The Gall and Wormwood of Olympia: Tacoma’s Defeat in the Senate Race

A SENSIBLE INNOVATION.

Notwithstanding the early factional fight, which has been an unseemly feature of the proceedings in the lower house of the Colorado legislature, that body has evolved a novel measure, which may well serve as an example worthy of imitation in the legislative halls of sister states. The bill was drafted by the Medico-Legal Society of Denver, and lays down a rule to regulate the taking of medical 'expert' testimony in legal actions. It provides that whenever it shall be shown to the satisfaction of the court, by affidavit, that it is necessary to the proper disposition of a pending cause that medical expert testimony shall be taken, the court shall select and appoint three qualified medical experts to be examined on the issues in the cause upon which they may be supposed to possess special information.

That there is great merit in this proposed innovation must be quite obvious to all who have observed the unreliable and mischievous operation of the methods heretofore generally pursued. In pursuance of these methods it has been the custom for each side in a legal controversy to employ their own experts who were thus made practically of counsel for their respective employers. It is not necessary to assume that in such cases the expert moulds his judgment and warps his testimony to meet the needs of his employers. It is more charitable to assume that the latter ascertains the views of different professional friends, and employs those whose evidence will best subserve the necessities of his case. But the result is conflicting testimony for which a fee is paid on both sides.

The Colorado plan, on the contrary, would secure, instead of experts who to some extent would be of the nature of attorneys in the case for one side and the other, a quasi-judicial expert tribunal that with reason might be credited with freedom from bias. It may be that in some of the states, or in some countries a rule of this kind already prevails, but if so it can only be considered remarkable that it has not become general. That it would work a great and decided improvement on the system generally adopted throughout the United States is quite palpable. It would betoken a much higher respect for expert testimony than generally prevails, for as a rule that character of testimony is regarded only with contempt.

GALL AND WORMWOOD.

"My heart is too full of gall and wormwood," said Miss C. Moore at Tacoma Saturday night, "to give utterance to temperate speech." Mr. Moore and others expected that Mr. Calkins would be elected senator. They were deceived by the loud boasting and falsehoods of the Ocosta Boomers, and defeat after a fierce battle does not leave the vanquished in a happy frame of mind.

The hearts of others of Calkins' supporters are also full of gall and wormwood, but they do not hesitate to give utterance to intemperate speech. They make frenzied charges of bribery against friends of Mr. Squire; they go further and attack the senator himself, of whom Mr. Owings, one of the Calkins generals, said not long ago: "His honor, his ability, his integrity, his chivalry have never been questioned. Honesty of purpose and conviction of duty have been his guiding star."

The charges of corruption against Mr. Squire and his supporters are false and without a vestige of proof on which to rest. They are made by the Tacoma ring organs and Democratic sheets on the principle "Calumniate boldly; something will be sure to stick."

While the enraged Ocosta tricksters are crying "Stop, thief," let the people not forget that the Calkins managers stand accused of bribery, not by the putrid lips of rumor, but by evidence that cannot be overthrown.

Senator Squire's hands are clean. The yelping of the Tacoma ringsters is as harmless as it is hideous. Those whose hearts are full of gall and wormwood will regret every intemperate word they utter.

A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT.

Should the State Senate decide the Richards-McCarty contest from the 34th district on the lines laid down in their committee's report, it would establish a dangerous precedent. This does not imply any rejection upon the inclinations of the committee. It may be assumed that they made what to them seemed the best possible disposition of a complicated and vexatious affair. In a party sense the seating of the one or the other of these contestants is of small consequence. The Republicans have a majority so large that they can well afford to be strictly just and fair in this matter, and such doubtless would be the disposition of this committee and of the Senate even if the majority were narrower and the decisions of greater political consequence.

But it happens that the conditions are highly favorable to the laying down of rules and the adoption of a course of procedure in this case that will constitute a healthy precedent, rather than the reverse, and which, as such, will command the respect of good citizens of all parties.

It hardly necessary to premise that the POST-INTELLIGENCER shares the general Republican hope that in establishing healthy precedent and deciding the contest on its merits and within correct, unassailable lines, it will be found that Mr. Richards, the Republican contestant, was elected and is honestly entitled to the seat.

But it is neither to his interest nor that of the party that he be seated on any other grounds or in any other manner.

The committee in their report say that "We find that from one house in said ward (the 2nd ward of Fairhaven) between 25 and 30 men were registered on the registration book, and the evidence clearly shows that such house was incapable of accommodating that many actual residents at one time, or even half that number; that at that time there were several persons living in the house who were not voters, among them several women."

They also find that "there were many persons voted from this house" and several who presented themselves and on being challenged would not swear in their votes. They also report themselves satisfied that in the second ward fraudulent voting was largely indulged in, and therefore recommend that the whole of it be thrown out. This would involve the throwing out of a total of 137 votes.

There is but one condition conceivable under which this would be the best or a proper way to dispose of such a case. That would be in case there were no legal voters in the ward, or that all such were participants in or unresistingly cognizant of the perpetration of the alleged frauds.

If there were qualified voters in that ward, who honestly exercised their right of suffrage, who neither perpetrated frauds, participated in them, winked at them nor were cognizant of them (it is hardly conceivable that such was not the case), then those qualified voters are entitled to have their votes counted, and neither the committee nor the Senate should be disposed to punish them for the offenses of others by throwing out their votes because others were fraudulently cast.

And in the matter of the house, especially referred to in the committee report, it was only a question of the votes cast by residents of it that was at all pertinent to this inquiry. If those thus cast, or any of them, were fraudulent, these fraudulent votes should be thrown out if it could be shown for whom they were cast, or if an honest, legitimate inference could be formed on that point. But if there were qualified voters in that house they should not be disfranchised because others voted or registered fraudulently as residents of it.

Otherwise any citizen may be disfranchised by the act of another who votes or registers as a resident of his premises.

The only fair and honest rule and safe precedent is to take the official returns as prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated, and to discredit and change them only upon clear proof or fair inference of specific frauds. As to the one house which was so strongly tainted, it might be admissible to require the identification of every person who voted for it, or in an extreme case this might be applied to a precinct or ward, but republican institutions would be in great danger if the principle were recognized that any canvassing body may disfranchise a great body of qualified voters for offenses of a few in which they are not participants.

JEFFERSON COUNTY IS GLAD.

Seattle and Senator Squire Are Friends of Port Townsend.

Port Townsend Leader.

The fight is fought and the victory is won. Watson C. Squire has been re-elected to United States Senate by a majority vote of the legislators at Olympia. His victory was decisive, and such as his supporters claimed he would have from the start. Calkins developed less strength than even his opponents were willing to give him. The result is as it should be, and the victory is due, without doubt, to the three delegates from Jefferson county, whose votes made Squire's majority.

Their course in the struggle meets with the hearty approval of the citizens of Port Townsend, as can be seen from the numerous short interviews which our reporters have been at pains to get from men of sound judgment and discrimination. It was altogether impossible that a Tacoma man should receive the votes of the Jefferson county delegates. When Tacoma did not need our support her journals abused and misrepresented this town to the world, and every obstacle was thrown in the way of the progress of the Key City. Without having any need for port of entry privileges, Tacoma's machinations of its politicians and influence of its press, managed to become a subport