The Forrest City times., 1900-01-26
TIE HOUSE MAS CROWDED.
Intense Interest Manifested in the Disposition of the Roberts
 Case in Congress.
THE AUDIENCE WAS LARGELY WOMEN.
Ter of the Investigating Com naft- tee Presented Reasons Why Rob erts Should Not be Seated.

Washington, Jan. 23.-Enormous | crowds were present to witness the | opening of the debate in the Roberts case. Fully three-fourths of the spec tators were women. They occupied | the reserved galleries tier on tier, and their bright gowns illumined the gloom of the cavernous recesses about the spacious hall. The diplomatic gall lery alone was a yawning chasm. Mir. Roberts There.
 MT. Roberts was in the seat which he has been occupying on the ex- treme right of the hall half an hour before noon, and every neck was craned to catch a glimpse of him. He | appeared conscious of the attention he was attracting, and after looking over | some papers left his seat and paced up ana down behind the railing which di- sides the floor from the lobby. He was aJtired modestly in long frock coat with dark tie. He left the hall few minutes before the gavel fell and was net present when the chaplain deliv- cred his invocation. He returned al. most immediately thereafter, how ever.
 Nearly Every Member Present. Nearly every member was in his seat few minutes later when MT Tayler (O), chairman of the special committee which investigated the case, arose from behind desk stacked high with legal authorities and manu. script and called up the case. Mir Tayler is young man, slight and pallid. but with energy and alertness stamped upon every feature of his countenance. He asked that the agreement made between the majority and minority of the committee for . vote on the case at 4:30 p. m., on Thursday be ratified by the house.
 Mir. Lacy Objected.
 Mir. Lacy Qa.) objected, unless it be understood that substitute resolu- ton which he desired to offer should also be considered pending.
 | To this Mir. Tayler objected. He al- SO objected to having Mir. Lacy's prop osition read, although appealed to by MT. Bailey (Tex.). and Mir. Richard son (Tenn.) This proposition, as it subsequently developed, was for the expulsion of Mir. Roberts without swearing him in.
 Reports Infd Before the House. l The majority resolution to exclude him and the minority resolutions to permit him to be sworn in and then expelled were laid before the house and without any agreement as to vote Mir. Tayler (O.) opened in SUD- port of the majority resolutions. He spoke clearly and with great earnest ness. When he began MT. Roberts changed his position to one near the center aisle on the democratic side, where he could hear with more ease.
 Mir. Tnyler's Argument.
 ''chief Justice Waite, in the Reynolds | polygamy was a religious practice, sad:
 ''To permit this would be. in effect to himself.
 Government could exist only in name under such circumstances. and Justice | Matthews, in the Ramsey case in 1884 | declared in substance. that all political l influence ought to be withdrawn from those who are practically hostile to the | establishment of a free, self-governing l commonwealth founded the idea of a 1 family as consisting of one man and one | woman m the nOiy estate or matrImOny, "it we are to attach any importance to l those fundamental declarations of the high est court, we must declare-no matter | what moral question may be involved that this case presents. in bold relief.
 question of governmental life. the basis of which is law.
 l. springs from the people who make the l laws, and their representatives are such because they are believers in the law avd | subject to the law. Many may entertain l opinions as to the unwisdom of certain laws, and hope that these may be erased l from the statute books but in the very nature of things they can not stand for defiance of law. And as they can not stand for defiance of any law how much | Of and obedient to such laws as have pro- cecded from the people, at the peoples ini- tiatlVe. and sustained by the deliberate in- telligent approval of substantially all the people, p:.PH. ana ,sou
 | springs from the united voice of united people, as the expression of the civilized force. in which practically all of them believe and which is necessary to the existence of that civilizing force. Of the more than i5.0oo 900 of American citizens all but the merest handful believe and believe with q mighty fervor. in the kind declares Is founded on the marriage rela- | ton existing for life between one man and one woman. That idea has been for nberate law, whose principles and form nave been approved by the highest ju- | usSid- autuoIlly ouCu ldWS make imDera- l tive demand for universal respect and l obedience, and the duty of such respect anu obedience presses most urgent upon 2 representative of people in a law-mak-
 These propositions are fundamental ana self-evident. They lie at the root of things. They are the bedrock on which 1 written constitutions rest: they precede l constitutions; constitutions assume their pre-existence and their perpetual exist ence; they are institutional.
 If the federal constituation had ex- | pl.citly declared that all persons should | be eligible for representative in congress | who denied that the constitution was the supreme law of the land that instruments ano the government 1t sought to create woulc not have endured a single day II follows that if such specific declara- | tions could not have been made, lt can not be implied Neither the presence nor the absence of certain words in the in- strument can imply a certain meaning. | 1T It is impossible that such meaning could have been expressed.
 'It the claimant to this seat is eligible
 he Is eligible because the constitution so makes him. either by it's express language IT by necessary implication. The words '