Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/486

466 an interest in defrauding the Government. To refuse to censure the holders of that stock is to say that the Congressional standard of morals is not high enough to condemn it.

Now, gentlemen, do you know what paper published this article? Not the New York Tribune, or the World, but the New York Times.

Here is another, written after the Credit Mobilier proceedings had closed:

The action of the House of Representatives on Judge Poland's Credit Mobilier report, in substituting a vote of censure and condemnation for the resolution expelling Ames and Brooks, and passing over the other inculpated members without notice, fell far short of the just expectations of the country. It was a clear case of moral cowardice, an unmanly shirking of responsibility. After rejecting a resolution which involved a denial of its right to expel Ames and Brooks for the offense with which they were charged, after finding them guilty by a more than two-thirds vote, the House adopted a resolution which virtually declares that a member may offer or accept a bribe and yet not be disqualified from retaining his seat in Congress.

Absolute condemnation must be the verdict of the country on such a lamentable exhibition of moral pusillanimity.

Who was the man who wrote that article? It appeared in Harper's Weekly, and I presume was written by our friend the Hon. George William Curtis.

Now, sir, such words are not those of papers which are in the habit of finding fault with the Administration and the majority. The party service rendered by these papers justifies us in supposing that such words were extorted from them by facts which they could and would neither deny nor gloss over; and certainly, when they speak of public sentiment, they will not make that public sentiment appear in a darker color than it really bears.