Morning journal and courier., 1893-04-18
SOUND SENATOR PLATr.

~sSe-S~~ S~ kota continues to be interesting, although the Democrats wish 1t wouldn't. It will be remembered that it is charged that when MT. Roach was bank officer in 8 Washington bank he embezxled the funds of the bank to the amount of $84 GOO and fled the city; that $25, ,OO0 of that sum was made up to the bank by his bondsmen; that another sum, about $1e,000, was realized by the bank from some property which belonged to him, which was secured by attachment; and that the balance of the $64, ,OOO has never been made up to the bank, and he has remained fugitive from justice from that day to this.
 The Senate was slow In paying any at tention to this serious charge against one of its members, but Republican Senators finally made the unwilling Democrats look at 1t and talk about it. And when forced to say something they made the astonish- ing assertion that the Senate had no right to investigate the charges against Senator Roach; that he had been sent to represent North Dakota in the Senate and that If North Dakota was satisfied everybody else ought to be.
 Senator Platt took prominent and for oible part in the discussion of the matter Saturday, and he left the shams-faced and skulking Democrats not a leg to stand upon. He pointed out that the constitu- ton provides that each house of congress shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of Its own members, sud that this includes the right to make such inquiry that the integrity of the Senate, its honor and It's purity shall not be in trenched upon. And he very pertinently asked: "Is there nothing which goes to the qualification of member of this body ex- cept the question how old he Is, where be was born, and in what State he hvesa Is that the position which senators takei Do senators hold that the constitution means that anybody and everybody 30 years old, nine years oitl.sn of the United Ststea, aud en inhabitant of the State, possesses all the qualifications which are required for a senator, and that criminality and treason and other vileness do not constitute diequal- ifcation to seat in this bodyf' He pointed out that tho only way of preserving the purity of the Senate, the only way of having capable, proper legislators in the body, was to place in the discretion of such body the power to purge itself. "It has no limitation whatever except the dis cretien of the Senate. It may be, as the Federalist says in relation to the power of impeachment, an awful discretion, but fl was discretion which was committed to the Senate in the matter of impeachment confeseedly. That discretion having been committed to the Senate in cases Of i'm peachment, there is no reason to argue that is was not Intentionally committed to the Senate in cases of expulsion" And ht | continued: repeat that this power of ex | pulsion has been asserted over and ove1 again to be without limitation, a powe, | which was given to the legislative bcdy | to the Senate, from the very necessity O
 the case, and because it was of the highes consequence to the nation that its legis
 lative bodies should be kept pure, and ths
 traitors ard criminals and vile peopl
 should not be allowed to git here, whethe
 the acts which made them traitorous ant
 criminal and vile preceded or succeeded
 their admission to the body. There cal
 be no higher reason, and 1t Is a reason s
 necessary and so high that it seems to m
 it is decisive of the question of power
 especially in view of the fact that tn
 power is given without qualification ant
 without limitation, and has always beel
 asserted to bs without qualification ant
 without limitation.
 All of which is in accordance with tn
 constitution, with common sense and com
 mon morality, although it is not in accord
 ance with the feelings of the annoyed ant
 the aehsmed Democrats who have beel
 trying to smooth over the Roach matter The Senate has exercised the power whicl
 Senator Platt truly says it possesses no les than six times. The Democratic clain | made in Senator Roach's behalf is uncon | stitutlonal, immoral and preposterous.