These were the claims of the war-premium claimants. In examining the claims in either class, it was made the duty of the court to deduct any sum received by any claimant, as an indemnity, dividend, set-off, or otherwise, so that the actual loss only should be allowed. By section 7 of the act it was provided that the judg Distinction in Payment ments rendered by the court should be paid by the Secof Judgments. retary of the Treasury out of the sum of money paid to the United States under the Geneva award and accruing therefrom, not appropriated to claims proved under prior acts. But in payment of the judgments, a distinction was made in section 8 between claims of the first class and those of the second. It was provided that claims of the first class should be paid before claims of the second; that if the fund should be insufficient to pay the judgments of the first class, they should be paid according to the proportions which they severally bore to the actual amount of the available fund, and that if it should turn out that the available fund was sufficient to pay judgments of the first class but not those of the second, the latter should be paid according to the proportions which they severally bore to the residue of the fund after the judgments rendered in the first class were paid. Judgments and By the ninth section of the act it was made the duty of the court to transmit to the Secretary of State a classified list of its judgments, with interest at 4 per cent from the time the loss accrued to March 31, 1877, when the bonds in which the fund was invested were canceled. Of this list it was provided that the Secretary of State should transmit a certified copy to the Secretary of the Treasury, who was directed to pay the judgments in accordance with the provisions of the act to an amount not exceeding "the amount remaining of the Geneva award and interest, as it was when actually covered into the Treasury."1 As judges of the new court the President appointed Personnel of the Court. Hezekiah G. Wells, of Michigan, presiding judge of the former court, as presiding justice; and James Harlan, of Iowa, and Asa French, of Massachusetts, as associates. Mr. Wells discharged the duties of presiding justice till November 10, 1884, when he resigned on account of ill health; he died on the 4th of the following April. On his resignation Judge Harlan was designated as presiding justice, and his place as judge was filled by the appointment of Andrew S. Draper, of New York. Daniel W. Fessenden, of Portland, Maine, was appointed clerk. He had previously served as clerk of the court of Cumberland County, in Maine. The post of counsel for the United States was filled by the designation of Mr. Creswell, who discharged the same function before the first court.2 The decisions of the court were conclusive as to the amount due, but not as to the person to receive it. (Williams v. Heard, 140 U. S. 529; Butler v. Goreley, 146 Id. 303.) In an argument before Mr. Evarts, Secretary of State, in May 1879, as to whether certain awards under a convention with Mexico should be reopened, Mr. George H. Williams, who appeared for La Abra Silver Mining Company, said that the question of honor was one about which most men differed, and in this relation observed: "We recovered an award of fifteen Organization of the Court; Additional Legislation. The new court was organized on the 13th of July 1882. The claims filed proved to be exceedingly numerous, and by an act approved June 3, 1884, the existence of the court was extended to December 31, 1885. The powers of the clerk were extended for an additional period, not to exceed four months after the termination of the existence of the court, for the purpose of closing up the business of his office and depositing the records of the court in the office of the Secretary of State. The powers of the clerk were subsequently extended to June 30, 1886.1 By the act of 1882 it was provided that the judges of Expenses of the Court. the new court, and the clerk, reporter, and counsel for the United States should each receive the compensation provided for them by the act of 1874. The judges therefore received compensation at the rate of $6,000 per annum, the clerk $3,000, the shorthand reporter $2,500, and the counsel for the United States the fees attached to the office, or a substituted compensation of $8,000 a year. By an act of March 3, 1885, the salary of the clerk was raised to $4,400 per annum. In the summer of 1885 a question was raised as to the allowance of certain disbursements which had been made by direction of the court. The grounds on which the allowance was questioned were stated in a letter of Mr. Bayard, Secretary of State, to Presiding Justice Harlan, of August 28, 1885. The judges, the clerk, the shorthand reporter, and the counsel for the United States constituted the entire official force as expressly enumerated in the statutes; and by the act of 1874, which was revived in this particular, it was provided that the court should be further allowed "the necessary actual expenses of office rent, furniture, fuel, stationery, and printing, and other necessary incidental expenses." Besides the officers above enumerated, however, there had been appointed assistant counsel, clerks, insurance experts, and other officers, who were compensated either by annual salaries or by fees. To the payment of compensation in such cases objection was made on two grounds: (1) That the phrase "other necessary incidental expenses" referred only to such similar expenses as had not before been expressly enumerated, and therefore could not authorize the payment of salaries or fees for official services; and (2) that by section 3682 of the Revised Statutes of the United States "no moneys appropriated for contingent, incidental, or miscellaneous purposes shall be expended or paid for official or clerical compensation.” The expenditures to which these objections were made were defended on the ground that they were justified by precedent, similar expenditures of the first court having been duly allowed and paid, and also on the ground that they were necessary to carry into full and complete effect the object millions by the Geneva award. A considerable portion of it remains in the Treasury. Congress is troubled to find the persons to whom it belongs. but nobody contends that that money ought to be returned." At this point Mr. Creswell, who appeared at the hearing as counsel for Mexico, interrupted and exclaimed: "Yes; they do. I do." (H. Ex. Doc. 103, 48 Cong. 1 sess. 523.) Acts of April 30, 1886, and June 2, 1886, 24 Stats. at L. 77. 223 Stats. at L. 444. for which the court was constituted. On September 11, 1885, certain strictures, apparently proceeding from the First Comptroller's office, having appeared in the press on the expenditures of the court, Mr. Creswell, who was mentioned as having been partly responsible, addressed to the First Comptroller a letter, in which he took exception to the impugnments, and defended himself and the court. After maintaining that it was the intention of Congress to give him a salary of $8,000 a year, and that this sum was much less than he would have received if a fee had been taxed in each case under section 824 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, he stated that there had been filed in the court 5,751 petitions, claiming in the aggregate $28,000,000, without interest. While the accounts were suspended a number of the attorneys subscribed to a fund, which they placed in the hands of two persons as trustees, to advance pay "to clerks or other persons" employed by the court, on such security "by pledge or otherwise" as might be obtainable. The attorneys declared that they took this step in the interest of their clients, by whom the expenses must in the end be paid, the statute requiring all expenses to be deducted from the fund before its distribution. Some of the attorneys in New York signed a paper expressing their approval of the employment of the various persons in question. The question of legal authority was removed by an act of June 2, 1886, by which the proper accounting and disbursing officers of the Treasury were directed to audit and pay the controverted expenses. It appears by a sworn statement of the disbursing officer of the court that the total expenses for three years, exclusive of the compensation of the officers expressly provided for by law, amounted to $341,216.34.3 Mr. Harlan to Mr. Bayard, September 5, 1885. (Letter of the Secretary of State, and response thereto by the Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims, Washington, 1885.) 224 Stats. at L. 77. It was held that the accounting officers of the Treasury had no authority under this statute to deduct the expenses of the Geneva arbitration from the fund. (Weld v. United States, 23 Court of Claims, 126.) 3 The principal items in this sum were $127,908.48 for assistant counsel, $114,535.42 for printing, and $47,038.01 for clerks, janitors, watchmen, messengers, and charwomen. The register of the court contained, besides the judges, counsel, and clerk, the following persons: Asa P. French, law clerk to judges; W. P. F. Churchill, messenger to judges; W. P. Huxford, deputy clerk; F. E. Chapin, docket clerk; Amos D. Allen journal clerk; Arthur B. Nichols, printing and file clerk; C. S. Cowie, general clerk; A. L. Jackson, messenger in clerk's office; Walker Blaine, assistant counsel; E. Rosis, stenographer to counsel; J. Martin, messenger to counsel; J. F. Goodrich, auditor and insurance expert; F. D. Lunt, E. E. Tilden, E. G. Goodwin, and George Cowie, assistants in auditor's office; H. Griffin, messenger in auditor's office; J. W. White, H. A. Henriques, G. W. Moore, A. A. Fengar, captains in the United States Revenue Marine, marine experts; H. Conquest Clarke, court reporter; T. Culbertson, marshal; Andrew H. Allen, disbursing agent; A. L. Alexander, janitor; F. Muldoon and Napoleon Bouvet, watchmen; C. A. Clarke, general messenger. Assistant counsel on behalf of the United States, paid by fees, were: Baltimore, A. H. Hobbs; Bangor, C. Hamlin; Boston, Godfrey Morse, W. E. Work of the Court. The court adjourned on the 31st of December 1885, the day fixed by law for the termination of its exist ence. The work done by the court from its organization on July 12, 1882, to its adjournment on December 31, 1885, was as follows: Amount recovered in judgments for claimants, principal.. 378 230 Separate judgments were rendered for 10,910 claimants, and the whole number of judgments was 11,377.1 The judgments of the first class were paid in full; Payment of Judgments. and in order that the proportion paid to claimants of the second class might be increased, it was provided by an act of June 2, 1886,2 that to the balance of $9,703,904.89, belonging to the fund proper, there should be added the money derived from premiums on the sale of bonds, making in all the sum of $10,089,004.96. To this sum there was further added the estimated value of the furniture and property of the court. From the aggregate sum so ascertained it was provided that there should be subtracted the expenses of the court actually incurred Spear, Payson E. Tucker, S. H. Phillips, Moses Williams; Charleston, South Carolina, John Wingate; Chicago, R. S. Tuthill; Ellsworth, Maine, H. E. Hamlin; Honolulu, Hawaii, F. P. Hastings; Lewiston, Maine, W. H. White; London, England, E. J. Moffat; New Bedford, C. T. Bonney; New London, Samuel Park; New Orleans, J. S. Whitaker, J. F. Whitaker, C. R. Rice; New York City, G. G. Frelinghuysen, Hamilton Fish, jr., R. H. Strahan, C. C. Suydam, B. Platt Carpenter; Philadelphia, J. H. Heverin; Portland, G. M. Seiders; Portsmouth, New Hampshire, W. Hackett; San Francisco, W. W. Morrow, F. S. Stratton; Savannah, J. O. Ferrill; St. Louis, Eleneious Smith; Wilmington, Delaware, John C. Patterson. 1 H. Rep. 945, 49 Cong. 1 sess. 224 Stats. at L. 77. in the transaction of its business and yet to be incurred by closing up its affairs.' The rules adopted by the second court were substanRules of Procedure. tially the same as those adopted by the first, with such modifications as circumstances rendered necessary. The rules of the second court were as follows: "I. The clerk of the court is directed to file of record all claims which may be transmitted to him, and to enter the same on the docket in the order of time in which they may be received. 66 Claims transmitted by mail may be addressed to 'D. W. Fessenden, esq., clerk of the Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims, Washington, D. C.' "II. All claims must be verified by the affidavit of the claimant, and filed in this court at or before 12 m. of the 14th day of January 1883, or where good reason can be shown for a failure of the claimant to verify his own claim, then by someone on his behalf. "III. Every claim shall be stated in a petition addressed to the court and signed by the claimant or his attorney. 64 The petition shall set forth "1st. The title of the case, with the full Christian names and surnames of all the claimants, the places and times of their birth, and the places of their residence between the 13th day of April 1861 and the 9th day of April 1865, both inclusive. "If any of the claimants be naturalized citizens, an authenticated certifi cate of their naturalization shall be appended to the petition, and the petition shall also state whether the claimants, or any of them, have been naturalized in any other country than the United States, and if not so naturalized, whether any and what steps have been taken toward being so naturalized. "2d. A plain and concise statement of the facts and circumstances, giving place and date, free from argument, and stating all assignments and transfers, whether in whole or in part; also whether the claimant, or anyone on his behalf has received any sum or thing of value by way of compensation, indemnity, dividend, set-off or otherwise upon his claim, and if so, from whom, when, and the specific amount in each case; and further that the claimant at all times during the period included within the dates herein before named in this rule, bore true allegiance to the United States. "3d. The prayer, in which the claimant shall state distinctly the amount of the actual loss or damage for which he asks judgment, the class under which he claims, and the date from which he claims interest thereon. "The claimant shall also give the post-office address of himself and of his attorney; and may append to his petition, as exhibits, the instruments or documents to which it refers, but shall not insert the same in the body of When the act of June 2, 1886, was passed, several new bills were pending before Congress in relation to the distribution of the Geneva award. One of these bills proposed to provide for the arrangement and printing of the opinions of the court in the several controverted cases. Another proposed that the payment of judgments should be made to insolvents in certain cases, instead of to their assignees. Yet other bills proposed to create a new court and a new fund, out of which a new class of claimants should be paid. All these proposed measures failed to pass. (H. Rep. 945, 49 Cong. 1 Sess.) It was held to be insufficient under this rule for the claimant to allege that neither he, his assigns, nor his legal representatives had "received, at any time or in any way, compensation or indemnity for the loss of said ffects from any insurance company, insurer, or otherwise." |