OCR Text |
Show I Washington, Jan. 13. Owing to the i failure of witnesses to appear, the senate sen-ate committee on privileges and elec- tior.e today adjourned the hearing in I the Clark senatorial contest case until i next Wednesday. : The principal witnesses heard today ; were M. L. Hewitt and Charles M. Jackson. C. W. Clark, son of the (Senator, (Sena-tor, was alsj before the committee or a few moments to testify to the disappearance disap-pearance of .certain letters written to his father. Both Hewitt and Jackson related con-veisJJ-ons alleged to have been held with Mr. Clark. Mr. Hewitt said Mr. Clark had told him he had perfect con-fiueiiL-e in State Senator Whiteside as a friend, and had said he had "paid his supporters all he owed tihem." Mr. Jackson is a member of the legislature legis-lature of Utah, and he testified that in trying to influence his (Jackson's) vote in that body, Clark had told him he had used money to secure his own election to the senate, saying this was a common practice among aspiring men of means. When the senate committee began be-gan its session todav, the defence de-fence sifalted that they had been unable un-able to find the letters written to Senator Sen-ator Clark and Mr. Bickford by the dentist, Ector, who yesterday produced their letters to him. It was then decided de-cided to have C. W. Clark, son of the senator, make a statement as to the disposition of the documents, but Mr. Clark being absent, Mr. Garr was recalled re-called to afford Senator Turley an opportunity op-portunity to question him concerning his visits to Helena prior to the meeting meet-ing of the legislature last winter. Garr said the principal object of his visit was to see about resignation as United States commissioner. The first regular witness of the day was M. L. Hewitt, a miner, who was in Helena during the session of the legislature legis-lature in 1S99. He said that Charley-Clark Charley-Clark had asked him to see Senator Myers and offer him $1,000 for his vot for Clark for senator. He had accordingly accord-ingly talked with Myers and testified that that gentleman had told him, after af-ter first declining the proposition, to say to Clark that if he was disposed to do so, he could put $10,000 in the hands of Whiteside, to be paid to him (Myers) in case he should'vota for Clark. Watt said that Clark's son stated that this arrangement was satisfactory and he afterward told him that the money for Myers had been given to Whiteside, and that his vote was assured. as-sured. Mr. Hewitt said that during the senatorial sen-atorial contest he had talked frequently frequent-ly with Senator Clark. Once he had remonstrated with the senator concerning concern-ing Whiteside as a well known supporter support-er of Daly, but the senator had, ho said, assured him that Whiteside's fidelity was assured, because of the fact that he (Whiteside) was in trouble trou-ble with the Clark opponents over a building he was constructing in Butte. ine witness also said that he had seen the senator at his rooms in the Helena hotel a short time after the Whiteside exposure and asked him what he proposed pro-posed to do, when the senator replied: re-plied: "There is only one 'thing to do, and that is to make the people believe the Daly gang have furnished the money and have put up a conspiracy against us." j "I asked him," continued the witness, "if he could make that stick, to which he replied: 'There is no trouble about the deal, because if we put up a good excu'se the people will believe us, and we can again g-et the members together.' togeth-er.' " The witness also detailed a conversation conversa-tion which he said he had had with Senator Clark on the eve of the inves-I inves-I tigation by the supreme court, in which ! he told the senator Tom Lyons, one of the senator's workers, had threatened to go to court and testify against Chirk because the latter's friends had not kept their promises to him. According Accord-ing to the witness, the senator had then replied: "I cJon't owe these (using a profane phrase) anything. I have paid them all they asked. I am under no obligation obliga-tion to them, and I expect them todo as they agreed to do by me." , Mr. Hewitt said, however, that Clark added that he would have his son se Lyons. He said that Clark had often ; ! spoken to him of his y0n and of Messrs i I Welbome, Bickford, Steele and others; as his friends in the senatorial fight Welle me and Charley Clark were ;-e- I garded as the senator's special representatives repre-sentatives On cross-examination Hewitt said he was a Republican and not especially in- ' terested in any of the senatorial candi- ! rates. He had "just drifted into the i contest." He pronounced as incorrect the report re-port of the testimony taken before the Lewis and Clark county grand jury furnished by the memorialists, and he had not told all the facts to the lury Indeed, he had never told all to anyone any-one until he had given the details to Mr. Birney, one of the attorneys for the memorial lists in Washington, a few days ago. Senator Faulkner's questions were devoted to showing inconsistency on the part of the witness in refusing to give the details to Montana representatives represen-tatives of the prosecution whom he knew and then giving them to Birney whom he did not know. He asked Hewitt Hew-itt whether Birney had not promised to see that he was taken care of, but the witness replied emphatically in the negative, adding that he had "received nothing and no promise of anything from the anti-Clark people for his part in the proceedings." Under pressure, he said that when he went before the grand jury he had desired de-sired not to reveal ail his transactions during the sitting of the legislature He had only replied to questions asked him, and he did not consider that he had perjured himself in withholding some of the facts. He had, however made up his mind to tell the whole truth here. Concluding his testimony, Mr. Hewitt said he had received no pay for his services ser-vices for Mr. Clark and no promise of any. He had been interested with the senator in a mining company and preferred pre-ferred him to his opponents. C. W. Clark was next called. He was questioned concerning letters from Dr. Ector to himself, his father and Bickford, which were referred to in Ector's testimony yesterday, and to which the letters from Senator Clark produced yesterday were said to be re plies. He said he had last seen them during the Wellcome disbarment trial, and was sure that he had put them in his trunk to bring east. He could not find them, however, and thought they rnust be in New York. He was sure he had not destroyed them, and said he would go to New York and get them. The next witness was Charles M. Jackswn, a newspaper man residing in Salt Lake, Utah, and a member of the legislature of that state. He testified that he had met Mr. Clark at the Enutsford hotel in Salt Lake during the senatorial deadlock in that stat last February and that Mr. Clark h..d fried to influence him to vote for 11c. Cune for United States senator fiom Utah, intimating that in case he would do so he would be paid for the act. Relating to the conversation, Mr. Jackson said that Clark said that Mc-Cune Mc-Cune was a liberal man, who would never forget his friends, and said: "If I should see my way clear to voting vot-ing for him, he had no doubt he would do something handaome for me." Jackson staid he had d .-! ir .VI nn.l tTiat Clark had then proceeded to argue the point, saying that all scandals of that character sqon died out: that it was the custom of men of wealth .o spend money to secure election to the senate. Jackson said Mr. Clark cited the case of Senator Hanna of Ohio as in point Continuing, he said Mr. Clark stated j that in his own case he had used Money to secure his own election, which had I then but recently occurred. His election elec-tion caused some talk, and some members mem-bers had foolishly exhibited some bills in a careless way, but he had no doubt I the talk would soon die out, and he would hear little of it. Mr. Clark had asked him to regard the conversation as confidential. When Mr. Jackson had concluded his testimony it was announced that no more witnesses would be examined before be-fore Wednesday next and, after an executive ex-ecutive session, the court adjourned. |