Kinne Withdraws

KINNE WITHDRAWS

His Name From the Contest for the Judgeship.

IS A FRIENDS OF GRANT

And Unwilling to Go Into a Contest With Col. Dean.

In an Open Letter Judge Kinne States Why He is Unwilling to Be a Candidate for Supreme Court Judge for Which He Had Good Chances.

Judge E. D. Kinne, of this city, has withdrawn his name from consideration as a candidate for judge of supreme court in the next republican state convention in the following open letter:

Although I have not been an avowed candidate for judge of the supreme court at the coming spring election, my name has been mentioned with kindness and some prominence by the press of the state. The time has arrived when I think it is due to my friends and other candidates, that I should disclose my position. Hitherto I have been in some doubt but the situation is now pretty well defined. I am confronted with the following obstacles:

Regent Dean, of Ann Arbor, is a candidate for renomination. He insists that Washtenaw county cannot have two candidates for a state office in the same convention; that according to the usages of the party, he is entitled to a renomination, and should have the precedence. While I may think that the regency, being an office without salary and comparatively unimportant, ought not to stand in the way of my possible advancement to an office whose salary is $7,000 and whose term is 10 years, and while I may have no anxiety as regards the Washtenaw delegation, I can appreciate the feelings of Regent Dean and I am very reluctant to engage in any contest at home, which may embarrass any of my friends.

Again, in 1868, when I came to Ann Arbor, Judge Grant was a resident of this city. From that day to the present time, we have been intimate personal friends. We may have differed on some questions of state policy or jurisprudence, or in our affiliations, but there has been no abatement or interruption in our friendship. He is now a candidate for renomination to the supreme bench. By the usages of the party he is entitled to such honor. I cannot allow my friends to do aught for me that might be prejudicial to his success. He is my friend and such I must be to him. None can question his bravery, his purity or his ability, and I am in favor of his renomination.  

Therefore, unless these complications change before the next state convention, I shall not be a candidate therein.

It is possible that I am hereby surrendering the one opportunity in my life to become a member of the supreme bench, and while my course may not be that of the successful politician, to my mind it is the path of duty and honor.

--E. D. KINNE. Ann Arbor, Jan. 11, 1899.

This letter leaves the field open for Regent Dean to go into the convention with his own county back of him for regent. There is quite a feeling existing here that at least one regent should be a resident of this city.

Judge Kinne if he had not withdrawn his name, would have been a prominent candidate for the judgeship nomination and would have had a good chance of success.