Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-09-05
FILE PROTEST. ON THE
ELECTION OF SENATOR

Continued from page one).
fully in 1900 and again last June. But
at this time, he stated, that if his sup
porters see fit to elect him, he could
not and would not prevent it,
The session lasted nearly an hour.
The standpatters are united in their
program They will not attend the
caucus this afternoon and a deadlock
is certain.
In the house this morning, Weeks
of Guthrie and Arney of Marshall,
both progressives, introduced primary
bills which were referred to the spec
ial committee to report upon tomor-
row.
New Primary Bill.
The Weeks bill provides for sep
arate ballot, each voter who is shown
by an alphabetical list of voters at
the June primaries to belong to the
party for whose ballot he calls is to
be permitted to vote it If his name is
on the list Of voters in June. He must
declare allegiance and that he will
vote for majority of the candidates
on the ticket thus declared. The Ar
ney bill provides that the primary
ticket shall be printed on the regular
election ballot and that the voter
must pledge himself to vote for the
presidential electors or for a majority
of the candidates in state, congress
sional and legislature tickets. The
candidates for senator cannot be can
didates for any other Office.
| The house and senate agreed to
meet in joint session tomorrow aft
ernoon to memorable Senator ALI.
son.
Des Moines, Sept T. = Forty stand.
pat members Of the houses of the
Iowa legislature have laid plans to de.
feat the election Of Gov. Cummins as
United States senator for the unex.
pired portion of the late Senator AL
lisons term. They probably will carry
out their program by refusing to at
tend the party caucus today
The fight was laid out in series OF
meetings participated in by members
Of both houses and both factions The
net result of these was that twelve
Republican senators agreed not to
go into the caucus if sufficient mum
Der of the house members would join
| full. Twenty-eight of the latter, at
least, gave indications of their pur-
pose when they attended the last
meeting.
If these carry out their intention it
| will prevent Cummins from getting a
constitutional majority in either house
unless he is given enough Democratic
votes to carry him through. 1t was re
ported last night that the Democrats
might do this, but the leaders denied
| it.
Senators Bleakley, Elerick, Gill
land, Jackson, Jamison Of Page, Jones
McElveen, Nichols, Saunders, Seely
Stookey, Stuckslager and Whipple
met to consider the situation and de
eide what was best to be done in view
of the fact the progressives had join
ed with the Democrats to force the
election of United States senator this
session.
All agreed that If the governor
would go before the people at the pri
mary in November and win out he
would be elected at the regular ses
sion of the legislature in January with
little trouble.
Twelve Agree to Bolt.
At the close Of the discussion ar
l
twelve of the senators present that i
enough of the others would join witt
them to make the action effective
they would not go into the Republi
can senatorial caucus, but would sup
port another candidate than Cummins
The other two senators present sale
they wanted little time for consid
GRAFTON, but were opposed to the cleo
ton of Cummins.
With twelve senators refusing tt
go into the Republican caucus, 1t wa!
figured that if the twenty-five stand
patters in the house would join will
them and the Democrats would sticl
to Claude Porter, their senatorial can
didate, the proceedings would bt
blocked when it came to the election
of a senator
] The action of the conference wa