The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0149/01497.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 17KB | 272 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01497}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Sketches, Old And New
The Case Of George Fisher}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{fisher
congress
floyd
destroyed
george
indians
troops
corn
fishers
government}
$Date{1893}
$Log{}
Title:       Sketches, Old And New
Book:        The Case Of George Fisher
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1893

The Case Of George Fisher

The Case Of George Fisher. ^*

[Footnote *: Some years ago, when this was first published, few people
believed it, but considered it a mere extravaganza.  In these latter days it
seems hard to realize that there was ever a time when the robbing of our
government was a novelty.  The very man who showed me where to find the
documents for this case was at that very time spending hundreds of thousands
of dollars in Washington for a mail steamship concern, in the effort to
procure a subsidy for the company - a fact which was a long time in coming to
the surface, but leaked out at last and underwent Congressional
investigation.]

     This is history.  It is not a wild extravaganza, like "John Williamson
Mackenzie's Great Beef Contract," but is a plain statement of facts and
circumstances with which the Congress of the United States has interested
itself from time to time during the long period of half a century.

     I will not call this matter of George Fisher's a great deathless and
unrelenting swindle upon the Government and people of the United States - for
it has been so decided, and I hold that it is a grave and solemn wrong for a
writer to cast slurs or call names when such is the case - but will simply
present the evidence and let the reader deduce his own verdict. Then we shall
do nobody injustice, and our consciences shall be clear.

     On or about the 1st day of September 1813, the Creek was being then in
progress in Florida, the crops, herds, and houses of Mr. George Fisher, a
citizen, were destroyed, either by the Indians or by the United States troops
in pursuit of them.  By the terms of the law, if the Indians destroyed the
property, there was no relief for Fisher; but if the troops destroyed it, the
Government of the United States was debtor to Fisher for the amount involved.

     George Fisher must have considered that the Indians destroyed the
property, because, although he lived several years afterward, he does not
appear to have ever made any claim upon the Government.

     In the course of time Fisher died, and his widow married again.  And by
and by, nearly twenty years after that dimly-remembered raid upon Fisher's
cornfields, the widow Fisher's new husband petitioned Congress for pay for the
property, and backed up the petition with many depositions and affidavits
which purported to prove that the troops, and not the Indians, destroyed the
property; that the troops, for some inscrutable reason, deliberately burned
down "houses" (or cabins) valued at $600, the same belonging to a peaceable
private citizen, and also destroyed various other properly belonging to the
same citizen.  But Congress declined to believe that the troops were such
idiots (after overtaking and scattering a band of Indians proved to have been
found destroying Fisher's property) as to calmly continue the work of
destruction themselves, and make a complete job of what the Indians had only
commenced.  So Congress denied the petition of the heirs of George Fisher in
1832, and did not pay them a cent.

     We hear no more from them officially until 1848, sixteen years after
their first attempt on the Treasury, and a full generation after the death of
the man whose fields were destroyed.  The new generation of Fisher heirs then
came forward and put in a bill for damages.  The Second Auditor awarded them
$8,873, being half the damage sustained by Fisher.  The Auditor said the
testimony showed that at least half the destruction was done by the Indians,
"before the troops started in pursuit," and of course the Government was not
responsible for that half.

     2. That was in April, 1848.  In December, 1848, the heirs of George
Fisher, deceased, came forward and pleaded for a "revision" of their bill of
damages.  The revision was made, but nothing new could be found in their favor
except an error of $100 in the former calculation.  However, in order to keep
up the Fisher family, the Auditor concluded to go back and allow interest from
the date of the first petition (1832) to the date when the bill of damages was
awarded.  This sent the Fishers home happy with sixteen years' interest on
$8,873, the same amounting to $8,997.94.  Total, $17,870.94.

     3. For an entire year the suffering Fisher family remained quiet -
even satisfied, after a fashion.  Then they swooped down upon the
Government with their wrongs once more.  That old patriot, Attorney-General
Toucey, burrowed through the musty papers of the Fishers and discovered one
more chance for the desolate orphans - interest on that original award of
$8,873 from date of destruction of the property (1813) up to 1832!  Result,
$10,004.89 for the indigent Fishers.  So now we have: - First, $8,873
damages; second, interest on it from 1832 to 1848, $8,997.94; third,
interest on it dated back to 1813, $10,004.89.  Total, $27,875.83!  What
better investment for a great-grandchild than to get the Indians to burn a
cornfield for him sixty or seventy years before his birth, and plausibly
lay it on lunatic United States troops!

     4. Strange as it may seem, the Fishers let Congress alone for five
years - or, what is perhaps more likely, failed to make themselves heard by
Congress for that length of time.  But at last in 1854, they got a hearing.
They persuaded Congress to pass an act requiring the Auditor to re-examine
their case.  But this time they stumbled upon the misfortune of an honest
Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. James Guthrie), and he spoiled everything.
He said in very plain language that the Fishers were not only not entitled
to another cent, but that those children of many sorrows and acquainted
with grief had been paid too much already.

     5. Therefore another interval of rest and silence ensued - an interval
which lasted four years - viz., till 1858.  The "right man in the right
place" was then Secretary of War - John B. Floyd, of peculiar renown!  Here
was a master intellect; here was the very man to succor the suffering heirs
of dead and forgotten Fisher.  They came up from Florida with a rush - a
great tidal wave of Fishers freighted with the same old musty documents
about the same immortal cornfields of their ancestor.  They straightway got
an Act passed transferring the Fisher matter from the dull Auditor to the
ingenious Floyd.  What did Floyd do?  He said, "It Was Proved that the
Indians destroyed everything they could before the troops entered in
pursuit." He considered, therefore, that what they destroyed must have
consisted of "the houses with all their contents, and the liquor" (the most
trifling part of the destruction, and set down at only $3200 all told), and
that the Government troops then drove them off and calmly proceeded to
destroy -

     Two hundred and twenty acres of corn in the field, thirty-five acres
of wheat, and nine hundred and eighty-six head of live stock!  [What a
singularly intelligent army we had in those days, according to Mr. Floyd -
though not according to the Congress of 1832.]

     So Mr. Floyd decided that the Government was not responsible for that
$3200 worth of rubbish which the Indians destroyed, but was responsible for
the property destroyed by the troops - which property consisted of (I quote
from the United States Senate document) -
                                                       Dollars.
Corn at Bassett's Creek,...............................3,000
Cattle,................................................5,000
Stock hogs,............................................1,050
Drove hogs,............................................1,204
Wheat,...................................................350
Hides,..............