Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-06-29


would place the cart before the horse
Their opposition to him grows out of the
fact that he did not stand for law and
order. Mr.. Smith said:
They have persistently charged me with
authorizing the arrest in Montana of men
by the military authorities, which is alb
sOlutely false.
In the foregoing the governor draws q
fine distinction between "authorizing''
and permitting" The fact that Lieu
tenant Lyons came into Montana with a
squad of soldiers, by direction of General
Merriam, and arrested suspects and took
them to Idaho without a warrant, a re-
QUESTION or a preliminary hearingy a n
not be questioned. The kilograms that
passed between Governor Smith, and
General Merriam, before Lieutenant Ly-
ons was sent on his mission, show that
an understanding had been reached be-
tween them under which the federal
troops We're permitted to invade, this
state for the avowed purpose of run
ming down fugitives from justice. If Gen
eral Merriam was not "authorized' he
was certainly permitted to pursue the
course he lid. This is acknowledged by
the governor in the next sentence of his
defense, as follows:
If the military made any arrests in
this state, they did tiff they acted in
accordance with the Instructions of Gen
eral Merriam and myself-in subservi-
ence to the civil authorities entirely.
Was it in subservience to the civil au-
thorities that the suspects were arrested
as fugitives from another state without
any compliance with the forms of law?
Did the civil authorities of Missoula
county, in defiance of the instructions of
the governor. permit these men to be il
legally arrested and hauled out of the
state without a hearing, by the military
authorities? If 50, why does not the gov
ernor get after the civil authorities of
Missoula county? And why does not his
excellency demand hat the parties ar
rested be returned, pending the issuance
of warrants for their arrest, as the law
provides. But the governor adds:
l did, at the request Of the governor Of
Idaho, request the sheriff of Missoula
county to aid in the arrest of criminals
escaping to this state. For that l have
no apologies to make. If there We're
criminals escaping, they should be ar
rested, and | don't propose to make the
state a refuge for criminals as long as
| have anything to do with the manage
ment Of affairs. t
The laws Of this state provide for the
arrest of criminals and their %extradition,
and under these laws any man accused'of
completely in the crimes at Wardner can
be apprehended and returned to- Idaho
for trial. But these laws We're not OBJ
served in Missoula county. Men for
whom no warrants had been issued,
made, were arbitrarily arrested and
taken out of the state by the military
authorities.
Presumably, there are among the num-
Der who We're dragooned from the high
way many who were in no manner con-
nected with the blowing up of the
ker Hill & Sullivan mill, but who will be
unable to prove their innocence and Sc
cure their release until their trials are
reached some time in the future, being
in the meantime denied the rights of ha-
beas corpus. The difference betwee the
right and the wrong way to apprehend
men suspected of crime, is a difference
that will protect the innocent from the
treatment that is accorded the guilty in
advance of a trial. Though Governor
Smith in the foregoing assumes, in ad-
vance of a hearing, that the men lille
gally arrested in Missoula county We're
all escaping criminals, he confesses his
blind ignorance of the entire situation
by adding:
I do not know the name of a single per-
son arrested in Missoula county, or how
many there were, if there We're any.
And yet he presumes to say they were
all escaping criminals and that it was
right to arrest them without a warrant,
without a charge legally made against
them, and without a preliminary hearing
of any kind. If an escaped murderer
from Colorado was discovered in Mon
tana, no sheriff from the Centennial state
would be permitted to arrest him. and
take him beyond our borders for trial,
without requisition papers and a state
warrant; yet men. We're arrested in Mis-
soula county against whom no charges
had been preferred, or for whom no war