CONCLUSION. This is a proceeding for which there is neither precedent nor excuse. Mark Twain in 1875 wrote this about the whipping up of a war psychology: "A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing. The speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still one with those stoned speakers — as earlier — but dare And now the whole Nation not to say so. To Socialists, that seems a close description of what has happened these last four or five years. There is fortunately The response to the action of the Speaker of the Assembly toward the Socialist members showed that it has been reached. a limit to the toleration of intolerance. To unseat these Socialists will not prevent return to the normal condition of an actual free and democratic republic, enduring political differences and trusting the common sense of the mass of its people. But it will leave an ugly stain on our democracy. March 15, 1920. Respectfully submitted, MORRIS HILLQUIT, SEYMOUR STEDMAN, WALTER NELLES. Counsel for the Socialist Assemblymen. BRIEF FOR THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE Before the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly of the (State of New York IN THE MATTER of the Investigation by the Assembly of the PART I The origin of this inquiry, its parliamentary justification and underlying reasons. On January 7, 1920, immediately after the organization of the Assembly for the Session of 1920, a resolution was adopted by a vote of 140 “Ayes" to 6 "Noes," which resolution referred to this Committee the investigation of the qualifications and eligibility of the five persons above named to seats in the Assembly and empowered the Committee, in conducting such investigation, to adopt such rules of procedure as in its judgment it deemed proper, to subpoena and examine witnesses and documentary evidence, and to report to the Assembly "its determinations as to the qualifications and eligibility of the said Louis Waldman, Angust Claessens, Samuel A. deWitt, Samuel Orr and Charles Solomon, and each of them respectively, to a seat in this Assembly." [2477] The resolution further provided that, pending the determination of their qualifications and eligibility to their respective seats, the aforesaid persons be denied seats in the Assembly. THE LAW (1) The right of the Assembly to exclude and expel members is fundamental, inherent and exclusive. The Constitution and laws of this State are merely declaratory of this right. "It is conceded by the text writers that each of those Houses has the sole power to judge thereof exclusive of every other tribunal: (1 Kent, 235; 1 Story on Constitution, Sec. 833; Cushing Law and Pr. Leg. Ass., Sec. 1050; Cooley Const. Lim., 133). It is doubtful, however, whether they reached that conclusion alone from the form and inherent force of the words used in the constitution. Kent (supra) says: 6 There is no other body known to the constitution, to which such a power might be safely trusted.' Story (supra) says: If lodged in any other than the legislative body itself its independence, its purity and even its existence of action may be destroyed or put into imminent danger. * * * Accordingly the power has always been lodged in the legislative body by the uniform practice of England and America.' Kent (ubi supra) says that the same power is vested in the British House of Commons. There it has its original from this one maxim "that whatever matter arises concerning either House of Parliament ought to be examined, discussed and adjudged in that House to which it relates and not elsewhere:" (1 Blackstone's Com. 163, citing 4 Inst. 15.) The power seems to have been established in the House of Commons after a conflict. It was claimed and exercised at one time by the King and Council, at another by the House of Lords, and again by the Chancellor: (See Cox's Inst. of Eng. Govt. 117; May's Law of Parliament, 54; Hallam's Const. Hist. Eng., Vol. I, 273.) In 1624 the Commons declared by resolution that it belonged exclusively to the House itself, as 'its ancient natural and undoubted privilege;' and since then the claim of the House seems to have been acquiesced in on all hands: (Cush. Law & Pr. 54.) The same author says that the power is so essential to the free election and independent existence of a legislative Assembly that it may be regarded as a necessary incident to every body of that description which emanates directly from the people; and that the constitutional provisions are out of abundant caution: (Cush. Law & Pr. 54; and see Hammond's Pol. Hist. C. 3.) So that it seems that force is added to the words of the Constitution by a consideration of the occasions and instruments in which they are found, and of the character of the political bodies to which they are applied; and a greater weight is given to them than they will bear in the legislative act, passed in view of constitutional provisions creating courts of justice and clothing them with general jurisdiction." (People ex rel. Hatzel et al. v. Hall, 80 N. Y. 117, at pp. 121-122 of opinion of the Court per Folger, J.) The sole and exclusive power to pass upon the qualifications of its members is, therefore, inherent in the |