Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1886 — GARLAND DEFENDED. [ARTICLE]

GARLAND DEFENDED.

The Attorney General’s Purchase of Pan-Electric Stock Made for Investment Purposes. He Was Absent on a Vacation When Solicitor Goode Brought His Sait. Efforts of Political Enemies to Magnify an Innocent Matter Into a Grave Official Disdemeanor. A New York paper publishes the following -openj letter from George Ticknor Curtiß, Esq. It sets forth completely and authoritatively the history of the Pan-Electric Telephone Company so far as concerns the relations therewith of Messrs. Garland, Lamar, Goode, and other officers of the administration: I have gathered the precise facts in regard to Mr. Garland's connection with the Pan-Electrio Company, the action of the Solicitor General, of the President, and of the Secretary of. the Interior in respect to the Bell Telephone Company’s patent. I communicate the facts to you because I believe that when you understand them fully you wiU not do any inj ustice in your own mind to any of these gentlemen, and wjll not countenance the doing of any injustice to them or either of them by other persons. Some of these facts are public and well known to you. But I think it best to embody them in one statement, which will cover the 'whole ground, including as well facts that are now known and others which I have learned by independent investigation. Mr. Garland was one of the original founders on the Pan-Electric and Telegraph Company. Three years ago—that is, in the month of F ebruary, 1883, —Mr. Garland, at the suggestion of an old friend, became one of a number of persons who formed a company to acquire and operate the Bogers patent for a telephone. This was an enterprise which it was supposed could be developed without a large outlay, none of the incorporators being wealthy men. A stock was created, and Mr. Garland became the owner of five thousand shares, par value SIOO per share. Forty-five hundred shares were issued to him, and he left five hundred shares in the treasury of the company for its use. Some small assessments were laid from time to time, for the purpose of having enough to commence operations. The aggregate amount of assessments paid in by Mr. Garland was about $309. Mr. Garland became the general attorney and counsel of the company, and in that capacity he gave a written opinion that the Rogers invention did not infringe the Bell patent; but he never gave or formed any opinion on the validity of the Bell patent, neither at the formation of the Pan-Electric Company nor at any subsequent time. He has never examined the validity of the Bell patent. I have seen and read his op nion, and I can certify that it covers and refers to no question but the question of infringement. The opinion bore date Jan. 6, 1884. The Part-Electric Company made some licenses or sold some rights under the Bogers patent, and the proceeds divided among the stockholders amounted for Mr. Gar- ’ land’s distributive share to less than $2,000. The Pan-Electric Company, or some of its licensees, were sued by the Bell Company, but Mr. Garland took no part in the defense and was not relied upon to give it shape. At the , ; time he became a stockholder in that company he was a Senator, but his participation in the formation of the company can not by any reasonable person be considered as either an unusual or an improper thing for a Senator to be engaged in, as it was a mere investment ot a few hundred dollars in an undeveloped property which he could have no reason to suppose would in any way become a subject of legislative action. When President Cleveland’s Cabinet was formed Mr. Garland’s known eminence as a lawyer and the desirableness of having one or more Southern men in the Cabinet led me, as well as many other persons, to recommend to the President to offer to him the position of Attorney General. Of course, I knew nothing of Mr. Garland’s particular relations to any of his clients or to any business enterprise. I regarded him as a man of ability and learning in our profession and of a highly respected character. He became Attorney General in March, 1885. That he was bound to decline the office when it was tendered to him by the President because the Bell Telephone Company had sued a company in which he was a stockholder, or was bound to foresee the possibility that as an Attorney General he might have to consider the validity of the Bell patent, is an idea that I can not, and that I presume you can not, for a moment entertain. If the President had offered the place of Attorney General to me, and I had accepted it, I should have accepted with a full consciousness of the fact that there were claims in my hands for private individuals, in which I had an interest, and which might sooner or later require the action of the President through the Department of Justice, or some other department. But I never should have dreamed of declining the office on that account. If the President had tendered the office to you and you had accepted it, you must have entered upon its duties with a full knowledge of the fact that you had enjoyed the good fortune to be professionally connected with many clients on some of whose concerns the Department of Justice might at some time have to act. But I imagine that, whatever other reasons might have led you to decline the office, you would not have declined for this one, because you would have been well aware that in all executive and all judicial action, if the officer is disqualified or thinks himself disqualified from acting officially in a particular case, there is always provision for official action in the case by some other person. In the Department of Justice that other person is the Solicitor General ; and you are aware that there is a statute which provides for this official action in case of the disability of the Attorney General, which has already been construed to mean disqualification on account of some supposed interest in the subject-matter past or present, as well as disability from sickness or other cause. In the month of July last three or four gentlemen called upon Mr. Garland at the Department of Justice and said that they wanted the use of the name of the United States to bring a suit to repeal or vacate the Bell patent. One of them was a stockholder in the Pan-Electric Company. Supposing from the circumstance that it was the Pan-Electric Company alone which desired to make the application, although it was not, Mr. Garland answered that he could not receive the application or entertain it in any form or look at the papers. One of the gentlemen began to argue the matter, but Mr. Garland cut it short by saying that he must be the judge of his own disqualification, and they left. He did not say to them: “You can go up-stairs and make your application to the Solicitor General.” He supposed thev knew that the law empowered the Solicitor General to act in the matter, the Attornev General being or considering himself disqualified. Nothing was said about an application to Mr. Goode. Mr. Garland did not speak to Mr. Goode on the subject, nor did Mr. Goo£e know that these g< ntlomen had called upon Mr. Garland, for Mr. Goode was not in Washington nt the time. Mr. Garland’s absence from Washington was in no way necessary to the entertainment of the application by Mr. Goode. In fact, Mr. Geode left Washington on official business in British Columbia on the 26th of June, and returned to Washington on the 19th of August. The Attorney General left for his summer vacation on the 27th of August. When he went away the department was left in charge of Mr. Goode, but no intimation was made to him, directly or indirectly, by the Attorney General or by the Bell Telephone Company, and he did not know that Mr. Garland hud any interest in any telephone stock. Mr. Garland went to Arkansas for his vacation, and remained for rest and recreation during some weeks at a place where he saw no newspapers, and where he was almost be vend the reach of telegrams. One day, however, he received a telegram from the New Orleans Times-Democrat stating that the New York Tribune had attacked him for authorizing a suit in the name of the United States against the Bell Telephone Company, and off< ring the use of their columns if Mr. Garland wished to make an explanation. Completely ignorant that such a suit had been brought after he left Washington, Mr. Garland replied by telegram that he had not auth >rizad such a suit, and did not know that one had be; n brought. Any one who can extort out of these facts ground for suspicion that there was an arranged or tacitly understood plan to have a suit brought that would benefit the Attorney General without his authoriz*ation of it, by having it instituted in his absence by the .Solicitor General, must have a remarkable taste

for indulging in injurious aspersions. Not only did Mr. Goode not know that Garland had been spoken to about a suit before he left Washington, but Mr. Goode had no means of knowing that Mr. Garland was interested in the company that might possibly be benefited by such a suit. Mr Goode treated the matter as he would any other official business, without a thought that Mr. Garland would have any personal relation to it, near or remote. On Mr. Garland’s return to Washington he called upon the President, and they had some conversation about the tilegrams which had passed between the editor of the New Orleans paper and Mr. Garland, which the President had seen in some New York paper. There was to have been a Cabinet meeting within a day or two, and Mr. Garland said to the President that he w.ould then make a statement of all that he knew about this matter. The President answered that it would gratify him, and he presumed would gratify the other members of the Cabinet if Mr. Garland should make such a statement. At the meeting of the Cabinet Mr. Garland stated to the President and the other gentlemen present, orally, his whole connection with the Pan-Electric Company, his entire want of connection with the suit which the Solicitor General had authorized, and his ignorance of the fact that a suit had been brought until he was informed of it by the telegram from the New Orleans paper. Mr. Garland on the same day after the Cabinet meeting, at the suggestion of the President, put his statement in writing and gave the paper to the President. It was dated on the Bth of October last. The President allowed it to be publisned. On the same day (Oct. 8) the President wrote to the Solicitor General and suggested that he order the discontinuance of the suit which he had authorized the District Attorney of Western Tennessee to commence, and have the whole matter referred to the Secretary of the Interior to determine whether any new suit should be brought and where. This was done for the reason to which I shall presently refer. The correspondence between the President and the Solicitor General has been before the public for several months. I deem it proper to say here that there is no foundation for late rumors that Mr. Garland has recently tendered his resignation to the President on account of the attacks which certain newspapers are making upon him. He has not tendered his resignation to the President on account of these attacks or for any other reason. If a Cabinet officer could be driven from his place by a clamor such as has been made against Mr. Garland on such facts the place would be unfit to be held by a man of honor, and the fittest successor would be some man who could prostitute the office to his private advantage, regardless of the opinions of the good or the bad. You are well aware of all that took place at the hearing which Mr. Lamar gave to all the parties interested in this matter, and the decision to which he came. He extended a courtesy to the Bell Company officials by inviting them to be present at the hearing before him, and to adduce any evidence or make any arguments they saw fit. They were abundantly and very ably represented at the hearing. However problematical it may be whether the United States can, under existing laws, maintain any suit to repeal or vacate a patent for a useful Invention on any ground that could be pleaded by an individual when sued for infringing that patent—and to me it seems very doubtful—yet lean well understand how Mr. Lamar came to authorize or. advise such a suit in reference to the Bell patent. In the first place, there are a certain number of precedents ; and, although those precedents do not exactly fit the present case, they are sufficient to warrant the executive in all the executive action that has been taken—namely, to refer to the courts, and ultimately to the Supreme Court, to determine, first, whether the United States can maintain the suit, and, second, whether, supposing the suit to be well brought, the Bell patent is valid or invalid. Mr. Lamar certainly could not have authorized or advised the suit in order to shield Mr. Garland, for Mr. Garland had done nothing for which he needed a shield to be extended over him by the Secretary of the Interior. Mr. Garland had no more to do wi.h the institution of the first or the second suit than I hod. Mr. Lamar did not act as he did in order to shield Mr. Goode, for Mr. Goode did not stand in any need of any shield. He discontinued the first suit at the suggestion of the President, and waited for the action of the Secretary of the Interior. The President gave him that suggestion, not because the institution of the first suit was a step that might benefit the stockholders of the Pan-Elec-tric Company, but because there is a rule of administration that when anything out of the common course is to be done by the Department of Justice, the bead of the other department which is primarily concerned in the matter shall first act upon it. Again, it is proper for me to add that Mr. Garland, from the time of his return to Washington to the time of Mr. Lamar’s decision, never spoke to Mr. Lamar on the subject, and never spoke of it in Mr. Lamar’s presence excepting at the Cabinet meeting, when Mr. Garland made his oral statement to the President and his colleagues of the Cabinet, as I have above detailed. To prevent all cavil, I add that with the exception of that occasion, Mr. Garland not only never spoke to Mr. Lamar on the subject, but that he never had any communication with Mr. Lamar on the subject, direct or indirect, in any form. In regard to Mr. Garland's remote possible interest in the result of the suit that is to be brought because of his ownership of stock in the Pan-Electric Company, there are one or two considerations to which the public should give heed, if the public is in a state of mind on the subject to heed palpable truths. If the Bell patent is sustained or it is ultimately decided that the suit cannot be maintained by the United States, the PanElectric Company will be just where they are now—that is, liable to a suit or suits for infringement of the Bell patent, in which, like every other defendant, they can set up any defense that the law opens to them. But the value of their stcck can hardly be much advanced by that result of the Government suit, considering that they will have to fight a battle in suits brought against them *by the Bell Company. On the other hand, if the issue out of the Government's suit shall be that the Beil patent is declared invalid, the Pan-Electric Company can have nothing in the Rogers patent of any value, unless the Rogers patent covers something that was not covered by the Bell patent. To the extent of what the Rogers patent has of patentable novelty, after the Bell patent is put out of existence, if that shall happen, there may be some value in the Rogers patent. But this value is so problematical and uncertain that if Mr. Garland could get $1 per share for his stock he would be a wise man to sell it. Ido not suppose he could find a purchaser for it at any price. But, be it of some or of no value, he has no more responsibility for the present position of things than I have; and Mr. Lamar’s responsibility is simply that of a public servant who has performed an official act, in which the Supreme Court of the United States may or may not concur with him, and has performed it solely upon considerations of what he deemed his official duty. Yours always, Geobge Ticknob Cubtis.