The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-06-21
STRIFE FOR PLACE
ON CREDENTIALS
Committee Regarded as Most I'M
portant Of Conventions
Suborganizations.
From a STAFF Correspondent.

Chicago, June 21.-The committee
on credentials will be the most inn
portant Of the general committees Sc
lected by this convention. There is
the 4warmest scramble for places on
it, and for this assignment Well-di-
rected delegations are picking out
pre-eminently strong men. The COM
the platform, will this year find it's
work we'll done in advance. The
committee on permanent organize
ton will approve the plans already
mapped out; this will be true Of the
committee on rules and order Of bust
ness. These and similar assignments,
like the honorary vice presidents and
the notifications committee, will be
chiefly ornamental.
The committee on credentials, how
ever, will have decisions to make on
which no small part of republican
success in the coming election, as
well as republican reputation for all
the future, will depend. It will have
to decide the Delaware controversy,
which in the national committee,
making up the temporary roll, has
been decided in favor Of Addicks. 1t
will have to pass on the Wisconsin
case, discussed elsewhere in these
columns. It will have before it the
persistent struggle between the lily
white organizations Of the south and
| the colored brother.
Already partizans Of the various in
| terests thus represented are scurry-
! ing around to see if their known
| friends in the various states cannot
| be put on this committee. No other
preliminary struggle Is half so inter.
esting.
! Drift of Preliminaries.
More and more are the doings OF
| a convention and the history of the
! country shaped by the preliminary
arrangements Of the national commit
| tee. The same tendency is showing
| itself in the states.
| Not longer ago than 1864 the re-
publican national committee made nc
temporary roll whatever. The organ,
| bringing what was in effect a mas:
| meeting into parliamentary form
| Then each state was called in alpha
| betical order, and the state chairman
/ presented list Of the duly elected
! delegates. Missouri, that year, pre-
scented two such lists from two equal
! ly accredited chairmen. Both were
4 told to step aside and to refrain from
voting until a committee on creden
| tails could consider their claims. Since
then the practice has come in of {
! temporary roll, made up by the ma
/ tional committee, and with this tn
convention in due fornality begins 1T
work.
/ But the question whether delegates
on this roll whose right Is to be chal
lenged before the committee on ere
dentials have a right to vote on thu
validity of their own seats is NOR
complicated than would at first ap
pear The states representative OF
the committee on credentials may b.
chosen by the delegates whose seat
are in dispute. Shall he be disquali
fed from service on that committee
Even If he is allowed to vote In othe
contests than those from his ow,
state, the possibility of log-rol1ing TO
the benefit of his fellow-partizans be
comes strong.
/ It was decided in 1889. when Sena
/ tor, Hoar.. presided, that delegate
| whose seats were contested could no
| vote. Some alternates whose seat
were not in dispute were allowed t
take their places, but where no sue.
situation existed, the clerk passe
over the disputed districts in calm
his roll. Senator Plumb, as dele
gate to that convention, went fur
Their and refrained, with his col
leagues, from voting in a case involv
ing the same, question as that in dis
pute concerning his own delegation.
Still the question has persisted, an
John M. Thurston, as chairman i
1896, allowed delegates to vote 0
their own seats when he pernitte
them to vote for the acceptance e
bloc Of the temporary roll as the pei
manent one. Four years before, alst
this question had led to a lively dis
; pute.