Garfield defended himself in a manly, straightforward manner. "If anybody in the world," he said in conclusion, "holds that my fee in connection with this pavement, even by suggestion or implication, had any relation whatever to any appropriation by Congress for anything connected with this District, or with anything else, it is due to me, it is due to this committee, and it is due to Congress, that that person be summoned. If there be a man on this earth who makes such a charge, that man is the most infamous perjurer that lives, and I shall be glad to confront him anywhere in this world." The political opponents of Garfield delighted to call him a "salary grabber," but with how much justice the following facts will show. On the 7th of February, 1873, a bill was presented in Congress, together with a report submitted by B. F. Butler, from the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, for the passing of the so-called retroactive law. Its object was to increase the pay of members of Congress for past services, a measure that Garfield strenuously opposed from the first. A few days later Butler tried to incorporate it with the miscellaneous appropriation bill. Of the whole matter, Garfield spoke as follows:-- "I wish to state in a few words the condition of the salaries-increase question in the conference committee of the Senate and the House. The Senate conferees were unanimous in favor of fixing the salary at $7,500 and cutting off all allowance except actual individual travelling expenses of a member from his home to Washington and back again, once a session. That proposition was agreed to by a majority of the conferees on the part of the House. I was opposed to the increase in the conference as I have been opposed to it in the discussion and in my votes here; but my associate conferees were in favor of the Senate amendment, and I was compelled to choose between signing the report and running the risk of bringing on an extra session of Congress. I have signed the report, and I present it as it is, and ask the House to act on it in accordance with its best judgment." Garfield felt that Congress had no right to increase its own pay, but those who favored the plan had attached it to another bill that he very much desired to see passed. President Hinsdale who was in Washington at the time, says,-- "There is an incident connected with that bill which I will relate, not because I was concerned in it, but because it shows something of the working of Garfield's mind. I got to Washington on Saturday, and on Sunday there was a long session of the committee on appropriations devoted to the discussion of the increase of salaries. This feature was a rider on one of the most important appropriation bills. Garfield opposed the rider, but was overruled by the committee. On Monday, I happened to pass the room of the committee on appropriations and I found General Garfield walking up and down the corridor. He said to me,--