People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1893 — MUST ANSWER. [ARTICLE]

MUST ANSWER.

Article* of Impeachment Formulated Against Accused Nebraska Officials. Lincoln, Neb., April 7.—The two houses of the legislature met in joint convention in representatives’ hall at 2 o’clock Thursday afternoon and proceeded with the reading and considei ation of the articles of impeachment against George H. Hastings, attorney general; John C. Allen, secretary of state; August R. Humphrey, commissioner of public lands and buildings, and John E. Hill, ex-state treasurer—• members of the board of public lands and buildings luring the years 1891 and 1892. When they had all been read a motion to adopt was carried without material opposition. ' G. M. Lambertson, of this city, late assistant secretary of the treasury; Judge Doane, of Omaha, and Col. W. L. Green, of Kearney, were engaged as the attorneys to prosecute the cases; and Messrs. Colton, Casper and Barry were appointed a committee to represent the two houses in the prosecution. Resolutions directing impeachment against ex-Auditor Thomas H. Benton were adopted, and the committee was directed to bring in articles of impeachment, charging him with “holding up” the clerks in his office, and drawing fraudulent vouchers on the penitentiary and asylum funds. The articles of impeachment contain three articles and twenty-one specifications. The first article relates to the cell-house awards, the second to the junketing trips and the third to furnishing supplies and the coal deals at the Lincoln asylum for the insane, the various specifications relating to individual deals with various firms. The specific charge against the treasurer is that he compelled parties who had claims against the state, allowed by the legislature, to pay him a portion before he would issue the warrant, and other transactions that are peculiar, as in the admission of insurance companies to do business in this state and refusing permits to others.