THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Kansas and Calderhead PEOPLE who claim to know say that there are more daily newspapers read in the State of Kansas, in proportion to the population, than in any...
...These six Kansas representatives are frankly Cannonites, frankly stand-patters...
...While the various bills for the different railroads were framed along different lines, they all had a common object, which was either to provide for the settlement of the Government's claim for less than was due, or to postpone the Government's claim and weaken the Government's security...
...But these conclusions were general and dealt with broad questions, not with specific or personal applications...
...Further examination of conditions has shown that of the eight Kansans in the House of Representatives, six are of the type who believe in railroad regulation, not as Kansas believes in it but as the System Machine in the House believes in it...
...That he is not really so subservient to the organization as his opponents are trying to make out...
...Of the "regulars" of the Kansas relegation, the senior in point of service and in rank in the Cannon House machine is William A. Calderhead, of the Fifth District...
...Calderhead was conspicuous as the only member of the Kansas delegation in either House voting in favor of increasing the salaries of Members of Congress...
...It set about the study of public questions with characteristic Kansas vim and Kansas honesty...
...It began the job by eliminating Long from the United States Senate...
...Calderhead was first elected to the 54th Congress...
...The important legislation of the 59th Congress was the so-called Hepburn Railroad Rate Bill...
...He defended the outrage of the New England cotton schedule, and protested against free hides and free lumber...
...Kansas is working on a problem and these six reactionary Kansans in Congress are a part of that problem...
...When the organization had been forced to accept the bill, Calderhead joined the "regulars" in voting for it, but he also joined the "regulars" to defeat the effort which was made, upon the adoption of the conference report in the House, to secure an anti-pass provision which should be immediately effective...
...Realizing this, he will seek to convince his constituents that being a Cannon man and a stand-patter is "not so wrong after all...
...Calderhead's faithfulness to the organization has made life in Washington very pleasant for him...
...In the meantime, also, homesteaders had settled on the disputed lands, and a substitute was offered to protect the claims of these homesteaders...
...Kansas public sentiment has not always been characterized by this degree of intelligent progressivism...
...And Kansas public sentiment is intelligent...
...At the end of a generation of shirtsleeve hustling, and with the fruits of that hustling being realized in a general diffusion of plenty and comfort, education and culture, Kansas began to turn its attention more keenly to public affairs and questions of national politics...
...And Calderhead stood faithfully for every demand of the railroads, even to the last disputed million...
...He discouraged all importunities made to him as a member of the committee for information concerning the provisions of the bill or for basic facts of tariff legislation...
...He made no protest against any of the excessive duties reported by the committee of which he was a member...
...By the estimates of informed men, ninety per cent, of the Republican voters in Kansas are progressives...
...The upbuilding of Kansas industries, of Kansas business, and of Kansas farms has through these years well-nigh absorbed the best thought and energy of Kansas citizens...
...He voted also "with the organization" to eviscerate the bill to protect travelers and employees upon railroads by limiting the hours of service of train operatives...
...with men like Senator BitisTOW, William Allen White and Victor Murdoch publishing newspapers and spreading broadcast the doctrine of honest government in daily sermons, Kansas is singularly favored for the growth of an intelligent public sentiment...
...And finally, that Kansas representation in Congress is bound to suffer by the defeat of old members who "know the ropes" and have "influence" in Washington...
...The most important legislation of the 54th Congress, which was Calderhead's first term, were the Pacific Railroads Bills...
...To meet it and protect their own interests, Kansas should study the records of their stand-pat Congressmen...
...and Calderhead voted against the homesteaders, but for the grantees of the railroads...
...ON SIX ROLL CALLS CALDERHEAD VOTED CONSISTENTLY FOR SHIP SUBSIDY...
...Naturally he desires to return, and is a candidate for reelection...
...In the 60th Congress he voted for the ocean mail subsidies, and in favor of the bill to facilitate coal-land grabbing in Alaska...
...They call themselves "regulars...
...Palzell, and the other standpatters in Congress endorse...
...It looked into the tariff question and decided that the tariff should be revised—downward...
...No nation has ever yet been born and started on its career with a purpose to die...
...He has voted for Cannon and the Cannon rules, voted to allow Cannon to pack the Ballinger-Pinchot investigating committee, voted day and night with the "regulars" of the Cannon machine in the losing fight to defeat the Norris amendment to the House rules, and voted in the final crisis to retain Speaker Cannon in his place of power...
...In the present session he has crowned that service with a remarkable record...
...Now Kansas is working out the specific application and effectuating its decisions on these questions...
...When he returned to .Washington in the 56th Congress, Calderhead resumed his role of "regularity" and supported Bab-coCK in the latter's efforts to put through the House the infamous Pierce Bill for the gas monopoly in Washington...
...and who believe in tariff revision, not of the downward kind, that Kansas is for, but of the upward kind that Cannon, Payne...
...As a candidate for reelection, he must realize the dominant progressive sentiment of his constituency...
...This is the line of defense for the stand-patters everywhere...
...It investigated other public questions and conditions and arrived at sound and wholesome conclusions...
...With William R. Nelson at Kansas City publishing two great, fearless newspapers every day, principally for Kansas consumption...
...But as candidates for reelection to Congress from Kansas they may discover that "regularity" of this kind is not so highly prized by progressive Kansas as it is by the "leaders" at Washington...
...in another five centuries who shall number the multitudes that stand upon our land, all of them rejoicing in that nobler spirit of life, in nobler action of life, in the higher standard of faith and hope, and that if all around them some kind of clouds come to disturb the air, and threats upon one side and answers upon the other side make the foundations of the Nation tremble, then I know that in that far-off day, just as in the day of the fragment of the generation to which I belong, when duty calls, liberty's sons will come answering from every hill and valley, singing the same song that we sung: 'Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light...
...Upon the opening of the 61st Congress, Calderhead stood with the "regulars" to elect Cannon and to prevent revision of the Cannon rules...
...For his faithfulness to Cannon and Cannon-ism he was appointed to a place on the House Committee on Ways and Means to revise the tariff...
...These were measures to provide for the refunding of the indebtedness of railroads which the Government had financed...
...There were bills for the reorganization of the Northern Pacific Railroad, for the reorganization of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, and the so-called Pacific Railroads Funding Bill for the consolidation of the Northern and Southern Pacific and Northwestern roads, and the remission of Government claims against them...
...or, as they call them in Kansas, "Insurgents...
...Throughout the tariff session his course was an exemplification of his stand-pattism...
...He was defeated for the ooth, but was reelected to the 56th Congress and has been returned continuously since...
...As against the constructive, go-ahead policy of the Republican party, the least-governed-best-governed, states rights theories of Democracy never stood a chance of making a last'ng impression upon Kansas...
...In the same Congress he voted to abolish the imprisonment penalty for reenters...
...Having adopted Republicanism, Kansas went about its business of raising corn and cattle, and creating wealth and well-being...
...In politics Kansas has been and is dominantly Republican...
...In this same session there came before Congress a bill to extend the statutes of limitation as to certain suits which had been brought to annul some railroad land grants wheh the railroads had forfeited by non-performance...
...In the next Congress, Calderhead voted for the frye Bill to give the shipping combine a "rake-off" of ten millions a year on the transportation of government freights...
...A hundred million people in our brief life...
...The bill contained a provision to legalize the title to lands in the hands of those who had purchased them from the railroads...
...It looked into the railroad question and decided that the railroads should be regulated—thoroughly...
...Saving a spasm or two of Populism, Kansas gave to public affairs and public questions little attention except to vote the Republican ticket and to elect men to office who were Republicans and who were believed to be honest...
...And it got on the right side of these questions with directness and dispatch...
...It is aggressively and belligerently progressive...
...The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Kansas and Calderhead PEOPLE who claim to know say that there are more daily newspapers read in the State of Kansas, in proportion to the population, than in any other State of the Union...
...Oh, say, does that Star-Spangled Banner still wave, 'O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?'" A dozen good years Calderhead has given in Congress to the service of Cannonism and the System...
...Also, being intelligent, it is progressive...
...It inquired into the System leadership of the Republican Party in Congress, and it condemned Aldrichism and Cannonism...
...Kansas, like other western States, has enjoyed a marvelous period of industrial and commercial development...
...When the roll was called on these bills Calderhead was generally found voting against the public interests and for the railroads and the System...
...He voted also for the "special facilities" railroad subsidy in the Postoffice Appropriation Bill, and joined in the House denunciation of the Bristow exposure of corruption in the Postoffice Department...
...That one has to be "with the organization, you know...
...On the Washington Union Station graft of the Pennsylvania Railroad he was "regular" again and voted for the McMillan Bill, which was the beginning, and afterwards in the 57th Congress for the Union Station Bill, which was the consummation of this beautiful scheme of System legislation by which the public treasury and the public lands were raided to the extent of eight millions of dollars to build a monument to railroad domination of Congress...
...With laurels won, with his career of "me-too" System statesmanship rounded out with a perfect score, oup-ht he not, in all fitness, to be retired to private life before, perchance, he suffer same slight infection of progress-ivism and thereby mar a record of unexcelled "regularity...
...And they are "regular"—with Cannon and Dalzell and Payne and their kind...
...His sole contribution to the discussion of the tariff in the House was a high protection stump speech, which, if circulated freely in the Fifth District of Kansas, will help to solve the Calderhead part of the Kansas Congressional problem...
...Moreover, the papers read in Kansas represent, for these times, a high degree of honest patriotism and independence...
...in another century 300,000,000...
...Looking into its representation in Congress, Kansas found a condition demanding correction...
...As an example of the profound logic, statistical research and incisive tariff reasoning exhibited in the speech of the Representative from the Fifth District of Kansas, the concluding paragraph of the speech is here quoted, in order that our readers may study and appreciate it: "And for it all there are many years to come...
...Calderhead himself had bean a homesteader in Kansas, but that was a long time ago...
Vol. 2 • May 1910 • No. 20
