Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-03-19
la1lraster fntelligerlrer.
FRIDAY EVENING. MARCH 10, 1880.
The State Committees Action.


The State Committees Action.
The Democratic state central commit
tee decided that the state convention
shall meet in Harrisburg on April %,
and, as we said yesterday, there is no
great significance in the place or the
time. The capital city was chosen,
doubtless, because it is the capital, it is
centrally located, more accessible by rail-
way to all the parts of the state than any
other town, and has sufficient hotel facil-
tiles for the assembling Of the conven-
tion. The time is perhaps earlier than
there is any real necessity for, seeing
that the national convention will not be
held until June %, and it will be short
notice to some of the counties to call con-
ventions to elect delegates. Here in
Lancaster county, for instance, the con-
vention cannot he held later than April
q, and-as that will he court week
likely as early as the 10Th or l4th, which
will only enable the county committee to
give about two weeks notice and necessi-
tate either very early convention to
settle a county ticket or another con-
vention-which will not be likely,
however, since there are no county officers
to be nominated whom the Democrats
have any chance of electing. We trust
that in every county where the custom
has been for conventions to elect dele
gates they will he convened even on short
notice.
The direction of the committee to its
chairman to place the names of the So
called MCGOWAN delegation - from
Philadelphia on the roll of the delegates
is of course a mere brutu,n fulmen. Every
state convention is law unto itself. Mr..
Speer so decided at Harrisburg in 1879,
and when Chairman McClelland hesi-
tated over the question at Pittsburgh in
1878. the convention very promptly de-
cided it for him.
The chairman of the state central COM
mittee has no knowledge whatever of the
delegates to the state convention. He is
not one of them er-cffcio, nor has he any
relation to the state convention, nor any
duty in it. except to call it to order and
to direct his secretaries to call the roll of
the districts. The members who an
swer that roll call. and whose right to
represent the district to which they an
swer is undisputed, are the prima .tacie
members of the convention. They con.
stitute the temporary organization, and
it is for them to say what shall be done
with the contests. This is the common
law of Democratic conventions. and it is
common sense.
If the state committee-especially a
meeting largely made up of substitutes
could have directed by a simple vote OF
its members that Mr.. Miller should have
put on the roll the so-called Vaux dele.
cation from Philadelphia, and they par.
ticipated in the organization, and part OF
them had been put on the committee on
contests to determine their own contests
it would have been easy to demonstrate
to their opponents the injustice liable to
be done. OF course, the change of names
does not alter the situation.
The convention which nominated Mr.
Dill, by the influence of some of his
warmest friends, decided this point most
emphatically, and for all time we trust
viz: that the temporary organization
consists of those delegates whose seats
are unchallenged, and that no man shall
sit in judgment upon his own disputed
right to seat.
IT was a field day in politics all around
Pennsylvania Democrats selected a
time and place for the holding of the
state convention, and ,as was anticipated
the organs TEEN with statements, widely
divergent in point of fact, to the effect
that the complexion of the Keystone del.
egation to Cincinnati is virtually
determined. Rhode Island Republi.
cans nominated state officers
and the voluntary withdrawal of
Gov. Van Zandt from the first place
on the ticket, which he has filled for a
number of years successfully, seems to
bear out the suspicion that he has an eye
on the senatorial chair now warmed by
the courtly Burnside the choice OF
Blaine delegates to Chicago constitutes
almost as black an eye to the Grant
boom as our dapper little MCGOWAN is
credited by his own declaration with
having administered to "old man Til.
den at Pittsburgh yesterday. Then we
hear of a strong Hancock boom from
Louisiana, the Greenbackers and
Woman's Rights people went through
some motions in various parts of the