UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON EXPENDITURES IN THE POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT. THE LEWIS CASE. COMPLAINANT'S SUMMING UP. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT. Generally speaking, this case is a complaint. against the conduct of administrative officers of the Government, and especially of the Post Office Department, which conduct has resulted in great financial injury to many thousands of persons and in the destruction of a number of legitimate enterprises, valued in millions. Specifically, it is, in some part, a complaint that officers of the Post Office Department wrongfully withheld from, or denied to, the complainants their lawful privileges, rights, and protections in the mails; in some part it is a complaint of malfeasance by those sworn to faithfully execute the laws of the people; in some part it is a complaint that public officers abused their lawful authority and assumed wrongful authority; in some part it is a complaint that public officers deliberately and flagrantly defied and violated the laws of Congress to accomplish their purposes; and in its entirety it is a complaint of maladministration operating in diverse ways hereafter specified, through a combination of unlawful and unwarranted acts, to the financial injury of many thousands of persons and the ruin of their legitimate enterprises. And it is charged in the complaints that the wrongful official conduct was in large part made possible by a conspiracy of officials, the exist ence of which is evidenced by the several acts complained of. One purpose of this was the suppression in the department of the regular order and practices of administration in such matters and the substitution therefor of extraordinary methods and persons other than those having in due course to do with such questions. Then, on one nand those below were plausibly authorized or sustained or approved or justified in their acts, as the case might be, by the acts of those above; and so were the lawless and discriminatory acts superficially given the guise of legality, regularity, and of duty. In other words, a concert of action on the part of officials assuming such authority and powers as seemed necessary for the purposes in hand, working together on a common design, each contributing more or less to the general purpose, which was in the main to punish Lewis for past criticism and silence him for the future by forcing him into the penitentiary on fictitious law and trumped-up evidence, and the ruin of all the Lewis enterprises. The conspiracy had its inception in the fraud-order operations against the bank by means of which Mr. Cortelyou closed it up, and was woven in the warp and woof of events which followed. The persons interested in the bank and affected by the fraud order also controlled the Lewis Publishing Co. In the magazines vigorous protest was made against the unholy act of destroying the bank, and thereupon the conspiracy took on more definite form and the officials began to cooperate in a common purpose, which mainly was that of silencing the vitriolic pen of Lewis by one or both acts of landing him in the penitentiary and closing the mails to the company's magazines; and this included all the proceedings incidental thereto, and in colorable defense or excuse of them thereafter. The damage to innocent stockholders was not allowed to stand in the way of extinguishing the light that was being thrown upon the wrongful official transactions. The administration was hearing from the people. So it was that the conspiracy was a matter of development stage by stage, one act requiring another, and that another, and that still another, and so on. The officials found it necessary to hang together lest they hang separately, and this included in some degree those later in office, who found it expedient to do everything possible to head off the threatened exposure and consequent disgrace of the department by defending their predecessors from an ambush of technicalities, specious justifications, artificial explanations, and the like. The complaints and charges are so astounding as to be almost incredible, but this brief will show that every complaint is well founded and sustained by the evidence. The official activities complained of commenced in March, 1905, and continued almost without intermission until March, 1907, and after that more or less spasmodically up to, and in some part during, the time this committee has been conducting this investigation. Therefore the actions complained of cover a period of over six years. The case is long and involved, due in some part to the numerous collateral issues raised during the committee's investigation. The record contains the testimony of about 160 witnesses, covering many thousands of pages. Thirty thousand financially interested citizens complain here, and hundreds of thousands of citizens complain of having been deprived of their lawful rights through wrongful official transactions. The principle enterprises affected by the official operations are the People's United States Bank, the Lewis Publishing Co., and the American Woman's League. Other enterprises, some originated by Mr. Lewis and some not, however, were also affected and ruined by the official operations. Because of the nature and the manner of accomplishing the things complained of, the courts of the country could give the complainants no adequate relief or protection against the official operations. The laws are deficient in such a case. The theory upon which this case is in part presented to your committee is that it is the duty of Congress from time to time to make inquiry as to whether the laws enacted for the conduct of the Government are properly interpreted and administered, and whether they are effective for their purposes, and if not to ascertain what additional laws are necessary in the interest of the people and the Government. The case comes before your committee under these circumstances: In the Sixty-first Congress Representative Bartholdt introduced a bill to pay an indemnity to the Lewis Publishing Co. for injuries in |