The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1891-02-13
J. P. Jones,
w. d. WAshburn,
Leland Stamford,
j. ID. CAMERON,
John j. ingalls,,
Edward O. Wollcott,
Henry M. Teller,
William M. Stewart.


yocates of a national election law mo-
tably by Senator Spooner) that the
measure before the Senate was open
to very grave objections. Senator In
gals Whom you fifty characterized as
one of the brainiest men in the SEN
ate) created something of a sensation
yesterday by speech in which he ex-
planned and defended his position on
the election bill, and voiced some of
the objections to the measure before
the Senate. He had been opposed, he
said, to the adoption of the cloture,
for many reasons sufficient and salts
factory to himself. There were those
present who knew that, many months
ago, while occupying the chair in the
absence of the Vice President, he re-
sisted many urgent opportunities and
many strenuous solicitations to CO.
operate in that direction by methods
which he then believed and now be-
lieved were revolutionary and subver-
sive of the fundamental principles of
constitutional government. He had
not since seen any occasion to change
or modify his convictions.
He was now, and always had been,
in favor of just and impartial election
law, directed alike against force and
fraud, non-partisan, and applicable
equally to all parts of the nation. The
measure under consideration, how
ever, did not in many of it's details re-
ceive the sanction of his judgment.
1t appeared to him to be cumbrous,
complicated, obscure in many of it's
provisions and difficult of application.
1t subordinated the Judiciary to polit-
ical control and opened the treasury
to indefinite expenditure without
requisite supervision and in violation,
in his Judgment, of the spirit, if not
of the letter, of the provision of the
Constitution that declared that no
money shall be drawn out of the
treasury except in consequence of APP
preparations made by law.
He had been a Republican since the
party was born, and had voted with
out variableness or shadow of turn
ing" for every Republican candidate.
During that period he had never es-
pOuSed cause which he believed to
be wrong, because it was popular, and
had never refused to advocate a cause
which he believed to be right, because
it was unpopular. He had recently
expressed no opinion on political,
social, or economic questions which
he had not long entertained and to
which he had not given frequent ut
terance in the Senate chamber and
elsewhere.
When the contest in the Senate Gull
minated in test of physical endur-
ance-a question also who could talk
the longest, and 60 the longest with
out sleep-when it became apparent
that unless stop were put to obstruc-
tive and dilatOry tactics and other
important business proceeded with,
an extra session of the Ffty-second
Congress would be the almost inevita-
bic result, eight Republican Senators,
including the junior Senator from
Minnesota, cut the Gordian knot by
voting to lay the election bill aside
and to proceed with other business.
1t is idle to question the loyalty of
any man because he honestly differs
from you in opinion. Men sometimes
rise superior to party and sink the
partisan in the patriot. 1t is claimed
that the so-called force bill was an
issue in the last election. If so, it is
plain what the verdict was. Mime
sofa rendered hers by unseating four
of as good men as there are in Con-
gress, Mr.. Lind being the sole sur
vivor of the political cyclone. In my
humble judgment the Mckinley tariff
bill was the pivot upon which the
election very largely turned; but the
Lodge election bill may have been
sin it,"
A new trial of the issues involved
will be held in 1892, when, with the
questions more clearly defined. when
the benef1cent effects of the new tariff
law are generally recognized, the Re-
publican party will again carry the
country.
Senator Washburn is emphatically
opposed to the free or unlimited coin
age of silver at this time. He is a
conservative bi-metallist of the Win
dom school, and is supposed to be in
entire harmony with the sentiments
of the memorable address with which
the great f1nancier marked the close
of his life work. A warm personal
and political friendship existed be-