These gentlemen ask us to give them credit for, after more than two years, paying a dividend of 10 per cent., (making 30 per cent. in all,) and affect to regret that they could not, indeed had not the means to make it ten more. And yet they admit the fact that their “expense account,” in three years, reaches the enormous sum of $179,437.20; $62,536.22 of this was for their own salaries and the salaries of clerks, and $23,008.92 for fees paid to favorite lawyers. In other words, eighty-five thousand and five hundred and forty-five dollars and fourteen cents ($85,545.14) went into their own, and the pockets of the type of lawyers I have described in another part of this work. Well might Mr. Beverly Douglas exclaim: “The Commissioners regard what there is left of this sad wreck as a legacy for the benefit of themselves and their retainers.” That the money is fast disappearing into their own pockets, and that in two or three years more there will be but very little of it left for the washers and the scrubbers, the very poor and the very ignorant, who were so cruelly robbed, we here have ample proof.

A glance over the salary list referred to will show with what heartless regularity these well-paid Commissioners came up to the bank’s counter on the last day of each month and drew their salary. I here insert a few specimens:

The wonder is that Creswell and Leipold did not ask us to credit them with generous intentions for not waiting until the first day of each month. These worthy gentlemen, so true to themselves, are Republicans, holding front seats in the church of Christian statesmen; they are loud to preach and strong to pray, and they thank God of a Sunday that they are not as other men. And yet amidst all the suffering and distress, all the poverty and want, the class of poor robbed by the officials of this bank here in Washington have been afflicted with for the past two winters, and which the good and the generous so worthily came forward to relieve, it does not seem for once to have occurred to these Commissioners, who were enriching themselves on the money of the washers and scrubbers, that even one month’s salary would have purchased fuel and bread enough to feed a thousand starving and shivering families for a month. There is no charity on that side of Mr. John Andrew Jackson Creswell’s ledger. He is deaf and dumb when humanity speaks. His name is not down in charity’s album; at least I have not seen it there. Nor have I seen Leipold’s mite recorded. And I am sure Attorney-at-law Totten would regard it as a libel on his reputation to be accused of giving for charity’s sake.

Let me end this sad story by saying that I want no better proof of the prudence, docility, and deference of the negro race to the white man than the fact that they did not rise up and take summary vengeance of the scoundrels who so cruelly robbed them of their hard earnings.

I have shown:

First: That the Freedmen’s Bank, like the Freedmen’s Bureau, was an offspring of the Republican party.

Second: That its managers were Republicans of the most radical type, from O. O. Howard down to ex-Senator Pomeroy; and from Pomeroy down to G. W. Stickney.

Third: That the men who invented the diabolical plot to rob the bank, and did rob it, were not only Republicans holding front seats in its political tabernacle, but friends and associates of ex-President Grant.

Fourth: That the Commissioners, who have so shamefully neglected their trust, were high-church Republicans, one of them an ex-member of Grant’s cabinet.

Fifth: That with the single exception of Vice-President Wilson, not a Republican, high or low, in or out of Congress, has raised a hand or voice against the robbers, or come to the defense of the poor negroes who were being so cruelly robbed.

Sixth: That Republicans have, with the single exception I have named, invariably apologized for and defended the robbers.

Seventh: That the thoughtful reader will agree with me that there is a meaner and more despicable class of theft than that which applies to chicken-roosts.

Eighth: That the men guilty of this robbery are all well known; that the most prominent of them, to use the language of Mr. Frederick Douglass, “live in palaces and ride in coaches,” and yet Justice has not laid even its most dainty finger on them.

It now remains for Congress to assert its prerogative, to rise up and wipe out this abomination, to put a stop to a scandal that has become national, and place the winding up of the affairs of the bank under the Secretary of War, with authority to appoint a competent officer to perform the duty, to the end of saving what there is left of the wreck to the poor victims of this cruel robbery, instead of having it pass into the pockets of the Commissioners and their legal retainers. We all know and appreciate the prompt, honest, and economical way in which Adjutant General Vincent brought the affairs of the Freedmen’s Bureau to a close, and exposed the canting hypocrites who had grown rich by pocketing the colored man’s bounties. We want just such a faithful and efficient officer to wind up the affairs of the Freedmen’s Bank.