The Forrest City times., 1900-01-26
ROBERTS cAG RESUMED.
Continuation of the Debate in th. House on the Roberts Special
 Committee Report.
6AllElIEs WERE LsAIM WEI FILLED.
Mr. Powers. of vermont. Supported the Majority Report for EAciu- sion. While MT. snodgrass. of Tennessee, Argued for Admission and Then Expulsion.

and Then Expulsion.
 Washington, Jan. 25.-The house re- srmed the debate on the Roberts case. The galleries were again we'll filled, most of the occupants, as on Tuesday. being ladies. Some minor business preceded the resumption of the de bate. The senate bill to grant Ameri- can register to the steam whaler Bow head was passed. .L&A..
 Mir. Powers (Vt.) was the first speaker. He argued in behalf of eN- ciusion of MT. Roberts. The conten- tion of the minority for expulsion, he said. ran up against the very pre- cedents which were cited in its SUD- pert. It was the universal rule that member could not be expelled for an offense committed prior to election. While it might be argued, in Mir. Rob- ert's case. that polygamy was con tinuing status. the crime itself, the ini- tial act, took place long before MT. Roberts was elected.
 We are not separating wife from hus band," said MT. Powers. comment ing on Mir. Roberts speech of Tuesday. ''Polygamy has never been legal in Utah. either before or after her ad- mission into the Union. Polygamy was illegal under the common law of En- gland. The moment he took wife number two, the marriage was void. Mir. Roberts knew the law. He can not now plead the baby act against the law, and stern justice"
 Mir. Snodgrass (Tenn.) followed Mir. Powers, supporting the views of the minority in favor of seating and then expelling Mir. Roberts. If we were not to become opponents of the French system of justice, which presumed guilt until innocence was proven he said, Mrs. Roberts must be accorded hls prima facie right to his seat before being busted"
 MI. Landis Und.), a member of the Roberts committee who signed the ma jority report, argued that Utah had vi- plated her compact with the United | States. There had been universal re- | joicing in the land in 1896, he, said, when Utah had been admitted into the | States thought that the birth of the state. worked the death of the system of poiygamy. Yet they were startled to learn, in 1898, that Utah had elected as hel sole representative in the house a polygamist, and that he was moving upon Washington with a plurality of wives and a multiplicity of children. | Qaughter.)
 Mr. Landis went over the record of | the apostles of the Mormon church to shcw that most of them were guilty of continued polygamous practices. Some of his statements were sensational. He scored the church for its alleged breach of faith, arousing great en- enthusiasm by his scathing denuncia- tion. At times he convulsed the house with his sarcasm. Of the Is apostles WIS issued. he said. Il were open vio- lators of the law, and three had un- donbtedly taken plural wives since it was promulgated.
 | Mr Landis said he believed, and that Mir. Roberts had not denied, that Mar gnret (. Shipp lad become his plural wife since Utah was admitted in 1896. He paid high tribute to the Chris tian missionaries who had worked among the people of Utah. MT. Rob- erts. he said, had boasted Aaat he had | received the votes of the Gentiles in his district. That. Mir. Landis said, was because he ran as a democrat as we'll as ., MoE1non. and because his opponent "had been Danite who had killed his man."
 In concluding. he adjured the 2,000 poly gamists in Utah to take care of their plural wives, but in Gods name to refrain from multiplying their in- fanny by bringing more children into the world.
 Ar. Landis expressed his pity for the poor women who ministered to the ro otten and lustful notions of the Nor mon priesthood. He ridiculed the proposition to admit Mir. Roberts and then turn him out. The framers of the constitution in statuary hall would get down off their pedestals and laugh at such a procedure. It would be a burlesque on law and precedent, and an outrage on common sense. Not only should MT. Roberts be turned back, but also Utah. whose people. he said, had solemily lied to the congress of the United States in 1896. In his perora- ticn Mir. Landis protested against Rob- erts' admission in the name of the motherhood of the land and of the pitiful innocents doomed to the shame of illegitimacy. He got a whirlwind of applause when he sat down. The speech created sensation.
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