Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1858-02-18
The Kansas Investigating Com.
mittees

The Kansas Investigating Com.
mittees
In the appointment Of the Special Com
mittee under the resolutions Of Mr.. Har-
ris, of ILLINOIS, Speaker On took time to
deliberate, and then, contrary to all parlia-
mentary usage, selected majority opposed
to the very thing the House had voted to
do, and who will no doubtus every means,
fair and unfair, to stifle and defeat sn in
vestigation of the Kansas frauds. This is
in keeping with the treatment Kansas has
received from the first wrong of President
Pierce down TO the latest tyranny of Pres
ident Buchanan. The Washington cores
pondent of the N. Y. Times thus severely
but justly comments on the course of Speak
er Orr in the matter:
In the first place, the Speaker has so far
degraded the responsible position of pre-
siding officer of the House as 10 disregard
the well settled rules of Parliamentary
custom, in obedience TO partisan interests
and in favor of fraud. He has failed to
constitute the Committee so as to give a
majority TO the friends who moved and car
ried the resolution authorizing its appoint
ment. He has thus assumed a modified
veto power, and consigned the proposed
investigation to the tender mercies of those
who resisted itfrom beginning to end. In
the House, those who desired to prevent
on official exposition of the frauds by which
the people of Kansas are sought to be
cheated of their rights were fairly beaten.
The investigation was ordered, and then
the Speaker steps in TO render the inves-
tigation as inefficient as possible! His
course must strike every parliamentarian
and all honest men, not blinded by party
zeal, as unjust, unusual, and indecent
What else than party exigencies- s-the imi-
nent necessity for smothering the rascality
charged by the friends of the investigation
could induce professedly impartial pre-
siding officer to put the investigation in
charge of those who are opposed to it al
together!
But not only has Mr.. Orr betrayed his
excessive partisanship by placing the friends
of the investigation in the minority. In
the selection of the individual members of
the Committee he has displayed marvel
lous ingenuity, with the view, apparently,
of rendering the majority strong, and the
minority as week as possible. The ma
jority members are all gentlemen of ex-
perience and ability, each man competent
to fight earnestly and to great advantage
in the investigation; while there is scarce a
man in the minority who would have been
selected by the friends of Kansas as a
member of the Committee. This Colonel
Orr well knows, and his own conscience,
if it has q spark of life, must assure him
that he has purposely arranged the Com
mittee so that it shall be as nearly ineff-
cient as it is in his power to make it. If
he had had the least desire to make a fair
Committee be would have put upon it Mr..
Sherman of Ohio, whose experience in the
former Kansas investigation, peculiarly fit
ted him for its duties, and made it exceed
ingly desirable that he should go upon it.
Mr.. Orr was fully informed that his ap-
pointment was desirable, but he paid not
the least heed to the wishes of the friends
ofinvestigation and the opponents of fraud.
Did Mr.. Orr suppose for a moment that
Mr.. Bennett, of New York, would have
been chosen by the delegation, or by the
Anti-Lecompton men at large, to represent
them upon the Committee? Or did he
imagine for moment that either Bufin-
ton of Massachusetts, or Walbridge of
Michigan, would have been selected by
them for SO important positions He
knows better, and should blush at the
thought of the motive which governed him
in their selection. When he decided to
rob the majority in the House of their
right to numerical control in the commit
tee they had ordered, the least he could
have done in common decency was TO Sc
lect the minority of the Committee from
among the most prominent "hoor members"
of the House, gentlemen in whom the
Anti-Lecompton men reposed the great
est confidence in all respects. In this he
has signafly failed and given us another
humiliating illustration Of the depths of
meanness to which partizan politician
may descend, when party success depends
upon the consummation of fraud and vii
lainy of the deepest dye.