The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-03-10

Ladies and Gentlemen: have made
up my mind to change my vote again
this morning. l desire in a few words
to give an explanation of my stand in
this matter. / have not gone back or
anything that l said yesterday, and dc
not know that l have gone back on my
position that ! took yesterday, but
realize that it is a time when somebody
has got to make concessions, and [ dc
not want to stand as one of those stub
born ones, I do not desire to stand in
the way OF the Democratic party and
=, the people Of this state, and conse-
quently l am willing to number myself
among those who are willing to make
concessions. l was an earnest sup
porter of A. w. McCune UP to the time
that the charges of bribery were made.
1 endeavored to put prejudice to one
side and assume an unprejudiced and
unbiased state of mind, for the purpose
of considering those charges fairly, and
! I continued to vote for Mr.. McCune in
formal way until the report was
made. That report was not satisfac-
tory to me all around. considered that
under those grave charges that had
been made here, it was necessary to
have a unanimous report, but that COM
mittee did not send in q unanimous re-
port generating Mr. McCune. and rec
ommending the expulsion of the accuser
! in order to clear the way Tor our Sena-
| tor A. W. McCune. / felt that that was
necessary to justify the thing. But that
/ report was divided, it was not unani-
nous And another thing, the house
/ did not seem to be in a very good hu-
NOR over those reports, they simply
threw thenr down. l anticipate prob
ably that they would have been badly
/ handled, and they did not recommend
] the expulsion of the accuser, and fur-
! thermore Mr.. McCune did not gain any
more votes from the doubtful ones.
4 And / explained that these were the
I reasons why I had given him up.
Whether ne be guilty or not, am not
able to say and l maintain that there
is nobody on this earth but those two
men who ever VIII know who was
guilty. 1 understood that my first duty
to my constituency was to elect a
United States senator, that was the first
and paramount duty; and secondly,
that he should be a Democrat and sill
yer Democrat at that. 1 have tried to
fulfil all these requirements to the best
of my ability But when I despaired
of fulfilling all the requirements, l
thought it was best to fulfil one of
those requirements though ] could not
fulfil them all. l felt that it would be
better to have Republican senator
than no senator at all; just as it would
be better to have q Republican COVER
nor than no governor at all. Probably
you differ with me upon this matter
but do not have the enmity that some
of my friends seem to have, however
l think it is my honest duty, my first
duty, to elect a senator and second,
believe that he should be Democrat
and a silver Democrat. / have not
changed my mind in regard to that
I matter. But it has been charged that
l have not given nv candidate, that is,
my first choice. a fair trial, that his de-
feat is owing to me. that If / had stood
by him. others would have done so also.
that I am block in the wheel in the
way of the success Of the Democratic
party, and that my cut was the most
unkind cut of all-but if II was a cut,
II was done in all integrity and honor.
] pretty much agree with the remarks
of our president here last night. When
we held that caucus, it is true. as he
said, that that offer to wipe the slate
and start out afresh was made, but I
did not accept it then because l be-
lieved there was plenty of time to
elect McCune. We had weeks yet
at that time to work upon that candi-
date, the Law charges had not been
sprung then. As I understand, they
are still willing to do that, to wipe the
slate of all candidates now in the field
and START anew for some new man