TO GEORGE F. EDMUNDS
I have to thank you for your kind letter informing me that the papers connected with my ruling in respect to the Northern Pacific railroad grant have been referred to the Judiciary Committee. I fear I did not make myself sufficiently clear when asking you to move an investigation of my official conduct in that case. Not only is the ruling itself attacked as incorrect, but I find myself charged in some public papers—and these charges seem to have been called forth by a resolution introduced in the Senate—with having by an arbitrary stretch of authority as Secretary of the Interior “restored” to the Northern Pacific railroad a forfeited land grant, and with having done this to benefit a personal friend, Mr. Henry Villard, who is alleged to have been then as now the principal party interested in that road. These charges do not only appear in certain newspapers, but they are, as I am advised, circulated and countenanced by some Members of Congress.
Inasmuch as they touch the integrity of a great Executive department in an important official act, they may be considered entitled to attention, not as a mere matter of personal concern, but as a matter of public interest. The people ought to know whether their affairs have been honestly administered or not. It is, therefore, of importance that it be generally known, not only whether the ruling made in the case referred to, is correct, in point of law, but whether the allegations made concerning the circumstances under which it was made, have any foundation.
It can very easily be shown that the case, before being decided, was most carefully and conscientiously considered on its merits; that, as a legal question, it was submitted to
