THIRTEENTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT ELECTION.
Mr. CAMPBELL presented the following:
Hon. Marvin Campbell, Senator, Indianapolis:
DEAR SIR-We had supposed when Mr. Winterbotham published his notice of contest of Major Calkins' election as Representative to Congress from this District that we should have the opportunity to prove before Congress the falsity of his charges against us. But as he has abandoned that contest and contented himself with denouncing us before the body of which you are a member, we meet him there.
Please state to the Senate for us that any and all charges that we have terrorized, or bulldozed, as the phrase is, or intimidated any of our workmen into voting for or against anybody at any election. National, State or municipal, are malignant falsehoods. In this denial we include all statements that we have threatened dismissal from our works to any one on account of his political course; that we hate paid any one in any way for his vote, or that we have prevented the free exercise of the suffrage of any of our twenty-two hundred employes.
We will add that, like American citizens generally, our views on National and State questions have been freely and frankly expressed, and will continue to be so expressed-a right, we suppose, our falsifier claims for himself-but the charge he makes against us of intimidating our workmen, or any other citizens, to compel them to vote as we do, is a wicked and groundless calumny and insulting to the freemen who work for us and vote as independently as we do.
We ask therefore, that a Select Committee of five fair-minded and impartial Senators be appointed by your presiding officer, the Lieutenant Governor, a majority of whom shall be Democrats, to visit our works, and we pledge that they shall be given the largest liberty to probe this matter to the fullest extent.
Respectfully yours,
STUDEBAKER BROS. MFG. CO.,
OLIVER CHILLED PLOW WORKS.
South Bend, Ind., Jan. 25, 1883.
Mr. CAMPBELL said: I presume that this petition will properly be referred to the Committee on Elections, and as this Committee has both the requisites asked for-that is, a Democratic majority, and is composed throughout of men whom I believe to be fair-minded-I certainly will be glad to have it go to them, and the investigation made by them If I may be allowed the privilege but; for a moment, I urge that the Senate do as the petitioners have offered to do-that is, allow, upon the part of the Committee, "the largest liberty to probe this matter to the fullest extent" and want to urge upon the Committee that they make the investigation prompt, and searching, and thorough I ask this in behalf of the Messrs. Studebaker and Oliver, and also in the name of justice. By a memorial from Mr. Winterbotham interpreted by the Senator from Jackson, standing in his seat upon this floor to refer directly to the Studebaker Wagon Works and the Oliver Chilled Plow Works, these men now stand charged before this body with as gross a crime as can be perpetrated by any American citizen, that of Interfering with the free ex page: 120[View Page 120]ercise, and depriving other citizens of the right o f the sacred elective franchise. This is said to have been done not by armed force, but a subtle and more potent influence-threatened poverty and want-an enemy before whose threatening men to whom armed force would have no terror, will bow in servility because of love for family. It is not trivial matter to stand before the great State of Indiana, charged in its newspaper columns and upon the record and the floors of its legislative halls such monstrous crimes as these. If the charges are true, the perpetrators should be branded by the seal of an investigation and ostracised from the society of loyal men. If the charges so widely and so boldly are made false, what punishment is severe enough and what words of execration strong enough to measure the contempt due any man, or men, whose malice would seek to injure so broadly and so deeply by such dangerous untruths. As to whether the charges be true or false I would not consider it proper and do not desire now to offer a single argument or state a fact that might prejudice the Committee. A few days ago, it will be remembered, that I rose from my seat and asked to be allowed to answer the charges made by the Senator from Jackson against these petitioners, but contrary to every rule of courtesy I was denied the privilege. Now the doors of these manufactories are thrown wide open and you can seek the facts yourselves, and while I will gladly aid the Committee in any way they may desire, I have no wish to prejudice them. If it should be true that the recollection of the cowering form of the Senator from Jackson, cringing under the parliamentary table and calling upon his associates to surround it and protect him from the truths which I asked to sate, seems to the Committees to be a logically eloquent confession of the falsity of the charges, that is a circumstantial prejudice for which I am in no sense responsible. If it should be found by the investigation that these petitioners have been grossly wronged and foully misrepresented for the purpose of calling attention from other crimes of other men, I hope it will be so reported, and the real criminal and falsifier be named. If it should be found that the elective franchise was at the last election in the Thirteenth District influenced and corrupted by every means which genius could devise and money command, I hope such facts will be fully reported, and by whom and in what manner. If it should be shown that the workmen of manufacturing establishments were compelled to band themselves together, and go to the polls under the protection of each other to avoid the assaults and coercion of hired agents, I want that fact reported and by whom these agents were hired, and what kind of work they did.
If it should be shown that after the election hundreds of dollars were paid or offered as the purchase price of false affidavits, I want that fact reported, and by whom and when all the facts are shown honestly, candidly and thoroughly, I want to sit here with the Senators upon this floor, forgetting that we are Democrats and Republicans, forgetting for the time that we are friends to aught else but our great Commonwealth, and remembering that the elective franchise is our great bulwark of safety, and must be shielded from every weakening influence, whether it be armed foe, autocratic employer or monied demagogue, and in the light of truth and love of right devise the best means for the protection of all and against all.
Mr. BROWN stated the character of the information he had received in support of the statement he made on the floor some time ago, to be that the proprietors of these manufacturing establishments had collected their employes together in groups or bands of from ten to thirty and had marched them to the polls to vote such tickets as their bosses provided for them. He had seen and read a large package of such affidavits. It had been a matter stated in the public press throughout the State, and the Senator from St. Joseph [Mr. Campbell] will not deny that the gates of these establishments were shut to any Democratic Committee or to any Democratic conveyance to everybody except Republican agents, but the conveyances of these establishments were famished in charge of those men. He doubted if the Senator will deny that for he had seen it sworn to more than twenty times. He did not believe that there was a particle of doubt but that fraud and crime enough could be traced to Mr. Calkins or agents to show his election was procured by bribery and fraud. Even that would not seat Mr. Winterbotham, who would have to run the race over again, who was too old to engage in such a contest again, and because abandoning the contest is now hunted down by poltroons with not one-tenth the brains of that good old citizen. He hoped the Committee on Elections will be clothed with full power to make investigation into the conduct of these establishment, which may prove a worse advertisement to their business than anything that has hitherto been said.
On motion by Mr SPANN the motion to refer to the Committee on Elections was amended by empowering the Committee to send for persons and papers necessary to a full investigation of the matter.
The motion to refer, as amended, was agreed to.
