ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Sitting on the Cannon Lid ''THE COUNTRY is unquestionably on the verge of a timber famine, which will be felt in every household in the land. There has...
...Nor when he voted for the Frye Shipping Bill to give the same interests, in effect, a ten-million-dollar shipping subsidy...
...It becomes obvious, however, when you realize that the plan of the Appalachian and White Mountain forest reserves contemplates interference with the making of quick fortunes by the timber barons...
...On hides and on oil and on barley he went Chairman Payne and his committee "one better" by advocating an increase of their duties...
...The history of Scott's endeavors as a lid-sitter for the Cannon machine and the success that has attended his efforts to prevent the enactment of legislation favored by a majority of both Houses of Congress, is one of the object lessons that constitute the indictment against Cannon and Cannonism, It is one of the proofs positive of misrepresentative government in Congress, not only misrepresentative of the people but misrepresentative of Congress itself...
...SCOTT pays the price and something more, as an earnest of his machine faithfulness and as a bid for future preferment...
...Short-sighted persons, or persons blinded to the future by a desire to make money in every way out of the present, sometimes speak as if no great damage would be done by the wreckless destruction of our forests...
...Again in the present Congress the friends of conservation have put in their bill and have forced its report, over the opposition of Chairman Scott, from the Committee on Agriculture, Scott meanwhile with all his might striving to keep down the lid as demanded by the Cannon machine, and finally, when he could no longer prevent the report of the measure, seeking to redeem himself in the eyes of the System by making a minority report against its adoption...
...Although pledged by public declarations for free lumber, and although advocating free lumber in the debate, Scott voted against free lumber on one roll call...
...The scheme worked and, through it, the System forces, captained by scott, defeated conservation in the first session of the 60th Congress...
...and it would be in the highest degree reprehensible to let any consideration of temporary convenience or temporary cost interfere with such action...
...When the roll was called and the House was forced to go on record the System was unable, in the face of public sentiment for conservation, to muster enough votes to defeat the measure and the bill passed...
...In that committee, after a protracted controversy and over the opposition of Chairman Scott, by a vote of 11 to 7, the bill was ordered reported, first having incorporated into it several amendments along the lines of the Scott committee's substitute of the previous session...
...He championed the countervailing duty for Standard Oil in the debate, though he failed to stand by Cannon and the faithful forty-six who voted for the petroleum duty on the roll call...
...Speaker, that some gentlemen claim to have felt in being required to go to the Speaker and ask his consent to ask for unanimous consent to bring a bill before this House...
...that it contemplates government control of vast water powers coveted by certain Interests...
...General exodus of "leaders" to cloak rooms...
...As a System committee chairman of the Cannon machine, Scott, of course, is expected and required to be "regular...
...In the other case, if I am turned down, no reason is given, and the whole membership of the House may see my embarrassment...
...But Scott's new-born doubt as to the advisability of spending the people's millions for Special Interests was apparently not accompanied by any conviction that the people were entitled to have some of their money spent for conservation in their own interest...
...In the Senate the forest reserve bill was passed...
...Notwithstanding the repeated and urgent recommendations of President Roosevelt in behalf of the Appalachian and White Mountain forest reserve legislation, notwithstanding its endorsement by the country's foremost advocates of conservation, by the Conservation Congress of Governors, Chairman Scott and his more faithful assistants in his committee, fought the bill at every opportunity and by every means within their power...
...Every business man in the land, every writer in the newspapers, every man or woman of an ordinary school education, ought to be able to see that the forests which supply this lumber are being rapidly exhausted, and that, if no change takes place, exhaustion will come comparatively soon, and that the effect of it will be felt severely in the every-day life of our people...
...There are plenty of men in public and private life who actually advocate the continuance of the present system of unchecked and wasteful extravagance...
...These lands, because they form a national asset, are as emphatically national as the rivers which they feed, and which flow through so many States before they reach the ocean...
...But we can prevent further mischief being done...
...The machine having decided for Special Interests, the carrying out of that determination was cheerfully assumed by the machine chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, Charles F. Scott, of Kansas...
...President Roosevelt's message was being read in the House of Representatives...
...In the 59th Congress, however, Scott is found taking an active interest in the public treasury—as a champion of the Beef Trust in advocating that the cost of packing-house inspection be paid by the Government and not by the packers...
...Frequent little, journeys to the cloak-room seemed to be in order...
...Scott voted for the Cannon-Payne-Aldkich upward tariff revision on final passage...
...Beautiful, isn't it...
...Regularity" is the price of his petty eminence...
...In the present Congress he voted to have Speaker Cannon pack the committee to investigate the Pinchot-Ballinger conservation controversy...
...The present annual consumption of lumber is certainly three times as great as the annual growth...
...It would hardly seem worth while to further catalog here the array of Scott's System votes during his four and one-half terms in Congress...
...that it contemplates a slight interference with railroad lumber traffic in the immediate future, and permanent interference with other railroad traffic by restoring the navigability of great rivers...
...Thanks to our own recklessness in the use of our splendid forests, we have already crossed the verge of a timber famine in this country, and no measures that we now take, can, at least for many years, undo the mischief that has already been done...
...Again in the 59th Congress was his interest in the treasury shown by his votes for millions for mail ship subsidies...
...Hence the House organization set its face in the 60th Congress to defeat, and did defeat, the great Roosevelt program of conservation...
...There are persons who find it to their immense pecuniary benefit to destroy the forests,by lumbering...
...But the combined efforts of the System leaders, both in the committee and in the House, had succeeded in postponing action on the measure until so late in the session that the House amendments could not be acted on by the Senate and the measure was lost...
...Its fate, therefore, was placed in the hands of those who control Congress...
...A big lumbering company, impatient for immediate returns and not caring to look far enough ahead, will often deliberately destroy all the good timber in a region, hoping afterwards to move on to some new country...
...We should acquire in the Appalachian and White Mountain regions all the forest lands that it is possible to acquire for the use of the Nation...
...The attitude of Scott, of Kansas, upon public measures, aside from his own vote and aside from the interest of the Second District of Kansas in its representation in Congress, would not be of public concern were it not for the fact that Scott is Speaker Cannon's chairman of this important committee, an appointment won by several years of subservient regularity and faithful adherence to System program...
...The responsibility of choosing between the service of the public interest and the service of the Special Interests rested in the first instance upon the machine...
...The first convenient means of defeating the measure was found in a substitute measure, which provided for no appropriation and instead of action by the Government proposed to authorize the States most directly interested to form confederations for the conservation of national resources, a bill which could be talked about and argued for with little danger of its being passed by Congress and no danger of any action being taken under it even if it were passed...
...It is difficult to have patience with the arguments of these persons...
...Surely, when these facts are so obvious, there should be no delay in taking preventive measures," continued the message...
...Of course they could not avow System reasons for their opposition...
...A few of the "leaders" of the Cannon machine were listening to that message and those few were apparently not pleased...
...But the friends of conservation were encouraged...
...Scott's first conspicuous act as a member of the House, in connection with the disbursement of public money, was the amendment which he succeeded in having attached to the Pestoffice Appropriation Bill, during his second term, increasing the indefensible so-called "special facilities" railway mail subsidy for the railroads...
...And even after his great economy efforts against conservation he was still unconvinced that he should favor economy as against Special Interests, and so in the 60th Congress on the ocean mail subsidy he dodged the issue by voting "Present...
...In the tariff revision Scott's adherence to the upward revision program promulgated by the "leaders" was most diligent and faithful...
...and if the consumption and growth continue unchanged, practically all our lumber will be exhausted in another generation, while long before the limit of complete exhaustion is reached, the growing scarcity will make itself felt in many blighting ways upon our national welfare...
...Nor did he come to the defense of the treasury in the 58th Congress by even so much as a vote in opposition to the Congressional mileage grab legislation of that Congress...
...The carrying forward of this undertaking would require legislation and an appropriation by Congress...
...He emphasized his position on conservation of national resources by voting to lay on the table President Roosevelt's message advocating the use of the Secret Service in the detection of land frauds...
...On one such occasion he declared: "I have never felt the humiliation, Mr...
...The second session of the 60th Congress convened, and the clerk was reading the President's message: "If there is any one duty which more than another we owe to our children and our children's children to perform at once, it is to save the forests of this country, for they constitute the first and most important element in the conservation of the natural resources of the country...
...Possibly because my mind is not subtle enough to note the distinction between going to the Speaker's private office to proffer the request and proffering the request upon the floor of the House...
...In the House it was referred to Scott's Committee on Agriculture...
...More explosions and gnashing of teeth in the cloak rooms...
...Why such a recommendation, so obviously in the public interest, should arouse the opposition of the "leaders," is not at first obvious...
...Publicly they were against it because of the appropriation of public money...
...On the floor of the House, opposition to the bill was championed by Scott, supported by Cannon's man Tawney, and Payne, of high tariff fame...
...A stock argument of Scott and his System associates in defeating conservation was the unwarranted expenditure of public money...
...Nor was Scott concerned to protect the public treasury when he voted, in the second session of the 58th Congress, against an amendment to preclude the Merchant Marine Commission from advocating ship subsidies...
...From Scott and his committee issued the report against the appropriation of $25,000 asked by President roosevelt for the publication of the material gathered by the Commission for the Improvement of Country Life...
...Explosions heard from cloak rooms...
...At this writing Congress has not adjourned, but in all likelihood he has succeeded in delaying the measure so long that it will not be enacted at the present session...
...There has already been a rise in the price of lumber, but there is certain to be a more rapid and a heavier rise in the future...
...In one case, if I am turned down, a reason is given and there is no one present to witness my mortification...
...A cloak-room is a place where the System "statesman" can rest his fevered brow screened from the vulgar gaze of the hoi polloi and relieve his injured feelings in apt terms without having his remarks "taken down" by the reporter...
...An illustration of Scott's subservience to the machine was afforded by his championship of Cannon and the Cannon rules during the past and present Congresses...
...that the lumber barons and the railroads and the water power trust are of the System, and that the System owns the "leaders" and maintains the Cannon machine to serve it and its Interests in the House of Representatives...
Vol. 2 • July 1910 • No. 26
