SLATER ABANDONS CASE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 381, 15 June 1928, Page 9

SLATER ABANDONS CASE

APPEAL WITHDRAWN BARRED FROM WITNESS BOX (United P.A.—By Telegraph—CopyrightJ (Australian Press Association.) LONDON, Thursday. Oscar Slater, who was released from gaol after having served a long sentence on the charge of having murdered Miss Gilchrist at Edinburgh in 1909, has decided to withdraw his appeal, as he would not be allowed to enter the witness-box. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, one of the most prominent of those who worked for Slater’s release, says the latter is terribly disappointed, and he thinks the man’s brain has become affected by all he has gone through. He imagines there is a conspiracy. it would lose the farmers’ vote if the McNary-Haugen principles were not adopted. He was eloquent in his prediction of disaster. Hes was cheered desperately by the agricultural State delegation. Led by a woman in purple dress, eight speakers, including Senator W. E. Borah, then spoke for and against this plank the latter being against it, and venturing the belief that President Coolidge, if he had been nominated and accepted, would be voted for in every agricultural State, despite his veto of the McNary-Hau- Dr. N. M. Butler gen Bill. The convention voted the plank down by 817 votes. It was an overwhelming victory for Mr. Hoover. Once more President Nicholas M. Butler, of Columbia University, proposed a substitute for the prohibition plank, asking that the hypocrisy of prohibition be done away with. He was unceremoniously voted down, and the majority platform was adopted by acclaim. The convention went into recess until 7 o’clock, when the Presidential nominee will be chosen.