SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS 
 
 I am not pleading that I am the only one who has made his way 
 through this world and is now sitting in the Senate, nor am I pleading 
 poverty or hard knocks as a reason why I should sit in this body. 
 I am giving to the Senators the truth as to why these men voted for 
 me for United States Senator. I am not pleading for sympathy. I do 
 not want sympathy. This is not a question of sympathy. It is a 
 question of right or wrong. If the Senate can believe me to be the 
 low, vile creature the Senator from South Dakota and the Senator 
 from New York and other Senators who have talked against me would 
 have you believe me to be, then there is a plain duty staring you 
 squarely in the face, regardless of the testimony in this record. If I 
 could be the foul wretch that you. Senators, have sought to paint me, 
 regardless of how I came here, by right or by wrong, I should be 
 driven from yonder "door with the stamp of infamy branded upon my 
 back. I am not pleading for sympathy. I am trying to narrate the 
 truth of my election as it was, not as Senators would have the Senate 
 believe it. 
 
 SPEECH OF 
 
 HON. WILLIAM LORIMER 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 IN THE 
 
 SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 FEBRUARY 22, 1911 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 1911 
 
 81979-0726
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. WILLIAM LORIMER. 
 
 The Senate having under consideration the report of the Committee 
 on Privileges and Elections relating to charges preferred against Wil- 
 liam Lorimer, a Senator from the State of Illinois 
 
 Mr. LORIMER said : 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: I understand that the senior Senator from 
 Indiana [Mr. BEVERIDGE] was discussing the Illinois election 
 yesterday and failed to conclude his remarks. I prefer to go 
 on with my remarks at this time, but if the Senator from In- 
 diana desires to conclude his remarks before I proceed I shall 
 be very glad to yield the floor for that purpose. 
 
 Mr. BEVERIDGE: The Senator can proceed. Besides, he 
 does so under a unanimous consent agreement, and it would not 
 be possible for me to change it. 
 
 Mr. LORIMER: Mr. President, many questions have been 
 suggested by the statements of Senators in the debate on this 
 case. Those suggestions concern mostly the actual condition of 
 my election to this body. 
 
 Did I organize the Illinois Legislature against Hopkins? 
 
 Did I make Shurtleff speaker in order to be elected Senator? 
 
 Did I make Lee O'Neil Browne my agent my corrupt 
 agent ? 
 
 Why did I stay in Springfield during the contest? 
 
 For what purpose did I talk to Shepherd in the speaker's 
 room? 
 
 Why did the Democrats vote for me? 
 
 These are some of the questions suggested by the statements 
 of Senators in opposition to the committee report or openly 
 put by them in the course of debate. To these questions many 
 sorts of answers have been given by my opponents. Some of 
 those answers have been fanciful theories, some mere guesses 
 and surmises. There is only one kind of answer that should 
 stand or that should count in this case ; that is the plain matter- 
 of-fact simple truth. It is this matter of fact, this truth, that 
 I propose to lay before the Senate to-day. 
 
 I rise to-day simply to tell, as one who lived through it all, 
 exactly how my election at Springfield was brought about, to 
 answer the foregoing questions with the facts that alone can 
 answer them correctly. 
 
 There has been an effort made to cover this whole case with 
 a cloud of suspicion, to make it appear that some man with a 
 powerful intellect, a powerful ability to organize men, by some 
 well-laid scheme prepared a plan to organize the legislature 
 for the purpose of defeating Senator Hopkins and to elect a 
 United States Senator. Some Senators have intimated that that 
 man with the powerful mind and wonderful genius of organiza- 
 tion was no other person than myself. I propose to address my- 
 self to the statements made by those Senators and on which they 
 expect to build the structure that will create in the minds of 
 Senators in this body the impression that I was not only, as they 
 say, elected by corrupt practices, but that I am the man that 
 was responsible for them. 
 
 2 819709726
 
 To begin with, Mr. President, the Senator from South Dakota 
 [Mr. CRAWFORD] in his statement said: 
 
 It is also clear from the record that Mr. LORIMKR was determined to 
 organize the legislature against Hopkins and Gov. Deneen. 
 
 Anybody who knows aught of the organization of that legis- 
 lature would not make that statement. The facts are that I 
 was not determined to organize the legislature against Gov. 
 Deneen, and, if I had 'been so determined, under the conditions 
 existing at that time, it would have been impossible for me to 
 do so. To organize a legislature with the aid of Democrats and 
 Republicans is a matter that can not be done just by a wish or 
 a thought. It requires constant effort to bring about a condition 
 of that sort, which Senators would have us understand was a 
 well-defined plan in the head ef just one man. 
 
 It happened that on the 15th of September I was stricken with 
 illness, and from that day until November I was unable to leave 
 my home. My physicians would not even permit friends to call 
 upon me. I "did not leave home until just a few days before the 
 general November election, when I went to my office where I 
 might be seen for an hour during each day in order that the 
 public might know that there was hope for my recovery, as it 
 nad been stated in the congressional district in which I was a 
 candidate for re-election that LORIMER was about to die, and 
 "they had better elect somebody who would be alive when the 
 governor issues the certificate of election." 
 
 Immediately after the election I took the train for the Pacific 
 coast to go into the mountains for my health, and I traveled 
 along the Pacific coast, and finally landed in the city of Port- 
 land. I remember well speaking for a few moments during my 
 presence there to the Commercial Association of that city about 
 waterway improvements, and the senior Senator from that 
 State [Mr. CHAMBERLAIN] was present at that meeting. A day 
 or two after that I was again stricken, with blood poisoning; 
 was operated upon, and lived, in the Portland Hotel, until I was 
 taken back to Chicago, accompanied almost the whole distance 
 to my city by my surgeon. From there I returned to Washing- 
 ton, as will be shown by the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD of the pro- 
 ceedings of the House of Representatives. There it can be 
 found that I voted during the early part of that session. After 
 the holidays, on the very day on which Mr. Shurtleff was elected 
 speaker, I was in the House of Representatives, and the RECORD 
 shows that I made a motion on the 7th day of January, the day 
 following his election. 
 
 Edward Shurtleff was elected speaker of the house of repre- 
 sentatives because of a condition that arose there, and if the 
 same condition arose anywhere else in the country the result 
 would have been the same. The governor of our State was very 
 much opposed to the re-alection of Mr. Shurtleff and he called in 
 a few of the men, members of the State house of representa- 
 tives, over whom he had much influence, and told them that 
 they must organize that body by the election of some person 
 speaker other than Edward Shurtleff. He told them that he 
 did not care who was elected speaker, but that under no circum- 
 stances must any Republican vote for Edward Shurtleff, and 
 if Aey did vote for him, he served notice on them that not one 
 of them could expect to receive patronage at the hands of his 
 administration, and he went even further than that. 
 819799726
 
 He called in Representative Brady, who had pledged his sup- 
 port to ShurtleflT for speaker, and told him unless he joined with 
 the men who were trying to organize that body under his dicta- 
 torship, every man who was in the employ of the State on 
 Brady's recommendation would be forthwith dismissed. In 
 other words, the governor of our State undertook to dictate to 
 the general assembly who should be its speaker. 
 
 Mr. CRAWFORD. Will the Senator permit me to ask him a 
 question? 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. I shall be very glad to. 
 
 Mr. CRAWFORD. If that statement is a statement of the 
 fact, I would like to ask why it was not put in the record, and 
 why Gov. Deneen was not summoned as a witness, so that "he 
 could confront a statement of that kind and have the same 
 opportunity to make reply to it that the Senator has oppor- 
 tunity to make the charge of this floor after the evidence is all 
 closed. 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. I am quite unable to answer the question as 
 the Senator would desire to have me do it, for the reason that, 
 first, I was not a member of the committee that investigated 
 the charges. 
 
 Mr. HEYBURN. Mr. President 
 
 The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Illinois 
 yield to the Senator from Idaho? 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. Yes. 
 
 Mr. HEYBURN. I think it only fair as a member of the 
 committee to suggest that the Senator from Illinois is replying 
 to statements made upon the floor of the Chamber, and not to 
 statements made in Chicago at the hearings. Consequently he 
 could not have anticipated the questions raised by Members 
 here. 
 
 Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. President 
 
 The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Illinois 
 further yield to the Senator from South Dakota? 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. Yes. 
 
 Mr. CRAWFORD. I should like to have this understood 
 now. If questions asked of the sitting Member are embarrassing 
 because they are being asked now at this critical point in the 
 case, and we are to refrain on that account from asking them, 
 I want to know it, and I will try to observe the rule in that 
 respect. 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. May I not say at the outset that I have 
 no objection to any Senator asking any question that suggests 
 itself to him at any time during the discussion of this question. 
 
 Mr. BURROWS. Mr. President 
 
 The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Illinois 
 yield to the Senator from Michigan? 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. Yes. 
 
 Mr. BURROWS. May I suggest that the Senator from 
 Illinois be permitted to make his statement in order, and then 
 at the close if any Senator desires to ask questions it will be of 
 course agreeable to him. But I think it is no more than fair 
 to the Senator that he be permitted to make his statement with- 
 out interruption. 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. Mr. President 
 
 Mr. CRAWFORD. Just one word further 
 
 The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Illinois 
 further yield to the Senator from South Dakota? 
 819799726
 
 Mr. LORIMER. Yes. 
 
 Mr. CRAWFORD. On account of the importance of this 
 matter 1 want to understand the situation. If the Senator 
 from Illinois is simply making a statement in the form of an 
 argument and not as a witness in the case, I want to know it. 
 If he is making a statement which he desires to submit as 
 evidence in this case, then it seems to me we should have the 
 opportunity to cross-examine him if we desire. 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. Again I wish to state that while I appre- 
 ciate the courtesy which the Senator from Michigan desires to 
 have extended to me, that I may proceed with my remarks 
 without interruption, I shall have no hesitancy at any point 
 during the time I have the floor in answering any question 
 that any Senator may see fit to ask. 
 
 I stated that I was in no way connected with the committee 
 which investigated these charges and had no right to summon 
 Mr. Deneen. During the whole investigation, from the day that 
 I submitted the resolution last May to make this inquiry, no 
 Senator, whether he be a member of the subcommittee, the 
 whole committee, or any Senator in this body will say that I 
 have ever suggested anything to him or made any appeal to 
 him or in any way at any time tried to influence his judgment 
 as to how he should vote in my case. And so I made no sug- 
 gestions to the committee about who should be called. If the 
 Senator from South Dakota is dissatisfied because the gov- 
 ernor of our State was not called to refute these statements, 
 I am not to blame for it. But it would have been impossible 
 to. refute this statement, because the cause for making it was 
 not suggested to me until the Senator from South Dakota 
 I Mr. CRAWFORD] made his speech upon this floor just a short 
 time ago. 
 
 Mr. President, the Senator in his statement said that it was 
 clear from the evidence that I was determined to organize the 
 legislature for the purpose of defeating Senator Hopkins. I 
 have in my hand a list of the Republican members of the 
 house 24 in all who voted for Mr. Shurtleff for speaker, and 
 of the 24 Republicans who voted for Shurtleff for speaker 17 
 voted for Senator Hopkins for United States Senator some of 
 them one day, some of them a week, some a month, some for 
 two months, and some of them voted for him on every ballot on 
 which the roll was called, including the ballot on which I was 
 elected. 
 
 If the theory be correct that I had been conjuring schemes to 
 organize the legislature for dark-lantern purposes, as the Sen- 
 ator suggested, how can it be proven by the statement that I 
 was trying to defeat Hopkins by making Shurtleff speaker when 
 the journal of the house shows that 17 of the 24 Republicans 
 who voted for Shurtleff also voted for Hopkins for United States 
 Senator? 
 
 Mr. President, in order that there may be no trouble in veri- 
 fying this statement, I ask permission to have the names printed 
 in the RECORD in order that Senators may -very easily consult the 
 journal of the house and find from it whether or not this state- 
 ment is correct. 
 
 The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. BRANDEGEE in the chair). 
 Is there objection to the request of the Senator from Illinois? 
 The Chair hears none, and the matter will be printed in the 
 RECORD. 
 
 819799726
 
 The matter referred to is as follows : 
 
 HOW REPUBLICANS WH9 VOTED FOR SHURTLEFF FOR SPEAKER VOTED LATER 
 ON FOR SENATOR. 
 
 Behrens Hopkins. 
 
 Bush Hopkins. 
 
 Chiperfleld Hopkins. 
 
 Crawford Hopkins. 
 
 Curran Shurtleff. 
 
 Dudgeon Hopkins. 
 
 Erby Hopkins. 
 
 Glllespie Hopkins. 
 
 Glade Hopkins. 
 
 Hope Hopkins. 
 
 Ireland Hopkins. 
 
 Lane Hopkins. 
 
 Lederer Mason. 
 
 McNichols Hopkins. 
 
 Nelson Hopkins. 
 
 Parker Hopkins. 
 
 Schumacher Hopkins. 
 
 Shanahan Shurtleff. 
 
 Sniejkal Shurtleff. 
 
 Stearns Foss. 
 
 Zaabel (died Jan. 13, 1999). 
 
 Zinger Hopkins. 
 
 Zipf Foss. 
 
 Klttleman ....-> Hopkins. 
 
 Hopkins's vote, 17. 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. Suppose that the President of the United 
 States a President of the United States, I care not who he 
 be should call in the Senators of his party, tell them who he 
 wanted for President pro tempore of the Senate, tell them how 
 he wanted the Senate committees organized, tell them that 
 unless they did his bidding they could get no patronage under 
 his administration, and tell them that if they failed to do his 
 bidding every last man employed by the Government on their 
 recommendation should be driven from public employment. 
 Suppose a President could fall so low as to undertake such a 
 feat as that, and that he succeeded in getting into an organi- 
 zation a majority of the members of this body of his own party 
 to carry out his orders to the exclusion of one man and those 
 who were favorable to him ; what do you suppose the Senators 
 would do? What do you suppose party lines would accomplish? 
 It would not take the Senators of this body one moment to make 
 up their minds to cross the party lines and organize the Senate 
 with men who they thought were fit to hold the different offices 
 in the control of this body. 
 
 The men in our State did what any set of sensible, coura- 
 geous men would do. They organized the body regardless of 
 the wishes of the executive branch of the government. If the 
 governor of our State had attended to his own business, said 
 nothing to the members of the house, permitted them without 
 coercion to go on and organize that body, Mr. Shurtleff would 
 have been the choice of 90 per cent of its members, and he would 
 have been elected in the Republican caucus by a unanimous 
 vote. I call for the journal of the Illinois Assembly to justify 
 that statement. 
 
 Edward Shurtleff was serving his fourth term in that bod}'. 
 He had twice been its speaker, elected twice before the time 
 we are now discussing by the unanimous vote of his party in 
 the Republican caucus and in the lower house. So, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, Edward Shurtleff, whom the Senator from South Dakota 
 [Mr. CRAWFORD] would have you believe to be a vile and corrupt 
 man, had twice before presided over the house ; and, may I 
 say, he was elected both times without help from me, even 
 without my knowledge until I saw the reports in the paper. 
 
 He is not a speaker of my making. He was not a man of 
 power because I gave it to him. I scarcely knew him when he 
 was elected speaker of that body the first and the second time. 
 He owes me nothing, not even support, for promotion to that 
 great office in our State. I was not on more than speak- 
 ing terms with him until I went to Springfield to secure 
 legislation on the waterway. I could say no more to him than 
 819799726
 
 "How do you do, sir," until that time; and the idea that a man 
 could work himself up through the world and become speaker 
 of the house of representatives of that great State, without my 
 aid, and at the same time be known as nay political henchman, 
 is the most absurd thing that I have ever known to be stated in 
 this body or any other body in which I have ever served. 
 
 That I elected a bitter enemy of Hopkins and my henchman 
 speaker is what the Senator from South Dakota [Mr. CRAW- 
 FORD] stated. The contrary is just the truth. Mr. Shurtleff 
 would not have been a member of that general assembly but for 
 the urgent request of Mr. Hopkins and his friends. 
 
 The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will kindly sus- 
 pend while the Chair lays before the Senate the unfinished busi- 
 ness, which the Secretary will state. 
 
 The SECRETARY. A joint resolution (S. J. Res. 134) proposing 
 an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing 
 that Senators shall be elected by the people of the several States. 
 
 Mr. BORAH. I ask unanimous consent that the unfinished 
 business may be temporarily laid aside. 
 
 The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the 
 request of the Senator from Idaho? The Chair hears none. 
 The unfinished business is temporarily laid aside. The Senator 
 from Illinois will proceed. 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. Mr. President, Mr. Shurtleff was a candi- 
 date for re-election at the earnest request of Senato* Hopkins 
 and the friends of Senator Hopkins. They have a rule in his 
 senatorial district that is lived up to religiously, and always has 
 been during the time that candidates were nominated by dele- 
 gate conventions. A senator's term is for four years, and every 
 time a senator's term expires it goes around to another county. 
 So it was due to go to McHenry county, in which Mr. Shurtleff 
 lived. A friend of Shurtleff was a candidate for senator. Mr. 
 Shurtleff had pledged him his support, and because Mr. Hop- 
 kins and his friends knew that there would be a contest over the 
 election of Senator and because they wanted well-informed and 
 influential men in the State legislature when the senatorial elec- 
 tion was to come up they pleaded with Mr. Shurtleff to become a 
 candidate. He told them in response that he had given his word 
 to support his friend for senator. They immediately went to 
 this friend and pleaded with him to go to Shurtleff and ask him 
 to become a candidate, which he did. It was on that request and 
 on that release that he became a candidate again for the house. 
 
 As the campaign went on much talk was heard everywhere as 
 to whether candidates would pay any attention to the advisory 
 vote. May I not say to the Senator from South Dakota that it 
 was generally the opinion of the people in our State that no 
 candidate would heed the advisory vote unless it happened that 
 he had the plurality or the majority. 
 
 Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. President 
 
 The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Illinois 
 yield to the Senator from South Dakota? 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. I do. 
 
 Mr. CRAWFORD. I want to understand the Senator. Does 
 the Senator mean to say that Mr. Shurtleff was a supporter of 
 Mr. Hopkins? 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. I will come to that in a moment, if the Sen- 
 ator will permit me to just go along a little further. 
 819799726
 
 8 
 
 Mr. CRAWFORD. Does the Senator mean to distinguish the 
 people of Illinois when he says that all the candidates there de- 
 cided among themselves that they would disregard the vote of 
 those people unless it happened to be in favor of the candidate ? 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. I mean to say that the candidates did not 
 intend to regard the primary vote. That is what I mean to 
 say, and I mean to prove that by showing that every candidate 
 before the primary, whether he got the majority or not, was 
 a candidate and was voted for during the session of the general 
 assembly on almost every ballot. 
 
 But that is not the point, Mr. President. I want to show 
 that Mr. Shurtleff was a friend of Senator Hopkins. He lived 
 in Senator Hopkins's congressional district. He had been for 
 him as the candidate for Congress for 16 or 18 years. When 
 Mr. Hopkins was elected to this body Mr. Shurtleff was in the 
 legislature and was one of his campaign managers and voted 
 for him and helped to elect him to this body. But after 
 Mr. Shurtleff had become a candidate, as I was about to say, 
 all candidates were looking out for themselves regardless of 
 the result of the primary election, and in .order to protect 
 themselves Mr. Hopkins's friends went to Mr. Shurtleff and 
 discussed with him the probability of some other person secur- 
 ing a majority or a plurality in the State, and they asked him 
 what he would do under those circumstances. He said that 
 he would abide by the result of the vote of the Republicans in 
 his own legislative district. They asked him if he would write a 
 letter to that effect. He said he would ; and he did write the let- 
 ter ; and that was satisfactory to Mr. Hopkins and to his friends, 
 because it was the identical thing that they wanted him to do. 
 
 Then the primary election came on. Mr. Hopkins and his 
 friends were sure that Hopkins would get the primary vote in 
 his congressional district, because he had represented the dis- 
 trict in Congress for many, many years. But when the vote was 
 cast it was learned that Mr. Hopkins was beaten in the dis- 
 trict by Congressman Foss. When Mr. Shurtleff was consulted 
 about what he would do, he stated that he had written a letter 
 declaring to his constituents what he would do; that he had 
 pledged himself to abide by the majority or the plurality of his 
 district, and that he intended to keep his word and vote for 
 Mr. Foss ; and he voted for Mr. Foss on every roll call except 
 three. On two roll calls he voted for Gov. Deneen, and on one 
 roll call, the last, he voted to elect me to this body. 
 
 That is the story, and it is the everlasting truth about Mr. 
 Shurtleff and as to his being a henchman of LORIMER. 
 
 Then, Mr. President, we go along just a little further in the 
 speech, and we find this statement in the remarks of the Sena- 
 tor from South Dakota [Mr. CRAWFORD] : 
 
 The next move was to Install Lee O'Neil Browne to the position of 
 minority leader of the Democratic minority in the house. 
 
 Let us see how near to the facts that statement runs. Lee 
 O'Neil Browne was elected minority leader, and he was elected 
 minority leader after a contest infinitely more bitter within the 
 lines of his own party than the .one in which Mr. Shurtleff was 
 concerned. Mr. Tippit, the other candidate of the Democratic 
 members of the general assembly, was as much opposed to Mr. 
 Browne's leadership as the Governor was to Mr. Shurtleff's 
 leadership. The fight had gone on for many months, but at 
 the end Mr.^ Browne was selected as the leader of the Demo- 
 cratic minority. 
 819799726
 
 But, Mr. President, not one man of that minority was ever 
 spoken to by me in behalf of Mr. Browne or anybody else, and 
 no man was ever spoken to in behalf of Mr. Browne through 
 anybody else for me. 
 
 The proof of it is apparent. If you read the journal of the 
 joint session when I was elected to this body you will find 
 there among the 53 Democrats that voted for me the name of 
 Thomas Tippit and 16 of his followers. Suppose for an instant 
 I had gone in with the power it would be made to appear, from 
 the statement of the Senator from South Dakota [Mr.' CRAW- 
 FORD], I wielded in the Democratic party, that I had gone into 
 their party affairs, and undertaken to foist Mr. Browne on the 
 shoulders of Mr. Tippit and his friends, would they have voted 
 to send me to this body after I had been responsible for their de- 
 feat, their humiliation, and their probable political destruction? 
 
 When one comes to know all the history of the organization 
 of the house of representatives, he finds that there was noth- 
 ing in it that would 'justify the statement made upon this floor 
 about my connection with Mr. Shurtleff's elevation to the 
 speakership and my connection with Mr. Browne's eleva- 
 tion to the leadership of the minority of the Democratic party 
 in my State. 
 
 Labored efforts have been made to show that I organized 
 the legislature to defeaj Gov. Deneen and Senator Hopkins in 
 their united effort to return the latter to the Senate. I desire 
 to call the attention of the Senate to the facts. The first ballot 
 for United States Senator was taken in the separate branches. 
 In the senate Mr. Hopkins received a majority, and in the 
 house he received 61 votes out of a total of 146. The following 
 members of the house belonging to and co-operating with the 
 Deneen faction cast their votes for candidates other than Sena- 
 tor Hopkins: 
 
 Abbey Church Hull Price 
 
 Ap Madoc Fulton Maclean Reynolds 
 
 Butts Hagan Pierson Sollltt 
 
 The following members of the house, also of the Deneen 
 faction, failed to respond to their names on the roll call : 
 Campbell Scanlan Ton 
 
 The presence, however, of these members on the following 
 day, as shown by the roll call, shows at least that they were 
 able to be there, had they been interested in securing the elec- 
 tion of Senator Hopkins. In proof of the statement that the 15 
 members named above belonged to Gov. Deneen's faction, I 
 invite an inspection of the journal of the Illinois House on the 
 vote for the election of speaker, where it win be seen that they 
 voted for Edward J. King, the governor's candidate. Had these 
 Deneen followers voted for Mr. Hopkins, he would have received 
 a majority of the votes of the house as well as of the senate, 
 and there could have been no deadlock. 
 
 Here is the story in figures : 
 
 Total vote cast in house 146 
 
 Necessary to a choice 74 
 
 Voting for Senator Hopkins 61 
 
 Add Deneen votes indicated above 15 
 
 Making a total for Hopkins of 76 
 
 or a majority of 2 
 
 Now, Mr. President we come to another very important branch 
 of this discussion. Take the journal of the house, and what 
 will you find there? Republican members of the lower house 
 8X9799726
 
 10 
 
 from the district I live in and with whom I am supposed to 
 have influence voted for Mr. Hopkins, including the senator from 
 the district. Every Republican member from the congressional 
 district I represented voted for Senator Hopkins. The record 
 will show that Schumacher and Kittleman and Cruikshank and 
 Ball and McNichols, all from my congressional district, voted 
 for Senator Hopkins. 
 
 Let me call your attention to the fact that Gov. Deneen 
 is and was the father of the direct primary, and he traveled 
 from one end of our State to the other urging upon the people 
 to send members to the general assembly to make a direct pri- 
 mary vote the law of our State, and but for him it would not 
 be on our statute books to-day. He used all the arguments 
 that are used by the direct-primary advocates in favor of such 
 a law. He was for it and he got it. 
 
 When the roll call was had in the separate branches of our 
 general assembly, the first roll call on senatorship, what do we 
 find by the journal? We find that every single member of that 
 general assembly from Gov. Deneen's own legislative district 
 voted for some person other than Senator Hopkins. 
 
 Senator Lundberg, Representative Church, and Representa- 
 tive Fulton, from Mr. Deneen's own district, two from his own 
 ward and his own neighborhood, nominated through his in- 
 fluence and through the power of his organization, voted against 
 Mr. Hopkins for United States Senator. Every member of his 
 congressional district but one, Mr. Kowalski, voted against 
 Hopkins, and Mr. Kowalski changed his vote the next day and 
 never voted for him again. That is the truth, and that is what 
 the house journal will demonstrate to any man who will take 
 the time to make an investigation. 
 
 So, Mr. President, the simple statement of the truth does 
 away with the house organization by and on the part of 
 LORIMER to elect himself Senator and to promote, as the Senator 
 from South Dakota [Mr. CRAWFORD] says, dark-lantern schemes; 
 and that is what becomes of the statement that it was done to 
 defeat Senator Hopkins. 
 
 But that is not all._ There were other days on which votes 
 were had for the election of United States Senator. 
 
 At the first meeting of the joint assembly: 
 
 Total number of votes cast was 199 
 
 Necessary to a choice 100 
 
 Hopkins received 80 
 
 Foss received 16 
 
 Mason received 6 
 
 Shurtleff received 12 
 
 Stringer received 76 
 
 There were present and voting on that day for candidates 
 other than Senator Hopkins, 13 members of the general as- 
 sembly, who were of the Deneen faction, viz: 
 Senators : 
 
 Hay Olsen Schmidt 
 
 Representatives : 
 
 Ap Madoc Hagan Price Sollitt 
 
 Butts Kowalski Reynolds Ton 
 
 Church Maclean 
 
 Number of votes cast for Hopkins 89 
 
 Add the above named 13 
 
 Necessary to a choice 100 
 
 Hopkins's majority 
 819799726
 
 11 
 
 If the 13 members named above with whom Gov. Deneen had 
 a controlling influence had voted that day for Senator Hopkins, 
 he would have been elected on the first kallot taken in the joint 
 assembly or on any succeeding ballot that day. 
 
 Mr. President, that is not only so of that roll call, but there 
 were five roll calls on that day, and if Gov. Deneen and his 
 friends and the men who were promoting or supposed to be 
 promoting the candidacy of Senator Hopkins had voted for 
 him he would have been elected on any ballot on that day. 
 
 As proof of this statement the record will show that the day 
 did come when the men to whom I have referred did vote ex- 
 actly as Gov. Deneen wanted them to vote. That was the day 
 of the last roll call when I was elected to this body. Weeks 
 before Gov. Deneen had told many of his friends to help elect 
 me. They told me so. I told them I would not accept their support 
 unless they told the governor that if they once pledged their sup- 
 port to me under no conditions would they ever break their word. 
 
 The day before the roll call on which I was elected the gov- 
 ernor called these men into the mansion and into his office and 
 told them that LORIMER must not be elected ; that it would be 
 better to have no election, to allow nobody to be elected, and to 
 let the legislature adjourn without the selection of a United 
 States Senator ; and these men one after another stated to him : 
 I have given my word to LORIMER ; I will not break It. If you thought 
 it wrong to elect him you should not have permitted me to become 
 pledged to him with your consent. 
 
 These men gave me their support to the end. 
 
 Those of the Deneen faction who had promised me their sup- 
 port and who broke their word when the roll was called, and 
 those the governor controlled who had not promised to support 
 me, on the final roll call at the governor's suggestion, supported 
 Hopkins. When the time arrived that he wanted to place them 
 either in one column or the other, they went where the gov- 
 ernor suggested they shouid go. So, Mr. President, it was not a 
 prolonged fight to defeat Hopkins. Hopkins was beaten on the 
 first day. Hopkins was beaten on the second day. After the 
 first session of the joint assembly the question was no more 
 about Hopkins, but it was who can, under these conditions, be 
 elected to the United States Senate? That was the question 
 from the first day and from the second day, and then began the 
 effort to lect a United States Senator upon whom the Repub- 
 licans could agree. 
 
 I talked with the governor every week I was in that city, and 
 I urged for weeks and weeks that he himself become the can- 
 didate of the party. I told him I believed if he would take 
 the place our party, rent asunder with factional strife, would 
 be united. The lieutenant governor of our State is the son 
 of Gov. Oglesby, who had been governor of our State two 
 terms and served one term in this body. The name of Oglesby 
 is cherished by every citizen of Illinois, I care not the party to 
 which he belongs. Oglesby was nominated under a direct pri- 
 mary wifhout any organization. The governor was against him 
 and all the governor's organization was opposed to him. Ex- 
 Gov. Yates was a candidate for governor and his friends opposed 
 Oglesby. The result of it reminds me of a statement that I 
 heard former Senator Mason make to a large mass meetmg in 
 Springfield immediately after McKinley was nominated for 
 President. He said: 
 81079 9726
 
 12 
 
 All the politicians were against McKinley ; all the men who have 
 influence were against him ; theje was nobody for him but the people. 
 
 Oglesby was nominated by the people of the State without 
 the support of any faction, and I believed, and Other Republicans 
 believed, that if Deneen was elected to this body and Oglesby 
 became the governor, that he would unite the party and harmon- 
 ize the differences of the factions, and we would be able to go 
 to the polls with a solid front in the future as we had done in 
 the past in our State. 
 
 I talked with the governor and labored with him until long 
 about the 15th of March. About that time he said he felt that 
 he could not take the place, but he led me to believe that, if the 
 party could be united upon him, he would take the place. I 
 asked him to send for the chairman or the State central com- 
 mittee, Mr. West, his close friend, so that we might discuss the 
 matter. Mr. West came to Springfield and the Republicans 
 consulted about the advisability of electing the governor. 
 Enough of them pledged themselves to support him to make his 
 election assured. On that night at about 11 o'clock, after I had 
 understood from Mr. West that the governor would be a candi- 
 date, Mr. West came to the hotel at which I was stopping and 
 said that the governor would not be a candidate. 
 
 From the day that Senator Hopkins was defeated until the 
 23d clay of March, when Mr. Deneen refused positively to be a 
 candidate, we were endeavoring to secure the election of Deneen, 
 and not LORIMER, as United States Senator. 
 
 When the governor refused to be a candidate, I consulted him 
 about many other men, and among them Mr. Foss, who was 
 voted for every day. Then I talked with him about Col. 
 LOWDEN, a Member of the House of Representatives, Repre- 
 sentative McKiNLEY, and Representative RODENBERG, but before 
 I came to discuss any of these names I urged upon him the 
 name of Edward Shurtleff, the speaker of the Illinois House of 
 Representatives. His name was discussed not by the governor 
 and myself alone, but by the governor and his friends his 
 newspaper friends, and they are all-powerful and absolutely 
 controlling with him. Mr. Noyes, who was then the editor of 
 the Record-Herald, said that he would not agree to Mr. Shurt- 
 leff's election. Mr. Noyes is now president of the Star Com- 
 pany in the city of Washington, where Senators can easily reach 
 him and verify this statement. For about three weeks we were 
 trying to elect Shurtleff. 
 
 Then came the discussion on this other set of men, and it 
 was not until it had become apparent that the governor would 
 not support any of those men that at his urgent suggestion I con- 
 sidered the advisability of becoming a candidate. This same 
 Mr. Noyes was interviewed by my friend Mr. Shanahan, who 
 was a member of the legislature. Mr. Noyes said he had no 
 objection to Mr. Deneen joining to elect LORIMER to the Senate, 
 but that he personally could not declare in his favor; that he 
 had fought him for so many years that he could not turn in 
 one night and support him, but that he did believe and he did 
 tell this to Mr. Shanahan that Mr. LORIMER was the only Re- 
 publican in Illinois who could afford to be elected by the aid of 
 Democratic votes; that it would not injure him politically to 
 receive the support of Democrats, because he had been elected 
 to the House time after time from a Democratic district by the 
 aid of Democratic votes ; that everybody would concede that 
 819799726
 
 LORIMER could be elected v : :iiout injury to himself or to the 
 party politically; and if Mr. Deneen wanted to join with him 
 he had no objection. 
 
 Mr. President, that is the statement of fact ; that is the 
 true history of the senatorial election in the State of Illinois 
 up to this point. Does that show that months before the legis- 
 lature convened I was conjuring up in my mind a plot by 
 which I could elect my "henchman" as speaker of the general 
 assembly, and, through the power of that office, foist myself 
 onto that general assembly and place myself in this body? If 
 that truth demonstrates that theory, then I have nothing more 
 to say. 
 
 Then we come to another important question in this dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 The investigation 
 
 Said the Senator from Hew York [Mr. ROOT] 
 
 The investigation concerns itself with the way in which those 108 
 votes were procured. It is practically concentrated upon the way in 
 which the 53 Democratic votes were secured, because it was 'a matter 
 for special inquiry that 53 Democrats should leave the candidate of 
 their own primary and unite upon a candidate of the opposite party. 
 
 If this were the only case of the kind in history, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, Senators might inquire why Democrats voted for LORIMER, 
 but history is teeming with testimony to the effect that men 
 have been elected to this body by votes of the opposite party. 
 
 But here we come, it strikes me, to a point where the question 
 arises how it was that 53 Democrats voted for LORIMER. It is 
 not a very long story, or it is a long story, according to the 
 way it is told, but I shall not test the patience of the Senate 
 by going into a detailed history of the things that brought 
 about this condition. I shall, however, ask a little time of 
 the Senate to answer the question of the Senator from New 
 York. 
 
 When I first became a Member of Congress in 1895 I made 
 up my mind that I should try to do something more than vote 
 for appropriation bills in return for what the people had done 
 for me. I lived in and represented the district in which is 
 located the great Chicago Drainage Canal, which is intended 
 ultimately to be a portion of a great waterway to be estab- 
 lished between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. I 
 have been urging upon Congress during my service the im- 
 portance of such an improvement, and I think the Senator from 
 Ohio [Mr. BURTON], who was chairman of the Committee on 
 Rivers and Harbors in the House, will bear me out in the 
 statement that I was constantly at work trying to secure the 
 attention and the aid of Congress for that development, and 
 that I was largely responsible for all the appropriations that 
 were made for the surveys of that project. I found that it was 
 going to cost a great deal of money, the expenditure of vast 
 millions of dollars, and that more than the effort and more than 
 the voice of one man would be required to secure the money 
 requisite to make the improvement. After many years ef per- 
 sonal effort I decided that if the improvement was worth while, 
 and the people of the valley came to know that it could be 
 made, and if it were worth enough to them to have it made, if 
 they were informed on the subject, they would support a move- 
 ment to make the improvement. So I built a little boat I 
 think it was in 1904 only about 26 feet long, for the express 
 819799726
 
 1' 
 
 purpose of organizing the Mississippi Valley for that project 
 One day, with four of my colleagues from Illinois, and my two 
 sons to operate the boat I will pause just a moment to say that 
 of these four Members of the House, the only Democrat in that 
 body from that State, HENRY RAINEY, was one of that number 
 we began our trip from Lake Michigan to the Gulf. We stopped 
 at almost every town along the Illinois and the Mississippi 
 Rivers, discussing the matter with the people, organizing in 
 every one of the places where we stopped a Lakes-to-the-Gulf 
 deep waterway association. As we passed down through the 
 valley one Member for one reason and another Member for 
 another went back home, and we filled his place with a 'Mem- 
 ber that we picked up along the route. When we left Chicago 
 we had on board of Members of the other House, four Republic- 
 ans and one Democrat, Mr. RAINEY, and when we landed in 
 New Orleans we had on board four Democrats and one Re- 
 publican. 
 
 So the work of organizing this association was divided equally 
 from the beginning to the end among Democrats and Republi- 
 cans, no man and no party seeking to take advantage over the 
 other. Out of these organizations we formed a central organ- 
 ization, held our first convention in St. Louis, and there per- 
 fected a permanent Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Waterway Associa- 
 tion. The following year we accompanied President Roosevelt 
 down the Mississippi Riverain the interest of this project to the 
 great city of Memphis, all the people turning out to make a 
 holiday. 
 
 In the next convention, at Chicago, attended by over 4,000 
 delegates from the valley, we had upon the platform in the 
 Auditorium, speaking in favor of this project, the Democratic 
 and the Republican candidates for the Presidency Mr. Bryan 
 and Mt. Taft, our President to-day. 
 
 After the convention at Memphis I went back home to my 
 State. Some question had been raided in the House as to 
 whether the Federal Government should make the improvement 
 between Lockport and Utica, in the Illinois valley, a distance 
 of about 60 miles. The chairman of the Committee on Rivers 
 and Harbors raised 'that question, and it seemed apparent that 
 unless that portion, of the work was done by the people of 
 Illinois, in addition to the other 40 miles which they had built 
 at a cost of over $60,000,000, it would be impossible to get this 
 work under way. So I went back home to my own State 
 where our legislature was in session. I proposed to them that 
 they submit a constitutional amendment to the people authoriz- 
 ing an expenditure of $20,000,000 to do that work. Here [exhibit- 
 ing] is a copy of the document containing the arguments that 
 were made, running over a period of several weeks. 
 
 After the discussion was completed, the general assembly 
 unanimously, every Democrat and every Republican favoring it, 
 voted to submit a constitutional amendment to the people of 
 our State to decide whether or not $20,000,000 should be ex- 
 pended for the purpose I have indicated. I remember that, 
 when I was discussing" the subject before the general assembly, 
 one gentleman asked me what I thought the people would do 
 about the question? I told him if they passed the resolution 
 and submitted it to the people, and nothing more was' done, the 
 people would not adopt the constitutional amendment, for few 
 of them knew anything about it and a lesser number knew ahy- 
 819790726
 
 15 
 
 thing of the benefits that would come to the State by the devel- 
 opment of this great waterway. I pledged them there that if 
 they would submit the amendment to the people I would go 
 myself in(to every part of our state, explain the benefits to come 
 to the people, and trust to them to vote an approval. 
 
 The legislature submitted the constitutional amendment, and 
 I immediately began the work of organizing the citizens of our 
 State in favor of the project. This work was not confined to 
 Republicans ; it was not confined to Democrats ; it was not con- 
 fined to Socialists ; it was not confined to Prohibitionists ; it 
 was taken even to the homes of men who believed in no party. 
 We organized every precinct in Illinois outside of the city of 
 Chicago by getting people who were interested in the .progress 
 of our State Democrats and, Republicans and members of other 
 parties alike. Whepever a county or a town was made up over- 
 whelmingly of Republicans we installed a Democrat for presi- 
 dent of the association, and where it was overwhelmingly Demo- 
 cratic we installed a Republican for president of the associa- 
 tion ; so that every man with whom we talked and worlced was 
 impressed with the non-partisan character of this movement in 
 our State. 
 
 I traveled from one end of Illinois to the other, speaking 
 once, twice, three times a day, all the way from two hours a 
 day to five hours a day, interesting the people in this project. 
 At the end of the campaign in September, 1908, the work had 
 been so exhausting that I was not able to say even one word 
 in my Congressional district during that campaign, and I had 
 naught to do with rny election to Congress the last time. 
 
 Would you know the character of people who were inter- 
 ested in the movement? We interested the best men of the 
 State. Whe'n we went to Bloofningten, a town in a county that 
 is overwhelmingly Republican, we had as our presiding officer 
 and the head of our organization there a geatleman who once 
 graced the chair as president of this body Atilai E. Stevenson, 
 a Democrat. It was that olass of men that were interested in 
 this work. I traveled from county to county with Hon. HENRY 
 RAINEY, spoke from the same platform with him day after 
 day, and in every place a Republican speaker 'was supplemented 
 by some leading Democrat, either s from that community or from 
 some other community in the State. 
 
 Mr. President, I want to call attention to the roster of that 
 organization. There it ?s (-exhibiting), 50,000 Democrats and 
 Republicans, about evenly divided, in the precincts outside of 
 the city of Chicago. 
 
 When the campaign for the waterway amendment was over 
 and the vote was had, the people announced what they thought 
 of it. That vote was cast on the same day that the President 
 was elected and on the same day that the governor was elected. 
 The vote cast for governor was approximately 1,079,000; the 
 vote cast for President was approximately 1^080,000; the 
 vote cast for the constitutional amendment for trie deep water- 
 way was approximately 887,000. The plurality that Governor 
 Deneen received was approximately 23,000; the plurality .that 
 President Tft received was approximately 179,000; but the 
 majority for the constittitional amendment was approximately 
 497,000, almost a half million rhajority, showing fiOw the people 
 of Illinois, men of all parties, took upon this question. 
 819799726
 
 16 
 Result of election. 
 
 
 Vote. 
 
 Plurality. 
 
 For governor : 
 Deneen 
 
 550,076 
 
 
 Stevenson 
 
 526,912 
 
 
 
 
 
 For Presiden t : 
 Taft 
 
 1,079,988 
 69 932 
 
 23,164 
 
 Bryan 
 
 450*810 
 
 
 
 
 
 Amendment to constitution : 
 For 
 
 1,080,742 
 629 522 
 
 179,122 
 
 Against 
 
 195 177 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 887,699 
 
 497,345 
 
 Mr. President, that was the result of the work of over 
 years for this improvement. It was accomplished just exactly 
 as I have stated to you, by the aid of all of the people of the 
 State, regardless of party and regardless of any partisanship. 
 That is one of the reasons why I was able to secure Democratic 
 votes, as I shall show to you later. 
 The Senator from New York [Mr. ROOT] further said': 
 Now, there are certain undisputed facts which bear upon this inquiry 
 as to these 53 Democratic votes. The first which I ask you to con- 
 sider is that Mr. LOKIMBB was present at Springfield and in attendance 
 at the State capital at the time of this election, and he had been there 
 for several weeks. 
 
 The Senator wants you to know that when I was elected to 
 this body I was present at the capital of Illinois and had been 
 there for several weeks. Yes, Mr. President, I had been there 
 for several weeks, and all the time that I could spare from my 
 duties in the other branch of Congress during the session of 
 the legislature, after its organization was perfected, I put in 
 at Springfield, and I was there when I was elected, and I was 
 there to render effective the work done when the constitutional 
 amendment was submitted to the people to urge the general 
 assembly to pass a bill to carry out the purposes of that amend- 
 ment, to provide for an organization through which this 
 work could be done and this $20,000,000 expended. There 
 was a difference between the governor and myself on that ques- 
 tion. 
 
 I had pledged the people that in so far as I had influence 
 not one dollar of the twenty million should be spent until Con- 
 gress agreed to co-operate with our State and appropriated the 
 money requisite to finish the project from the Lakes to the Gulf. 
 We had much discussion on that question. I told the governor 
 that I would support, with all the influence I had, a bill to give 
 him absolute control of the work; to place the appointment 
 of all the officials in his hands for the expenditure of the 
 $20,000,000; and that the only thing I exacted, in so far as I 
 was concerned, was that the money should not be spent until 
 Congress authorized the Federal Government to co-operate with 
 our State. 
 
 He wanted tV>e money to be spent for the development of 
 
 water power. We disagreed, and the contest went on until the 
 
 last day of the session, when it became known that no bill could 
 
 be passed because the adherents of one policy were not strong 
 
 81979 9726
 
 17 
 
 enough to pass it and those of the other policy would not yield 
 a peg. So. Mr. President, I was in Springfield as I have been 
 many, many times before. 
 
 I should like to know from the Senator from New York if he 
 has ever been identified with a work of this kind, if he has 
 ever come in contact with his Democratic brethren and worked 
 with them in season and out of season for a project that would 
 r.ot benefit them alone, but would benefit the whole people of 
 his State? If he has been connected with such a work, will he 
 tell me, or will he tell anybody, that when he was doing that 
 work he was not making friends among the people of his State 
 regardless of their party affiliations? 
 
 But there is, Mr. President, an abundance of evidence here 
 to show that work in favor of things that help a great State is 
 appreciated by the people who receive the benefit of the effort, 
 and I have here a list of Democrats who voted for me on ac- 
 count of the fact that they felt I had been doing something, 
 that I had been helping in a work that meant much to Illinois, 
 and that if they promoted me to a seat where I would be secure 
 for four or six years this improvement would ultimately be 
 made. 
 
 I mention as the first Democrat Senator Hearn. Oh, if there 
 be a Democrat in Illinois, surely Senator Hearn is that man. 
 He had service as captain of Company G of the Fifth Missouri 
 Infantry, in Cockrell's brigade, a Confederate general, and he 
 served through the war as a Confederate soldier. If you 
 think he is not a Democrat go and talk with him. He was one 
 of the men who was in the forefront of this work. He aided 
 in every way that he could to pass the proposed amendment 
 in the house. At that time he was in service in that body. He 
 worked throughout his district with me and with others. But 
 the thing above all things that I am confident caused Senator 
 Hearn to vote for me was not alone that I was for this project, 
 hut because he became convinced that I was not trying to get 
 advantage over any Democrat. 
 
 He was fond of Congressman RAINEY, and he knew that I had 
 never taken a step in this work from the time we began the 
 organization until he voted for me, until I had consulted with 
 Congressman RAINEY. He was really the leading Democrat 
 in my State in this work, and it was because of the work and 
 because of the fact that I was not trying to get advantage and 
 because I did what was in my power to put a Democrat in the 
 forefront of the work, that he voted for me. 
 
 A few days before the vote was taken he came to me and 
 told me all these things and he said: "LORIMER, I would like to 
 vote for you. but I wish you would give me an additional reason 
 for doing it." I asked him what request he had to make. He 
 said, "If you could only go back to Washington as a Senator, 
 and join with the Democrats and just cast one vote with .them 
 on the tariff bill, my conscience would feel easier, if I had 
 voted for you." [Laughter.] 
 
 I said to him : "Senator, much as I appreciate the dignity of 
 that office, if I can not go there and vote with the Republicans, 
 the stalwart Republicans. I do not want a seat in the United 
 States Senate." [Applause in the galleries.] 
 
 The VICE PRESIDENT. No applause is permissible by oc- 
 cupants in the gallery. 
 81979 9726 2
 
 18 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. Senator Hearn said, "Well, I guess I will 
 have to vote for you anyhow." Then he went* away, and when 
 the roll was called he responded, and I received his vote. 
 
 In the campaign it happened that I talked at the home of 
 Representative Blair, who voted for the constitutional amend- 
 ment, and he had heard me talk about it before the general as- 
 sembly. To make this campaign I had large maps made to 
 illustrate the work, and after I had finished my talk before the 
 people in his town, and the meeting had adjourned he came to 
 me and said, "LORIMER, if you keep up that work you will be 
 governor of Illinois, and when that day comes I will vote for 
 you. That was the way that Democrat felt about the work 
 for the waterway. 
 
 Then I went from there over to Franklin county, and I talked 
 in the courthouse on this subject there, and when the meeting 
 adjourned a great tall, fine looking gentleman came up to me, 
 took me by the hand, and laying one hand on my shoulder 
 said : "Mr. LORIMER, keep up that work. It has merit ; the 
 people will come to understand it after awhile, and this im- 
 provement will be made, and it will make you" he was 
 very enthusiastic "governor, or it will make you Senator, or 
 it will make you President of the United States; and when the 
 time comes, and I am alive and I have the opportunity, you 
 will get my vote." 
 
 At that time he had no idea of going to the legislature. But 
 he was nominated by his party, and he was elected by his 
 party, and when on the roll call the name of Sidney Espy was 
 called Sidney Espy cast his vote for me; and there was no man 
 in Springfield, and there is no man in -Illinois, whether he be 
 Democrat or Republican, who is a warmer and closer and more 
 enthusiastic friend of mine than Sidney Espy, and for no other 
 reason except the one I have explained. 
 
 Now we come to another name Mr. Gorman, who lives in 
 Peoria, another Democrat. When they began discussing the 
 election of LORIMER, many of the influential people of his town 
 came to Springfield Democrats and Republicans alike. Peoria 
 is on the Illinois river, and its people believe that the improved 
 waterway will redound greatly to the benefit of their great city. 
 The Democratic ex-mayor, the leader of the Democratic organ- 
 ization, was among the men. I had never seen Mayor O'Connor 
 in my life until he came to Springfield. Those men urged their 
 members of the legislature Democrats and Republicans to 
 vote and work for LORIMER, with the result that I secured Gor- 
 man's vote, the Democrat, the vote of Black, Republican, and 
 the vote of Butts, Republican, who had also been urged by Mr. 
 Kenney, at the suggestion of Gov. Deneen. The Republican sen- 
 ator came to me before the roll was called and he said : "LORI- 
 MER, I wish I were free to vote for you." Senator Dailey 
 further said: "The people of my city want me to vote for you, 
 but -I can not do it because I am chairman of Senator Hop- 
 kins's" either his executive committee or his staering commit- 
 tee "and I can not on that account vote for you. But T wish 
 you godspeed." There is where the vote of Gorman came from. 
 
 Michael Link you have heard much talk about Michael Link 
 here, one of the men who it has been said was bribed to vote for 
 me. When I made the campaign in his senatorial district in 
 Madison county, where I talked every night to large crowds of 
 people, Michael Link was on the platiorm with me, and I had 
 819799726
 
 19 
 
 there with me also the Republican members of the legislature, 
 and I told the people of their district that if this improvement 
 should be made they would owe as much to these men, including 
 Link, as to anybody else in the country. Madison county fronts 
 on the river, and every man, woman and child in the district is 
 for the improvement and anxious that this work shall be done. 
 
 Then the next one I come to in the waterway group is Repre- 
 sentative Riley, a stanch old Democrat. I doubt if he ever voted 
 for a Republican in his life, even for 'supervisor of his township. 
 But if there be a father of the waterway from the Lakes to the 
 Gulf it is Representative Riley. Years ago the people from our 
 city went to the legislature to have the bill authorizing the con- 
 struction of the canal passed. The mayor and many of our 
 leading citizens spent several weeks there discussing the project. 
 The legislature defeated their bill, and when they were gone Mr. 
 Lyman E. Cooley, the engineer, and Mr. Riley took up the bill 
 together, and at the end of several months Mr. Riley's bill be- 
 came a law. The channel 160 feet wide in the rock and 24 feet 
 deep built from Chicago to Joliet, is the result of the work of 
 Representative Riley. 
 
 He was in the last legislature; I had worked with him in 
 season and out of season ; and if there be anything on earth that 
 would make Riley leave his party (and I am sure it is the only 
 thing in the world he would leave it for) would be for the con- 
 struction of a waterway from the Great Lakes' to the Gulf of 
 Mexico. He was not only in this work, but more than 20 years 
 ago he was the leader and the father of it all, and championed it 
 and made it what it is. 
 
 Mr. Staymates is another Democrat; a man whose honesty 
 no man on earth, who ever knew him, would impugn ; a man 
 who has devoted his time from the day we adopted the con- 
 stitutional amendment up to this time in writing for all the 
 papers that would take his copy on this subject; and he voted 
 for me on that account. 
 
 We come to Henry Shephard. What about Henry Shephard? 
 When the congressional party came back to Washington from 
 New Orleans at the opening of Congress, I called a meeting of 
 the men who had made the trips and we organized among the 
 Members of Congress an association. When I notified Mr. 
 RAINEY, he told me that he could not attend that night because 
 his friend, Henry Shephard, was in town. I invited Henry 
 Shephard to come to that little dinner where we organized, and 
 it was there that I first met Henry Shephard. It was there 
 that he first became interested in this work. It was at that 
 time that a friendhip grew uo between him and me that has 
 lasted until to-day. Henry Shephard was a member of the 
 legislature, and he was for this proposition all the way through. 
 
 The Senator asks why I was at Springfield when I was 
 elected to the Senate. The Senator says that I was there for 
 several weeks before I was elected to the Senate. Suppose I 
 had no business there in favor of this waterway; suppose I 
 had never had any interest in the development of my State and 
 that the only thing I cared about was to get office for myself ; 
 suppose I had organized the legislature to elect myself to the 
 Senate; and then suppose that for no other purpose, except to 
 promote my election, I was in Spririgfield for sev.eral weeks be- 
 fore I was elected; then, what of that? Is that proof of 
 bribery? Is that evidence of corrupt practices, that a man who 
 819799726
 
 20 
 
 is a candidate for office should go to those who have the votes 
 with which he can secure office and tell them he wants their 
 votes and ask them to be for him? Is that an evidence of 
 corruption and bribery? 
 
 Great stress is laid on the fact that I was in Springfield. Has 
 any Senator here ever been in Springfield or has any Senator 
 here ever been at the capital of his State when they were dis- 
 cussing his election to this body? Is it a crime to be there? 
 If it is, Mr. President, then I am guilty of that crime; I am 
 guilty of being in Springfield ; but it has always struck me that 
 if a man wanted votes for United States Senator, wanted the 
 support of his own legislature, and wanted a seat in this body, 
 he had a right to go where the votes are; that he had a right 
 to talk to the members of the legislature; and that if he did go 
 there and if he did talk to the members of the legislature it was 
 not evidence of bribery or corruption. 
 
 Mr. President, it is the talk of a child. No man who has ever 
 had any experience in politics will pay any attention to a state- 
 ment of that sort. 
 
 During the time that I have been actively identified with poli- 
 tics in my State, every time a Senator was elected, sometimes 
 during the campaign for his election and frequently on the day 
 he was elected, he was present in the capitol at Springfield. I 
 have only to recall the memorable fight in 1885, when the legis- 
 lature was in a deadlock. The Democrats had one-half of the 
 strength of the body and the Republicans had the other. Gen. 
 Logan had a seat in this body at that time, and he was a 
 candidate for re-election. From the day the members of the 
 general assembly began TO assemble in Springfield, before the 
 house or the senate was organized, Gen. Logan was on the 
 ground. He was there talking to the members of the general 
 assembly, and he was there during the whole winter, until the 
 springtime, when he was finally returned to this body. 
 
 Did anybody cast suspicion upon Gen. Logan because he was 
 present at the capital weeks before he was returned to this 
 body? Not at all; and nobody ever thought of such a thing. 
 
 The only purpose, Mr. President, that there can be in throw- 
 ing this seeming cloud of suspicion over this election is in 
 order that Senators may believe I was not only elected to this 
 body by bribery and corruption, but that I was present there 
 and knew it was going on and was sanctioning that sort of 
 thing. Any man who knows anything about that contest knows 
 that the contrary is the fact in the case. 
 
 Now, we come to another set of Democrats who voted for 
 LORIMEK, the anti-Hopkins Democrats. There was present in 
 that general assembly Representative George Alschuler, and 
 he voted for LORIMER. George Alschuler lives in Hopkins's 
 home town; he is his neighbor. May I say, in passing, that 
 while he voted for LORIMER and the brand of condemnation 
 is asked for those who did vote for LORIMER he was re-elected 
 to the general assembly by an overwhelming majority, and he 
 was elected leader of the minority, and he is now the minority 
 leader of that body. He voted for me, I may say, because 
 he was friendly; but that would not be sufficient reason. He 
 voted for me because he was opposed to the election of Hopkins, 
 and he announced it to everybody. There was not one man 
 in Springfield who knew anything about the election but knew 
 that George Alschuler would vote for any Republican or any 
 819799726
 
 21 
 
 man of any other party in order to defeat Senator Hopkins. It 
 was not -a LORIMER vote; he belongs to nobody; but he was 
 against Hopkins, and he announced in the beginning that if 
 the time ever came when his vote could defeat Hopkins it would 
 be cast for the man who would defeat him. 
 
 Then we come to another the departed Charles Luke. Not 
 one single man who had aught to do with the election of Sen- 
 ator, not one single man who was paying attention to the 
 election of Senator but knew that Luke would vote for anybody 
 in order to defeat Senator Hopkins. All who served with the 
 Senator, either in the House or in this body, remember him 
 very well. You knew him a lot better than I did, and I helped 
 to send him here. It will be remembered that Senator Hop- 
 kins had one of the most bitter and most partisan tongues of 
 any man who ever sat in this body. If he had a weakness at 
 all, it was that. When he went through Luke's district he used 
 that tongue for all it was worth denouncing Luke. He seldom 
 made a campaign that he did not denounce Democrats every- 
 where he went. 
 
 It may be the right policy in a campaign ; it may be the 
 proper thing to do if you want to get office; but it is not 
 the policy I have ever adopted. I have laid the principles of 
 my party before my constituents and left it to them to decide, 
 and I have denounced nobody. Renunciation gets nowhere. 
 It never placed a law on the statute book. No man who has 
 any sense would make a .campaign along those lines. Senator 
 Hopkins ,made these bitter enemies among the Democrats, and 
 they were willing to vote for anybody to defeat him in his de- 
 sire to be returned to this body. 
 
 We come now to DeWolf. You have heard his name men- 
 tioned on this floor. What about DeWolf? DeWolf stated upon 
 the stand that he was ready to vote for Hopkins, and that he 
 was going to try to get other Democrats to vote for Hopkins, 
 to break the deadlock; that he was tired of his service in 
 Springfield and wanted, to get back home to his farm and attend 
 to his own business, and that not only would he vote for Hop- 
 kins, but everybody in Springfield at that time knew he would 
 vote for any Republican or any Democrat who could be electe3 
 to break the deadlock. When the roll was called he voted for me 
 for the same reason that he was willing to vote for anybody else. 
 
 Then we come to Senator Broderick, who voted for me. You 
 have all heard his name. Senator Broderick I have known (I 
 can not measure the time) for probably more than 15 years. 
 My old district is filled with Senator Broderick's friends and 
 relatives. There never was a time when I had a contest in the 
 district, and these same newspapers that are hounding me now 
 and always have hounded me undertook to drive me out of 
 Congress, when, without any solicitation on my part, Senator 
 Broderick sent word to his Democratic friends in the district 
 and went there himself and pleaded with them, and asked them 
 to vote for LORIMER and they did vote for LORIMER. 
 
 Let me say now, if it had not been for the support I received 
 from Democrats in that congressional district when these 
 assassins of character were trying to destroy me, I would not 
 have been in the Lower House of Congress, much less occupying 
 a seat in this body to-day. 
 
 I never solicited a vote from a Democrat under false pre- 
 tenses. No Democrat who ever voted for me ever thought that 
 819799726
 
 22 
 
 when I was sent to Congress I would support the principles of 
 the great party to which he belonged. No Democrat was ever 
 deceived into voting for me for a seat in Congress. Everybody 
 knows, and with God's help everybody will know, where I 
 stand on every question until my time shall come to leave this 
 earth. 
 
 So it was not from deception that I received that support, nor 
 was it from deception or by deception that I received the sup- 
 port of Broderiek when he voted for me for United States 
 Senator. 
 
 Senator Gorman, another Democrat, lives in the old district 
 I represented that gave a Democratic majority of all the wav 
 from 5,000 to 17,000 every election we had except the elections 
 when I was a candidate 'for a seat in the house of representa- 
 tives. In every election except one Senator Gorman, as a Demo- 
 crat, voted for me. He was one of the best friends I had in 
 that congressional district. The only time he ever voted against 
 me was when his chum ran in opposition to me. When he was 
 elected to the senate the first time I went to Springfield I met 
 hin$in the St. Nicholas Hotel and he began the discussion of 
 this\J5enatorship. He said, "If the time ever comes, LORIMER, 
 that ^the Democrats and the Republicans can elect you, depend 
 upon me to do what I have always done, to vote for you when 
 the roll is called." 
 
 Senators Rainey and Jandus and I were raised in the same 
 neighborhood. The same is true of Representatives Cermak 
 and Forst. I was associated with them and with their friends 
 for many years. 
 
 Representative Geshkewich I have known for more than 15 
 years. I have known him at home ; I have known him in the 
 legislature; I have known him in political contests in my city 
 and my county, and he would have gone further to serve me 
 than he would have gone to have served any Democrat in our 
 State. That is why I got Geshkewich's vote. 
 
 I am not going to give all the history and all the reasons that 
 led up to the friendships which grew up between these Demo- 
 crats and myself over a period of 40 years, but I think it is 
 due to the Senate- that I should relate one or two of the cir- 
 cumstances that finally led up to the voting of Democrats for a 
 Republican. 
 
 John Griffin voted for me. John Griffin lives in the neigh- 
 borhood I lived in 40 years ago. I can not remember just 
 when it was that I made his acquaintance; it is so far back. 
 We have been friends all that time. But that was not the single 
 reason why Griffin voted for me. 
 
 When I was a boy and started out in the world the first 
 dollar I made was by selling newspapers. I had been well 
 taken care of at Rome, with no responsibility, with nothing to 
 look after. I had been brought up as mothers would bring up 
 their boys if they had all to do with it; almost at mother's 
 apron strings all the time. At the time it became necessary 
 for me to go out and earn a living I was 10 years old. I had 
 had no experience. I knew nothing about where to turn. 
 Friends in the neighborhood suggested that I might make a 
 dollar by selling papers in the morning, and I began peddling 
 papers and blacking boots. 
 
 After I had been at work for a time (I remember it as well 
 as if it were yesterday) I went over to the Tribune building 
 819799726
 
 23 
 
 and down into the basement and bought 50 Tribunes, la 
 those days the papers were not folded as they are now. They 
 were counted out, first the heading and then the supplement, 
 and shoved out of the window to the boy purchasing them; and 
 then he went away into a doorway or hallway and folded them 
 and put them together. 
 
 One Sunday morning as I came up out of the basement a 
 crowd of boys surrounded me. Some held me by the hands and 
 others by the throat, and they pulled my headings out from 
 under my arm and then let me go. They disappeared. I was 
 standing there brooding not only over the dollar that I might 
 have made out of the sale of those papers, but the dollar and a 
 half that I had paid for them, because the supplement was of 
 no value without the heading, when another boy came along 
 with an armful of papers and asked me what was the matter, 
 why I was so downcast. I told him the story. He looked at 
 me for a moment and handed his papers over to me and said, 
 "Stand back there in the doorway. Stay there until I come 
 back." He went away, and in about five minutes he returned 
 and he had my headings in his hand. He said, "Here are your 
 papers. Now see to it that they don't take them away from 
 you again." Out of that little incident grew a friendship to 
 the extent that almost every week I helped him. We had in 
 our town at that time a Saturday afternoon paper called the 
 Gazette. In the territory that I worked I sold all of mine, and 
 this boy usually had some left over. We used to call it in 
 those days getting "stuck." He would give them to me and I 
 would take them up into my territory and sell them for him. 
 Sometimes there was only one paper, but it saved him 5 cents 
 and he made the profit on it of another 5 cents. Sometimes 
 there were half a dozen, and he saved his 30 cents and made a 
 profit of 30 cents. 
 
 That friendship grew up on that basis. A dollar and a half 
 he had saved for me, and one dollar was more to me, Senator 
 ROOT, in those days than $1,000,000 would be to many of the 
 people of this country to-day. What grew up out of that little 
 incident was a friendship and a gratitude that has lasted for 
 over 40 years. This man that I speak of as a man now was a 
 boy then. He was a sort of a hero with the newsboys a sort 
 of a king of the crowd and what he said they should do they 
 did. 
 
 I have no doubt that Senators in this chamber have heard 
 his name because the newspapers of my town are ringing with 
 it every day. In those days we called him Hiaky Dink. His 
 name is Michael Kenna. The nickname has followed him to 
 this day. He is the leading Democrat in the neighborhood in 
 which he lives. John Griffin represents that district. When the 
 papers published the story that LORIMER would probably be a 
 candidate for Senator he came to my office and said to me sub- 
 stantially this: 
 
 Bill, I 'understand you are going to be a candidate for United States 
 Senator, and that you can not be elected unless you get Democratic 
 votes. You can depend upon it that if your name is presented John 
 Griffin will vote for you if no other member of the legislature does. 
 
 Can the Senator from New York understand a situation of 
 that kind? Has he ever come up through conditions of that 
 sort, which bind men together more firmly than all the things 
 that can be done for him when he has grown to manhood - 
 after he has been successful? 
 819799726
 
 24 
 
 When we quit selling papers Michael Kenna went one way 
 and I went another. He became a Democrat and I became a 
 Republican. But there never has been a time in 40 years when 
 we could help each other that we have failed to do it without 
 solicitation, and almost invariably without notifying the other 
 of our performance of what we considered our duty unless it 
 was necessary to do so. It may be the Senator from New York 
 and the Senator from South Dakota and some other Senators 
 can not understand that kind of a friendship. 
 
 Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. President 
 
 The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Illinois 
 yield to the Senator from South Dakota? 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. Certainly. 
 
 Mr. CRAWFORD. I do not think there is a person on the face 
 of the earth a story o'f that kind does not appeal to. I want to 
 say to the Senator from Illinois he is not the only poor boy who 
 has made his way through hardships to the Senate, and he can 
 not plead that he is the only one. 
 
 Mr. LORIMER. I am not pleading that I am the only one who 
 has made his way through this world and is now sitting in the 
 Senate, nor am I pleading poverty or hard knocks as a reason 
 why I should sit in this body. I am giving to the Senators the 
 truth as to why these men voted for me for United States Sen- 
 ator. I am not pleading for sympathy. I do not want sym- 
 pathy. This is not a question of sympathy. It is a question of 
 right or wrong. If the Senate can believe me to be the low, 
 vile creature the Senator from South Dakota and the Senator 
 from New York and other Senators who have talked against 
 me would have you believe me to be, then there is a plain duty 
 staring you squarely in the face, regardless of the testimony in 
 this record. If I could be the foul wretch that you, Senators, 
 have sought to paint me, regardless of how I came here, by 
 right or by wrong, I should be driven from yonder door with 
 the stamp of infamy branded upon my back. I am not plead- 
 ing for sympathy. I am trying to narrate the truth of my 
 election as it was, not as Senators would have the Senate 
 believe it. 
 
 Then I come to another, George Hilton, a Democrat, a mem- 
 ber of the legislature, and he has been for many years. In my 
 State there is a great deal of patronage that is known as 
 "the minority patronage" given to Democrats. In my career 
 of over 20 years, and on account of the position I have held 
 in my party, I have had much to say about the disposition of 
 that patronage. Several years ago it happened to fall to me 
 to suggest that George Hilton should be appointed to the chief 
 bailiff's office in my city, a place that pays him well, and a 
 place for the holding of which he is very much gratified. 
 
 Representative Hruby was also a boy from my own neigh- 
 borhood. I have helped him and his friends for the past 25 
 years. 
 
 Walter A Lantz, a member of the general assembly, is a 
 man who, through my assistance, was appointed a member of 
 the civil service board of the county in which I live. 
 
 John J. McLaughlin and George L. McConnell are botii mem- 
 bers from the congressional district where I live. I have known 
 them both many years. I do not know how many favors they 
 have done for me or how many I have done for them, but I 
 would say that they are probablv almost innumerable. 
 819799726
 
 25 
 
 Thomas J. O'Brien, John O'Xeil and John J. Poulton are 
 men with whom or with whose close political friends I have 
 been associated ever since I have been in politics. 
 
 John P. Walsh is a resident of my former congressional dis- 
 trict. He is now and has been for years in the circuit clerks' 
 office of our county, at the suggestion of my friends and myself. 
 
 John C. Werdell, Frank Wilson and Bob Wilson Frank 
 "Wilson I have known for years. 
 
 Peter F. Galligan. I do not know how long I have known 
 Peter, but Peter has been a Democrat all these years; a leader 
 in the Democratic party; for many years a member of the 
 legislature ; and at one time he served in the senate of our 
 State. So partisan is Peter, or so partisan was Peter, that, 
 though I was his friend, he would noi ask a favor from me ; 
 yet at the same time he would go any length to serve me; but 
 about 15 years ago when everybody was broke, when every- 
 body was hard up, Peter, with the balance of us, was also 
 hard up. It was the most trying time of his life. Peter's 
 wife was sick sick unto death and he did not have a dollar 
 at home, no money to pay the doctor, nor any money to buy 
 medicine, no money to furnish coal to keep the home warm. 
 Then he came to me and related his circumstances. I secured 
 an appointment for him, out of which he received a fair salary, 
 with which he was able to take care of his sick wife and give 
 to her such nourishment as she required during those long 
 painful days, and finally, to give her a decent burial. He had 
 gone to all his friends; he had called on all his Democratic 
 leaders for help, but he had called in vain. When he came to 
 me I was fortunate enough to be able to help him, and from 
 that day to this the gratitude of Peter F. Galligan has made 
 him almost my willing slave. There is nothing in the world 
 within the bounds of decency, there is no honorable thing that 
 he might do that I would ask him to do, that he would not 
 do with the greatest of pleasure. The day I was elected in 
 the house of representatives in Springfield, when I was called 
 upon to address that body, just before I went up to the speaker's 
 desk, I was met by Peter Galligan with the tears streaming 
 down his cheeks, tears of joy, tears of great pleasure, tears 
 of gratitude for an opportunity that had been afforded him to 
 pay back what he thought was a great obligation, but which 
 to me amounted to nothing at all. It was that sort of thing 
 that made Peter Galligan my friend ; it was that act that 
 made him my devoted friend ; and I know there is no man 
 in Illinois I care not to what party he belongs for whom 
 Peter Galligan would go so far or make so many sacrifices, or 
 would give up so much for, as he would for me. When he 
 cast his vote he did not think he was making a sacrifice, be- 
 cause in the house of representatives when the roll was called 
 and his name was reached because Republicans and Democrats 
 had stated upon that floor that the Democrats who voted for 
 me would live to rue the day, that they would be ostracized 
 and driven out of the party when his name was called, he said : 
 "Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with the statements made here. 
 I will not be ostracized from my party; I will not rue the day 
 that I vote for LORIMER. When the people from my district 
 know that I am returning after this vote is cast, they will 
 meet me at the depot with a brass band, and say, 'Here comes 
 our hero.' " Peter Galligan is now a member of the general 
 81079 9726
 
 26 
 
 assembly, re-elected after his vote cast for me, and re-elected 
 by an overwhelming majority. 
 
 Much has been said of Emanuel A. Abrahams "Manny" 
 Abrahams they say, and that was what we called him when he 
 was a boy. "The bellwether," "the bellwether," goes ringing 
 all through the speech of the Senator from New York. How 
 about "Manny" Abrahams? It is only a short story, and 1 
 will tell you a little of "Manny" Abrahams. 
 
 When I was about 20 years of age I was running a street 
 car on South Halsted street in Chicago. In those days, early 
 in the morning the loads were all carried down town, and com- 
 ing back we had very few passengers. About that time the 
 Jews were moving over into the neighborhood of Halsted and 
 Twelfth Streets only a few; but as time went on the numbers 
 increased. They were all industrious men. They came to 
 Halsted and Twelfth Streets to take a car to go out to the 
 suburbs with their big packs of goods and work their way 
 home, disposing of their wares during the day. In those days 
 we had a rule which permitted the conductor either to take or 
 reject passengers with large packages. Then the prejudice 
 against that people in that neighborhood was very strong and 
 very bitter. Many of the conductors when they arrived at 
 Twelfth Street would refuse, even with an empty car, to allow 
 them to ride. Frequently I have seen those men get on the car 
 with a pack, lay it on the platform, and have seen the con- 
 ductor stop the car and kick the pack out into the street, and 
 then the <v- moved on, and the passenger stayed there or else 
 he walked out into the suburbs. Either my folk taught me to 
 have prejudice against nobody or God made me that way. 
 So I have no prejudice against anybody of any nationality. 
 When I came along in the morning and had no passengers I 
 always took those men on board with their packs and carried 
 them out to the end of the line, until I became known among 
 them as the man they could ride with. So they waited for 
 my car. It turned out after awhile that every morning I 
 would get a large load of those men. In increased numbers 
 they moved into that neighborhood. I was known as their 
 frie'nd. It was a small thing to do, and there was no reason 
 why men should have any gratitude on account of me permitting 
 them to ride and pay their fares; but they did have it. After I 
 quit service on the cars I lived in the same ward with those 
 people and as they came in I became better acquainted with them. 
 
 Then I entered into politics. When I entered into politics not 
 one of them was ever permitted to vote at the polls. Nobody 
 would let them have anything to do with or allowed them to go 
 near the polls; and if they undertook to go there, they were 
 insulted, abused, assaulted, and knocked down, bricks were 
 thrown at them, and they were driven from the polls. I organ- 
 ized every precinct in which they lived, and we gave them 
 protection. It got so they came to my home at night and talked 
 over their little troubles. There might be a dozen or probably fifty 
 coming to my home, laying their little troubles at my door 
 and asking for help. I helped them always. Then I moved out 
 of the neighborhood; but when I go down there now to attend a 
 meeting and I go there about once every year or two; they 
 have large halls and large meetings I am met there by the old 
 citizens and the rabbis of the neighborhood ; I am taken around 
 and introduced to the newcomers. I am not introduced as "Mr. 
 819799726
 
 LORIMBR;" I am not presented as "Congressman LORIMER;" I was 
 not made acquainted with these people as "Senator LORIMER;" 
 but I was taken from one to the other and introduced as "the 
 Faher." Does the Senator from New York know what that 
 means? When people come to believe in you, when they come 
 to trust you and almost to revere you, as these people do me, 
 when they come to the point of introducing, you as "the 
 Father," that is the greatest compliment that race of people 
 can pay to any man. Whether I deserve that confidence or not, 
 whether I have earned their gratitude or not, that is the condi- 
 tion there, and any man who would declare for the political, for 
 the business, for the financial, or for the social destruction of 
 LORIMER and run for office in that district could not get votes 
 enough to make a respectable showing. No man can go among 
 those people into that district as my ememy aad live politically I 
 state that not in any sense of boasting, but because it is a matter 
 of fact and "Manny" Abrahams could not have gone back home 
 and looked his people in the face if I had been a candidate and 
 had been beaten by 1 vote and he had failed to vote for me. 
 
 "Manny" Abrahams the bellwether! I say it goes ringing 
 all through the speech of the Senator from New York. For 
 what purpose? For any other purpose than to create prejudice? 
 I wish I could think so. A bellwether; the first man om the 
 roll call for everybody to follow, as though a bellwether was 
 a new thing in legislative bodies, as though we had never heard 
 of a bellwether here, as though they had never had a bell- 
 wether in the House of Representatives; or as though they had 
 never had a bellwether in any legislative body in the United 
 States. We have our bellwether here ; we have the Democratic 
 bellwether; we have the "insurgent" bellwether [laughter], 
 and we have the "stalwart" bellwether. When I happen to be 
 absent from this Chamber and the bell rings announcing the 
 roll call, if I chance to step in the door in time to hear the name 
 of Senator ALDRICH called, he is my bellwether. ] Laughter.] 
 I know where my vote belongs, and I vote as he votes. If he 
 happens to be absent, I listen to the roll call until the clerk 
 comes to the name of my distinguished colleague, the Senator 
 from Illinois, and then, when he bas voted, Senator CULLOM 
 becomes my bellwether. I know where to vote from that time 
 on. If I happen to get in a little later, I wait for the roll call 
 to reach Senator GALLINGER'S name; and after he has voted I 
 know my place. Then we go along a little further, and if I 
 happen to come in after he has answered the roll call. I wait 
 until Senator LODGE has voted. [Laughter.] Then, if I find 
 that he and Senator LA FOLLETTE have voted the same way, I 
 wait for somebody else to vote, and then somebody else becomes 
 my bellwether. [Laughter on the floor and in the galleries.] 
 
 Senators know that when the roll is called they walk in the 
 door and ask "How is our vote." I have heard many a Demo- 
 crat say that. I sit on this side with them. I do not want to 
 know their secrets; but sometimes they talk too loud; and they 
 ask that question so that I can not aroid hearing it. So I know 
 they have a bellwether. While I do not know it as a matter 
 of fact, I venture the statement that the time has been, I will go 
 a little farther than that, and say the time will come, when the 
 Senator from New York will walk into this Chamber some day 
 when the roll is being called and ask somebody in whom he has 
 confidence "How is our vote" and then vote that way. 
 819799728
 
 28 
 
 Why, Mr. President, the talk about "bellwether" is all non- 
 sense. There is a bellwether in every legislative assembly in 
 this country, and so long as there are parties and so long as 
 there are principles that divide parties, there will be bell- 
 wethers. The talk of bellwethers fools nobody; it will create 
 no suspicion that will injure anybody either in this forum or in 
 the House of Representatives or in any other* legislative body 
 in this country or anywhere else, unless it be upon the Chautau- 
 qua platform. [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. President, grave charges have been made against my 
 right to hold a seat in this body. If I read the speeches of 
 Senators rightly, and if I understand what they mean some of 
 them go even to the extent of making almost the direct charge 
 if I understand them at all, they would leave an impression 
 upon this body that I was elected by bribery and corruption, 
 and that not only was I elected b'y bribery and corruption, but 
 that I was on hand aiding it, giving it the stamp of my approval, 
 and sanctioning it. In proof of that statement they point out 
 that Lee O'Neil Browne was my agent my authorized agent. 
 What else can it mean? They would have you believe that 
 Lee O'Neil Browne tied up in one package 30 Democratic votes, 
 carried them into the hall of the general assembly, dumped 
 them down there, bought body and soul, and sold and delivered 
 them to me. I can understand how that might make an impres- 
 sion on Senators who know nothing about the situation and know 
 nothing about the politics of my State. But here, Mr. President, 
 is a list of 34 Democrats that were for me for United States 
 Senator on my account, and not because Lee O'Xeil Browne 
 delivered them to me. 
 
 Democratic waterway support. Senator Hearn : Representatives Blair, 
 Espy, Gorman, Link, Riley, Staymates, H. A. Shephard. 
 
 Anti-Hopkins. Representatives Alsehuler, Luke. 
 
 To end deadlock. Representative De Wolf. 
 
 Democrat personal support. Senators Broderick, Gorman, Jandus, 
 Rainey ; Representatives Abrahams, Cermak, Forst, Geskewich, Griffin, 
 Hilton, Hruby, Lantz, McLaughlin, McConnell, E. J. Murphy, O'Brien, 
 O'Neil, Poulton, Walsh, Werdell, F. J. Wilson, R. E. Wilson, Galligan. 
 
 Seventeen or 18 19, I think it was of the men who belonged 
 to Lee O'Neil Browne's faction who voted for me, would have 
 voted for me if I had been a candidate for Senator, even though 
 Lee O'Neil Browne labored with them throughout the whole ses- 
 sion if I had be^n a candidate through the whole session to 
 oppose me. He did not deliver them. They delivered him. 
 They were my friends, and there is not one of them who would 
 not have gone further on a personal matter for me than they 
 would have gone for Lee O'Neil Browne, and many of them 
 would have made more sacrifices for me personally than they 
 would for any Democrat in the State of Illinois"; and I measure 
 my words when I make that statement. Thirty-four of the 53. 
 for one personal reason or another, voted for me and pleaded 
 with the other 19 Democrats and prevailed upon them to vote 
 for me also. That is the history of that vote. 
 
 Much has been made in statements here upon this floor of the 
 fact that I am a personal friend of Speaker Shurtleff, and the 
 further fact that during my stay in Springfield I occupied the 
 speaker's room at the capitol; that I met Shepherd in the 
 speaker's room, and that I talked with members in the speaker's 
 reom, and that it was a suspicious circumstance that I should 
 occupy the speaker's room. That may be so in other States. 
 I do not know anything about the speaker's room in other States, 
 819799726
 
 29 
 
 or the privacy of his room in other States, but I do know ail 
 about the speaker's room in the State of Illinois. Mr. Presi- 
 dent, the speaker's room of the State of Illinois is practically 
 the same size as the Marble Room outside of this Senate Cham- 
 ber. It has more lounges and sofas in it than we have in the 
 Marble Room. It has more chairs than we have in the Marble 
 Room. It has a much greater seating capacity than the Marble 
 Room. Our legislative assembly hall has a seating arrange- 
 ment all around the outside of the members' chairs. 
 
 I do not know how it is in your State, but I know how it is 
 in mine. Anyone introduced by a member is free to go in and 
 take possession of thes seats in the assembly room. They 
 walk down the aisles and they sit and talk to the members, and 
 if they are interrupting the legislative proceedings by their talk 
 they go out into the speaker's room. In fact, anybody who 
 goes to Springfield and is acquainted with a member of the 
 legislature may go into the speaker's room. It is a meeting 
 place. Democrats go there and Republicans go there, and they 
 take their friends there, and they sit and they talk and they 
 smoke there. It is more of a smoking room than a room of 
 privacy, and the door of the room is never locked, except in the 
 morning before the opening of the session, when the steering com- 
 mittee is occupying it, preparing the work for the legislative day. 
 
 Great stress is laid on the fact that LORIMER was present in 
 Springfield when he was elected and that he occupied the speak- 
 er's room. Has any Member of this Senate ever sat in the 
 speaker's room of the capitol of his State? Has any Senator 
 here ever sat in the speaker's room while the roll was being 
 called that elected him to this body? If he was there, was it a 
 sign of bribery and corruption? 
 
 Oh, Mr. President, if that is to be adopted as the rule, I do 
 not know how men are going to get votes when they want to be 
 elected to this great forum. Surely, I never will intimate to 
 anybody anywhere that because a man who was elected to this 
 body was present in his capitol and sitting in the speaker's room 
 when the roll was being called, and talked to the Members of the 
 legislature in that room, that such is evidence of bribery and 
 corrupt practices; and I do not think, Mr. President, anybody 
 else will think so. I do not believe anybody will pay attention 
 or give any weight at all to a statement of that kind, which I 
 fear was made to cast a cloud of suspicion. It is not and can 
 not be evidence of anything either good or bad, and it could have 
 had no other purpose except to unsettle the minds of Senators and 
 probably lead them to believe that maybe something was wrong. 
 
 Mr. President, if the securing of Democratic votes is an evi- 
 dence of wrong doing, then I have been doing wrong for the 
 past 25 years. If the securing of Democratic votes, either for 
 myself or for my party or for the candidates of my party is an 
 evidence of corruption, then I have been a corruptionist ever 
 since I was a boy. I was brought up in a Democratic neighbor- 
 hood, and the thing that took me into politics was not the hope 
 of political preferment. I was a Republican, and there was 
 nobody in the precinct to give me a Republican ballot the day 
 I went to cast my first vote for James G. Elaine. All the pre- 
 cincts around my home were made up almost solidly of Demo- 
 crats 500 Democratic votes and two or three Republican votes. 
 There were not enough members of my party in a precinct to 
 fill up the quota of judges and clerks and ticket peddlers on 
 819799726
 
 30 
 
 election day. I was only 24 years old then, and I voted for 
 Biaine, and I doubt if there was a more enthusiastic Blaineite 
 in this country than I was, and nobody was more disappointed 
 than I was at his defeat. I concluded that if all the country 
 was managed in my party as the territory that I lived in was 
 managed, that that in itself, applied to New York, was enough to 
 defeat Biaine for the presidency. I made up my mind that that 
 would never happen in my election precinct again. 
 
 So I began to organize, not to become a leader of my party, 
 but to take care of my own precinct two days in a year, and 
 see that the ballots were there for Republicans when they came 
 to vote. That precinct was organized and then the other pre- 
 cincts were organized, because once the political virus is in- 
 jected into the white man there is no telling where he will stop. 
 So I went into the next precinct and organized that. And how? 
 With Republicans? No. There were no Republicans there. With 
 Democrats, young men of my age who had never affiliated with 
 their party, but thought they were Democrats because their good 
 fathers were Democrats. They joined with us, and we organized 
 one precinct after another until the whole ward was organized. 
 
 We did not go out calling Democrats names. We did not 
 abuse Democrats. We told them the things our party stood 
 for, and asked them to join us on that account; and after a 
 while, with energy and industry, we had a splendid organization 
 in every precinct in the ward; and we were not in politics, or 
 at least we did not know we were. But we had not been in 
 politics over two years until we sent a Republican alderman to 
 the council from that ward, and that Republican organization 
 spread from that ward to other wards until the Republican 
 leaders of our county began to look to that section of the 
 county for their Republican majority. 
 
 But for the organization in that section the city of Chicago 
 would have been as strongly Democratic for the past 20 years 
 as is the city of New York. 
 
 This organization, my friends, was bred not in malice, not 
 in denunciation, but it was bred in principle and fostered by 
 telling what we thought was the truth, and in good fellowship 
 to each other. It was not very long until the leaders of the 
 party all over the county looked to our territory; and without 
 knowig it, or rather without realizing it, and surely not know- 
 ing the reason why, I was pushed forward, made the leader in 
 my party of that Democratic section of the county. 
 _ I do not know whether Senators who do not live in a large 
 city and a large county understand what that means. In our 
 city and in our county in those days we had at the disposal 
 of the party in power anywhere from 12,000 to 15,000 places, 
 according to the season of the year, and when the Repub- 
 lican party came into control of the city for the first time 
 in my career, in 1887, the disposition of all the patronage in 
 that section of the town fell into my hands. I knew nothing 
 about it. To be truthful, I did not know what to do with it. 
 I disposed ^of it as best I could, and it was disposed of among 
 the people in our neighborhood, and these young men that came 
 from Democratic families into our party were chiefly the recip- 
 ients of what we had. 
 
 From that time to this no man has ever come to my home, 
 
 no man has ever come to my office to ask me to do him a favor, 
 
 litMe or big ; that, unless it was a strictly party matter, I ever 
 
 asked him his politics. I do not know and I can not know whether 
 
 819789726
 
 31 
 
 I properly carried out my obligations in the disposition of those 
 places or not; I do not know what people would think about it; 
 but I do know that in the territory from which I v_ome 90 per 
 cent of the Democrats, whether they vote for me or not, will tell 
 you they would rather have LORIMER in Congress or LORIMER m 
 any place he wants to go than any man in their own party. 
 
 As I have stated before, it is not because I have ever deceived 
 a Democrat. No Democrat ever thought I would vote with his 
 party when he voted for me. A very distinguished senator and 
 elderly Democrat in the Illinois General Assembly came to me 
 and unless Senators ask his name I shall withhold it a few 
 days before I was elected and he said : "LORIMER, you know 
 I would like to vote for you, but I live down in a Democratic 
 country, where it is hard to forgive a Democrat if he votes 
 for a Republican; I think you ought to be sent to the Senate, 
 and if you will vote there with the Democrats on the tariff 
 I will vote for you." I said to him : "Senator, I can not do 
 that." He thought for a moment or two. "Well," he said, "I 
 will go a little further with you. If you will vote with Senator 
 LA FOLLETTE and his followers in the Senate on the tariff bill 
 I will vote for you. That is not going the whole distance, but 
 I can go back to my district and my people will not destroy 
 me politically because I voted for you if you will vote that way." 
 I told him I could not do that. Then he said, "Well, I am 
 sorry; I would like to vote for you; I would like to see you in 
 the Senate ; but I can not afford to do it unless you can do 
 something to make the way easy for me." 
 
 So it is that at no time and at no place have I ever had 
 Democratic support on account of any reason except pure, 
 unadulterated friendship. In the last campaign in which I 
 was elected to Congress, when I was unable even to sign a 
 letter to be sent out to my constituency, that district gave 
 approximately 12,000 majority to President Taft. He received 
 the largest vote and the largest majority or his electors did, 
 and I take the elector who received the highest vote in the 
 district. He received a larger vote than any person other than 
 myself running in that district. I did not make one speech, and 
 I did not see one man, and I got more than thirty-five hundred 
 plurality more than President Taft. 
 
 Of what is that an evidence? Is that an evidence of bribery? 
 Is it an evidence of corrupting Democrats to vote for me? If it 
 is, then Mr. President I have a trail of corrupted Democrats 
 following me over my career of 25 years. If they were bought 
 with money I would have been compelled to buy them by the 
 tens of thousands, and according to the theory that is contended 
 for here it would have cost millions of dollars. 
 
 Mr. President, it is an easy matter to intimate that any 
 man is guilty of wrongdoing, and once the intimation is made, 
 I regret to say, it is an easy matter for many people to believe 
 it. But when one is charged with wrongdoing, the facts should 
 be laid before the judging body. They should be the unquali- 
 fied and unadulterated truth, and that applies more largely, in 
 my opinion, to the question of unseating a Senator or a Member 
 of the House of Representatives than it does to taking the life or 
 the liberty or the property of a citizen. To turn a member from 
 this or any other legislative body on the suspicion that if certain 
 things happened, certain other things might happen, would be 
 establishing a rule that would indeed soon destroy this Republic. 
 819799726
 
 32 
 
 No man, not even the Tribune, has ever dared to charge that 
 I was ever remotely guilty of bribery or corrupt practices; and 
 I never did, not only in this election but in any other election, 
 use one dollar, or allow the use of one dollar, or knowingly per- 
 mit the use of one dollar, nor had I the remotest idea or knowl- 
 edge of the use of one dollar for my election, the corrupt use 
 of it for bribery, or for any other corrupt purpose, either to the 
 lower house or to this body. If Senators even suggest that they 
 think I did have knowledge of any corrupt practices of any kind, 
 have the knowledge in any degree, I am very sorry for it. On 
 my word as a man and even the Tribune will not say to you 
 or intimate to you that they know of any time lever even re- 
 motely broke that word or violated faith ; even they will not say . 
 to you that I am guilty of that act I never gave nor do I know 
 of any other person giving any kind of a promise, or any money, 
 or anything else as an inducement for them to vote for me. 
 
 My regret, Mr. President, is that anybody should think so. 
 I claim nothing more for myself than any other man. I am not 
 possessed of any more virtues than any other decent citizen of 
 this country. In the life I have lived and worked for 40 
 years, I may not have succeeded, but I have tried, as hard as a 
 human being can try, to live a life that would make me at least 
 acceptable to the decent citizens of my community. I have 
 tried for 40 years to live a life that will make my neighbors 
 and my townsmen and the people of my State have confidence 
 in me. I say I may not have succeeded, but God knows I have 
 tried. But if I have failed, if I did not succeed, no living man 
 will come to my door and lay the charge of practicing bribery 
 or corrupt practices in any election that I ever was interested 
 in, be it for myself or for anybody else. I regret that there are 
 Senators in this Chamber who feel that they have been able 
 tc find anything at all in my business life, in my political 
 career, in my social life, or in my life with my family, that will 
 justify them in even having a suspicion that I have been guilty 
 of the charges they would lay at my door. 
 
 I say again, on my word as a man and on my word as a 
 Senator, I am not guilty, and I have no knowledge in the re- 
 motest degree that bribery and corruption were practiced in 
 securing a seat for me in this body. No matter what the Trib- 
 une says, po matter what they have been able to do through 
 coercion in the State attorney's office in my county, I do not 
 believe that votes were bought by anybody to send me to this body. 
 
 I have stated that I knew something about my election to 
 this body, and I have stated to you what I know about it. 
 What I have stated to you is the truth. Even the Tribune will 
 not dare to refute the statement that these 34 Democrats voted 
 for me for the reason I have stated to you, and that they 
 secured the balance of the Democratic votes ; and instead of 
 Lee O'Neil Browne, who was friendly to me and who did help 
 me and to whom I am obligated, delivering these 53 votes from 
 the Democratic Party to me when I was elected United States 
 .Senator, they, with their influence, with their talk, with their 
 persuasion, delivered Lee O'Neil Browne if there was any de- 
 livery of anybody at any time during my election. [Applause 
 in the galleries.] 
 
 The VICE PRESIDENT : Occupants of the galleries will re- 
 frain from applause. It is not permitted under the usages or 
 the Senate. _ gSSg5Sfea 
 
 
 
 E