U. S. Senate Speeches and Remarks of Carl Schurz/Personal Explanation 1

Mr. SCHURZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent of the Senate to make a personal explanation.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair hears no objection.

Mr. SCHURZ. My attention has been called to the Washington correspondence of the New York Times of yesterday, in which it is stated that the protocol preliminary to the San Domingo treaty got into the report of the investigating committee in some mysterious way; and there are certain charges against me personally in that article.

I am not in the habit of taking notice of any newspaper charges, and would not in this case but for the fact that I am accused of having procured the publication of that protocol in a surreptitious manner, which would seem to involve the complicity of others. I deem it my duty, therefore, to give a statement of facts. First I will read that portion of the article which refers to the matter:

The facts in the case are these: the first knowledge the investigating committee obtained of the existence of such a thing as this protocol was not through me nor through any member of the committee, but through General Babcock himself, who revealed the fact to the committee without being asked about it, of his own voluntary motion. The committee called for all the papers to which reference was made in the course of the investigation. A list was drawn up, I think, by the Senator from Connecticut, [Mr. ,] containing all the papers which the State Department or other Departments should be required to lay before the committee, and the protocol was one of them. The Secretary of State brought certain papers before the committee, and I think by some mistake took some of them away again. When the testimony was closed it was found that some papers called for on that list were not there. The Senator from Connecticut went to the Senator from Nevada, the chairman of the committee, [Mr. ,] and called, his attention to the fact and requested him to send for two or three papers, of which the protocol was one. One day, I think it was the day after we had ceased taking testimony, the Senator from Connecticut came to me upon the floor of the Senate and said that the Senator from Nevada had sent to the Secretary of State a letter requesting the transmission of that protocol; but that, as he was obliged to go away, he had requested him (the Senator from Connecticut) to receive the communication from the State Department and put it into the hands of the reporter of the committee. The Senator from Connecticut further told me that he was obliged to go away also, and that he had instructed the doorkeeper, when the document should arrive, to place it in my hands for the purpose of transmitting it to the reporter of the committee. The doorkeeper did place it in my hands. I did, however, not at once deliver it to the reporter of the committee, intending, in order to avoid the possibility of a mistake, to wait for the Senator from Nevada, [Mr. ,] who shortly afterward appeared upon the floor. I went to him with the paper in my hands and I said, &ldquo;Senator, here is that protocol; is it understood that it is to go into the hands of the reporter to be printed?&rdquo; He said, &ldquo;Yes;&rdquo; whereupon I delivered it to the reporter, and it was printed with the rest. That is the whole story.

Now, as far as the attacks made upon me personally by the correspondent of the New York Times are concerned, I do not think they are such as to oblige me to take notice of them.