The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1912-05-20
Therefore Lorimer Should Re-
tain His Seat Says Majority
HEADED BY SEN. DILLINGHAM;
Famous Report on Illinois Senator's
Right to His Seat was Presented to
the Senate o-day. Nothing
Substantial was Brought Out.

Washington, d. G.. May 20.-Why
Senator Lorimer should be permitted to
retain his seat in the Senate was set
forth to-day by the majority of the
Senate special Lorimer committee In
their report to the Senate. 1t was SUBJ
mitted by Chairman Dillingham; and had
the approval of Senators Gamble and
Jones. Republicans, and Fletcher and
Johnston, of Alabama, Democrats.
The majority took the position that
the Senate having once "solemnly and
deliberately" passed upon the charges
against Senator Lorimer, he should be
permitted to retain his seat unless new
and convincing evidence had been pro-
duced establishing corruption in his cleo
tion. Absolutely no "new and substan-
tial evidence" had been produced at the
reinvestgation, the majority said, and
consequently they declared the rules OF
justice required the former Judgment of
the Senate, upholding MIR. Lorimer, to
! stand.
The report dealt at length with the
evidence in an endeavor to show moth
4 ing substantial had been produced
against Senator Lorimer. 1t also re-
viewed the legal authorities to show that
the first investigation of the Senat.
should be taken as final.
The controlling factor in the action
of the Senate in re-opening the case, so
the majority said, was reports that a
fund of 100000 was either raised by or
through the efforts of Edward Hines,
the Chicago lumber man, to secure the
election Of Senator Lorimer.
The majority rejected the version OF
Clarence S. Funk, general manage o.
the international Harvester Co., gave of
conversation he held with Mr. Hines in
the Union League club at Chicago just
after Senator Lormer's election. 1t was
during this conversation that Funk
claims Hines asked for a $4,000 con
tribution to a 100000 Lorimer fund.
The majority said that Mr.. Funk's ties
timony stood uncoToborated either by
other witnesses or by any circumstances
"In view of the fact that it was known
to Mr.. Hines" said the committee, that
the relations existing between the off
GERS of the International Harvester Co..
and Mr.. Lorimer We're those OF oppo-
nents rather than friends, it is improD-
able that he would seek from Mr.. Funk,
the representative of that corporation.
contribution to aid in the election of
Mr.. Lorimer; and it is incOnceivable that
Mr. Hines if guilty of an infamous crime
would have unreservedly concealed it nm
| der the circumstances described by Mr..
j Funk. and in any case to a person with
whom he had so slight an acquaintance
/ and at a time when the election was
4 so fresh in the minds of the public
And particularly when it appears that
H at no previous time, nor even at that
7 time, did Mr.. Hines know whom Mr..
Funk preferred for a United States SEN
ator."
The committee next considered testi-
jmony of William NJ. Burgess of Du-
iluth, Minn that G. +. Wiehe, brother
iin-law of Mr. Hines, had stated in a
smoking room of a sleeping ear out of
Duluth last March that he had con-
trbuted $4,000 to a Lorimer election
+ fund. Contradictory testimony of 9th
ers on the train was commented upon
with this concluding statement:
with a convincing array of evidence
i in denial of all the facts contained in
I Mr.. Burgess testimony. and in view of
the improbabifity that man of Mr..
Wehe's intelligence and business ex-
Iperience should, in a public place and
to an utter stranger, have con-
fessed to having part in an infamous
proceeding, this committee can not do
otherwise than discard the testimony of
Mr.. Burgess as proof of any facts al
legged"
Attempted Impeachment of MCGOWAN
In this connection, the committee con-
sidered the attempt to impeaeh the tes-
timony of Charles MCGOWAN, the young
Canadian. who testified in Wiehe's be-
half This impeachment was sought by
private detectives with a stenographer
and telephone apparatus extending into
a room in which Mr.. MCGOWAN was
supposed to have acknowledged having
lperjured himself The committee re-
lated an attempted reproduction of the
conditions under which the stenographic
report of McGowan's conversation was
made, and added that the results We're
so disastrous to the claims made by the
stenographer to satisfy the committee
that no dependence whatever could be
placed upon his testimony,
The committee passed judgment upon
some of the prominent features of the
first investigation which We're the fur
ther subject of inquiry at the second
investigation,
Whites Sensational Testimony,
The sensational account by former
State Representative Charles A. White
of receiving Lorimer election money was
pronounced "as a pure fabrication so far
as it relates to the election of Senator
Lorimer."
"From a most exhaustive examination
and painstaking consideration of all the
testimony in the case" the report de-
clared, 'the committee finds that White
was one of the 50 Democrats who felt
justified in voting for Mr.. Lorimer in
order to break the deadlock which had
existed in that body for so many months,
and that Whites attempt to enrich him
self at the expense of his own Teputa-
tion was the result of an after thought
and of purpose which he had conceived
at time when he had reached the low
est depths of degradation
The committee advanced the theory
that instead of Senator Daniel W. Hoist
law having been paid s2,560 for having