Whipple v. Broad

• Decision Date: 05 December 1898
• Parties: WHIPPLE, Secretary of State, v. BROAD.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

55 P. 172

25 Colo. 407

WHIPPLE, Secretary of State, v. BROAD.

Supreme Court of Colorado

December 5, 1898

Review from district court, Arapahoe county.

Two sets of candidates of the Silver Republican party, each claiming the right to use the party name and emblem on the official ballot, having been filed with Charles H. S Whipple, secretary of state, his ruling that the candidates of the faction known as the 'Blood' faction were entitled to use such name and emblem was, on review by the district court, reversed, and judgment given for the faction represented by Richard Broad, and the secretary petitions for review. Affirmed.

Goddard J., dissenting.

Blood & Bartels, Victor A. Elliott, and Henry M Teller, for petitioner.

John R Smith and Thomas Ward, Jr., for respondent.

CAMPBELL C.J.

This controversy is between two factions of the state Silver Republican party of Colorado, the object being to determine which one has the right at elections to the use of the party name and emblem. Under our Australian ballot act, the political party by which any list of candidates is nominated may be designated on the official ballot by an appropriate emblem or design, but no two sets of nominations shall have or use the same emblem or device, and each political party shall have the prior right to use the device used by it at the last similar election. In the pleadings, as in the argument, these factions are designated as the 'Broad' and 'Blood' factions, after the chairmen of the two state central committees, and for brevity the same appellation is used in the opinion. Before the secretary of state, in whom the statute vests original jurisdiction to hear and determine such disputes, the Blood faction prevailed. In the district court of Arapahoe county, which has the power to review the rulings of the secretary of state, the findings of the latter were set aside, and judgment was entered in favor of the Broad faction. The discretionary power of this court, which the statute gives, is now invoked by the former to review that judgment.

The delegates from Colorado to the National Republican convention held at St. Louis in 1896 withdrew from that convention because of dissatisfaction with its action in relation to the free coinage of silver, and under their leadership there was formed in this state, by former members of the Republican party, what is known as the 'Silver Republican Party of Colorado,' and its basic principle was the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 by the United States alone. At the November election of that year the party had on the official ballot its state, congressional, and various county tickets, and then adopted as its name the 'Silver Republican Party,' and chose for its device or emblem a dove bearing a scroll inscribed with the words '16 to 1,' and at all succeeding elections has maintained its organization, the same name and emblem, and has had its tickets on the official ballots. At the regular November election of 1896 there was a fusion of the silver forces of the state, consisting chiefly of the Silver Republican, Democratic, and People's parties, upon presidential electors and candidates for congress, but only a partial fusion as to state and county tickets. At the state election for supreme judge in 1897 the silver forces were not united, the Democratic and People's parties supporting one, while the Republican and Silver Republican parties supported another, candidate. In the summer of 1897 a number of Silver Republicans from the different states of the Union met at the city of Chicago, and organized a provisional national committee of the National Silver Republican party to act in that capacity until a national convention of the party was called. Thereafter that committee, through its chairman, Charles A. Towne, and the chairman of the National Democratic committee, and the People's party national committee, issued a joint address to the people, advising and recommending that all the friends of silver in the different states of the Union act in harmony at all elections for the purpose of carrying out the basic principle of free coinage of silver, as above referred to. The respective state committees of the Silver Republican, Democratic, and People's parties of Colorado, prior to calling a convention of their respective parties, the present year, voted to act in accordance with such joint plan, and each appointed a subcommittee to attend a joint conference for the purpose, so far as they could, of binding their respective parties thereto. This joint committee, however, was unable to agree upon any definite plan, and referred the entire matter to the state conventions of the respective parties when they should meet. About 48 hours before the meeting of the state convention of the Silver Republican party, which was called to be held at Colorado Springs, September 8, 1898, for the nomination of a state ticket to be voted for at the ensuing November election, the evidence shows that charges were made that Richard Broad, who, ever since the organization of the Silver Republican party of Colorado, had been chairman of its state central committee, was not acting in good faith, and for the best interests of the party, but was conspiring with the leaders of the Republican party to defeat the silver forces of the state, and turn over the organization of the party to the leaders of the Republican party. Charles A. Towne, chairman of the provisional national committee of the Silver Republican party, was summoned to the state, and, without any hearing, or notice to Broad of any charges against him, summarily removed his from the chairmanship of the state committee, and appointed in his place James H. Blood. There is no question about the regularity of the proceedings of Broad and his committee in calling the state convention up to the time of the attempted removal. When the delegates who responded to the call met at Colorado Springs, it was found that some of them were in favor of fusion with the Democratic and People's parties, and others opposed, and as the result of these differences two separate conventions were held in separate halls, one called to order by Mr. Broad, the other by Mr. Blood, each claiming to be the regular convention of the party. Each convention nominated a state ticket, and filed a list of its nominees with the secretary of state in accordance with the statute, each certificate being regular upon its face, and purporting to contain the regular nominees of the party.

The position of the respective parties here may thus be stated: The Blood faction claims that its list of nominees is entitled to the use of the party name and emblem, because of its adherence to the basic principles of the party, and its favoring a fusion of all the silver forces of the state; while, as they charge, the Broad ticket, being nominated by delegates to a convention which has departed from their basic principles, has no longer any right to the party name and emblem. The Broad faction, on the other hand, claims its ticket to be the only genuine one, because it was nominated by a majority of the uncontested delegates who were regularly elected and responded to the call therefor duly issued, and that such majority had the unquestioned right to change the policy of the party, and even to depart from its basid principles, if it saw fit to do so. In other words, that the decision of a convention of the delegates of a political party with respect to party policy is final and controlling; that the same is purely a political question, over which the courts have no control, their inquiry being limited to a determination of the question as to the regularity of the proceedings of the convention in accordance with the party customs and usages.

The record is voluminous, and contains a vast amount of evidence upon issues which, in the opinion of a majority of this court, are entirely irrelevant. The evidence is unquestioned that the Broad state convention contained a majority of the uncontested delegates who responded to the call, and for this reason Mr. Justice GABBERT concurs with me in holding that the action of that convention is conclusive upon this court, in the absence of proof that the convention thus constituted was improperly influenced, or that its delegates were not members of the party which they claimed to represent. In our judgment, the courts have no control over questions of party policy, but those must be determined by the party itself in its regularly called and organized convention. With the wisdom of the policy we have nothing whatever to do; and, even though the court may be satisfied that the action complained of is unwise, and destructive of the party organization, that is a question solely for the party itself in its proper convention, and not for the court.

I have referred to the attempted removal of Chairman Broad by the national chairman, Towne, because I think it has an important bearing upon one phase of this question. From the record in this case I am satisfied that there was no authority for this act, and that the attempted removal was of no force whatever. I do not deem it necessary to go into this question at any length, for, to my mind, the act was so clearly unauthorized that a bare statement of the proposition is a sufficient argument in that behalf. It would be an anomalous and entirely unheard-of proceeding if a self-constituted committee, styling itself a provisional national committee of a political party, could come into a state, and, without any authority from the national or state convention of the party, proceed to remove at will, and without notice, the officers of the state organization, formed prior to that of the national party. The significance of this is...