by counsel of the Judiciary Committee, after five weeks of investigating the qualifications of the suspended Socialist Assemblymen, Attorney-General Charles D. Newton and the other signers said that the five Socialists by "their promise ... to place their resignations in the hands of the dues-paying members ... abdicated their functions as Assemblymen and disqualified themselves from taking the oath of office and rendered their oath false." ("New York Times," February 13, 1920.)
The same brief, according to the "Times" of above date, says:
"A decent regard for the Assembly as the popular representative house of the State requires that these five Assemblymen be excluded from their seats. They have taken a false oath to secure seats which they cannot occupy as gentlemen, patriots, loyal citizens or Assemblymen. They come here under the false pretense of being loyal to their Government, when in fact they are really citizens of the Internationale, and desire above all things the destruction of this Government."
The Socialist