The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-07-04
FIRST BLOOD WILL
 BE DRAWN TODAY National Committee Will Meet
 to Decide on Contests BIG FIGHT OVER ILLINOIS Real Contest Will Not Come Until Matter Is Brought Before Gre
 dentiaIs committee-Mr.
 Bryan Discusses Matter.
BIG FIGHT OVER ILLINOIS

St. Louis, July 3.-Tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock the national committee will meet for the purpose of hearing evidence In a number of. contests and deciding In favor of delegates who are to be seated under the temporary ron call. The real fight in the majority of these cases will come before the committee on credentials. The principal contest will be in Illinois where protests are made against two of the tes-at-large-John P. Hopkins and Ben T. Cable-and twenty-six other delegates, two from each of thirteen dis- tricts. The base of contest in all these cases Is practically the same, 1t being alleged that the Hopkins faction in the Illinois democracy arbitrarily unseated delegates of the Harrison and Hearst factions for purposes of their own with l people on the other hand claim that the original elections were void. and that the action taken at the Illinois state con vention when the delegates or the Har- rison and Hearst people were unseated was only fighting a wrong previously committed.
 The Harrison people seek to substitute the names of their men for the Hopkins delegates in the Second, Third Sixth Ninth and Tenth districts. Efforts will also be made to unseat the Hopkins dele gates in the Eleventh, Twelfth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Eighteenth. Twenty-first, Twenty third and Twenty-fifth districts The fight for the seats in the Illinois del- egations takes onl added interest from the fact that William J. Bryan has entered the lists actively against the Hopkins people and will lend all of his influence to unseat them. He declared today when discussing the fights that are to be made tomorrow before the national committee:
 Bryan Voices sentimnt.
 ''In my opinion there is no more impor- tant question before the public today than whether or not few men, one of whom happens to have a whip in his hand shall override the wishes of the voters who have selected certain men to repre- sent them in conventions. The people elect their men and should have them but in some cases of late it does not look to me as though they were getting them. I am opposed to such things from every standpoint"
 It was thought today MT Bryan would be member of the committee on creden- tials and thus be able to help his friends in Illinois from the inside of the commit tee, but he said this afternoon that he would not be a member of the credentials committee, as 1t was necessary for him to be on the committee on resolutions, and that he could not very well be on both committees as they would in all probability be meeting at the same time.
 Claim There Was No Bolt.
 Hopkins people contend that the na- tional committee will not be able to take cognizance of the contests in Illinois for the reason that there was no bolt from the state convention by either the Hearst or Harrison people, and that the national committee cannot take up a contest un- less it Is state matter. Differences aris- ing from district caucuses they claim are not within the province of the national committee. Tn addition to the contests in Illinois. there will be a fight for all of the seats of the delegates from the District of Columbia The Hearst man. agement claims in this connection that arbitrary rulings by the chairman gave the seats unjusty to delegates who are friendly to German.
 Practically the same ground of arbi- trary ruling is made the issue in the Tenth district of Indiana. Other contests that will come before the committee to- morrow morning are from the Second Maryland district, the Twelfth Ohio, the First, Second, Third, Fourth and Seventh of New Jersey. It was said tonight by several members of the national commit tee that the hearing of the evidence in these contests would not consume a great deal of time and thas the main fight would be made before the committee on credentials in the majority of cases