Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0149/01497.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 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,.................................................4,000
Corn on the Alabama River..............................3,500
                                                     _______
                           Total......................18,104

     That sum, in his report, Mr. Floyd calls the "full value of the property
destroyed by the troops." He allows that sum to the starving Fishers, Together
With Interest From 1813.  From this new sum total the amounts already paid to
the Fishers were deducted, and then the cheerful remainder (a fraction under
forty thousand dollars) was handed to them, and again they retired to Florida
in a condition of temporary tranquility. Their ancestor's farm had now yielded
them, altogether, nearly sixty-seven thousand dollars in cash.

     6. Does the reader suppose that that was the end of it?  Does he suppose
those diffident Fishers were satisfied?  Let the evidence show. The Fishers
were quiet just two years.  Then they came swarming up out of the fertile
swamps of Florida with their same old documents, and besieged Congress once
more.  Congress capitulated on the first of June, 1860, and instructed Mr.
Floyd to overhaul those papers again and pay that bill.  A Treasury clerk was
ordered to go through those papers and report to Mr. Floyd what amount was
still due the emaciated Fishers.  This clerk (I can produce him whenever he is
wanted) discovered what was apparently a glaring and recent forgery in the
papers, whereby a witness's testimony as to the price of corn in Florida in
1813 was made to name double the amount which that witness had originally
specified as the price!  The clerk not only called his superior's attention to
this thing, but in making up his brief of the case called particular attention
to it in writing.  That part of the brief never got before Congress, nor has
Congress ever yet had a hint of a forgery existing among the Fisher papers.
Nevertheless, on the basis of the double prices (and totally ignoring the
clerk's assertion that the figures were manifestly and unquestionably a recent
forgery), Mr. Floyd remarks in his new report that "the testimony particularly
in regard to the corn crops demands a much higher allowance than any
heretofore made by the Auditor or myself." So he estimates the crop at sixty
bushels to the acre (double what Florida acres produce), and then virtuously
allows pay for only half the crop, but allows two dollars and a half a bushel
for that half, when there are rusty old books and documents in the
Congressional library to show just what the Fisher testimony showed before the
forgery - viz., that in fall of 1813 corn was only worth from $1.25 to $1.50 a
bushel.  Having accomplished this, what does Mr. Floyd do next?  Mr. Floyd
("with an earnest desire to execute truly the legislative will," as he piously
remarks) goes to work and makes out an entirely new bill of Fisher damages,
and in this new bill he placidedly ignores the Indians altogether - puts no
particle of the destruction of the Fisher property upon them, but, even
repenting him of charging them with burning the cabins and drinking the whisky
and breaking the crockery, lays the entire damage at the door of the imbecile
United States troops, down to the very last item!  And not only that, but uses
the forgery to double the loss of corn at "Bassett's Creek," and uses it again
to absolutely treble the loss of corn on the "Alabama River." This new and
ably conceived and executed bill of Mr. Floyd's figures up as follows (I copy
again from the printed U.S. Senate document): -
The United States in account with the legal representatives of George Fisher,
deceased.

                                                                   Dol.  C.
1813 - To 550 head of cattle, at 10 dollars .......................5,500 00
       To 86 head of drove hogs....................................1,204 00
       To 350 head of stock hogs...................................1,750 00
       To 100 Acres Of Corn On Bassett's Creek.....................6,000 00
       To 8 barrels of whisky......................................  350 00
       To 2 barrels of brandy......................................  280 00
       To 1 barrel of rum..........................................   70 00
       To dry goods and merchandise in store.......................1,100 00
       To 35 acres of wheat........................................  350 00
       To 2,000 hides..............................................4,000 00
       To furs and hats in store...................................  600 00
       To crockery ware in store...................................  100 00
       To smiths' and carpenters' tools............................  250 00
       To houses burned and destroyed..............................  600 00
       To 4 dozen bottles of wine..................................   48 00
1814 - To 120 acres of corn on Alabama River.......................9,500 00
       To crops of peas, fodder, etc...............................3,250 00
                                                                  _________
                                   Total..........................34,952.00
       To interest on $22,202, from July 1813 to November 1860,
        47 years and 4 months.....................................63,053.68
       To interest on $12,750, from September 1814 to November
        1860, 46 years and 2 months...............................35,317.50
                                                                  _________
                                   Total.........................133,323.18

     He puts everything in this time.  He does not even allow that the Indians
destroyed the crockery or destroyed the four dozen bottles of (currant) wine.
When it came to supernatural comprehensiveness in "gobbling," John B. Floyd
was without his equal, in his own or any other generation.  Subtracting from
the above total the $67,000 already paid to George Fisher's implacable heirs,
Mr. Floyd announced that the Government was still indebted to them in the sum
of sixty-six thousand five hundred and nineteen dollars and eighty-five cents,
"which," Mr. Floyd complacently remarks, "will be paid, accordingly, to the
administrator of the estate of George Fisher, deceased, or to his attorney in
fact."

     But, sadly enough for the destitute orphans, a new President came in just
at this time, Buchanan and Floyd went out, and they never got their money.
The first thing Congress did in 1861 was to rescind the resolution of June 1,
1870, under which Mr. Floyd had been ciphering.  Then Floyd (and doubtless the
heirs of George Fisher likewise) had to give up financial business for a
while, and go into the Confederate army and serve their country.

     Were the heirs of George Fisher killed?  No.  They are back now at this
very time (July 1870), beseeching Congress through that blushing and diffident
creature, Garrett Davis, to commence making payments again on their
interminable and insatiable bill of damages for corn and whisky destroyed by a
gang of irresponsible Indians, so long ago that even Government red-tape has
failed to keep consistent and intelligent track of it.

     Now, the above are facts.  They are history.  Any one who doubts it can
send to the Senate Document of the Capitol for H. R. Ex. Doc. No. 21, 36th
Congress, 2nd Session, and for S. Ex. Doc. No. 106, 41st.  Congress 2nd
Session, and satisfy himself.  The whole case is set forth in the first volume
of the Court of Claims Reports.

     It is my belief that as long as the continent of America holds together,
the heirs of George Fisher, deceased, will still make pilgrimages to
Washington from the swamps of Florida, to plead for just a little more cash on
their bill of damages (even when they received the last of that sixty-seven
thousand dollars, they said it was only one-fourth what the Government owed
them on that fruitful corn-field), and as long as they choose to come, they
will find Garrett Davises to drag their vampire schemes before Congress.  This
is not the only hereditary fraud (if fraud it is - which I have before
repeatedly remarked is not proven) that is being quietly handled down from
generation to generation of fathers and sons, through the persecuted Treasury
of the United States.