Public Ledger

PUBLIC OPINION.

The man who Made that Old Columbus Lie

(To the Editor of the Chicago Tribune.)

CHICAGO, August 18.—I was in Washington when the approaching marriage of Governor Sprague and Miss Chase was the event, and when that old Columbus scandal came up. Through my hospital-work I became acquainted with Alan Gangewer, secretary of the Ohio State Association for the care of soldiers, who had been editor of the Ohio State Journal, afterward private secretary to Gov. Chase, and is now assistant auditor in the treasury department. If there ever was a more honorable man I never knew him; and any allusion to this slander made him angry. He treated it all as a base and baseless lie; but his wife, a most excellent woman, and one peculiarly observant of the proprieties, one who had tried to be a mother to the motherless Kate, and had quite taken her into her heart, thought she was imprudent; but, as for any harm, real or intended, it was not to be thought of. She herself had never known Kate to overstep the mark; but Mr.— who held some position under Mr. Chase, and was constantly about the State House, told very strange tales. At mention of this man's name her husband exclaimed, "Balderdash!" and left the room; but from that man's standing in society it seemed that the little girl must have given some ground for the stories he told, which, by the way, were the first edition of those now told by the Democratic editor of the Democratic Post at Washington. She had been in the habit of going to the Capitol, no doubt, and going through the rooms with unusual freedom, and this gave opportunity for many surmises.

A friend in the West wrote me on the subject, and gave this man as authority, and repeated his story with circumstances difficult to reconcile with any theory of innocence. From two other sources I heard the story, and in both cases traced it back to this man, whose position seemed to place him above question in a matter of simple veracity. It was like the old story that once got abroad among the animals that the world was falling. "Who told you?" says the hen to the duck. "Oh, the cow told me!" Some one else told the cow, and when it came back to the cat, she bravely affirmed: "I saw it, and heard it, and felt it!"

Others spoke on hearsay; but this man saw with his own eyes, heard with his own ears, felt, in his deeply aggrieved soul, the great wrong which had been done to virtue's course.

He came to Washington and got an appointment and it was not long until he proved himself as rotten as a pumpkin which has lain afield all winter; and falsehood proved to be his special gift. Some people could make a story out of small material; but he was a creator, and made his out of nothing. If he made a promise, it was only to break it, and, when he told the truth, it was from some accident, forgetfulness, or necessity; but he was always plausible; and those to whom he had lied yesterday were apt to believe him to-day. He had literally lied his way into office, and all through life; or the habit had grown upon him, until, like a cancer, it had taken all the vitality out of him.

I went to Liverpool in the spring of 1876, on the good ship Egypt, and presented a letter to the captain—a letter which had been sent to me by a lady friend in the West, who had received it from one of her lady friends, who, having heard that I was going on that ship, had volunteered her good offices to insure me the most polite attentions from her friend, Captain Grogan. I had never seen or heard of the captain's friend, but my friend stood No. 1 in the social and religious life of her city, and, out of respect to her, I would not slight the letter of her friend.

True, I had no need of the captain's politeness. All I wanted of him was to keep order on board ship, and take her safely to port—to mind his own business; and that he was doing; but etiquette seemed to require that I should deliver the compliments of his former passenger.

I shall not soon forget the comical twinkle which came into his gray eyes as he read that letter. He gave a guffaw, and said:

"So, Sally has got a man, has she?"

I was obliged to confess that I did not know Sally, and to feel that the captain of the Egypt was even more of a sailor and less of a gentleman than I had supposed; but he told me if I had any more letters from Sally I had better throw them thus, as he crumpled that one up and threw it overboard. Even then I thanked him.

In Washington early in 1877 the history of this man who played pussy in the Columbus scandal came up for discussion, and I learned that he had maintained most infamous relations with a woman more infamous than himself; that when his corruption became so flagrant that even the Grant administration could no longer endure him, and he was dismissed, he married this woman, for the sake of the money she had accumulated, principally by going to Europe as traveling companion for men who were off on a debauch.

He took her to a Western city, where his political influence had given him social standing, and introduced her as his wife, which she was, and where she was received into the best circles, and where he deserted her because she would not give him her money to go into a political campaign. It was while she was flourishing as a lady of fortune, dress and address; a lady of culture who had traveled extensively in Europe, mingled in Washington society and fallen to the low estate of dwelling in the horrid West, and sharing the misfortunes of her deeply-injured husband, that she favored me with that letter of introduction to Captain Grogan, of the good ship Egypt, which letter he so ungallantly tossed into the billows.

Now that man, the husband of that woman; the man who was perfectly familiar with her career long before he married her; the man who married that woman to get her money, and left her when he did not get it; the man who could not tell the truth if he tried, is, and was, the whole and sole originator of the lie which has blighted Mrs. Sprague's life. Without that old lie all these new lies would be as bubbles in the wind, and I now defend her that I may make some little atonement for the wrong I did her in believing there must be some truth in his miserable falsehoods.

Jane Grey Swisshelm.