for relocating the seat of government, for the recovery from them of any bonus they might have received for their votes or influence in making said location. On motion of W. H. Seevers, the House decided that the testimony taken by the Committee of Investigation be not printed in the House Journal. As the House adjourned early on the morning of the second day after this report was made, no further action was taken, and when the pamphlets containing all the evidence taken by the committee were published, by some mysterious process, they were quietly gathered up and disappeared.

No small portion of the attention of this session of the