New-York tribune., 1901-08-14
a passenger but always an invader must De
reckoned among the curiosites of railroadlng.
~ JupOyEyT EXPULSION.

IN IHPOTEST EXPULSION
A week or two ago. at the behest of the senior
Senator from South Carolina. Benjamin H. III
man. the Democratic executive committee Oh
that STATE met ard issued a formal decree or
accommodation against the Junior Senator
John L. McIaurln. Mr.. McLaurin was eN-
peIIed" from the Democratic organization on
the pretext that he had voted in Congress win
tho Renublicans on various important meas
ures" and had thereby forfeited his status as
Democrat In reality his prescription was
niece of petty and arbitrary political persecu-
ton. Smarting under the ridiculous failure OF
his own earlier scheme to discredit McLaurin
bv forcing him to decline a challenge to resign
his seat in the United States Senate, Mr.. I1lI
man had fOolishly fallen into the error OF
attempting a spectacular stroke OF revenge.
The absolute peevshness of pretending 10
exclude from party rights and privileges the
man whom only week or two before MI TIL
man had been pressing to enter an exclusive
canvass with himself before the Democratic
voters must have impressed itself on every
member of the committee summoned 10 Coiul-
bia to do the senior Senator's bidding But so
unquestoned is Mr.. Tillman's power over the
South Carolina machine that only five or SIX or
the twenty-odd committeeman present had the
courage to oppose an expulsion which all knew
TO be as i'll advised as it was irregular ana
lmpotent.
The adroit reply made by Mr.. McLaurin the
other day to the chairman of the committee
who served the formal notice of banishment
was hardly needed TO convince South Carolina
opinion of the folly and injustice of Mr. Tillmans
latest political mannuvre. In his letter, how
ever the Junior Senator exposes with admirable
cleyerness the weakness of the case which
his judges railroaded him into political exile.
Mr. McLaurin has prepared an elaborate analy-
sis of his own and of MIR. Tillman's votes in
the Senate and on his showing from the records
of the LVth and LVIth Congresses the senior
Senator could just as easily be impeached and
excommunicated by party council for voting
with the Republicans on important questions.
So far as the voting records testify. Mr.. Till
man sided almost as frequently with the Repub-
lican majority on rollcalls as did Mr.. McLaurin.
Indeed the only vital measures of legislation on
which they differed in Opinion-apart from the
Subsidy bill. which never came to n vOte-were
those affecting the government of the Philip
pines. Mr.. Tillman voted against the ratifca-
tion of the Paris Treaty and against practically
every measure subsequently proposed for gov
erning the Philippine Archipelago. Mr.. McLau-
rim favored the ratification of the treaty and
most of the legislation which ratification lOgi-
caly involved. But In assuming this attitude
toward the Philippine problem he was by no
means unsupported by party sentiment. For
Colonel Bryan himself advised the ratification
OF the Treaty of Peace and among the Demo
Gratis in the Senate who supported the treaty
and much of the legislation growing out of
it were Messrs. Morgan and Pettus, of Ala
bama; Lindsay, of Kentucky; Clay of Georgia;
McEnery of Louisiana; Faulkner of West Nir
ginia: Kenney. of Delaware. and Sullivan, of
Mississippi.
Mr.. Tillman himself, Mr.. McI4aurin adds,
so-called administration legislation For after
he had declared his purpose Ito fight to the last
ditch the Platt-Spooner Cuban amendment to
the Army Appropriation bill of March last, "he
voted for il. Some of his present newspaper
friends said at the time that he did it to curry
"the Exposition bill through. If that was the
ease ne was the shallow victim of political
| ''greengOods game and sold himself for saw
| dust" 1t would not be difficult indeed, to
| argue that so far as sound Democracy is con
| cerned honors are far from uneven between the
two South Carolina Senators. Certainly the pot
calling the kettle black never settled any ques-
| ton of relative lustre or relative virtue, and
| Mr.. Tillman may find that DEGREES of political
| ostracism such as his political machine has just
| pronounced on Mr.. McLaurin be made
effective only when they are prompted, not by
! petty and personal animosities but by some
deep and genuine impulse of public resentment.