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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
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 REPLY 
 
 -OK- 
 
 
 MR. WM. E. CHANDLER 
 
 TO THE SLANDERS OF 
 
 HONORABLE 
 
 BAIKBRIDGE WADLEIGH, 
 
 LATELY IT. S. SENATOR; 
 
 TOGETHER 'WITH A REQUEST FOR EXPLANATION OF 
 
 SOME ACTS OF ME. WADLEIGH 
 
 WHILE SENATOR. 
 
 CONCORD, N. H., 
 
 JUNE 7, 1879. 
 

EEPLY OF 
 ME. WM. E. CHANDLEE 
 
 TO THE SLANDERS OF 
 
 HONORABLE BAINBRIDGE WADLEIGH, 
 
 Lately U. S. Senator, together with a request for explanation of some 
 acts of Mr. Wadleigh while Senator. 
 
 Concord, June 7, 1879. 
 Hon. Bainbridge Wadleigh : 
 
 Sir: During the last two years or more, and especially 
 since you decided to support, and I to oppose, the Southern 
 policy of President Hayes, which has proved disastrous and is 
 now distinctly abandoned and condemned by its authors, you 
 have been habitually defaming my character, by assertions con- 
 cerning my business and professional occupation at Washing- 
 ton ; made not openly and boldly, but in secret, and in conver- 
 sations not intended to come to my knowledge, but to destroy 
 my reputation with the persons you addressed, without any 
 opportunity for me to reply to and refute your slanders. 
 
 Whether you have thus taken an unfair advantage of your 
 high position as a United States Senator to commence and 
 continue to defame and injure a mere private citizen who 
 never gave you occasion for your hostility, from jealousy of a 
 possible rival, or from old habits acquired in the early years 
 of your law practice, when you narrowly escaped disbarment 
 on a charge of trickery, it is not material to me ; but I am de- 
 termined no longer to be injured, without public and emphatic 
 protest, by such slanders, made plausible and important only 
 by reason of the official station you have held. 
 
YOUR REFUSAL TO MAKE YOUR SLANDERS SPECIFIC. 
 
 The nearest approach you have made to open defamation 
 was in certain statements in a letter of February 22, 1879, to 
 the Monitor and Statesman, concerning the Voelter Wood 
 Paper Pulp Patent ; and even there you do not mention my 
 name. Having been informed of your oral slanders by my 
 friends, and that they understood the statements in your letter 
 to refer to me, I requested Col. Win. E. Stevens, the editor 
 who had taken the responsibility of publishing them, to ascer- 
 tain, if possible, whom you meant. Subsequently he addressed 
 you this letter, — 
 
 Concord, March 14, 1S79. 
 
 Hon. B. Wadleigh, Milford, N. H. : 
 
 Dear Sir : You did not call on me when you were in Con- 
 cord ; if you had done so, I should have made some inquiries 
 of you, which I now present. In your published letter of 
 February 23, you attribute the Globe article connecting you 
 with the Voelter Patent, and also the attack upon you in the 
 Nashua Telegraph, to Washington lobbyists, and in particular 
 to "a gentleman, whose connection with the Washington lobby 
 is not a matter of conjecture." You also state, that by your un- 
 varying opposition to all the plundering schemes of the Wash- 
 ington rings and lobbyists you have won their bitter hostility ; 
 and that you were long ago informed that you could not be re- 
 elected unless you yielded to them ; and long ago resolved that 
 you would accept no office on such degrading terms. 
 
 If the facts are as you state, I wish to know them more ac- 
 curately, so that I may not be misled by any such influence in 
 reference to yourself or any other person or subject ; and they 
 perhaps ought also to be known to the people of New Hamp- 
 shire. 
 
 Will you therefore inform me what the plundering schemes 
 were, by opposing which you have won the bitter hostility you 
 speak of; who the persons are who compose the rings in 
 question; and in particular who the gentleman is, connected 
 with the lobby, whom you charge as instigating the attack 
 upon you, with liberty to use the information as I may deem 
 proper. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 VVM. E. STEVENS. 
 
 To this letter no reply was given by you ; and ten days later 
 Col. Stevens again wrote you, requesting a reply ; but of nei- 
 ther letter have you ever taken any notice. 
 
5 
 
 This refusal to define what and whom you meant in your 
 published attack, I consider cowardly ; and you have placed 
 yourself unmistakably in the attitude of a willingness to pub- 
 licly claim credit and sympathy for yourself by accusations 
 against others, without daring to name the men whom you ac- 
 cuse, nor to specify the acts which you charge upon them, so 
 as to give them an equal opportunity to defend themselves. 
 
 I am further justified in saying, that you then desired and 
 now desire to have the people of New Hampshire believe that 
 you specially meant to incriminate and make odious a particu- 
 lar person, and yet had not the courage, in the face of the peo- 
 ple, to call him by name and stand by your accusations. Such 
 evasion and dodging is in keeping with other acts of your Sen- 
 atorial career, and is utterly unmanly and discreditable. 
 
 CHALLENGE TO MAKE YOUR SLANDERS PUBLICLY. 
 
 It is now my privilege publicly to request of you openly to 
 proclaim the various statements you have so constantly made 
 concerning me during the past two years. If you meant me in 
 your letter of February 22d, I desire you to charge it publicly, 
 as an open assailant, instead of whispering it slyly as a secret 
 slanderer; and to make good, if you can, your statements, 
 charges, and insinuations, by specification, description, and 
 proof. If you do not, I shall stigmatize you as a wilful libel- 
 ler, unworthy of the least credit among honorable men. 
 
 COMPREHENSIVE DENTAL AND DEFIANCE. 
 
 In advance of what you may say, I challenge investigation 
 and exposure of all my actions, public and private, during my 
 whole life. What they have been in New HamjDshire is well 
 known to her people, and especially to the citizens of Concord. 
 In Washington I have been in official position, in business en- 
 terprises, in arduous political service, and in legitimate and 
 honorable law practice. During the last three years, however, 
 I have been obliged to give up the greater portion of my law 
 business, except limited service for one client, who has em- 
 ployed and trusted me for over ten years, and for the protec- 
 tion against unjust encroachment, of a business investment of 
 
my own and other New England men, in which I have ven- 
 tured about all I am worth. The rest and largest part of my 
 time has been freely and gratuitously devoted to electing Presi- 
 dent Hayes, securing for him a fair count, and defending his 
 title while opposing his fatal Southern policy. 
 
 From my admission to the bar in 1865 to this hour, I have 
 endeavored to do no dishonorable act, either in my law busi- 
 ness at home or in Washington ; in office in the Navy or 
 Treasury Departments ; or in my connection with politics; I 
 have battled, whenever the occasion seemed to demand, openly 
 and boldly, for all my convictions, without caring for personal 
 consequences ; and I defy you and all my other defamers, per- 
 sonal or political, all Potter Committees, and pulp and patent 
 corruptionists, to leave contemptible insinuations and coward- 
 ly secret suggestions, and come out into the open daylight and 
 charge and sustain anything against me. 
 
 You and your agents have freely stated that I desire only 
 Congressmen from New Hampshire whom I can control and 
 improperly use; and that I would have had no objection to 
 you if I could have controlled you. This is a slander upon 
 Senators Cragin, Patterson, and Rollins, and Representatives 
 Stevens, Pike, Briggs, Ela, and Blair, no one of whom have 
 I ever attempted to use or control ; nor have I ever inter- 
 fered with or taken any part in any New Hampshire matter at 
 Washington except in cooperation with and at the request of 
 some or all of our Congressmen ; while as to yourself, although 
 we were in familiar, and, so far as I knew, friendly intercourse, 
 with occasional correspondence, during the first four years of 
 your senatorship and as late as April, 1S77, I never undertook 
 to control or influence you, nor directly or indirectly desired or 
 asked anything of you, at any time, anywhere, to any extent, 
 or under any circumstances ; and I challenge you to assert the 
 contrary, and specify the instance. 
 
 EXPLAIN YOUR OWN SURRENDER TO CORRUPT INFLUENCES. 
 
 There are other questions to which I wish to call your atten- 
 tion, and ask of you explanations. For three or four years 
 after your accidental election as senator, you often, although 
 
insincerely, declared that you did not like the office, and that 
 you were inclined to resign it and resume more congenial law 
 practice. You now present yourself for reelection solely on 
 the ground that you have resisted the corrupt influences of 
 Washington lobbyists ; and while so doing you make charges of 
 corruption against persons who you say are your enemies, but 
 venture not to name them. An examination, however, of some 
 acts of yours while senator, discloses facts which, without denial 
 and disproof in detail, will convince every one that, instead of 
 being abstemiously honest among corrupt influences, you have 
 surrendered to a corrupt ring at Washington, and are, like many 
 a prototype, in fact guilty of all you wrongly charge against 
 others. 
 
 PATENT CORRUPTIONS THE CAUSE OF YOUR FALL. 
 
 Of all causes of dishonesty and corruption at Washington, 
 those arising from patents take the lead. With the patent 
 lobby, you, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Patents, 
 came into close relations. Taking advantage of the unpopu- 
 larity at the West of two or three agricultural patents oppres- 
 sively handled, you first entered into a combination with cer- 
 tain wealthy corporate interests to enable them to oppress and 
 destroy poor inventors, and to make the whole patent system 
 valueless to them, and only operative as a means to enable rich 
 capitalists to seize meritorious inventions, and with them 
 plunder the public without benefiting the real inventors. 
 
 YOUR ALLIANCE WITH THE PATENT CORRUPTIONISTS THROUGH 
 JOHN W. ODLIN, A LABORER. 
 
 To procure the passage of a bill of this character, there came 
 to Washington an agent of the Western Railroad Association 
 of Chicago. There came also a formidable -lobby, whose boast 
 it was that with free liquors, free carriages, and other influ- 
 ences of various kinds, they would reach their ends. Their 
 ally in the Senate you became, and established intimate rela- 
 tions with them in person, and more especially through your 
 private secretary, John W. Odlin, whom you had taken into 
 your full confidence, although a man of bad repute and of worse 
 
8 
 
 habits, of which lie freely boasts, and had placed on the Sen- 
 ate rolls alternately as a committee clerk, and as a "laborer" 
 doing no work but drawing full pay, while some poor colored 
 man did the work at half price ; — his real office being that of a 
 go-between of yours and the Western Railroad Association, 
 drinking their free rum at their spacious head-quarters at Wil- 
 lards, and manipulating in their interest the author and advo- 
 cate of Senate Bill No. 300, known as the Wadleigh Patent 
 Bill. 
 
 THE WADLEIGH PATENT BILL, NO. 3OO. 
 
 This bill, which you made yourself responsible for, and during 
 the last three months of your term pressed incessantly, backed by 
 as formidable a lobby as Washington ever saw, antagonizing it 
 to important public business, until you finally fulfilled your un- 
 dertaking and crowded it through the Senate, is a bundle of 
 iniquities, designed to put obstacles in the way of poor inven- 
 tors, and to make patents worthless except when stolen and 
 manipulated by men already wealthy. 
 
 ITS INIQUITIES. 
 
 The true character of the bill is concisely stated in the ac- 
 companying letter of J. McC. Perkins, Esq., a patent lawyer 
 at Washington, whom I never knew until a few weeks ago, 
 and who of his own accord entered upon an investigation of 
 the subject. His statements are but the reecho of a sentiment 
 now almost universal, since the bill and the influences pressing 
 it have come to be understood. That senators and members 
 of integrity and acuteness voted for it, is true ; some from that 
 Western prejudice which I have spoken of, and others because 
 of the belief they then had in your representations and those of 
 the lobby. But your success in deceiving them only makes the 
 case worse for you. After the bill came to be thoroughly un- 
 derstood, it was ignominiously defeated in the House, and is 
 not likely ever to become a law. 
 
 HOW IT WAS TO RE-ELECT YOU SENATOR. 
 
 One special fact is noticeable. Prominent among the men, 
 reputable and disreputable, who crowded to Washington to 
 
force through this bill, was Mr. T. L. Livermore, who demand- 
 ed that it should contain a provision preventing the reissue of a 
 patent accidentally defective from being based upon the model, 
 usually prepared by the inventor himself, and always deposited 
 in the Patent Office. Mr. Livermore secured the amendment 
 he desired ; he has been an intimate friend and an associate 
 and partner of yours in law business ; has lately become agent 
 of the Amoskeag Corporation at Manchester, and is wielding 
 the immense money power of that company to force your re* 
 election as senator. Will the members from Manchester yield 
 their convictions to such influences? 
 
 THE VOELTER WOOD PULP PATENT. HOW YOU TRICKED IT 
 
 THROUGH THE SENATE. 
 
 Your championship and procurement of the extension, until 
 its twenty-eighth year, of the Voelter wood pulp patent, are well 
 known to the public. February 27th, 1877, you made a report 
 in favor of the extension. March 2d, late in the afternoon, you 
 moved to take up the bill (No. 1255), and said, « It is the only 
 thing the Committee on Patents have asked for." So it seems 
 it had been your only business at this session to get this exten- 
 sion. Senator Cockrell asked for the report, and said, u Let it 
 be read." You objected, and said, "// is lo?ig." The report 
 is sixty-two printed lines, being only six lines more than one 
 printed page, and I have just read it aloud deliberately in 2§ 
 minutes. You prevented its being read, and also said, " Let 
 me say that the moment this bill is understood there would be 
 no discussion upon it, and no opposition to it. It is the case or 
 an invention wholly new, of immense value to this country, 
 where the inventor has lost $33,000 as it stands to-day." But 
 even this assurance did not then succeed, and the Senate ad- 
 journed till eight in the evening, when you were promptly on 
 hand, got up the bill, and hurried it through without debate, 
 with few senators present, and with little notice taken of the 
 transaction. 
 
 I charge that you took advantage of the excitement of the 
 presidential count, and of the absence, fatigue, or inattention ol 
 senators, to hurry through, by well-timed motions, by deception 
 
10 
 
 and misrepresentation, and by pledging your honor as a sena- 
 tor and chairman, an iniquitous bill, the demerits of which 
 were known to you, and were not known to any other senator. 
 
 HOW IT WAS TRICKED THROUGH THE HOUSE. 
 
 The proceedings in the House were quite as extraordinary. 
 The House Journal shows that on the same night, just before 
 adjournment at i : 25 Saturday morning, the bill, with a mass 
 of other bills, passed the House. The Congressional Record 
 shows that when it was first reached, Mr. Springer, a leading 
 Illinois Democrat, objected to it. Later (page 2140) is this : 
 
 Mr. Springer : " I desire to withdraw my objection to the 
 bill (H. R. No. 555), the patent being in the interest of the dis- 
 semination of knowledge." 
 
 But even the acute reporters for the Record do not state that 
 the bill then passed, and if it did it must have been very quick- 
 ly and quietly slipped through during the confusion of those 
 hours. Mr. Springer now says he was induced to withdraw 
 his objection and make the statement by Mr. W. H. H. Stow- 
 ell, a Virginia member (who subsequently obtained an interest 
 in the patent, as appears in a letter annexed from Mr. Perkins) ; 
 and Mr. Springer also says that Mr. Stowell told him this was 
 a House bill which had been reported favorably from the House 
 Committee ; and, learning the contrary and the true facts, he has 
 since introduced a bill to repeal the patent, and proposes to 
 press its passage. In fact, the House Committee never consid- 
 ered or acted upon the subject ; and the bill was passed by 
 trickery, now evident and undisputed, as Mr. Springer will 
 state. 
 
 THE VOELTER PATENT MONOPOLY AN ENORMOUS BURDEN 
 
 UPON THE PUBLIC. 
 
 The Voelter patent, thus prolonged for seven years after 
 twenty-one vears, is simply an apparatus for holding wood 
 against a grindstone with the grain or fibres parallel to the axis 
 of the stone, so that the wood maybe ground into pulp without 
 cutting or breaking the fibres. But by means of the patent, a 
 
II 
 
 wealthy and powerful monopoly has been and is enabled by 
 you to impose a burden of many millions of dollars upon the 
 newspaper reading public of America. The cost of the wood 
 is about one half a cent per pound ; one cent per pound will 
 pay the whole cost of manufacture; all above $30 per ton is 
 profit. In 1S70 the selling price of pulp was six cents per 
 pound. In 1877, according to your report, it was three cents 
 per pound, or $60 per ton, giving $30 per ton profit to the 
 owners and tax upon the public resulting from the Voelter 
 monopoly. You stated in your report, when trying to show 
 how much this invention had saved the country by reducing 
 the price of pulp, that the annual production of wood-pulp was 
 360,000 tons. If so, the Voelter patent burdens the people an 
 nually with $10,800,000. You cannot escape this conclusion 
 except by denying your own figures, and explaining why you 
 ■ : wilfully and monstrously" exaggerated the product. Taking 
 the more reasonable figures of sixty tons per day, or iS,ooo 
 tons per year, as the present product, and the profits are $540,- 
 000 per year, or $3,780,000 unnecessary tax upon the public in 
 the seven years of the extended patent. But the owners of the 
 patent testify that there can be profitably used in America 125 
 tons per day, in which event the profit would be $1,125,000 per 
 year, or $7,875,000 during the extended life of the patent. 
 
 Verily the owners of the patent could well afford to capture 
 a United States senator by paying his political contributions 
 and the cost of his reelection to the Senate. 
 
 YOUR MISREPRESENTATIONS TO GET IT PASSED. 
 
 Of course, to get through Congress such an enormous patent 
 job, it was necessary to resort to such artful tricks as I have 
 described. But much other rascality marks its history. 
 
 FALSE STATEMENTS ABOUT VOELTER's POVERTY. 
 
 You stated in your report, that" from his patent in the coun- 
 tries of Europe the inventor has received comparatively noth- 
 ing;" that his expenditures to 1S70 were $100,508, and his 
 receipts $33,000, and that since 1870 his receipts were $20,000 ; 
 " consequently he has thus far met with a loss of about $47,000 ;" 
 and in your place in the Senate you said, "the inventor has lost 
 
12 
 
 $33>ooo as it stands to-day ;" and you also report that he "was 
 and Is a man of small pecuniary means." 
 
 Voelter says, in an ex -parte affidavit in 1870, that he had 
 received $16,000 from Germany, $2,000 from Sweden, $2,000 
 from France, $3,000 from Russia, and $Soo from Canada, mak- 
 ing $23,800, but he does not give his receipts from England ! 
 He does, however, state, that from 1865 to 1870 he had 150 
 machines in operation in Europe, each averaging 200 tons 
 per year, or 150,000 tons in five years, the profits on which 
 could not have been less than four millions of dollars, of which 
 Voelter, who has never been subjected to cross-examination, 
 says he received only $23,800. This statement is incredible ! 
 He also states, in 1877? that he had, since 1870, received in 
 Europe $7,000, and subsequently admitted $21,000 more, mak- 
 ing $51,800 in all admitted in Europe. As to America, he says 
 he sold the patent to A. Pagenstecher and his associates for 
 $5,000, Jan. 1, 1S69, and $6,000 per year annually thereafter, 
 or $53,000 at the time of your report. These figures make 
 $104,800, instead of $53,000 as stated by you. 
 
 As to his alleged expenses of $100, 50S, he includes $1,000 for 
 exhibiting his invention at London, in 1862, and $14,800 at 
 Paris, in 1867, without giving particulars! He estimates his 
 own time, from 1846 to 1S55, at $15,400, and from 1S56 to 1870 
 at $27,300, — and yet all this time he was engaged in active 
 business, which he did not neglect ! He includes $9,600 for 
 persons hired from 1S46 to 1S55 and $26,000 from 1S55 to 
 1870 and $5,000 for getting patents, — all without details. From 
 the bogus claims, set up in this solitary ex parte affidavit, noth- 
 ing is allowable, by any reasonable rule, except $458 for 
 American patents, $20 for a laborer, and $60 for travelling ex- 
 penses, making $538 in all ; and unquestionably he has received 
 over $100,000 from his invention, and probably many thousand 
 dollars more. 
 
 These facts you knew when you made your report and state- 
 ment in the Senate. 
 
13 
 
 FALSE STATEMENTS THAT VOELTER HAD NOT ASSIGNED 
 
 THE PATENT. 
 
 You stated in your report, — 
 
 " The evidence shows that he has made no arrangements as 
 "to the sale of the extended patent, and that suck extension 
 "will be for his benefit." 
 
 A careful examination of the record evidence, and the con- 
 sideration of other facts equally sure, compel me to charge that 
 the above statement is untrue, and that you knew it was untrue 
 when you made it, and yet made it deliberately, in order to de- 
 ceive your associates in Congress and get through a patent, not 
 for the benefit of a poor foreign inventor, Henry Voelter, whose 
 name alone appears in your report, but to enrich an overgrown 
 monopoly, to the temptations offered bv which you deliberately 
 yielded. 
 
 Voelter's statement and petition, in 1870, say that he sold his 
 patent of 1S5S to Alberto Pagenstecher and his associates for 
 the original term and its extensions. This statement was be- 
 fore you in 1S77 ; and you also saw the deed of Nov. 6th, 1S6S 
 (recorded in the Patent Office transfer record, Book D, page 
 314), from Voelter to Pagenstecher, which covers the patent 
 and " any extensions or renewals thereof;" and you have known 
 that Pagenstecher and his associates have held the patent ever 
 since that date ; and that April 6, 1869, they obtained a reissue, 
 and June 6, 1S71, a second reissue, both in the name of Pagen- 
 stecher as assignee. 
 
 The associates of Mr. Pagenstecher are Warner Miller, of 
 Herkimer, N. Y., and Wm. A. Russell, of Lawrence, Mass., — 
 both now congressmen : and they own substantially the whole 
 gigantic wood-paper pulp monopoly in America, — Mr. Miller 
 for New York and the West, and Mr. Russell for New Eng- 
 land. They were witnesses before you, asking for this exten- 
 sion, and stated that they were interested in the patent. Mr. 
 Warren F. Daniell, paper manufacturer, of Franklin, N. H , 
 was also a witness before you, urging the extension ; and Ex- 
 Gov. P. C. Cheney, an owner of pulp-mills in this state and in 
 Illinois, spent the month of February, 1S775 hi Washington, 
 
14 
 
 constantly urging you to pass the Voelter extension bill, and 
 was there for that purpose. 
 
 The patent had been in existence twenty-one years ; Miller 
 and Russell owned the patent, and, with Daniell and Cheney 
 as associates, were getting enormously rich from it. Did they 
 urge upon you its extension, with no an-angements for its future 
 use? To say that they did, or that you thought so, is utterly 
 preposterous ; and yet you said to the Senate that this was the 
 case of a poor, meritorious inventor, who had made no arrange- 
 ment for selling the extended patent, and that such extension 
 would be for his benefit ! 
 
 Subsequent events, also, prove the complete falsity of your 
 statement. On the application, in 1S77, before the Commis- 
 sioner, for the extension under your bill, Miller and Russell 
 admitted under oath that they controlled the entire patent. It 
 was objected, that under such circumstances it should not be 
 extended, even under your law. On July 31, 1877 (after the 
 whole case had been submitted to Commissioner Speare) Miller, 
 Russell, and the licensees of the patent conveyed all their in- 
 terests to Pagenstecher, Voelter's assignee. As soon as the 
 Commissioner had, in August, 18775 made a favorable deci- 
 sion, Voelter made a conveyance to Pagenstecher, and he 
 again conveyed their former interests to Miller and Russell, and 
 they reconveyed to the smaller owners or licensees their old 
 petty interests. What was the precise object of these sham 
 transactions does not appear ; but all the facts show that Voel- 
 ter was a mere figurehead to cover a gross fraud upon Con- 
 gress and the country, and that you knew that Miller and Rus- 
 sell and Daniell and Cheney were the real parties in interest in 
 the extension, and that you were willing to aid in that fraud, 
 and prostitute for its perpetration the high office with which 
 the legislature of New Hampshire had happened to honor you. 
 
 THE PATENT VOID OK MANY GROUNDS. 
 
 There are numerous other objections to the Voelter patent, 
 which I will not now state, and which you either knew or 
 would have known if you had done your duty, and heard dis- 
 interested witnesses instead of Miller and Russell and Daniell 
 and Cheney. (1) Our statutes specially provide against an 
 
15 
 
 extension of an American potent to a foreigner after his home 
 patents have expired, so that our people may not pay him 
 tribute after his own country ceases to deem him meritorious. 
 The Voelter patent in Europe expired before 1S70, and there- 
 fore the extension in this country of August 29, 1870, was ille- 
 gal, and more so was your extension of 1877* ( 2 ) The inven- 
 tion was not novel, because a French patent of 1847 describes 
 an invention for grinding wood cut into pieces as long as the 
 grindstone is wide ; plainly implying that the wood is to be 
 held against the stone with the fibres parallel to its axis — which 
 is the whole substance of the Voelter patent. (3) The state 
 of the art of grinding wood pulp at the time of first granting 
 the patent in this country, taken in connection with prior pat- 
 ents, makes this patent invalid. It is absurd to give a monop- 
 oly for a mere method of holding the wood against the stone, 
 substantially known and practised long before. (4) Voelter's 
 contradictory and confused statements as to the time, circum- 
 stances, authorship, and ownership of the invention now claimed 
 for him, will destroy the patent on any full and fair trial ; — and 
 so on with many other objections. 
 
 THE PATENT A MONOPOLY BECAUSE OPPRESSIVELY MANIPU- 
 LATED BY RICH CONGRESSMEN AND AN EX-GOVERNOR. 
 
 Why, then, if these fatal defects exist, does the patent ope- 
 rate as a monopoly? For no other reason than one not unusual 
 in patent experience, — because of the large amount of money 
 behind it, enabling its holders to use it as a pretext to oppress 
 and crush out the inventors and users of all pulp-grinding ma- 
 chines, most of whom find it cheaper to pay a license fee for 
 the machines they use, than to fight in lawsuits ; and Miller and 
 Russell are thus able to limit the number of pulp machines in 
 the country, make the wood pulp production a monopoly, and 
 burden the large daily newspapers of the country, nine-tenths 
 of which are printed on wood paper, and the public who sup- 
 port them, with a price for paper twice as great as it should be ; 
 amassing huge fortunes by which to elect themselves to Con- 
 o-ress to protect their wrongfully-gotten patent, and if possible to 
 seduce and debauch other Senators and members as they have 
 
i6 
 
 you, by furnishing their New Hampshire partners and asso- 
 ciates with money for purposes which the members of the leg- 
 islature can discover, if they choose to open their eyes to be- 
 hold your array of outside retainers now swarming the state 
 capital, and whose names shall be carefully recorded, and will 
 be held in remembrance long after they return to their towns- 
 men to disburse in their midst their petty shares of pulp-money. 
 By the pulp monopoly which you created, profitable wood- 
 paper mills in New Hampshire have been limited in produc- 
 tion, or destroyed ; without it, dozens of them would be in full 
 operation along our streams, increasing our population and 
 wealth. It is yet to be determined whether pulp-money con- 
 trols our politics. 
 
 WHY HAVE YOU BEEN A SENATORIAL DODGER? 
 
 While you have thus labored with zeal and alacrity, instant 
 m season and out of season, whenever questionable patent 
 legislation was to be manipulated, why have you entirely failed 
 to do your duty as Senator when votes have been taken on im- 
 portant public questions? 
 
 YOU DODGED THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION BILL. 
 
 In the crisis of the count of the presidential vote of 1876 
 the Electoral Commission bill was before Congress, and it 
 was of great importance that it should be fully discussed and 
 courageously voted on by every Senator. When the yeas and 
 nays were called you dodged the vote. Why did you thus 
 evade your duty? You have said that at the time the bill was 
 voted on, " and for several days after, I was confined to my 
 bed by sickness." This excuse will not serve you, for the Con- 
 gressional Record shows that just before the bill passed you 
 were present and responded to the call of the yeas and nays 
 on some incidental motion concerning the bill. Were you 
 taken sick and compelled to go to bed immediately after this 
 vote? There is no doubt that just as the final vote was ap- 
 proaching you did go home and go to bed, but you were no 
 sicker than many other Senators who remained and did their 
 duty, and then went to their homes and beds. Your excuse is 
 
17 
 
 undoubtedly a pretence. You intentionally dodged, and are 
 sicker now than you were then ! 
 
 YOU REFUSED TO VOTE TO RE-ELECT SENATOR CRAGIN. 
 
 Your excuse for not voting on the Electoral Commission bill 
 might possibly be believed if dodging were not your habit. 
 When Senator Cragin was renominated and elected, you op- 
 posed him in caucus, and threatened to bolt. When the House 
 was voting, before the roll-call reached your name, you rose 
 and left the hall, and refused to vote for the regular nominee of 
 your party. Why did you thus dodge ? 
 
 YOU DODGED SENATOR PINCHBACK's CASE. 
 
 When the case of Senator Pinchback was before the Senate, 
 you would not vote for his admission, came off to New Hamp- 
 shire without pairing either for or against him, and, in spite of 
 repeated telegrams sent you, refused to pair. Afterwards, as 
 Chairman of the Election Committee, you reported in favor of 
 the admission of the Democratic Senator Eustis in Pinchback's 
 place, and secured it, against the minority report of some of 
 the ablest Republican Senators on the committee. But this re- 
 port was less discreditable to you than dodging in Pinchback's 
 case. 
 
 YOU DODGED THE M'VEAGH-COMMISSION CASE. 
 
 Secretary Sherman borrowed about ten thousand dollars, and 
 paid the expenses of the McVeagh-Commission to go to Lou- 
 isiana and tear down Packard's government. He induced the 
 Senate Appropriation Committee to put an item in a bill to 
 pay this sum ; but the Senate rejected the item by a decided 
 majority. You knew it was coming up, and went away from 
 the capitol on pretence of business : unfortunately for you the 
 debate was longer than you expected, and you reached the 
 Senate, and I myself saw you standing on the floor while the roll 
 was being called, and before it was too late to vote ; and yet you 
 dodged. Why did you thus evade your obligations? Most of 
 the Republicans voted against the payment; several true Re- 
 publicans voted for it. What were your complicated relations 
 2 
 
i8 
 
 with the radical Senators and Secretary Sherman that you 
 dared vote on neither side? 
 
 YOU DODGED THE NEW YORK CUSTOM HOUSE APPOINTMENTS. 
 
 The last inquiry is made more pertinent by your failure to 
 vote on the nomination of General Merritt as collector of New 
 York. This was an exciting contest between Senator Conk- 
 lino-, supported by most of the Republican Senators and a few 
 Democrats, and Secretary Sherman and the administration, 
 backed by most of the Democratic and a few Republican Sena- 
 tors. You might have voted whichever way your judgment 
 honestly inclined you, with honor and without injury, and you 
 were not at this time absent from pretended sickness ; and yet 
 you did not vote, and were the only Republican Senator present, 
 not paired and not voting. Why did you dodge this vote ? The 
 Republicans of New Hampshire tolerate the largest honest dif- 
 ference of opinion in their own ranks, but they do expect their 
 public men, especially their most highly honored Senators, to 
 form opinions on important questions, and express and act 
 upon them frankly and fearlessly ; and any congressman who 
 omits to do this is not a true representative of our intelligent, 
 radical, aggressive Republicanism. 
 
 YOU GAVE A FALSE REASON FOR DODGING. 
 
 The excuses you have undertaken to give for your failure 
 to vote on the New York nominations well illustrate your 
 character and methods. 
 
 You stated, in a published letter to Hon. O. C. Moore, 
 editor of the Nashua Telegraph : 
 
 I withheld my vote because it would not affect the result, 
 and because I had a profound disgust and contempt for 
 " lo2>rolline:." Could the honest voters of this state know 
 all the facts they would justify me. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 B. WADLEIGH. 
 
 Your affected hesitation about disclosing proceedings in 
 executive session of the Senate did not, however, hinder 
 
19 
 
 you from orally and privately (while also whispering your 
 slanders upon me) asserting this : 
 
 That you intended to vote for General Merritt's confirm- 
 ation, but that just before the vote was taken, located as 
 your seat was on the Democratic side of the chamber, you 
 overheard the Democrats say that it was arranged that if 
 Merritt should be confirmed, Senator Stanley Matthews 
 would not vote for, but would prevent the ejection of Ham- 
 burg Butler as Senator from South Carolina, and the admis- 
 sion of Senator Corbin ; and that, moved with righteous in- 
 dignation at this bargain, you impulsively withheld your 
 vote. 
 
 This reason apparently corresponds with your above writ- 
 ten statement to Mr. Moore. Unfortunately it is confronted 
 with a denial from Senator Matthews, as this correspond- 
 ence will show : 
 
 Concord, N. H., March 25, 1879. 
 Hon. Stanley Matthews, 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio: 
 Dear Sir: A statement is going the rounds of this state 
 that there was an understanding between you and Demo- 
 cratic Senators, that if General Merritt should be confirmed 
 as collector of New York by their votes, you would vote 
 against taking up the Corbin case ; or an understanding 
 somewhat like that above suggested. This statement I 
 would like to contradict by your authority if it is incorrect 
 as I believe it is. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 W. E. STEVENS. 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, 
 
 March 29, 1879. 
 W. E. Stevens, Esq., Concord, N. H. : 
 
 My Dear Sir: I have just received your note of 25th 
 inst, in which you say that a statement has found circula- 
 tion in the public newspaper press of New Hampshire, that 
 there was an understanding between myself and Democratic 
 Senators, that if Gen. Merritt should be confirmed as col- 
 lector of New York by their votes, I would vote ao-ainst 
 
20 
 
 taking up the Corbin case, or an understanding of that 
 nature. 
 
 There is not a particle of truth in the statement, nor the 
 least foundation whatever for it. It is simply a lie out of 
 whole cloth. I had no understanding of any nature, with 
 Democratic Senators, on either subject. You are authorized 
 to contradict the whole story, whatever shape it assumes. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 STANLEY MATTHEWS. 
 
 YOUR TRUE REASON FOR DODGING WAS DISGRACEFUL TO YOU. 
 
 This exploded reason for not voting, based upon your 
 alleged sudden impulse at discovering " log-rolling" between 
 Senator Matthews and the Democrats, has been your excuse 
 to radical or stalwart Republicans. You have had a second, 
 different, and inconsistent reason ready, principally for use 
 with admirers of President Hayes and Secretary Sherman, 
 
 namely : 
 
 That you had a prior understanding with Secretary Sher- 
 man that you would vote for General Merritt if your vote 
 should appear necessary to secure his confirmation ; but 
 that otherwise you might withhold it on account of opposi- 
 tion you feared would develop in New Hampshire to your 
 reelection if you voted with the administration and against 
 Senator Conkling and the senators supporting him. 
 
 This understanding with Secretary Sherman was reached 
 through Assistant Secretary Henry F. French, with whom 
 you reside when in Washington ; and out of the mouths of 
 two or three witnesses can every word be established. I 
 am not aware that you do not now adhere to this as the true 
 reason. You have been in correspondence with Secretary 
 Sherman on the subject, and have privately shown to some 
 persons his reply to your request for a written excuse for 
 not voting. He has said that his letter may be made pub- 
 lic. Will you produce it ? 
 
 If this excuse for your dodging be the true and only one, 
 as I am inclined to think it is, in what a contemptible light 
 
21 
 
 do you place yourself before the people of New Hampshire : 
 bargaining with the administration for permission, if your 
 vote on a public question would not affect the result, to 
 dodge, in order not to announce to your senatorial constit- 
 uency, from whom you were soliciting a reelection, your 
 opinion which of two Republicans should be a collector of 
 customs ! How can such senatorial dignity, manliness, and 
 true courage be spared from the Senate by the stalwart 
 Republicans of New Hampshire during the dangerous con- 
 tests of the next six years ! 
 
 PRODUCE YOUR BATCH OF EXCUSES AND CERTIFICATES OF 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 Undoubtedly Secretary Sherman will give you any rea- 
 sonable reward of merit or certificate of excuse you may de- 
 sire. It is doubtful if President Hayes would, for I have 
 been informed he thinks you were very cowardly. But your 
 plausibilities secretly whispered might deceive the very 
 elect. I have heard that you have been procuring certifi- 
 cates of good character from brother Senators, who are 
 often willing to go too far to aid in shielding each other 
 from senatorial blunders and crimes, and have sometimes 
 done so to the great wrong and injury of the Republican 
 party ; and especially might this be the case with worthy 
 Senators whom you may have deceived or enticed into vot- 
 ing with you on your various patent schemes, and who may 
 now feel obliged to try to vindicate their own record by 
 unnecessarily sustaining the author of their mistakes. 
 
 This personal influence, by even an unworthy Senator, up- 
 on his associates, is well illustrated by the fact, that in June, 
 1878, you succeeded, by incessant importunity, in procuring 
 from the other members of the Committee on Elections, of 
 which you were chairman, a report against the right of the 
 legislature of New Hampshire, then in session, to elect a 
 Senator. It was a life or death struggle with you, and you 
 persuaded them into announcing a denial of the right, which 
 
22 
 
 view, in the recent debate, was almost universally repudiat- 
 ed, and Senator Bell only obtained his seat because a small 
 majority of the Senate believed that, not the people of New 
 Hampshire, but the Senate itself, under your manipulation, 
 were to blame for the failure to elect in 1878. 
 
 Still, whatever your administration or Senatorial certifi- 
 cates are, they are entitled to be considered ; — will you not 
 furnish them to the public, and not exhibit them only to a 
 favored few ? 
 
 A LITTLE WHOLESOME ADVICE, IN CONCLUSION GO TO 
 
 PRACTISING LAW. 
 
 In April, 1877, you did me the honor to ask my opinion 
 on the next senatorial election. After long consideration, I 
 am now free to advise you not to be a candidate. You have 
 certain mental and moral tendencies that are likely to prove 
 your ruin if you indulge them, and they have already begun 
 to drag you downward. They developed instantly when you 
 commenced law practice, in which trickery and chicanery 
 frequently bring temporary success : they made you a dis- 
 reputable practitioner, and nearly resulted in your expulsion 
 from the bar. Taught a severe lesson, you struggled to re- 
 strain them, and so far succeeded that the memory of your 
 early sins did not prevent your accidental election as Sen- 
 ator. Stepping into the Senate upon the prostrate form of 
 one of New Hampshire's most brilliant public men, you 
 thought enforced self-restraint, hypocrisy, and self-righteous- 
 ness would be for a time the most politic course ; — but on 
 the first serious temptation you fell. The force of early 
 habit was too strong. You never should have trusted your- 
 self amid the corruptions of the pulp and patent ringsters, 
 for you were not permanently cured of your original appe- 
 tites. But your case is not hopeless ; — only do not again 
 trust yourself amid temptation. Do not ask the Repub- 
 licans of New Hampshire to reelect you to the Senate, and 
 to run the risk of endorsing all the dishonesties which may 
 
23 
 
 be disclosed in the approaching investigation and repeal of 
 the Voelter patent, which Messrs. Miller and Russell have 
 pushed themselves into Congress to prevent, and which they 
 can handle without your help. New Hampshire has dealt 
 most generously with you : you should deal generously with 
 her. You have said you did not desire the office, but pre- 
 ferred your law practice. Retire to that, lending your sup- 
 port to some one of New Hampshire's gallant soldiers, so 
 that we may not have only two Union against twenty Con- 
 federate generals in the Senate ; and give peace to our state 
 politics. With the aid of Messrs. Livermore and Cheney 
 and Daniell, and your other pulp and patent acquaintances, 
 you will obtain again a large law business, for which, not 
 only by inclination, but, believe me, also by character and 
 habits, mental and moral, you are better fitted than to strug- 
 gle six years more against the tempters of senators you have 
 so forcibly described, and whom, you say, you have never— 
 that is, hardly ever — yielded to. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 WM. E. CHANDLER. 
 
MR. J. McC. PERKINS'S LETTERS. 
 
 Office of J. McC. Perkins, 
 Counsellor at Law. 
 No. 811 L Street (four squares north of Patent Office.) 
 Specialty : Patent Law and Patent Office Practice. 
 
 Washington, D. C, May 28, 1S79. 
 
 Hon. Wm. E. Chandler : 
 
 Dear Sir : Senate Bill 300, generally known as the "Wad- 
 leigh Patent Bill," passed the Senate on Jan. 23, 1S79. It 
 received the name of the kt Wadleigh Patent Bill," because ex- 
 Senator Wadleigh, of New Hampshire, was its most active and 
 constant champion in the Senate. As it passed the Senate, it 
 was composed of twenty-five sections: as reported to the Sen- 
 ate by Mr. Wadleigh, it was composed of twenty-four sections. 
 While under consideration in the Senate, a new section was 
 sandwiched in between the original second and third sections, 
 in order to accommodate certain constituents of a Minnesota 
 senator. This changed the numbering of the original sections 
 from this point onward, so that the last section of the bill, as it 
 passed the Senate, was numbered twenty-five instead of twenty- 
 four, as it was reported to the Senate. In my remarks on this 
 bill, I shall refer to the sections of it as it was originally report- 
 ed to the Senate. It becomes necessary thus to refer to the sec- 
 tions of this bill, because the very extended discussions before 
 the Senate and House Patent Committees, and in various pub- 
 lic journals of this country, have uniformly referred to the orig- 
 inal sections of the bill. 
 
 I shall not attempt to consider at this time all of the sections 
 of this very remarkable patent bill. There are, however, some 
 six sections of the original bill, which I shall briefly refer to in 
 order to disclose the infamous character of the class legislation 
 in favor of rich manufacturers and rich corporations attempted 
 to be saddled on to the country by the Senate Wadleigh Bill. 
 
 These sections are, — 
 
 Section I, relating to a limitation of four years from the 
 time when the action accrued, in which actions for infringe- 
 ment must be brought, instead of the whole lifetime of the pat- 
 ent, as the law now is. 
 
26 
 
 Section II, relating to damages and profits, which denies to 
 the owner of the patent, after he has successfully sued the wil- 
 ful infringer, the savings or the profits which the law now 
 gives to the owner of the patent ; and, in lieu of these savings or 
 profits, only mulcts the rich infringer with the moderate license 
 fee which the patentee contracts for with the honest manufac- 
 turer. 
 
 Section V, relating to reissues. This section provides that 
 only the specification and drawings of the patent shall be used 
 as a basis for a reissue, instead of the law as it now stands, by 
 which reissues are allowed to cover any feature shown either in 
 the model, in the drawings, or in the specification of the patent. 
 
 Section VIII, perpetuating testimony. This section is new, 
 and is designed to allow rich and influential manufacturers and 
 corporations to hunt up and preserve testimony in any part of 
 the country, to be used thereafter to defeat a patent in case a 
 suit is commenced. 
 
 Section IX, repeal of patents. This section is new; and it 
 authorizes any one who has sufficient money to carry on a suit 
 to commence an action to repeal a patent ; and if the owner of 
 the patent is unable to furnish sufficient money at once to de- 
 fend the patent, he is liable to lose his letters-patent, though 
 perfectly valid. 
 
 Section XI, periodical fees on patents. This section is new, 
 and provides that the owner of the patent shall pay a further 
 fee of" fifty dollars ($50) after the patent has been in force for 
 four years, and a further fee of one hundred dollars ($100) after 
 the patent has been in force for nine years, or, in the event of 
 the failure to pay either of these two fees, the patent shall ter- 
 minate. 
 
 I should have spoken also of Section X, which substantially 
 provides that a rich and wilful infringer may commence suit 
 against the poor inventor or patentee for the purpose of pre- 
 venting the patentee from sueing the infringer at any time there- 
 after. The abomination of this section is apparent, but not 
 more so than appears in all the other sections that I have cited. 
 
 If this "Wadleigh Patent Bill" had been entitled "A bill to 
 destroy the existing patent system in the United States, saving 
 only so much of the patent law, as a matter of form, as will en- 
 able the rich and powerful to tax and oppress inventors and the 
 industrial classes as much as they desire," — if such a title had 
 been given to the bill by Mr. Wadleigh, it would have honestly 
 and frankly expressed its true character. 
 
 Heretofore the patent law in this country has been framed 
 to protect the patent franchise of the inventor and patentee. 
 The " Wadleigh Patent Bill" not only protects the rich and 
 grasping infringer, but it enables the infringer to prosecute 
 
27 
 
 and to persecute the owner of the patent. Mr. Wadleigh would 
 engraft class legislation upon the statutes of the United States 
 — such class legislation as would make the rich richer, and the 
 poor poorer. If the " Wadleigh Patent Bill " had become a 
 law, patent property in this country would have been com- 
 paratively of no value. Far better it would have been, to have 
 absolutely repealed all laws authorizing the grant of letters 
 patent in this country. 
 
 Take Section V, relating to reissues. The Wadleigh Bill 
 provides that the features of the invention which are shown 
 only in the model, shall not be used as a basis for a reissue. It 
 provides that the reissue shall be mnde only on what is shown 
 in the drawings or described in the specification. The in- 
 ventor makes his model himself. He may be and very often 
 is an uneducated man, but he thoroughly understands the 
 mechanical principles exhibited in his model. But the draw- 
 ings and the specification are made in the office of his attor- 
 ney, who generally lives in a distant city. Attorneys well 
 know how often it happens that the drawing does not show 
 correctly every minute feature which the inventor lias placed 
 in his model. Practically, the invention, as embodied in the 
 model, is the voice, and the only voice, which the inventor has 
 in his Patent Office exhibit, out of which his letters patent 
 spring. The Wadleigh Bill, as originally introduced, provid- 
 ed for a reissue based on anything shown either in the model, 
 in the drawings, or in the specification of the patent. 
 
 But Mr. T. L. Livermore, of Boston, appeared before the 
 Senate Patent Committee, and argued that the model should 
 be eliminated from consideration, when a reissue was asked 
 for. Subsequently, it seems that the word model was struck 
 out of Section V, leaving only the drawings and the specifica- 
 tion to be consulted in an application for a reissue. 
 
 This mattter of a reissue is the most important matter within 
 the jurisdiction of the Patent Office. Inventors, patentees, 
 and owners of patents will now fully understand the " true 
 inwardness" of section V of the " Wadleigh Patent Bill." 
 
 Section I limits the right of suit against infringers to four 
 years after the cause of action has accrued. A rich de- 
 fendant will cause a delay of more than four years, before the 
 suit can be finally adjudicated. It often happens, that it is 
 from half a dozen to a dozen years before the owner of the 
 patent becomes cognizant of the fact of the infringement, and 
 is able to obtain judicial proof of the same. 
 
 Section II, relating to damages and profits, abolishes all in- 
 ducement to the unscrupulous infringer to treat the patentee 
 honestly. It says to the infringer, — 
 
28 
 
 " You can go on and infringe a patent with impunity. If 
 " the patentee sues }'ou, you maybe able to exhaust his limited 
 " means by legal quibbles, and delays in court. You will have 
 " time to hunt up or to manufacture evidence which will de- 
 " feat his patent in court. But even if the patentee finally 
 "obtains judgment against you, you will only have to pay, as 
 " damages, the same amount which the honest manufacturer 
 " has paid as a license fee, from the beginning. So, go on and 
 " rob the inventor all \ r ou can !" 
 
 I will not, at this time, further consider sections VIII, IX, 
 X, and XI of the " Wadleigh Patent Bill." They are quite as 
 scandalous as section V, or sect. I, or sect. II, which have just 
 been briefly referred to. The able and astute agents of the 
 railroad lobby seem to have been the most successful persons 
 in persuading ex-Senator Wadleigh what changes were needed 
 in the patent system of the United States. For one, as a voter 
 and a citizen of New Hampshire, I feel ashamed that the senior 
 senator of the Granite State has so absolutely betrayed the 
 trust reposed in him, as to become the sponsor for the " Wad- 
 leigh Patent Bill." 
 
 In the Independent Statesman of March 6, 1S79, there ap- 
 peared a letter from Mr. C. C. Coffin. This letter purported 
 to have been written from Washington. The author of this let- 
 ter belonged to that class of men who were paid to advocate 
 the passage of the Wadleigh Bill by Congress. Certainly he 
 displays no little ingenuity in attempting to make the Western 
 grangers responsible for this bill, and deserves a patent for the 
 novelty of this letter ; but there might, however, be a question 
 whether it would answer the requirements of the law in re- 
 gard to its utility. However, Mr. Coffin's letter will do little 
 harm, and I thus pay my respects to it, and leave it. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 J. McC. PERKINS. 
 
 Washington, D. C, May 30, 1S79. 
 
 Hon. W. E. Chandler, Concord, N. H. : 
 
 Dear Sir : The policy of the law in extending the term of 
 letters patent beyond the limit of the original patent, was, and 
 is, to compensate the meritorious inventor, when he has failed 
 to receive an adequate reward during the life of the original 
 patent. It was never the policy of the law of extensions to 
 benefit assignees and speculators in patents; and it has been 
 the rule and practice of the patent office to refuse to extend 
 letters patent, when it appeared that the patent had been as- 
 signed to another person, or when there was an existing con- 
 tract to assign the patent, after the extension, for a considera- 
 
29 
 
 tion, notoriously small, in comparison with the profits made 
 by the assignee of the patent. Sometimes this practice has 
 gone so far that a Commissioner of Patents has withdrawn his 
 decision in favor of an extension, even after a favorable de- 
 cision had once been deliberately made. This happened when 
 it became known to the Commissioner that the inventor had 
 sold his interest in the extension for the extended term. There- 
 fore, in extensions, it is important to have it appear that the 
 title to the patent is in the inventor, and that he has made "no 
 arrangements as to the sale of the extended patent." 
 
 On Feb. 27, 1S77, in Senate Report, No. 6SS, ex-Senator 
 Wadleigh, of New Hampshire, made the following statement 
 in support of the extension of the Voelter Paper Pulp Patent : 
 " The evidence s/wzvs that he has made no arrangements as 
 to the sale of the extended patent, and that such extension 
 will be for his benefit." 
 
 I propose to show that this statement is incorrect, and that 
 ex-Senator Wadleigh knew that it was when he made it. In 
 the Patent Office Records, for the transfer of patents, in liber 
 D. 11, folio 311, under date of Nov. 6, 186S, there appears an 
 assignment by H. Voelter to Alberto Pagenstecher, of "all his 
 •' right, title, and interest in patent No. 21,161, dated Au^. 10, 
 '1858, and antedated to Aug. 29, 1S56, and to any extension 
 "or renewals thereof ." Pagenstecher and his assignees and 
 his associates have held the title to this patent continuously 
 from that date to the present day. Mr. Wadleigh knew this 
 fact, of course, when he made the above statement, for the 
 Patent Office Records show it. 
 
 Further: under date of April 6, 1869, Pagenstecher obtained, 
 in his own name, as the assignee of Voelter, a reissue of this 
 patent. Mr. Wadleigh knew this fact. 
 
 Further : Mr. Voelter, in 1S70, in his petition for an extension, 
 under the general law providing for extensions, stated that 
 he had sold his invention, both for the original and extended 
 terms, to Pagenstecher and his associates. Mr. Wadleigh 
 knew this fact, because Voelter's statements to this effect w & as 
 before him. 
 
 Further: on June 6, 1S71, Mr. Pagenstecher obtained a sec- 
 ond reissue of this patent, in his own name, as the assignee of 
 Voelter. Mr. Wadleigh knew this fact. 
 
 In Feb., 1S77, before Mr. Wadleigh made this report, he had 
 the affidavit before him of the Hon. Warner Miller, of Her- 
 kimer, N. Y., stating that he and his associates were interested 
 in the pending extension. Mr. Miller, and the Hon. William 
 A. Russell, of Lawrence, Mass., also a member of the present 
 congress, in the subsequent proceedings for this extension be- 
 fore the Patent Office, both admitted, under oath, that they 
 
30 
 
 owned and controlled the entire Voelter Patent. Mr. Russell 
 also stated that it would result in a serious pecuniary loss to 
 him if the Voelter Patent was not extended a second time. 
 
 In his petition for a second extension in 1S77, Mr. Voelter 
 reiterated the fact that he had sold out his interest in the pat- 
 ent to "Mr. Pagenstecher and his associates" for the extended 
 term. 
 
 Now it seems to me that these record facts can leave no 
 shadow of doubt in the mind of any fair man that ex-Senator 
 Wadlei°;h knew that he was stating a falsehood when he made 
 the statement heretofore quoted. 
 
 The law in relation to the extension of letters patent, when 
 a foreign patent has been obtained, as well as a patent in the 
 United States by a foreigner, is well stated in the decisions of 
 the Commissioner of Patents for 1S70. Page 10S. 
 
 It is as follows : " The extension of letters patent is not mat- 
 " ter of right, but of favor. The seven years for which the ex- 
 " istence of a patent may be prolonged, is in no sense, prior 
 " to the actual grant of the extension, a part of the origi- 
 " nal term. When, therefore, the statute declares that the pa- 
 " tent shall expire at the same time with the foreign patent, I 
 " am very clearly of the opinion that if, at the expiration of the 
 " original term, it appears that the foreign patent has already 
 "expired, no prolongation of the term of the American patent 
 "can be permitted. This is in accordance with the letter and 
 " spirit of the enactment. The intention of Congress obviously 
 "was, to obtain for this country the free use of the inventions 
 " of foreigners as soon as they became free abroad. This is 
 " indicated by the use of the plrrase, ' first patented or caused 
 " ' to be patented in a foreign country,' for it was presumable 
 " that American citizens would obtain their first patent here, 
 " while a foreigner would first patent his invention in his own 
 " country. The statute was designed to prevent a foreigner 
 "from spending his time and capital in the development of an 
 " invention in his own country, and then coming to this to en- 
 " joy a further monopoly when the invention had become free 
 "at home." 
 
 This decision was made by the late ex-Commissioner of Pa- 
 tents Fisher, now deceased, who had a national reputation for 
 being an accomplished patent lawyer. This is a very excep- 
 tional characteristic of a Commissioner of Patents, who is rare- 
 ly a lawyer, but generally obtains this office, as other public 
 offices are obtained, as a compensation for political or per- 
 sonal services. 
 
 The law relating to this matter I will quote from the Revised 
 Statutes : 
 
Sec. 4SS7. No person shall be debarred from receiving a 
 patent for his invention or discovery, nor shall any patent be 
 declared invalid, by reason of its having been first patented or 
 caused to be patented in a foreign country, unless the same has 
 been introduced into public use in the United States for more 
 than two years prior to the application. But every patent 
 granted for an invention which has been previously patented 
 in a foreign country shall be so limited as to expire at the 
 same time with the foreign patent, or, if there be more than 
 one, at the sa?ne time with the one having the shortest term, 
 and in no case shall it be in force more than seventeen years. 
 
 Hence it is evident that the first extension of the Voelter 
 Patent, made on Aug. 29, 1S70, was illegal, and contrary to 
 the letter and spirit of the act of July 8, 1S70. For Mr. Voel- 
 ter, in his petition for the extension, in 1S70, stated that all his 
 " foreign patents had then expired, or nearly so." Much more, 
 the second extension of 1S77 was contrary to the letter and 
 spirit of the act of July S, 1S70, regarding this matter. 
 
 I have in this letter referred to this last-named objection to the 
 Voelter Patent, because I think it is a vital and important one. 
 I think I overlooked it in my former letter to you, concerning 
 the validity of the Voelter Patent. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 J. McC. PERKINS. 
 
 Washington, D. C, May 29, 1S79. 
 William E. Chandler: 
 
 Dear Sir : Hon. Wm. M. Springer, M. C. from Illinois, says 
 that when the act of March 3, 1877, came before the House 
 for action, after it had passed the Senate, he objected to its con- 
 sideration at that time. It was then the midnight before that 
 Congress expired by legal limitation on the next day at 12 
 o'clock. No new bill could then be considered and acted upon, 
 without the unanimous consent of the House of Representa- 
 tives. Just then, when the bill was in imminent danger, by 
 this unexpected objection on the part of Mr. Springer, Hon. 
 Wm. H. H. Stowell, then a member from Virginia, came to 
 Mr. Springer, and told him that this was "a bill to aid in the 
 dissemination of knowledge ;" that this was a House bill, and 
 that it had been reported to the House by the House Patent 
 Committee. Not doubting the veracity of Mr. Stowell as a 
 man of honor, and at the urgent persuasion of Mr. Stowell, 
 Mr. Springer consented to withdraw his objection to the Voel- 
 ter bill. Mr. Springer now says that Stowell made an erron- 
 eous statement to him ; and that the record shows that it was 
 not a House bill at all, and that it had flever been considered 
 by the House Patent Committee. 
 
32 
 
 Now for the sequel. On the Transfer Records of the Patent 
 Office, liber No. 23, folio 441, there appears, under date of 
 March 23, 1S7S, and recorded Feb. 26, 1S79, an exclusive 
 license of the Voelter Patent from Warner Miller, Herkimer, 
 New York, to William H. H. Stowell, of Appleton, Wiscon- 
 sin, and two of his associates, covering the states of Ohio, In- 
 diana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa. 
 This license limits the use of the Voelter Patent to wood pre- 
 viously treated by a process described in the Averill Patent of 
 May 30, 1S76. A significant provision of this exclusive license 
 is, that Stowell and his associates shall pay, " their due pro- 
 " portion of all expenses incurred from and after March 1, 
 " 1S7S, in maintaining said Voelter Patent; the amount thus 
 " due, to be such part of the aggregate expenses as the pulp 
 " by them made is of the aggregate quantity of pulp made by 
 " the owners and licensees of such patents." 
 
 On the same date, and recorded at the same time, there ap- 
 pears in the same liber, folio 443, a license to the Fox River 
 Pulp & Paper Co., of Appleton Wisconsin, to use the Voel- 
 ter Patent. In this license, also, there appears the same sig- 
 nificant clause regarding contributions to maintain the Voelter 
 Patent, and Wm. H. H. Stowell seems to have been the secre- 
 tary of the Fox River Pulp & Paper Co. On Oct. S, 187S, 
 Wm. H. H. Stowell, as secretary of the Fox River Pulp & 
 Paper Co., executed an assignment of its interest in the Voel- 
 ter Patent to the Atlas Paper Co. What other interest, if any, 
 prior or subsequent to these recorded assignments, may have 
 been made to the Hon. Wm. H. H. Stowell, late Member of 
 Congress from Virginia, the Patent Office Records do not dis- 
 close up to the date of this letter. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 J. McC. PERKINS. 
 
MR. CHANDLER'S REJOINDER 
 
 TO MR. WADLEIGH. 
 
 Concord, June 12, 1879. 
 Hon. B. Wadleigh : 
 
 Sir : My demand for specifications of your oral and written slanders of 
 me during the past two years, results only in the mention by you of the 
 District Ring, and of steamship subsidies. 
 
 As to the District ring: During the winter of 1871 and 1872 I 
 was counsel for the district authorities before a committee of investiea- 
 tion; attended the open public hearings for more than two months; sub- 
 mitted an argument showing that up to that time they had not exceed- 
 ed their lawful powers, which the committee also reported. After that 
 time I was not counsel for them, except to give, in connection with 
 Judge Walter S. Cox, a Democratic lawyer, and Mr. Caleb Cushing, a 
 written opinion concerning the validity of the issue of some bonds. 
 During the later extravagant days of " the Washington ring," I had no 
 part in, nor responsibility as, counsel or otherwise, for any of their acts, 
 as Col. N. G. Ordway, who vehemently opposed them after their first 
 year, well knows. 
 
 As to steamship subsidies ; the charge can only refer to my relations 
 as counsel with Mr. John Roach. Mr. Roach came to this country forty 
 years ago. and worked as a foundry laborer at #28 per month. By the 
 aid of great natural powers and patient industry he has become an ex- 
 tensive manufacturer of marine engines, and almost the only iron ship- 
 builder in America. Although uneducated and partly deaf, he is one of 
 the most remarkable men of the time. In 1868 he became my friend 
 and client, has given me his fullest confidence, and has never taken an 
 important business step at New York, Chester, or Washington, without 
 consulting me. His simplicity, integrity, and greatness of mind and 
 heart make him respected by all who know him. The mail contract for 
 his Brazilian line of steamships, which he unsuccessfully asked Con- 
 gress lor, was favored by the whole manufacturing interests of New 
 
34 
 
 England, and Hon. E. A. Straw and the other manufacturers of Man- 
 chester wrote you in its behalf, but you suppressed the memorial. 
 
 And so, after utterances during two years of slanders charging me 
 with being dishonorable and disreputable, vouched for as true on your 
 Senatorial honor, and of published suggestions that I belonged with 
 rapacious and corrupt ringsters and lobbyists, plunderers of the govern- 
 ment, when you are compelled, before the people of New Hampshire, 
 to attempt to give specifications, you make statements either feeble or 
 false, based solely upon common rumors, for which you are mainly re- 
 sponsible. 
 
 Truly, I have the right to denounce you as a wilful libeller, unworthy 
 of credit among honorable men ; willing unjustly to destroy in another 
 what you yourself never had,— a character for integrity and honor. 
 
 Your statement that I sustained Andrew Johnson when he was swing- 
 ing around the circle, is false, as you know. 1 was frankly, openly, and 
 to the knowledge of President Johnson, Secretary McCulloch, and 
 everybody else, utterly opposed to his policy, and remained in office 
 because urged to do so by Hon. George S. Boutwell, Hon. John A. 
 Logan, and many other radical congressmen ; and when the crisis was 
 over, and Mr. Johnson harmless, in November, 1867, I resigned ;— was 
 chairman of the Committee on Resolutions in the New Hampshire 
 Convention, in December, drafted and reported resolutions denounc- 
 ing the policy; and was a delegate to the Grant Convention, and Secre- 
 tary of the National Committee conducting the Presidential campaign 
 of 1868. 
 
 SENATE BILL No. 300. 
 
 Your only reply as to the merits of your Senate Patent Bill 300, is the 
 general statement that you believe it to be a good one. On this point 
 you are opposed by the real friends of the patent system, and can fight 
 out the issue with them. You say you did what you could to preserve 
 the patent system. I charge that you took advantage of its unpopular- 
 ity to give it fatal blows, and leave it only an instrument to enable rich 
 corporations to oppress and defraud poor inventors, and for the larceny 
 of the fruits of their brains by rich and grasping capitalists. 
 
 AS TO THE VOELTER PATENT. 
 I. 
 You say the report was too long to be read when you tried to get the 
 bill through, and objected to reading the report, saying, " // is too 
 long:" Then you tried to get this enormous swindle through the Sen- 
 ate on your personal honor as a voucher for its integrity, when you 
 
35 
 
 knew there was not 2^ minutes in which to hear the report read ! If 
 that scheme does you credit, the parties trusting you do understand 
 what trickery is. 
 
 II. 
 
 You say that you are charged with making a false statement as to 
 Voelter's owning the patent, because the written agreement between 
 Voelter and Pagenstecher, applying to all extensions, which was before 
 the Committee, was void ; and you allude to no other reasons. 
 
 That is only one of the reasons why you knew your statement that 
 Voelter had made no arrangements as to the sale of the extended pat- 
 ent, and that such extension would be for his benefit, was false. 
 
 Miller and Russell stated before you that they were interested in the 
 patent. They were, as a matter of fact. And Governor Cheney was 
 in Washington engineering through this bill, almost solely by your aid. 
 No man in New Hampshire needs be told that when you made this the 
 only thing the Committee on Patents asked for at that session, and with 
 all your might and main crowded and tricked it through the Senate, you 
 did it not for poor Henry Voelter in Germany, but for Governor Che- 
 ney. Miller, Russell, Daniell, and their associates, who you know had 
 contracts and arrangements so that the extension would be for their 
 benefit (as it in fact indisputably was), and who are now in Concord, 
 two of them in person, and two financially, laboring for your re-election. 
 
 III. 
 
 You admit that you succeeded in extending this patent with which to 
 oppress the public and enrich the pulp ring, for seven years after the 
 foreign patent had expired, and other nations had the invention free. 
 Did you do that for poverty-stricken Henry Voelter? 
 
 IV. 
 
 You admit that you stated to the Senate (by clerical mistake, you now 
 say), in order to show how meritorious the invention was and to jus- 
 tify its extension, that 360,000 tons of pulp were made annually ; when 
 from 18,000 to 36,000 is the true amount ; and yet you charge me with 
 " many glaring inaccuracies," which, characteristically, you do not 
 specify. 
 
 V. 
 
 You state that the patent is not a monopoly, because the price of 
 pulp has declined. It has declined because prices of everything have 
 fallen, and the monopoly just now dare not keep it up. But they have 
 an illegal, unjust, fraudulent monopoly, and can make the price what 
 
36 
 
 they please ; and have limited the supply, and do crush out competition, 
 as the facts can be proved. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Your statement that I hired the Democratic correspondent of the Bos- 
 ton Globe to write a letter about the Voelter Patent is a lie, and I defy 
 you to prove your assertion. 
 
 Your clerk and agent, John W. Odlin, states that my paragraph con- 
 cerning him is not true "in any respect;" "is a tissue of malicious 
 falsehoods from beginning to end." He denies that he knew or drank 
 with " any member of any Western railroad ring." He probably does 
 not choose to admit that the Western Railroad Association of Chicago, 
 formed to influence legislation against patents, was a ring, — and so 
 evades ; but he did know and associate with the agents of that associa- 
 tion, as can be readily proved ; that they had free liquors is beyond 
 dispute ; and that he did not drink them no one will believe who knows 
 him. If he is a reformed man it will be news to every one ; and he has 
 freely boasted, not merely of his feats of dissipation, but of other and 
 viler habits which need not be named. 
 
 On mere rumor I would have charged him with nothing, but would 
 have refrained on account of his honored parents ; but as he has made 
 these boasts freely and often, and lately, I have seen fit to speak of him 
 as he deserves. 
 
 I charged you with having placed him upon the Senate rolls alter- 
 nately as committee clerk and as a laborer. The following document- 
 ary evidence proves the facts, and no one but you could have placed 
 him on the rolls as a laborer from the time he became your clerk and 
 " familiar," down to the time when Senator Saulsbury turned him out 
 of the committee room, and threw a certificate after him to soften his 
 fall. 
 
 Secretary Gor/iam's report of Dec. 2, 1878. 
 
 Pay-roll for quarter ending Sept. 30, 1877; John W. Odlin, 
 
 laborer $180.00 
 
 ending Dec. 31, 1877; John W. Odlin, laborer 180.00 
 
 ending March 31, 187S; J. W. Odlin, laborer, Jan, 
 
 1 to January 14 28.00 
 
 J. W. Odlin, clerk to Committee on Privileges and 
 Elections, vice Burbank, Jan. 15 to March 31, 
 inclusive 468.65 
 
 for quarter ending June 30, 1878 ; J. W. Odlin, clerk to 
 
 Committee on Privileges and Elections 555-°° 
 
37 
 
 Secretary Gorham's report of March 24, 1879. 
 
 Pay-roll for quarter ending Sept. 30, 1878 ; J. W. Odlin, la- 
 borer, vice Atkinson, from Aug. 1 to Sept. 30. . . 1 19.40 
 for quarter ending Dec. 31, 1878 ; J. W. Odlin, laborer, 
 
 Oct. 1 to Nov. 30 x IQ40 
 
 Contingent Fund Disbursements. 
 
 J. W. Odlin, 30 days' services as clerk to Committee on Priv- 
 ileges and Elections, Dec. 2 to 31, at $6 per day 180.00 
 
 Thirty-one days, Jan. 1 to 31, at $6 per day 186.00 
 
 Four days, March 1 to 4, at $6 per day 24.00 
 
 AS TO YOUR DODGING VOTES. 
 
 There is no doubt you were chilly when the electoral commission bill 
 was voted on ; but it was singular that you voted just before, saw the 
 final vote coming, and ran to bed. Your residence was only a few 
 steps from the capitol. You could have waited or returned easily. 
 Your excuse is a pretence. You dodged deliberately, and you know it. 
 
 So it seems you paired against Pinchback. The reported teleorams 
 to you to pair in his favor led me to suppose you dodged. Your oppo- 
 sition to Pinchback was contrary to the views of the Republicans of 
 New Hampshire. Your statement as to Senator Morton is a libel upon 
 the dead. He spoke and labored for Pinchback's admission. Charges 
 of corruption in the election were made, and he opposed their investi- 
 gation on the question of prima facie right, saying, if they were subse- 
 quently proved true, Pinchback could be ejected ;— which is the only 
 basis for your falsehood about him. 
 
 You reaffirm your reasons given in the Telegraph, and to its editor, 
 for not voting on the New York nominations, which were that you dis- 
 covered that Senator Matthews had a bargain with the Democrats 
 about Hamburg Butler's case. To that charge Senator Matthews gives 
 the lie in writing. I leave you to enjoy it. The disgraceful and true 
 reason,— permission to dodge, from Secretary Sherman,— stands unim- 
 peachable, and susceptible of proof. 
 
 As to the McVeagh commission case, I know you did dodge, and am 
 not mistaken when I say I saw you; and I can prove the fact by other 
 persons. 
 
 YOUR OTHER FALSEHOODS. 
 
 You attribute my hostility to you to your opposition to measures in 
 which I had a deep interest ; but you have not dared to specify the 
 measures. I deny your charge, and say that I oppose you because your 
 
38 
 
 character, methods, dodges, and dishonesty as a Senator are discredit- 
 able to you and the state. 
 
 Notwithstanding your opinion of me, it seems you went to the Presi- 
 dent in the fall of 1377, with Mr. Briggs, and asked him to give me a 
 foreign mission. This was not at my solicitation : I never heard you 
 had done it until some time after ; never heard that Mr. Briggs went, 
 and do not believe that you did it at the solicitation of my friends ; and 
 I ask you to name them publicly. If you went, your only motive was to 
 get me out of the country when the approaching Senatorial election 
 should come off. 
 
 Your statement that I have acted in opposing President Hayes's South- 
 ern policy from disappointment at not getting a foreign mission is false. 
 Without my solicitation, immediately after the inauguration, a foreign 
 mission was offered me; the offer was repeated, and has never been 
 withdrawn. I could have had one at any time prior to Dec. 26, 1877; 
 but even if I had much desired it, which I did not, I should have pre- 
 ferred to repudiate the policy rather than to hold any office, however 
 high or honorable. 
 
 You say that the Senate Committee did not know your opinion on 
 the right of the legislature of 1878 to elect a Senator till informed by 
 other persons. What a desperate and reckless falsifier you have be- 
 come ! You had published a letter in the Statesman, March 14, 1878, 
 giving your opinion on the subject against the right, and I am informed 
 and believe you made the first draft of the report of the committee, 
 and had it put in print. The Senate is not now of the opinion express- 
 ed in the committee's report. 
 
 You say you will not stoop to reply to my insinuations against your 
 personal character. They were not insinuations. I do not deal in 
 them ; you do. I stated facts and charges, and made them specific. 
 You have not adequately answered them. I leave the issue where it 
 
 belongs. 
 
 W. E. CHANDLER. 
 

 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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