Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1882 — THE SOUTH AMERICAN COMPLICATION. [ARTICLE]

THE SOUTH AMERICAN COMPLICATION.

The effort of the House of Representatives to get to the bottom of the gigantic scheme of the “Peruvian Company,” to use the American Government as a means of “gobbling” Peru, lias not yet proved successful. Government has laid before the House “complete transcripts ” of the letters indicated in the resolution of request of the 6th inst., and has also supplied the suppressed parts of the letters previously laid before the House. Most of the letters furnished were written by the chief of the Peru speculators—Mr. Jacob R. Shipherd—to Minister Hurlbut. They are epistles of a most extraordinary character. They represent Shipherd, in his character of chief agent of the Peruvian Company, as having the most intimate and confidental relations to a large number of distinguished public men ana great capitalists. Among the former were U. 8. Grant. John Sherman, J. D. Cameron, Roscoe Conkling, Senator Blair, Senator Eugene Hale, Senator Dawes, Collector Robertson, ex-Senator Eaton, George S. Boutwell, Scott Lord, A. S. Hewitt and Marshall Jewell. Among the latter were E. D. Morgan, Hugh McCullough, W. H. Vanderbilt, W. L. Scott, Sidney Dillon, W. W. Astor, Howard Crosby, and fifteen or twenty other notable capitalists, bankers, etc. It is not represented that all these persons stood in the relation of share-owners, or as having any direct interest in the Peruvian Company, but that such of them as were not were expected to become interested. It was by their enlistment that the Peruvian Company was to be made “strong in its personnel,” as the great projector wrote to Marshall JewelL It appears to have been thought essential that the great Peruvian Company should be not only “strong in its personnel,” but strong also in the number of its newspaper organs, of which it was to have had one in Chicago, oue in Cincinnati and two in New York.

The conspicuous meu who are represented as being drawn into the scheme, by an interest of some sort, are George S. Boutwell, Senator Blair, Scott Lord, ex-Senator Eaton, U. S. Grant and Roscoe Conkling, For the satisfaction of Mr. Hurlbut, who probably had expressed doubt of the respectability of the Peruvian Company, Shipherd informed him that “ our staff of counsel ” included the above-flamed gentlemen. Boutwell “has prepared a conclusive brief in support of all our demands.” Blair is “the intermediary between the Secretary [of State] and myself when lam away from Washington.” The special office of Grant seems to have been that of guide, philosopher and friend. “ Most radical suggestions of policy as yet suggested have the hearty autograph approval of Gen. Grant, who is now one of us. The significance of this you need no aid from me to estimate.” Judge Lord had also prepared a brief for the company, in which “ Boutwell concurs and Eaton substantially concurs.” What active service the other members of the “ staff of counsel” performed does not appear. minister Morton’s Name Involved. A Washington dispatch says : There are daily new developments in the South American complication. Some days since there was published, from advance sheets of the Chili-Peru corresoondence, a letter from Levi J?. Morton, United States Minister to France, from which it appeared not only.that Mr. Morton was very anxious that Peru should not be dismembered, but was conferring with President Gfevy with a view to a possible upion between France and the United States to protect the respective interests of French and American citizens in Peru. This letter of Minister Morton bears date Aug. 11, 1881. Mr. Blaine, in reply, -rejected any entangling alliance with a European power. It appears that ten days after Minister Morton had sent his letter to Mr. Blaine, the firm of Morton, Bliss & Oo. r of which Minister Morton is the senior and chief mornber, entered into a contract,, in the city of Paris, France, with Pedro, Louis and Henry Gantreau, of Paris, the representatives of the Societe Generate de Credit Industrial et Commercial, for the sale of the guano and nitrates ceded to this company by the Peruvian Government. This contract was negotiated through Robert E. Randall, of Philadelpliia, brother of the ex-Speaker. It provides, in substance, that Morton, Bliss <fc Co. shall become agents of this French company for the sale of the nitrates and guano ceded to that company by the Peruvian Government. For this service Morton, Bliss & Co. are to receive a commission of 5 per cent. It is needless to sav that unless Minister Morton can explain this extraordinary contract with his firm, the Emma Mine scandal is likely to prove insignificant in comparison with the gnano-ni-trate contract of the United States Minister to France. >• .