THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Shaking the Throne of the Czar Cannonism Tottering to its Fall CANNON RECKLESS, AGAIN IS REBUKED; INSURGENTS RULE. CRUSHING DEFEAT HUMBLES CANNON. UNCLE JOE...
...Many of them attended the caucus of their party and, not desiring to base their contest on personality, voted in thi House for Cannon, the choice of the party caucus for Speaker...
...A further conference followed...
...The repudiation of Cannonism, wherever the issue was fairly considered, followed...
...The past week wrote large on the Hall of Representatives the warning of impending doom...
...It will achieve...
...This piqued the Speaker and his friends...
...Baker's conclusions reached after the most profound and attentive study of the political situations both in the West and in the East, are therefore exceedingly interesting...
...The House was thus without a quorum and incapable of transacting business...
...A recess was agreed to, in which conferences might be held between representatives of the opposing forces...
...In this crisis the Speaker had recourse to the "anarchy" of the tyrant...
...On Tuesday of last week there came before the House, as a part of the Executive, Judicial and Legislative Appropriation Bill, an item for the maintenance and upkeep of these automobiles...
...our faces forward, full of faith in the future, full of faith in the American people...
...To many the language may have seemed extravagant葉hen...
...CANNON BAFFLED IN 26 HOUR FIGHT...
...The House met at noon, and proceeded directly to the consideration of the Norris resolution...
...They planned retaliation...
...A majority of them, however, felt that, since the power of the Speaker was weakened by the passage of the Norris resolution, it would be better for the present to leave Cannon in the chair and so emphasize the impersonal character of their fight on Cannonism...
...Some modifications of the Norms resolution were agreed to, but the Cannon representatives refused to concede in any form the elimination of the Speaker from the Rules Committee...
...appeared in the February issue of this same periodical...
...Cannonites threatened that if Cannon were forced to abdicate the Speakership, they would join the Democrats to effect a Democratic organization of the House...
...The rule of Cannonism seemed so firmly intrenched that Cannon and his lieutenants overrode arrogantly all manifestations of righteous public indignation against their machine methods...
...Thus was witnessed, for the first time in the history of a democratic assembly, the spectacle of the presiding officer conducting a single-handed filibuster against the majority of the body over whom he was presiding...
...After the election of the Speaker came the usual motion to adopt the Cannon rules...
...The significance of these events lies in the fact that they foreshadow the downfall of Cannon and Cannonism as factors in American politics...
...It has virility...
...Then would not the making of rules for the House as provided by the Constitution, under the Speaker's own ruling, be a matter of highest constitutional privilege and entitled to immediate consideration...
...It was objected that this resolution was offered in violation of the Calendar Wednesday rule...
...But the doom of Cannonism had been sounded...
...Cannon was elected and reelected to serve Special Interests as Speaker, and until recent years without a dissenting Republican vote...
...The System Democrats, led by Fitzgerald of New York, in order to save their faces and to befog the record of their desertion, brought forward a set of compromise amendments to the rules, which in no substantial degree abridged the evils of Cannonism against which the Insurgents were fighting and against which the Democrats professed to be fighting...
...There must be a new party alignment: there must be a clean-cut division between the Conservative and Progressive groups in this country...
...personality, not locality, not tradition, must govern us in the selection of public servants, but principle...
...For does not the Constitution provide that the House shall make rules for its government...
...The autocracy of the House, Cannon and Cannonism, who through all these years have pursued haughtily their arbitrary and unreasoning course in defiance of the rights of the House and of public sentiment, were humbled and forced to admit defeat at the hands of the Insurgent Republicans and the Democrats...
...But the unsuspected weakness of the House machine had been exposed...
...The fight of the Progressive Republicans upon the Czarism of Cannon is the fight of progress...
...Not so Joe Cannon...
...House of Representatives in three portentous days of the past week容vents which in their character are not paralleled in all the previous history of the House...
...The vote is a repudiation of Cannonism," we said, "It is a vote of want of confidence in the cannon-System management of the House...
...Every candidate for public office should be required to take his...
...This little provision for Calendar Wednesday, as a part of the Insurgent program, was especially distasteful to the Speaker and his machine...
...stand positively on one side or the other...
...Meanwhile it is the Insurgents who are forcing a reorganization of the Republican party in the House, in the interest of the redemption of the party promises and the enactment of the Taft recommendations so far as they accord with the platform promises and progressive public opinion...
...Cannon's ruling sustaining the Crumpacker motion as privileged under the Constitution was accepted by the Insurgents as a proper cue for the introduction of the Norris resolution modifying the rules of the House, to abolish the Speaker's Committee on Rules and to create a new and enlarged committee, to be chosen, not by the Speaker, but by the House, and with the Speaker excluded from membership upon it...
...On that day the Cannon rules would have gone down before the united forces of the Insurgents and the Democrats, but for the bi-partisan resources of the System organization...
...CANNON SHORN OF HIS POWER, THUS in flaming headlines, the press portrayed the stirring events in the...
...The House met and continued the struggle for a brief session, and adjourned until Saturday noon...
...Calendar Wednesday arrived and Crumpacker, a Cannon Republican from Indiana and Chairman of the Census Committee of the House, came forward with a resolution, not on the calendar, to amend the Census Act...
...FOR THE FIRST TIME DURING CANNON'S SPEAKERSHIP, AND FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TEN YEARS, THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE WAS OVERRULED BY THE VOTE OF THE HOUSE ON A POINT OF ORDER...
...The height of the conflict has by no means been reached, but it is rapidly approaching...
...Their cry was, "Save Uncle Joe or elect a Democrat...
...CANNON RULE IS NEAR END...
...Before the bill was passed the Insurgents and Democrats succeeded in amending it by striking out this item...
...Accordingly, at the proper time, Congressman Norris, of Nebraska, drew from his desk a resolution embodying the demand of the Insurgents for the reform of the Rules Committee, sprang to his feet, introduced it, and demanded its immediate consideration...
...TRUCE IS ON...
...And Cannon was spared a personal humiliation which he richly deserved葉hat of being ousted from the Speakership by a vote of the House...
...CANNON FACING FATE...
...And the line in every part of the country is being drawn day by day, between those who believe that property" interests should rule the nation, and those who believe that the people should rule...
...Cannon clung desperately to the Speakership...
...Any member who dared to voice disapproval of the reign of the autocracy became a marked man, was denied equal recognition as a member of the House, discriminated against in committee appointments and in the consideration of legislation, and reduced in the public service of his constituency to a condition of "innocuous desuetude...
...We added "The Progressives may well bide their time," and we ventured to predict, "Their time is coming...
...La Fol-lette's then spoke the sentiment of the Progressive Republicans of the country in denying the right of Canno*n to "gavel through his classification of Republicans as he gavels through his schemes in Congress...
...The Speaker's rules were of no avail...
...Cannonism has long been in widespread and growing public disrepute...
...This challenge which Mr...
...The following day would be Calendar Wednesday...
...The Insurgents and the Democrats defeated the motion on the "previous question" to adopt the rules forthwith...
...The Speaker was prepared, per program, and ruled forthwith that the Crumpacker resolution was privileged under the Constitution, because the Constitution requires the Census to be taken, and would supersede business entitled to consideration under the Calendar Wednesday rule...
...The contest between Cannonism and reaction, on the one hand, and progressive, representative government, on the other, went forward over the country...
...This is the second political article on the insurgent movement that Mr...
...They are quoted in part as follows: "All these facts show conclusively that the Insurgent movement is not sectional in its character, nor is it limited to the Western States...
...It has, indeed, had its earliest national expression and leadership in the West, but the East is following close behind...
...The thirty-five Republican Insurgents who stood by their euns and put through the Norris resolution were the following: WISCONSIN Cary Cooper Davidson Kopp Kendall Hubbard Good IOWA Lenroot Morse Nelson Haugen Pickett Woods MINNESOTA Davis Steenerson Lindbergh Volstead Miller NEBRASKA HlNSHAW KlNKAID Norris KANSAS Madison Murdock OHIO Howland Taylor Johnson MASSACHUSETTS Ames Gardner NEW YORK Fish Foelker WASHINGTON poindexter SOUTH DAKOTA Martin NORTH DAKOTA Gronna NEW JERSEY Fowler CALIFORNIA Hayes Insurgent Movement is National IN THE March American Magazine Ray Stannard Baker's article is entitled "Is the East Also Insurgent...
...Cannonism was crumbling...
...His sophistry could not save him...
...Proceeding with foresight, they organized and formulated their demands for the modification of the House rules...
...UNCLE JOE AT BAY...
...Their attitude acknowledges that the Insurgents, whom Cannon and Aldrich, et al., have tried to read out of the party, have, by forcing the party to purge itself of cannonism, created a possibility of a return op public confidence in the republican party in congress...
...In the beginning it seemed a far cry to any effective expression of this sentiment in the House itself...
...Absentees were ordered arrested and compelled to attend, but Cannon's Sergeant>at-Arms, although he rounded up two or three Democrats, failed to find the Cannon Republicans...
...It seemed less so when The Chicago Tribune made its famous poll of the Republican editors of the country, in which the Cannon-Aldrich leadership of the Republican party was discredited by the party itself, more than 5 to 1. How the Big Battle Began THE battle last week began over a little thing, an almost trivial thing...
...The System on the Defensive AFTER the adjournment of Congress, Cannon and his lieutenants went forth to read the Insurgents out of the party...
...Verily, it would seem so...
...FIGHTS TO RETAIN HOUSE CZARSHIP...
...After 48 hours delay the Speaker, recognizing his struggle as hopeless, ruled on the resolution, holding it not in order...
...Cannonites Grew Arrogant IN this fight on Cannonism葉his fight for the restoration of the House as a free and democratic institution, representative of public opinion容vents have moved fast...
...The conferees were unable to agree...
...but if they are, then I am something else...
...We said, "We shall see...
...As the session wore on into the night, great numbers of the Cannon Republicans and some Democrats left the Chamber...
...Then followed such a series of events as perhaps never before has been witnessed in a deliberative legislative body...
...Cannonism is tottering to its fall...
...Even regular Republicans who have been hearing from their constituencies and the country are glad now of the victory of the Insurgents...
...The Cannonites reveled in their power and heeded not the handwriting on the wall...
...The battle raged for twenty-six hours, when the Regulars, admitting defeat, asked for a truce...
...They find comfort in the realization that the crushing of the Cannon power revives the last hope for a Republican majority "in the next House...
...With praiseworthy fortitude they resisted alike the threats of the machine leaders and the appeals of the Taft administration to desist in their warfare against Cannonism...
...They demanded, in short, the abolition of the Speaker's power, through the appointment of committees and organization of the House and the arbitrary recognition of members on the floor to participate in legislation and through his control (with his two appointees on the Rules Committee) of the ordering of business and the framing of legislation, to rule and dominate the House...
...The System retained control of the House for the revision of the tariff...
...Such a vote in the Parliament of England would drive the Ministry out of power...
...TENURE OF SPEAKER HANGS BY A THREAD...
...TREATS FOR PEACE...
...At Elgin, in October, Cannon said of Senator Cummins and Senator La Follette and "their followers": "These people call themselves Republicans...
...And in this crisis/with the aid of System Democrats, the regime of Cannonism was for the time continued...
...It will go on...
...Cannon threw in the face of the Progressives of the country was accepted by them...
...It has life...
...The X machine, after two days of fighting, was unable by every conceivable form of coercion, threats, pleading, and abjuration, to rally enough votes to sustain its position...
...Had the Insurgents seen fit to precipitate the fight for the election of a new Speaker, they held the balance of power to unseat Cannon...
...Fight Opens on Cannonism AT THE opening of the present Congress, the "Insurgents," representing the progressive thought of the country, had come to hold the balance of power...
...And by System votes, Republican and Democratic, the Fitzgerald amendments were adopted...
...In the face of such an overwhelming repudiation, the official head of any other legislative body in the world would have resigned his office and quit in disgrace...
...Baker has written...
...Cannon Grows Desperate LATER in the proceedings another form of lawlessness was resorted to by the Speaker and his tools to defeat the will of the majority...
...And we must set...
...The President was enlisted to appeal to the country in behalf of "party solidarity...
...Previously, bills so reported were practically excluded from consideration, except by unanimous consent (with the Speaker's approval previously obtained) because the time of the House would be otherwise consumed with the consideration of measures reported from the "privileged committees" or measures brought before the House under a special rule of the Speaker and his associates on the Committee on Rules...
...By a close vote, the Insurgents and the Democrats succeeded in amending the resolution and depriving the Speaker of the power of appointing the investigating committee...
...The last Congress chose to appropriate public money for the purchase and maintenance of automobiles for the Vice-President and the Speaker of the House, in order that the plutocratic tendencies of the time might be reflected in the regal equipages of the people's rulers...
...His first, "Is the Republican Party Breaking Up...
...The House proceeded to the consideration of bills on the calendar, for it was Calendar Wednesday...
...Of the amendments to the Cannon rules forced at the beginning of this Congress, one provided that Wednesday of every week should be set aside for the consideration of bills which had been reported from committees and were on the calendar...
...Thus was given the most striking demonstration possible of the verity of all that has been claimed of the arbitrary and autocratic power of the Speaker of the House...
...His arbitrary and unfair ruling was appealed from, and overwhelmingly repudiated by the votes of 42 Republicans and the Democrats of the House...
...We characterized it at the time as the "great beginning of a great contest...
...For the first time in ten years, and for the first time during the regime of Speaker Cannon, the Speaker was overruled by the House...
...A Body Blow to Cannonism Til HE Insurgents had won...
...Then it was that Cannonism, recognizing itself defeated, made its deal with Tammany and secured enough Democratic votes to postpone the Insurgent reforms...
...On two roll calls the Cannon organization was overwhelmed and the Norris resolution was passed, abolishing the existing Committee on Rules and providing for the selection of a new Committee on Rules, to consist of six Republicans and four Democrats, to be named by caucuses of the respective parties, the speaker to be ineligible to membership on the committee...
...Cannon's Ruling Repudiated BUT the Speaker reckoned without his host...
...The Cannon rules, enacted for the government of the House, went, until this Congress, almost without question...
...From now on, not...
...Disregarding the rules of the House, the law of procedure, and his oath of office, Cannon refused to rule at all...
...Insurgents Score a Victory THE first important business undertaken by the House after the present session of Congress convened involving the issue of Cannonism, was the appointment of a committee to investigate the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy...
...Even so...
...They would thwart the Calendar Wednesday rule...
...If he ruled the resolution out of order, the Insurgents and Democrats had the votes to overthrow his ruling and to pass the resolution...
Vol. 2 • March 1910 • No. 12
