The herald., 1896-06-18
AFTERNOON SESSION
The Committee on Credentials Submits
Its Formal Report
Hepburn flakes Intellectual objection on the
Ground That No Hearing Was Given
Claimants for Seats

ST. LOUIS, June 17.-It was exactly
| 2:40 when Thurston again called the con-
vention to order. Bishop Arnet. pres
ident of Wilberforce college, Ohio. made
the opening prayer.
ChairmanFort of the committee on Gre
dentials submitted the majority report.
1t recommends that the action of the ma
tional committee on all contests be final,
except in the Delaware and Texas cases,
where it is recommended that the Hig-
gins delegation from Delaware and the
Grant delegations from Texas be seated.
Hepburn of Iowa presented the minor
ity report, which recommends the seat
ing of the Addicks delegation from Del
aware and denounces the leaving of the
contests to the national committee as
dangerous precedent.
Fort then moved the adoption Of the
previous question. Each side was al
lowed twenty minutes for argument.
After the majority case had been pre-
sented by Fort and others Hepburn
spoke for the minority.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the
Conventions: 1 have the right to assume
that any Republican convention, any
body Of men representing the Republic
can party will declare in favor of fair
ness. The American people love fair
| ness. They are not willing, I take it,
that any mans rights shall be deter
mined without he has had his day in
| court I say here, without fear OF con-
tradiction, that there has been no hear
| ing upon the merits Of 100 election cases.
| (Applause.) 1 challenge any member of
| this convention to deny that PROPOSE
ton. When these gentlemen went be-
fore the national committee there was
! a gentleman representing the interests
| of a certain candidate. 1t was his con-
| tention, in opposing all of those he sup
posed were not favorable to his candi-
| date. that all the committee was to pass
| upon, all 1t had the right to pass upon,
was the regularity of the credentials or
| the delegates, and over and over again
| it was said the committee, contentlng
| itself with that, would impose no hard
| ship upon the contestant as the tribunal
| elected by the convention was armed
| with full authority to oppose the Gre
| dentials and there would be no opportu-
| nity before that tribunal to present the
case. Strange as 1t may seem that same
man, as one of the judges, member OF
! the committee in the convention insist
ed that there should be no hearing be-
| cause the national committee had passed
| upon the case. Haughtero
In other words it was as though he
had contended to an inferior court that
the court had no jurisdiction to try the
| case, and then where appeal was taken
to a higher tribunal, insists the
| court that had yielded to its contention
and refused to try the cause. had stop
ped the mouth Of the appellants. Is that
| fairness? Is that the Justice that con-
yention Of Republicans proposes to mete
out to brother Republicans. We have
contended as party. all OF the days
that there has been struggling Repub-
lican in the Southern states that we
would see to it that there should be hon.
est elections and that there should be a
fair count. cloud and prolonged ap-
plause' Every national convention al
most for the last twenty years has in
sisted that that was the duty that JUS
tice and equity be imposed upon the Re-
publican party and that party has been
swift to pledge itself that that duty
should be carried out to the fullness Of
it's ability and here is the astonishing
spectacle of all these charges that we
ourselves are trampling under foot,
ruthlessly and remorselessly those very
doctrines of equity and justice to which
we have pledged ourselves through
twenty years of our eventful existence.
(Applause.)
There has been no adjudication of
these cases. There ought to be. One
gentleman in the committee informed
were not property rights and the
were not property rights and that the
burden of his argument would appear
to be that if it involved in Importance
the value of mustang pony he would
insists upon the procedure of allowing
the parties to be heard, but as it only
involved the honor of Republican, the
man who said he was entitled to seat
here, and the man who said when the
right to a seat was denied that he was
not cheat, that he was not a scoundrel,
that he was not here by fraudulent pre-
tense, but that he was elected and Sc
lected only by free constituency. In
question of this kind, involving the honor
of a man, it was so trivial that we ought
not to subject ourselves to the heated
atmosphere of this talk for purposes of
that character. Further / say, with re-
gard to the Addicks case, and I chal-
lenge Contradiction say there was no
proof of any character considered by
your committee. Not one affidavit was
read, so no man knows the verities of
the case. One who was once 2 distin-
guished senator made the statement
that twentythree delegates in the con-
vention that would not support certain