Show DUB lS AND THE SENATOSSHIP And so som e of the members of the Idaho legislature are trying to keep Mr FRED DCIJOIS out of the United States Senate They will undertake to do this by sending forward a protest or remonstrance against allowing him to take a seat in the chamber THE HEUALD is in full sympathy with tho protestants That is to say we wish them ail success but we may as well confess right here and now that we do not entertain enter-tain the slightest suggestion a hope that the antiDuBOis movement will win nor do we believe that the gentleman named is in the least degree apprehensive or nervous Two grounds are set out asa basis for the protest The first is that the legislature had no right to choose a third Senator until the first two had been allotted their seats and their terms been defined when the lawmakers law-makers could know for whose place to elect I a successor There ought to be something I in this proposition and under other circumstances circum-stances the point might be expected to stand The Senatcand not tho legislature legisla-ture which elects designates which of the first two Senators sent up from a new state should have the long term and which the short one It may happen that the short term will fall to the favorite in which event the legislature may desire to make him succeed himself and thus give him a full term of six years This cannot be done if tho plan pursued by the Idaho solons shall prevail Again the Idaho scheme would seem to be irregular in that it permits tho legislature legisla-ture to choose three Senators wherovas the election of but two is contemplated If it is legitimate for the legislature to select three Senators one of them to succeed another whose term has not yet been defined and who may never be assigned a seat cannot the same law makers choose a fourth Senator to succeed suc-ceed the second of the original pair when his unknown and indefinite term shall expire ex-pire A strict and reasonable construction of the law would seem to forbid the election elec-tion of more than two Senators until it was known when the term of one of these would terminate It is possible that the term will be extended to such a length that the next and not the present legislature will bo the proper one to choose the Senator to occupy the scat which the original and interesting legislative body has sot apart for Mr DrBOis The other ground upon which the objection objec-tion to the validity of Mr DCBOIS eUction is based namely that the election should take place on the second Tuesday after the organization of the assembly will not stand All the precedents are against it The Senate does not inquire into the time of the election so long as the choice was made by the proper legislature it being held that the date cuts no figure In the matter While the strict letter of the law may be against the admission of Mr Draois whQ a cannot as yet know whom ho will succeed I we have no idea that his election will be voided no matter how illegitimate and irregular his selection may h have been from a legal standpoint Politics will govern gov-ern in the case and give him the seat He is a wildeyed and fanatic Republican and it is a wildeyed and fanatic Republican Senate and a politically desperate one which will pass upon his case To reject him might mean the conferring of the seat upon a Democrat and who is thera that is at all familiar with the partisan parti-san course of the upper house of Congress who can induce himself to believe for a moment that the Senate would do anything so reckless as to give a Democrat a show for a seat when it was possible to count in Republican 1 It is not law but party politics which will control in this matter By letting Mr DDBOIS in oven though his title may be shadowed by a cloud the majority ma-jority f the Senate will know that for six years a Democrat will be kept out of the seat When the people are working such revolutions as are being wrought these days and are making it their business to take a shot whenever a Republican head shows itself a Republican Senate is not apt to bo deterred by scruples nor will it permit such trifles as the technical construction con-struction of the law to stand in the way of strenghtening itself Mr DUBOIS will get his seat and those who are opposing him now are simply wasting their energies Their opposition comes too late to be effective |