THE ROLL CALL
Lorimer Knew UPON THE EVE of adjournment of the last Congress, the United States Senate rendered a decision in the case of William Lorimer, charged with having been corruptly elected to that body....
...This carried the discussion over to Thursday, June 1st, and at the time of this writing there had been no final decision by the Senate...
...How he was received in all cases I do not now, but I do know that he met deserved rebuke in some...
...But it went along and went along until everybody (I am telling no secret) until everybody heard in the corridors and in the cloakrooms mutterings that unless he spoke pretty soon somebody would have to speak for him...
...He was brazen and impudent in his work...
...Wiehe or Mr...
...Is this you, Governor...
...Their last hope was to insist that the investigation be controlled by the Committee on Privileges and Elections, a majority of which had supported the Lorimer "whitewash" of the last session...
...Senator Cummins cf Iowa argued for the adoption of the La Follette resolution...
...He reminded the Senate of the brazen, persistent effrontery of Hines in his lobbying in Washington, through the course of the Lorimer discussion in the last Congress, ealling it to the attention of Senators in its bearing upon Hines' testimony before the Illinois Senate Committee...
...There were conferences and plotting...
...Senator Jeff Davis opposed re-reference to that committee and deplored the fact that there were Democrats who would take sides with the stand-pat Republicans...
...that this Democratic leader was shown by the testimony to have been the custodian of the Lorimer bribe money and to have personally paid certain sums of said money to certain members of the legislature...
...That Hines was active and in close cooperation with Lorimer in the contest for his election was well-known and was easily proven...
...he said: "Well, I just left President Taft and Senator Aldrich last night in Washington...
...Now they tell me that under no consideration shall Hopkins be returned to the Senate...
...During another protracted senatorial contest, which was likewise involved in scandal, his henchmen were notoriously active for the successful candidate...
...Said Wiehe: "And when he (Hines) got through talking, he turned to the people in the room and he said, 'I have just been talking to Senator Lorimer.' " La Follette's Conclusion IN SUMMING UP, and after trailing the "back-tracks" of Hines to the several individuals to whom he had made damaging statements, his efforts to confuse and revise their memories as to what had been told them, putting the details together in a related whole, Senator La Follette declared: "There is a mass of testimony that shows so overwhelmingly that Lorimer knew of this corruption that even if it were not proven that there were corrupted votes enough to take him out of the senate, no unbiased and unprejudiced jury, putting together all the facts in this case, could possibly escape the conviction that this man had guilty knowledge of the facts, that he was corrupting his way into this chamber...
...Sir, I want to say to the senate of the United States and to the country that Edward Hines is not a raw hand at this business, though his work often was rank and coarse...
...I say to you that that proceeding itself burns the brand into his case...
...He haunted the marble room and waylaid senators at every turn...
...It was his purpose, in the interest of a thorough and fair investigation, to have the investigation made by a committee of Senators who had not been members of the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the Senate, which had previously perpetrated the Lorimer "whitewash" report, a committee of Senators who were not even members of the Senate and who had not voted or otherwise, as far as he knew, expressed themselves, and who were free to make a fair and thorough and unprejudiced investigation...
...When all honest men were in doubt as to the final outcome, one of Hines' agents boastfully foretold, days in advance, the hour of the election and the exact result...
...Now, Mr...
...In this connection, Senator La Follette called attention to the testimony of C. F. Wiehe, a brother-in-law of Hines and secretary and treasurer of the Edward Hines Lumber Company, concerning the telephone incident at the Grand Pacific Hotel...
...Lorimer's conduct in the Senate, which was so significant to the country, was brought home in its full significance to the Senate by Senator La Follette in the course of his speech in support sf his resolution for a re-investigation of the Lorimer case...
...Shortly after the adjournment of Congress, testimony was presented before a committee of the Illinois Senate, concerning a corruption fund of $100,000 used to "put Lorimer over...
...Q. And who was present in the room during that conversation besides you and Mr...
...It had grasped, as a drowning man a straw, the too-ready admission of an attorney, who appeared before the committee, that he did not undertake to prove guilty knowledge or participation in the corrupt use of money by Lorimer personally...
...He lunched at the senate restaurant...
...Now don't stop at anything...
...I cannot understand, sir, how any man fit to be here, how any man who had in his heart and his conscience any true standard—any man who was innocent in short—how William Lorimer could sit here for three weeks and be silent...
...Some contended that the decision of the Senate was final, that the case could not be re-opened...
...Now I will be down on the next train...
...that the four members of the legislature, who publicly confessed that they were bribed to vote for Lorimer, were really bribed, and that three other members of the legislature, who voted for Lorimer, were shown to have been agents in the bribing...
...the constant communication by telegraph and telephone between Hines and Lorimer, Hines telegram to Lorimer to be used at Springfield, that, on the authority of Senator Aldrich, "President Taft was anxious to have Congressman Lorimer become a candidate for the Senate, and do all he could to be elected at the earliest date possible...
...President, with things that have been happening in this country tending to undermine the truly representative character of our government the public has grown weary and critical...
...The Trail of Hines—and Corruption FURTHER ALONG in his speech, which occupied part of four days in the Senate, Senator La Follette analyzed the evidence which had developed through the investigations of the Committee of the Senate of Illinois, subsequent to the adjournment of the last Congress...
...the first information available to any one interested enough to inquire concerning the character of Hines or concerning his activities at Springfield and elsewhere in behalf of Lorimer's election...
...He called the attention of the Senate to the testimony of Cyril Jandus, a Illinois legislator, whose name is new in the Lorimer case, and other testimony, showing that there was an established price for Lorimer votes of $2,500 for Senators and $1,000 for members of the House...
...or words to that effect—repeated it over three or four times...
...LA FOLLETTE read to the Senate the testimony of W. H. Cook before the Illinois Senate Committee, relating Hines' part in a telephone conversation with some one at Springfield, whom he called "Governor": A. Hines took the receiver out of my hand and he spoke in the phone, he asked, "Hello, hello, hello, hello...
...That more conclusive evidence was not secured by the Illinois Senate committee was due to the abrupt termination of its undertaking by the order of an Illinois judge, declaring the proceedings unauthorized by law...
...I am perfectly within the proprieties...
...Don't leave anything undone...
...Lorimer and Browne—Hand-in-Glove CONTINUING his speech, La Follette analyzed the evidence of corruption in the election of William Lorimer, the evidence of the agency of Lee O'Neil Browne, so-called Democratic leader of the Illinois House, in that corruption, the evidence of the intimacy, the close day by day and night by night cooperation and collaboration of Lorimer and Lee O'Neil Browne during the election contest at Springfield...
...The "old guard," that for many years had bossed the Senate, was determined in its resolution that the case should not be the subject of further inquiry by the Senate...
...This evidence was not the first indication of the use of large sums of money in behalf of Lorimer's election...
...But in the end the tide of public sentiment rose about and engulfed them...
...A. William O'Brien and either Mr...
...Hines' testimony...
...Upon that testimony, Mr...
...He traced in the evidence the trail of Hines and corruption from the committee room of Senator Aldrich in Washington to the counting-room and telephone booth of a System bank in Chicago, and thence to Springfield...
...Senator Martin then moved an adjournment and his motion carried 50 to 17...
...Senator Poindexter of Washington said that if the Martin resolution were adopted, it would be forcing this committee to make an investigation into the very subject which it previously had declared to have no relevancy to the Lorimer case...
...Browne testified he had hardly a speaking acquaintance with Lorimer, which statement was flatly contradicted by Lorimer, who asserted on the floor of the senate that he (Lorimer) became intimate with the Democratic leader years ago, and it was proved that throughout many weeks covering the period of the campaign for his election the senator occupied a room connected with, or in close proximity to, the room occupied by this Democratic leader, and they were proven and admitted to have been in conference day and night throughout the whole period...
...A few weeks ago, however, the reopening of the Lorimer case was not a foregone conclusion...
...clever statesmen bethought themselves of subterfuges and excuses...
...The force of the public demand was brought home to these reactionaries and finally even they were made, in a measure, to see themselves as the country sees them, and would see them, if they persevered in their course—as the country had seen Lorimer while he sat for weeks silent in his Senate seat, while press and people were calling upon him to resign or clear himself of the charge of having been elected by bribery...
...People's Demand Heard THE LA FOLLETTE resolution was introduced on the 6th of April, a little less than two months ago...
...They present now a spectacle of a few men striving with bare hands to repress the rising tide of the sea...
...Search for Truth Urged LAST Monday afternoon when the discussion on the Lorimer case was continued, Senator Martin, Democrat, from Virginia, urged that the new investigation be left to the Committee on Privileges and Elections...
...Before the close of the protracted debate in the Senate the Lorimer defense was forced to concede that there was corruption in the ' Lorimer election...
...Baklr, I am not positive which...
...There was testimony, also, tending to show that Hines was in close and frequent communication with Lorimer, and that Lorimer had knowledge of the use of money to procure his election...
...Wiehe's testimony was to the effect that the party at the other end of the line to whom Hines was talking was Lorimer...
...It was not...
...The powers of Privilege, the cohorts of the System were still fighting and hopeful of being able to prevent the re-investigation...
...President, I am going to say just this, in conclusion, upon Mr...
...The principal contention of the Lorimer defense finally was, and upon this principally Senators justified their votes in favor of their "Scotch verdict" that the evidence did not show guilty knowledge or participation by Lorimer in these corrupt practices...
...Why Lorimer Got Off EARLY AFTER the adjournment of Congress, it became apparent that this "missing link" in the evidence was probably missing rather from deficiencies of the investigation than from a lack of foundation in the facts...
...I will be down on the next train...
...These men, putting their ipse dixit against the public demand for a reinvestigation of the Lorimer case, evoke now only little more than a smile...
...Hines...
...New Evidence Adduced WHEN a reputable citizen of Illinois, a man of large affairs and of high personal character and standing, appeared before the Committee of the Illinois Senate to testify that he had been approached by Edward Hines to contribute $10,000 to reimburse a fund of $100,000, which had been used to "put Lorimer over down there at Springfield," Senator La Follette introduced in the Senate at Washington a resolution to provide for a re-investigation of the Lorimer election...
...He secured letters of introduction from prominent lumbermen and made, or attempted to make, capital for Lorimer of such friendly offices...
...don't leave anything undone...
...In his resolution he proposed the names of five new members of the Senate to constitute the investigating committee...
...At the conclusion of Senator LA Follette's speech, even Senator Bailey, of Texas, principal champion of Lorimer in the Senate debates of the last session, arose in the Senate and declared in favor of a re-investigation, not, however, he was careful to reserve, out of any deference to popular demand, but solely upon the ground that new evidence had been produced...
...For several weeks, and in fact up to very recently, the "old guard" in the Senate, the Senators who had voted for Lorimer, and the spokesmen of Privilege outside of the Senate, generally and freely expressed themselves that a re-opening of the Lorimer matter was unprecedented, was unjust, unnecessary and, some of them said, impossible...
...That admission it had allowed to stop its ears and blindfold its eyes against this important evidence, and on this account, largely, Lorimer got off...
...Edward Hines was to be seen in the senators' gallery day after day from the beginning of the last session to the end...
...But, Mr...
...The Senate committee had not seen fit to seek the connecting link of Lorimer's guilty knowledge...
...I will be down on this next train, prepared to furnish all the money that is required...
...There was testimony that this fund was advanced by one Edward Hines, a representative of Big Business, and that he assumed that he would be reimbursed by other representatives of Big Business...
...While Wiehe's testimony as to what was said by Hines in the telephone does not include the reference to money, testified to by Cook, and for that the reason might be a matter of defective memory on the part of Wiehe, the important part of Mr...
...Senator Dillingham, chaiiman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections, arose to announce that there was no member of the Senate on the Republican side opposed to the re-opening of the Lorimer case, and called attention to his resolution, introduced after it became apparent that a re-investigation probably could not be prevented, providing for the undertaking of such re-investigation by the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections...
...At this point Senator La Follette moved an adjournment because of the late hour but his motion was voted down 52 to 19 and the discussion was continued, Newlands speaking in favor of La Follette's proposition for a committee of new members...
...President, with my limited experience in this body reaching over a span of only a little more than five years, I cannot understand how any member of this senate could have rested for three weeks under the confession of any of the members of the legislature who had helped to elect him—under any kind of publication—of any sort of a statement from the men who had helped to confer title to his seat upon him...
...The Senate voted 46 to 40 that the evidence did not show Lorimer guilty...
...Persident, I was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt—and this conviction, I know, was started by other members of the senate—that William Lorimer had personal knowledge of the bribery whch was committed to elect him to the United States senate...
...The Silence of Lorimer "FOR THREE LONG WEEKS every member of this body, excepting the senator whose seat and whose title to a place here was in question, cringed under the public criticism— long weeks, in which there was put upon this body criticism from which it will take us a long time to recover, for, Mr...
Vol. 3 • June 1911 • No. 22
