766 



STAR-ROUTE TRIAL. 



Bliss was referred to Attorney-General Brew- 

 ster, who, on the 24th of November, addressed 

 a letter to the President reviewing the action 

 of the marshal, postmaster, assistant post- 

 master, and foreman of the Government print- 

 ing-office, and referring to the conduct of 

 George E. Spencer, also an officer of the Gov- 

 ernment, who had evaded the process of the 

 Court as a witness, and to the course of the 

 police of the District of Columbia. In conclu- 

 sion, he said : 



After serious and prolonged deliberation over all 

 the details of the case, my investigation satisfied me 

 that the men who were inaicted were guilty men, and 

 merited the extreme punishment of the law. They 

 had projected, under cover of official power and under 

 color of official authority, a systematic plan of delib- 

 erate robbery of the public Treasury. To carry out 

 that plan, they had laid their hands upon a fund dedi- 

 cated by law to a great public service a service that 

 is conspicuously one of the fruits and causes of our 

 civilization, our social comfort, our commercial pros- 

 perity, our national growth. Millions of that money 

 they perverted to their own private gain, and divided 

 it for their own personal purposes. It was a condign 

 act of infamous conspiracy, and as such deserves the 

 severest punishment the law can inflict. Such men 

 are traitors to social and official duty, and they are 

 public enemies, against whom the authority of the law 

 must be exerteu without hesitation or reluctance. The 

 higher their past position the greater their sin the 

 sterner must be their punishment. I desire to call 

 your attention to the fact that the officers of the law, 

 and those who have directly been aiding me in the 

 discharge of my duty in this business, have been from 

 the first encircled with snares, pitfalls, and every spe- 

 cies of vile device that could be invented to harm 

 them, hinder their usefulness, aad prevent the ad- 

 ministration of justice. Some portions of this com- 

 munity who surround these defendants, and who 

 have enjoyed, or do still enjoy, minor official positions, 

 know no allegiance to any one but this band of rob- 

 bers, and render no service to any one but these evil 

 employers. From motives of gain, or other corrupt 

 considerations, they are saturated with affinities for 

 these bad men ; and they have contributed, by every 

 means in their power, at the bidding of their masters, 

 to obstruct public justice and to defame its officers, 

 with the hope of securing the acquittal and escape of 

 the worst band of organized scoundrels that ever ex- 

 isted since the commencement of the Government. 



This communication was followed promptly, 

 on the 25th of November, by the removal from 

 office of Henry, Ainger, Parker, Helm, and 

 Spencer. Mr. Clayton McMichael, of Philadel- 

 phia, was subsequently appointed Marshal of 

 the District. 



On the 1st of December, Stephen "W. Dorsey 

 addressed a card to the public in explanation of 

 his connection with Star Route contracts. He 

 took occasion to refer to his political service, 

 his activity in the canvass of 1880, and his inti- 

 mate relations with General Garfield and other 

 prominent Republican leaders. He attributed 

 his prosecution to the hostility of Postmaster- 

 GeneralJames and Attorney -General McVeagh, 

 whose appointment as members of the Cabinet 

 he had opposed. He denied all charges of con- 

 spiracy and fraud, and claimed that his con- 

 nection with the Star Route service sprang from 

 an innocent and well-meant effort, in the first 

 instance, to render pecuniary aid to his brother 



and brother-in-law (Peck), who had become 

 contractors against his advice, and afterward 

 to save himself from loss through the loans and 

 advances which he had made. He maintained 

 that the facts which he stated showed 



1. That at the beginning of President Garfi eld's 

 administration ^ two members of his Cabinet, whose 

 personal hostility to me had grown out of my active 

 opposition to their appointment to the positions they 

 held, led them to seize upon the old Star Route scandal 

 and use it as a weapon to break down my influence 

 with the Administration. 



2. That to do this, it was necessary to fill the public 

 press with revamped falsehoods that had long since 

 been worn and patched, and for this purpose there 

 were established in the offices of the Attorney -General 

 and Postmaster-General literary bureaus, beginning 

 April 1, 1881, and up to this writing there has not 

 been a day in a week nor a week in a month that the 

 papers all over the land have not denounced me in 

 unstinted terms, with no more evidence to justify their 

 accusations than there is against every other person in 

 the land. 



3. That at a trial lasting more than four months, 

 which took place after the country had been raked 

 with a fine-toothed comb by detectives to find some- 

 thing damaging to me, there was not one line, word, 

 or syllable of evidence produced against me. In the 

 printed record of the court proceedings, containing 

 more than 3,000 page^,, there is not a scintilla of evi- 

 dence that could be fairly charged as reflecting upon 

 the uprightness of my conduct. 



When the new trial began, Mr. W. W. Dav- 

 idge and Mr. William A. Cook appeared as ad- 

 ditional counsel for the defense. The time 

 until the 14th of December was occupied in 

 obtaining a jury. The question of the number 

 of challenges to which the defense was entitled 

 was reopened and argued at length, and Judge 

 Wylie came to the conclusion that his former 

 ruling had been erroneous that they were en- 

 titled to only four peremptory challenges in 

 all. In reading his new decision, he said that 

 he would lose no time in explaining the con- 

 flict with his previous ruling. The statute re- 

 lating to that subject (No. 838 of the Statutes 

 for the District of Columbia) provided that 

 a defendant shall be entitled to four per- 

 emptory challenges, but had no provision as to 

 a case where there was more than one defend- 

 ant. But a section of the Revised Statutes 

 (819) did contain such a provision to the effect 

 that in all other cases (less than felony), civil 

 and criminal, each party shall be entitled to 

 three peremptory challenges, and that where 

 there are several defendants or several plain- 

 tiffs, each side shall be deemed a single party 

 for the purpose of challenges. This latter sec- 

 tion was the law in this District, and had been 

 since December, 1872. The two statutes should 

 be read together (they not being in conflict), 

 and, therefore, he ruled that the defendants in 

 this case were entitled to four (not three) per- 

 emptory challenges for all of them. 



Another question was also raised as to the 

 necessity for the personal attendance of the 

 accused. Mr. S. W. Dorsey was troubled with 

 an affection of the eyes, which was said to 

 necessitate close confinement to his room. To 

 test the question, a motion was made by Mr. 



