During the course of my examination, I was questioned closely relative to my motive in vising the term "Cap." as applicable to the amount paid to Senator Mitchell, as it was noted that I had written the names out in full wherever they occurred in other entries.
As a reply to these queries, I simply stated that I did not wish to take any chances of doing the Senator an injustice in case anything should ever arise whereby the book might get into the possession of someone else. In other words, I had no desire to compromise him in any way at the time I made the entry. I admitted that greater precaution should have been observed by me in connection with other names, but I was particularly anxious to shield Senator Mitchell as much as possible on account of the position he occupied.
In order that my readers may properly understand the interest displayed by the jurymen, I desire to state that my recital began at 10 o'clock in the morning and was not concluded until after 11. Notwithstanding the fact that I had finished, I was detained in the jury room until 1:45 P. M., the members foregoing their luncheons for the time being in their eagerness to obtain all the facts. During this time I was questioned closely by every member of the body.
I perceived at the outset that Senator Mitchell had many personal friends on the jury; men who would gladly have stretched a point in his favor, had circumstances permitted; so it is not to be wondered at that these men were intent on holding me there, that they might, by some possible chance, stem the tide that was fast setting against their old-time political idol. The evidence was all tooconvincing, however, and it was not very long before the most pronounced adherent of the distinguished Oregon statesman was willing to cry quits.
Some days later I was called upon by Mr. Heney to appear again before the Grand Jury, this time to give testimony in the case of F. Pierce Mays. My experience upon this occasion varied materially from that of my first appearance, inasmuch as it required less than half an hour to convince the body that Mays was a fit subject for indictment on the charge of conspiracy to defraud the Government in connection with the 24-1 deal.
It might be stated, also, that Senator Mitchell was later on granted the privilege of appearing before the Grand Jury in his own behalf, while Mr. Mays, although making an urgent request to be accorded a similar courtesy, was denied this privilege, it being discretionary with the Grand Jury to extend it or not, so the presumption is that all the members were desirous of affording every opportunity for the Senator to clear his skirts of all charges.
After Senator Mitchell had concluded his testimony before the Grand Jury, he started immediately upon his return trip to Washington, as he had been obliged to leave his seat in the United States Senate in order to appear and give testimony in his own behalf, and it was while en route across the continent that the news of his indictment became known. It reached him at Spokane, Wash., where he was interviewed by a representative of the Associated Press, and through which medium his expressions were heralded all over the country. In the course of this interview he said:
"I never saw Puter in my life until he called on me in Washington with a letter of introduction from Franklin P. Mays, a friend of mine in Portland. In helping him before the land office, I did what I had done for a thousand citizens of Oregon. He told me that he had been employed by Mrs. Watson, as I recall it now, to look into her matters for her. Never in the slightest degree, was the matter of compensation mentioned between Puter and myself.
"I am as innocent as a babe unborn of any complicity in any land frauds in Oregon or elsewhere, and if it is true that an indictment has been returned against me, I assert in the most positive terms that it must be based upon the testimony of self-confessed and convicted land thieves and perjurers, who have been offered immunity in case they, to meet the vindictive desire of Secretary Hitchcock and his agents, will, by their testimony, involve me and others in the frauds.
