Birmingham state herald., 1896-03-14
GASTON ROBBINS UNSEATED And William F. AIdriCh Was
 Placed Therein BY A VOTE OF 173 TO 59 The Populites and All but One Republican
 Voted to Unseat Him. CUBAN QUESTION HARDLY ALLUDED TO MT. Cockrell Spoke for Four Hours on the Financial Question and Made Strong
 Appeal to Return to the Free
 Coinage of Silver.
CUBAN QUESTION HARDLY ALLUDED TO

Washington, March 13-The republi- can strength in the house was increased by one this afternoon when by a vote of 173 to 59, Gaston A. Robbins demo- crat. was declared to be not entitled to the seat occupied by him as a represen- tative from the Fourth Alabama district, and William F. Aldrich, his republican opponent, was placed therein. This re- suit followed two days debate on the report of the committee on elections No. l. today's session being occupied by MT. Dinsmore of Arkansas in three hours speech in behalf of Robbins, and MT. Daniels of New York, chairman of the committee, closing in an argument of an hour or more for Aldrich. The repubI- cans now number 247 members the dem ocrats 101, populists and silverites 1. There is vacancy from the Eleventh Texas District, caused by the recent death of Representative Grain. MT. All drich appeared at the bar and was sworn in by Speaker Reed amid republican ap- plause. The vote was along party lines, the populists uniting with the republi- cans in voting Robbins out Mr. White of Illinois was the only republican who voted for Robbins while Messrs. Cobb, Cookery and Dearmond, democrats, of
 
 Aldrich
 Before the election was taken up two bills were passed. One was to require that engineers and assistant engineers on steamers sailing under American reg isters shall be American citizens The other was the tonnage tax bill, repeating the reciprocal provisions of the law of 1884, of which only Germany and the Netherlands take advantage, and reduc- ing the tax on the coastwise trade be- tween the Americas, between the United States and the West Indies and between the United States and Hawaii from 3 to 2 cents per ton
 At 5:15 o'clock the house took a recess until and at the close of the evening session for pension bills) adjourned un- til Monday.
 At the evening session not a single item of business was considered Upon the usual motion, made as soon as the house reassembled at 8 o'clock, to go into com mittee of the whole, MT. Erdman, demo- crat of New Jersey, made the point of no quorum. The roll was called and 145 members responded to their names On motion by Mir Pickler republican, of South Dakota, a resolution was adopted directing the sergeant-at-arms to arrest members absent without leave, but 1t was within few minutes of 10 o'clock before the warrant was prepared and signed by acting Speaker Payne, repub- lican, of New York. At that hour a vote by yeas and nays was obtained upon a motion to recall the roll and that ex- hausted the period intervening until the hour when the session expired under the rules, 1030 D. m. The house then ad- journed until Monday.
 The Senate.
 With the exception of one rather cu- rious episode at the opening of today's session the senate was entirely removed from all consideration of the question of Cuban belligerency and had it's atten- ton turned to the financial question An allusion had been made In MT. Sher- mans speech on Thursday to private communication which MT. Lodge was supposed to have received from the sec retary of state and to have made known, confidentially, to the committee on for eign relations.
 Mr. Lodge said that Mr Sherman had fallen into an unintentional error; that he had had no interview with Mr. Olney and had received no private communica- tion from him, and that the paper which had been sent from the state department and had been read to the committee on foreign relations by one of its members was statement by the Spanish minister giving the Spanish version of affairs in Cuba.
 Mir Sherman admitted the mistake he had fallen into, and, to a suggestion that he should communicate the paper to the senate, he replied that it was matter r. Hoar and MT. Walcott commented upon the peculiar position in which the mat ter was thus placed, and MT. Haw1ey in dicated his purpose to move that the sen ate insist on it's disagreement to the house substitute for the Cuban resolu- tion and ask for further conference.
 The financial condition of the govern ment was presented in a four hours speech by MT. Cockrell, democrat of Missouri in winch he argued that every ~111f exception of gold certificates, was pay able in gold or silver coin, at the option of the governments; and he charged that MT. Charles Foster, while secretary of the treasury, had in October, 1884, sur rendered voluntarily, meekly and sub- missively the right of the government 10 redeem the United States notes or greenbacks in silver as well as in gold. That action on the part of MT. Foster, MT Cockrell described as the Pandora box out of which had come all the finan~ cial ills that had since fallen upon the country.
 Referring to Secretary Carlisle's re- cent speech in New York. MT. Cockrell said that the disguise had been thrown aside and that sound money" meant gold and not greenbacks, but gold. He declared that such monometallism was anti-democratic, contrary to the demo- cratic platform. He declared that gold was monarchical, aristocratic, for the rich; silver, for the poor. When war bovered over the the country gold fled into it's hiding places and remained se- creted until whte-winged peace spread above once more. With the Venezuelan message, he said, sent here. with string tied to it indicating the possibility of war, when the gold standard trembled to it's foundations England. he declared, had been unable with all the resources of the Bank of England to carry out its gold monometallc standard, and twice had to borrow from France. He denied that a courageous advocacy of free sil- yer would divide the democratic party. Reading from list of democratic rep resenta lives elected in 1892 and 1894, he showed that there had been a terrible falling off of democratic representatives