Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1905 — COMERFORD OUT. [ARTICLE]

COMERFORD OUT.

Illinois House by Vote of 121 to 13 Expels Chicago Member. As a convicted slanderer, Frank D. Comerford, by a vote of 121 to' 13, was expelled from tlie House of Representatives of the Illinois Legislature Wednesday evening. The title which the people of the Second Senatorial District of Chicago gave him last November was taken away by a vote of his colleagues, and at the short and peremptory request of Speaker Slmrtlcff lie picked up his papers and walked out of the hall, the first Illinois Representative to be deprived of the rights given him by the voters. A bitter fight of over Tour hours ou the floor of the House preceded this drastic action. Comerford fought his adversaries every inch of the way until they had him down and had voted to unseat, him. During this fight nil the ordinary rules of parliamentary debate were forgotten, Comerford shook his fist in the faces of his enemies and called them liars, and liis enemies shook tlieir lists in liis face and called hint a liar. Efforts to temper the punishment handed to tlie accuser of the House’s morals were futile, even when it was proposed to do the tempering with a buzz saw and substitute a measure almost ns severe ns expulsion. Sentiment against him among his associates was so bitter, and there was such a demand for immediate nnd satisfactory revenge, thnt lie never had the slightest chance of making headway against if. although lie talked with brilliance and defended himself with some logic. Sentiment against Comerford lias been strong ever since he has been in Springfield nnd particularly since he began his crusade against the General Assembly as “an auction block where special privileges are sold to the highest corporation bidders.”