116The next day Butler called at Uthoff’s house. Uthoff spoke first.
“I want to return this,” he said, handing Butler the package of $25,000.
“That’s what I came after,” said Butler.
When Uthoff told this in the trial of Snyder, Snyder’s counsel asked why he returned this $25,000.
“Because it wasn’t mine,” exclaimed Uthoff, flushing with anger. “I hadn’t earned it.”
But he believed he had earned the $100,000, and he besought Snyder for that sum, or, anyway, the $50,000. Snyder made him drink, and gave him just $5,000, taking by way of receipt a signed statement that the reports of bribery in connection with the Central Traction deal were utterly false; that “I [Uthoff] know you [Snyder] to be as far above offering a bribe as I am of taking one.”
Irregular as all this was, however, the legislators kept up a pretense of partisanship and decency. In the debates arranged for in the combine caucus, a member or two were told off to make partisan speeches. Sometimes they were instructed to attack the combine, and one or two of the rascals used to take delight in arraigning their friends on the floor of the House, charging them with the exact facts.
