10. 




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PRr-;sK>;THi) by 



A CARD 



FROM J ^3 



HENRY ADDISON, ESQ. 



TO 



THE PEOPLE OF GEORGETOWN. 



WASHINGTON: 
PRINTED BY HENRY POLKINHORN. 

185 8. 






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Gift. 

W. L. Shoemaker 
1 S '08 



A^ CA^RD 



During the last year I was solicited by many of my friends 
to become a candidate for the Mayoralty at the ensuing elec- 
tion. Some of those citizens who had voted against me at the 
last election have also requested me to become a candidate. 
These solicitations have become so frequent and pressing that 
I feel it to be my duty to make this public announcement of 
my intentions. I have, too, been hurried into this course in 
consequence of the busy circulation of certain misrepresenta- 
tions, which I shall avail myself of this opportunity to correct. 

Before T proceed further, I wish it to be understood that my 
friends, few or many, can now regard me as their candidate 
for the Mayoralty, but in no sense as the candidate of a politi- 
cal party, or of any other party, sect, faction, caucus, clique 
or cabal, or to promote, or to subserve any other ends or inter- 
ests than those of the whole people of the town. I have no 
private griefs to assuage, no resentments to maintain, nor any 
animosities to gratify. In my opinion hardly any other 
greaer evils could afflict the town than the mingling of personal 
feuds and the bitterness of political strifes, with its municipal 
administration. 

One of the misrepresentations to which I have alluded, and 
of which I have a right to complain, is this : That I used my 
influence to defeat a late bill of the Councils which proposed to 
reduce the salary of the Mayor. If I used any such influence 
it must have been with the Mayor or some one or more mem- 
bers of the Councils — all of whom know that the charge is 
without a shadow of foundation. I have never seen that bill, 
and know nothing of its contents, further than what I gathered 
from public rumor, which was, that it proposed to reduce the 
Mayor's salary to the sum of six hundred dollars, and to ap- 



point a street commissioner at a salary of four hundred dollars. 
Nor have I ever understood the reasons which constrained my 
gentlemanly successor to veto it, but have no doubt that he was 
impelled by considerations as conscientious as they were honor- 
able. But, with ray knowledge of the state of the corporate 
finances, and the still more deplorable condition of our roads 
and streets, should I be elected Mayor, I would feel it to be 
one of my first duties to recommend to the Councils a general 
street measure, which would involve the reduction of the 
Mayor's salary to the sum of six hundred dollars. Should it 
be adopted, I think it would obviate, to some considerable ex- 
tent, expenses and nuisances which threaten to become intoler- 
able. I would sign such a bill as that and let it have imme- 
diate efiect. 

It is alleged that I have been making enormous pecuniary 
demands upon the Corporation for services rendered in Con- 
gress, and at home, since my retirement. The Corporation 
never employed me, in any instance, to render any service in 
Congress for a pecuniary compensation, nor have I ever pre- 
sented any claim to the Corporation for such service. The 
facts, which have been wildly misrepresented, are the fol- 
lowing : In December, 1857, it was proposed to pay me a 
compliment by placing my name on the committee to attend 
to our business before Congress. The proposition was imme- 
diately resisted and rejected. Sometime afterwards, a gentle- 
man called on me and stated that as I had a good deal of 
experience in the business of protecting our various interests in 
the District bridges, it was probable that I could be of service 
tp the Corporation, and asked me if I would agree to be ap- 
pointed by that body to attend to that business exclusively. I 
told him that I would render that service with pleasure, if it 
should be desired. He called again, and said that the Corpora- 
tion would not make that appointment unless I would sign a 
written pledge that in no event would I make any charge for 
my services. At his urgent request, and that of others I 
signed the paper. I had never dreamed of making any such 



charge, and thought that the requiring of such pledge con- 
veyed an intimation of disrespect, and I think so still. 

In connection with this particular, I desire to say that I had 
thought that my views in regard to the Potomac bridge ques- 
tion, and all other things collateral or incidental thereto, were 
well understood by the people of Georgetown. Upon those 
matters I have now only a few words to say. I am utterly 
opposed to the Long Bridge, and will ever do all in my power 
to have it removed. The people, by an immense majoiity at 
the polls, have declared themselves in favor of a bridge at the 
Alexandria aqueduct, and a lateral stem t ) connect it with the 
Alexandria, Loudon and Hampshire Railroad. No one can be 
more in favor of that measure than I am, and so far as con- 
cerns a local railroad, I am in favor of that one, whichever it 
may be, that will first and most certainly put the west gate of the 
Capitol in connection with the Alexandria aqueduct. Not only 
so, but I should insist that all the rights, powers, and privileges 
which are granted to Washington city should also be granted 
to Georgetown. 

A few months afterwards, without consulting me at all on 
the subject, the Corporation appointed me one of the committee 
to attend to the whole of its business before Congress, and be- 
fore I had official notice of that appointment I was called on, 
by three diiferent gentlemen, to attend immediately to as many 
different subjects, then under the consideration of Congress. 
I told them, one and all, that I should be compelled to decline 
that honor, for the reasons which are set forth in the following 
copy of a letter to the Corporation itself: 

Georgetown, D. C, April 16, 1858. 
Gentlemen: Mr. Ould and Mr. Muncaster have informed 
me that you did me the honor to appoint me recently a mem- 
ber of your Congressional committee. As it will not be in my 
power to accept that appointment, I feel that it is proper to 
notify you of the fact- ^ 



Your predecessors assigned to me the duty of doing all in 




6 

accepted that appointment, and as attention to the subject has 
already involved some twelve dollars of private expense, which 
was paid out of my own pocket, I trust you will not deem me 
as acting unreasonably in declining additional burdens of a 
kindred character. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

H. ADDISON. 
Hon. Board of Aldermen and 

Board of Common Council. 

Late in the last session of Congress I was visited by some 
highly respectable citizens of the town, who requested me to 
do what I could to defeat the Roberts proposition — to cede away 
a large portion of the territory of the town. Knowing that 
that measure had been approved by a very large majority of 
the Senate's District Committee, and that it would be sustained 
by many other influential Senators, who were among our best 
friends in that body, I declined a duty which involved so much 
responsibility. They called upon me again, and stated that 
they and two other gentlemen, whom they named, were anxious 
that I should proceed in the matter without delay. They 
promised me that I should be well paid if I succeeded in de- 
feating the measure, but could pay me nothing in the event of 
a failure. Nothing was said to me about the Corporation, and 
I wanted nothing better than the responsibility of either of 
those gentlemen. I accepted their proposition, worked day 
and night, conveyed Senators to the locality, explained the in- 
justice and hardship of the whole design, and, by the aid of 
Messrs. Hale, Brown, Seward, and Bright, and others, the 
measure was signally defeated, and the gentlemen by whom I 
was so flatteringly employed, if I am not very much mistaken, 
paid me the round sum of five hundred dollars. I really did 
not ask them where they got the money, nor do I think it would 
have been a very civil question. Another gentleman called 
and ofi"ered to pay me fifty dollars out of his own purse, which 
1 declined to receive. I do not remember anything else in this 
connexion worth relating, except that I think I acted very im- 
prudently in not taking the additional fifty dollars aforesaid. 



I am not in the habit of declining offers which involved so much 
civility, and will try very hard to do better next time. 

It is also reported that I made an improper charge for late 
services rendered by request of the Commissioners of the Sinking 
Fund. I am ready to meet any gentleman before the people, 
who may have anything to allege in that regard, or about any 
of my official conduct, or any act of mine in connexion with the 
affiiirs of the town, since the last Mayor's election. 

it was never made my duty by the charter of the town, or 
any of its ordinances, to act as clerk or book keeper in any of 
its departments. The keeping of the accounts of the Sinking 
Fund was made the special duty of the clerk of the Corpora- 
tion. It was my rule, however, to keep a general diary of my 
official acts for my own convenience, as well as for my own 
security, in the event of difficulties. This I was enabled to do 
by employing a private clerk, whose services were paid for out 
of my OAvn pocket. It was, also, my constant practice to ex- 
amine the books of the clerk, that I might understand them, 
and detect errors when any occurred. When the operations of 
the commissioners were vastly extended, and it became a mat- 
ter of great labor to the clerk to make out their annual reports, 
I consented to perform that duty for him, provided that a com- 
mittee of the commissioners would examine my reports and cer- 
tify that they w^ere correct before they were sent to the Corpo- 
ration. That this was not done for the two last years of my 
service, was owing to accidental causes, which were not under 
my control, and for which I was in no way responsible. For 
the truth of this, I can refer to Messrs. William S. Nichols, 
Philip T. Berry, and Samuel Cropley. After my official rela- 
tions had terminated with the Corporation, I did not think that 
it, or any of its agents, had any right to demand any service 
at my hands without making me a compensation commensurate 
with its value and importance. 

The commissioners finally addressed me a letter informing 
me that if I would make the report for them, they would pay 
me a fair sum for the service. I made the report; it was criti- 



8 

cally examined, and carefully compared with the clerk's books 
and vouchers by the very competent gentlemen above named, 
who approved of it, and then the Board paid me, I presume, 
what it considered a fair compensation. Particularly I came 
to that conclusion when the fact was clearly established by my 
report, that the Fund had made a clear profit of more than 
forty thousand dollars. At the close of that report I said, " In 
conclusion, I desire to state that not one dollar of the money 
belonging in any manner to the Sinking Fund has ever been 
in my possession. But it would be uncandid not to say that I 
had such a constant and minute supervision of the whole of its 
affairs that it would have been impossible for any misapplica- 
tion of its funds to have taken place without my knowledge 
and connivance, and that I am willing to be considered as fully 
responsible as those who really had the keeping of your money 
for any errors or wrongs which can possibly be detected." 

In conclusion, I desire to state that this is the last time that 
I shall ever be a candidate for the Mayoralty, and take the 
opportunity to thank the good people of Georgetown for their 
long-continued kindness to me, personally, and for many pub- 
lic tokens of confidence and consideration. 

HENRY ADDISON. 

Georgetown, D. C, January, 1859. 



LEJe'lO