Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1894 — The Chicago Conference Committees' Address and Mr. Landis’ Statement. [ARTICLE]

The Chicago Conference Committees' Address and Mr. Landis’ Statement.

‘ On Wednesday of last week was puhlished the nddresH qx). the Landis-Johnston controversy, prepared by Messrs. Borders, fAgnew and Wickey, the committee appointed by the Johnston conference, at Chicago, a couple of weeks ago. On Monday last, Mr. Landis published a statement of his side of the case, over his own name. The Johnston statement claims that Landis was given 15 votes from Lake county when, as is held, there was no shadow of a right to contest for more than the 12 votes from Hammond and North township, and no just grounds fur contest there. It also says that in the vote on the adoption of the report dividing the Lake county vote half and half, that five White county men voted against the motion, and that the chairman of that delegation reported only three votes against it. Further it is intimated that the two Newton county Johnston delegates who changed to Landis, were induced to go contrary to their instructions by improper means. Landis, they say, stayed all night with one of these men and bad a long consultation with the other, about a week before the convention. In Cass county, it is claimed, one delegate who was instructed to vote for Johnston, was prevented from attending the convention by threats of personal violence. Mr. Landis in his counter statement, issued last Monday, says that he is sure that if the Republicans of the district were well informed of all the circumstances connected with the Crown Point

convention, they would admit that he was justly entitled to the bulk of Lake county delegates. Says that when Hammond was selected as the place for the congressional convention, he was solemnly promised fair play in Lake county and that no attempt should be made to bind up the county for any candidate; and that this agreement was flagrantly violated, The ered&ntials committee declared both Jolinst n and Landis Lake Co. delegates irregularly elected, and the dividing the vote of the county betwean the two candidates was a fair SettlementConcerning this point Mr. Landis quotes from the Kentland Enterprise a passage to the effect that the Crown Point “snapper” conconvention was call on only 8 days, nominal notice, and scarcely a week’s actual notice, and all for the purpose of heading off Mr. Landis, who was getting in good work in Lake county- Mr. Landis further says that special pains have been tnken to keep from the Republicans the fact that on the day of the convention, the offer was repeatedly made by the Landis men to submit the w hole matter to a primary vote, nnd er the Australian ballot system, but that the Johnston men rejected the offer, every time. The following paragraph from Mr. Landin’ statement is copied entire:

“It was perfectly natural that there should be some feeling at the Hammond convention. The canvass leading up to that convention was, in a majority of the counties, a personal one on the p <rt of Judge Johnston and myself. It was a square fight. Neither of us asked odds or gave them. One week he was victorious aud the next week I was victorious. Ibe day of the Crown Point convention his friends, with the consent of the railroad company, took a train that we had bought and paid for, and the George H. Hammond Packing Company and the East Chicago rolling mills, under their managers turned out an army of men to capture the Lake county delegates It a fight from start to finish. No one will deny that Judge Johnston’s friends took advantage o( every ciook and turn, conceded absolutely nothing, fought for every advantage up to the very moment they h» 3 t in tl ie adoption of the majority report of the committee on credentials; then they abandoned the convention to my friends, and 1 was nominated. The above is a brief but, so far as possible au impartial summary

of the main points of the two statements, leaving out of both the argumentive portions, and out of the Agnew-Borders address the abusive.