The Week [excerpt]

     Senator Wellington of Maryland was expelled last week from a club in Baltimore of which he was a member, for some very unfeeling remarks about the attempted assassination of President McKinley, while the issue was still undecided. Those remarks, he says, were not intended for publication, but, having been published, he wishes it to be understood that they express his sentiments. The sentiments of his fellow club members are that they do not want his company any longer, and public sentiment concurs with them. Every club has its own rules and regulations concerning membership, resignation, and expulsion, and it is presumed that these rules have been followed in Wellington’s case. If not, he has his remedy in the courts of law. As to the suggestion made by ex-Senator Chandler’s paper, the Concord (N. H.) Monitor, that Mr. Wellington be expelled from the Senate of the United States for the same offence, the Constitution says that each house of Congress may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member. The matter of expulsion is left to the discretion of the Senate, for, although disorderly behavior is mentioned in connection with it, the power of expulsion is not restricted thereby. Evidently the framers of the Constitution intended to place no limitation on the power to expel except that a mere majority should not exercise it.