Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/268

234 Mr. Mulligan, and the meeting was a very curious one. Mr. Mulligan, the next day, described it to the committee under oath. He swore that Mr. Blaine had come to him and implored him most piteously to give him those letters—there were fifteen of them in all; that Mr. Blaine almost went on his knees, saying that if the committee should get hold of these papers it would ruin him and sink him forever; that Mr. Blaine had talked even of suicide and made an appeal in behalf of his wife and his six children, and that then he opened to him (Mulligan) the prospect of a consulship abroad; that Mr. Blaine, finally, wanted at least to be permitted to look at the letters, which Mulligan did permit him to do on condition that he would return them; that Mr. Blaine did return them, and then wanted to look at them again, and then refused to give them back, and against Mr. Mulligan's protest kept them in his possession.

The next day Mr. Blaine testified that what Mr. Mulligan had said about his (Mr. Blaine's) being on his knees and talking of ruin and suicide was “mere fancy.” As to the consulship, he admitted he had alluded to something like that in a jocular way. He disclaimed meaning to say that Mr. Mulligan falsified; “not at all.” Mr. Mulligan might have put a wrong construction on what he said. But as to the letters, Mr. Blaine admitted that he took them from Mulligan and kept them against Mr. Mulligan's remonstrance. Mr. Blaine insisted that the letters, being his “private correspondence,” were his property, in whatever way obtained, and he also refused to give them up to the committee.

This is the story as it appears in the sworn testimony; it shows conclusively that, whatever his friends may now say, Mr. Blaine himself did not consider those letters at all harmless. You will readily admit, it is a sorry and humiliating thing to see Mr. Blaine, the late Speaker of