The morning journal-courier., 1908-08-11
THE LII.LEY INVESTIGATION.


 It is at least relief that the friends of MT. Lilley show signs of having heard of the congressional lnvestiga- ton even though as vet few, if any of them show signs of ever having read the report of the committee, Abuse of the critics of the gentleman from Waterbury bids fair to give way to a consideration of the imputation of his unltness for high executive office We welcome the change in front though t we are not sure that 1t is as good for Mir. Lilley as the old plan of silence
 Says the distinguished Hartford Courant. What Mir. Palmer has not done in his letter is to remember !. that Conneeticuts congressman-at- large, as prime mover of the inquiry, was entitled to the chairmanship of {. the committees; that he was deprived of 1t by a hurried shuttle, another res olution being substituted for his own { in order to enable Speaker Cannon \ to name as chairman particular friend of his own; that the commit tees attitude toward Lilley from the start was neither friendly nor judi cial; that his requests for the imme- | diate summoning of the officers of the concern nominally under investigation and the production of its books were roughly-not to say insolently-refus- ed that he was badgered and flouted at every turn; in short, that he did not get ordinary fair play from start to finish, and that if committee had been packed for the express purpose of tripping and trapping George l.. I Lilley and destroying him politically 1t would have set about the jcb in very much the same way the Boutelle committee did"
 These are serious charges. and if they can be substantiated, the esteem- ed Courant and every friend of Mir. Lilley In the state of Connecticut must reject as his candidate for vice presi- dent James Schoolcraft Sherman of New York, a member of the commit tee on rules, which prescribed the lm- its of the inquiry, one of the members of the house who voted for the ac- ceptance of the report and who would have introduced resolution eXpeling MT. Lilley had he not been persuaded from that course of drastic action. Custom and practice deprived Mr. Lll- ley of the chairmanship of the com mittee of Investigation, and of even membership on 1t. Whether he in- tended to do so or not he at the out set placed himself in the attitude of a prosecutor and eliminated himself as a possible chairman of a fishing ex- cursion. He declined explicitly to take the committee on rules into his conf. dence, as he had previously omitted to confer with his colleagues iron \ Connecticut in congress arbitrarily assuming the right to prosecute ant inquire and investigate as he saw fit and in violation of the rules of evi dence.
 Not one word appears in the sten. ographic account of the examination of MT. Lilley by the committee or rules, which would have justified an, other course of action than that final ly agreed upon The one definite charge that he brought to the atten tion of that committee was that h, had been personally approached b, two Waterbury friends and repre- aesseatiya-Qf the Bridgeport Brass com pany a charge which was completel, disposed of under searching cross ex amnations Had MT. Lilley suppress ( ed that charge, as he did all of tn, others, the committee would neve have been appointed nor would ther have been a warrant for it's appoint ment. To assert, in the face of this re fusal to play unless the game coulc be played according to his arbitrar, ruling, that he was treated insolentl, when not given the right to enter up on what was then plainly a fishinl excursion, and not an examination 0 evidence, is to oVerstep the mark O prudence to say the least, Nor Is 1t t be. forgotten that he told MT Sher man, as MT. sherman testities, of hi willingness to abandon his alleged en terprise for the cleansing of congress if that influential gentleman woul see to it that the committee on maya affairs would agree to admit anorhe submarine boat company to competi ton, regardless of the fact that it ha been eliminated by naval experts LID