James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[296]

The question was then taken on the demand for the previous question.

But the House refused to second it.

Mr. Greeley, after alluding to the comments that had been made upon the article in the Tribune relative to the subject of Mileage, and the abuse which had notoriously been practiced relating to it, said he had heard no gentleman quote one word in that article imputing an illegal charge to any member of this House, imputing anything but a legal, proper charge. The whole ground of the argument was this: Ought not the law to be changed? Ought not the mileage to be settled by the nearest route, instead of what was called the usually-traveled route, which authorized a gentleman coming from the center of Ohio to go around by Sandusky, Albany, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and to charge mileage upon that route. He did not object to any gentleman's taking that course if he saw fit; but was that the route upon which the mileage ought to be computed?

Mr. Turner interposed, and inquired if the gentleman wrote that article?

Mr. Greeley replied that the introduction to the article on mileage was writted by himself; the transcript from the books of this House and from the accounts of the Senate was made by a reporter, at his direction. That reporter, who was formerly a clerk in the Post-Office Department, [Mr. Douglass Howard,] had taken the latest book in the Department, which contained the distances of the several post-offices in the country from Washington; and from that book he had got—honestly, he knew, though it might not have been entirely accurate in an instance or two—the official list of the distances of the several post-offices from this city. In every case, the post-office of the member, whether of the Senate or the House, had been looked out, his distance as charged set down, then the post-office book referred to, and the actual, honest distance by the shortest route set down opposite, and then the computation made how much the charge was an excess, not of legal mileage, but of what would be legal, if the mileage was computed by the nearest mail route.

Mr. King, of Georgia, desired, at this point of the gentleman's remarks, to say a word; the gentleman said that the members charged; now, he (Mr. K.) desired to say, with reference to himself, that from the first, he had always refused to give any information to the Committee on Mileage with respect to the mileage to which he would be entitled. He had told them it was their special duty to settle the matter; that he would have nothing to do with it. He, therefore, had charged nothing.

Mr. Greeley (continuing) said he thought all this showed the necessity of a new rule on the subject, for here they saw members shirking off, shrinking from the responsibility, and throwing it from one place to another. Nobody made up the account, but somehow an excess of $60,000 or $70,000 was charged in the accounts for mileage, and was paid from the Treasury.

Mr. King interrupted, and asked if he meant to charge him (Mr. K.) with shirking? Was that the gentleman's remark?