HAS CONNONISM BEEN DESTROYED?
Evans, Samuel M.
Has Cannonism Been Destroyed? The Revolution in the House. What it Means. What was Accomplished. The Real Battle By SAMUEL M. EVANS ii. THE CANNON MACHINE GANNON began the creation of his...
...And until a few years ago when one or two Insurgents began to appear, these orders were always obeyed...
...For Uncle Joe has watchful eyes and a sharp rebuke...
...The heads of the various Government departments are loathe to risk having their allotments of money cut down, by disobeying the Cannon machine...
...How this was done is an amazing story of greed, arrogance, power-lust, and viciousness...
...Go down and tell Jim Harm to object to that blankety blank...
...We are told that the House can amend the motion to recommit and add instructions...
...Sit on the pork barrel" is Cannon's motto...
...His department was du.ag some work in the Philippines and needed men very badly to go there...
...It was charged that the Attorney General and the Bureau of Insular Affairs of the War Department had connived to give away these lands...
...He cemented this by buying obedience with legislative pork and punishing disobedience by refusing it...
...From its very inception, the Geological Su ey has been absolutely subservient 10 the Cannon Machine...
...Cooper of Wisconsin, the first Insurgent in the House, was removed from the chairmanship of the Committee on Insular Affairs on which Cannon had served under Cooper...
...Cannon worked this trick through the same Dalzell that is a member cf the Committee on Rules...
...Apologists for Uncle Joe tell us that the House can vote down the previous question at any time and amend it...
...A certain employee of the Government who had secuied h s position through a member of the House now an Insurgent, desired to be transferred to Manila...
...Ship subsidy legislation was forced out of the House Committee on Merchant Marine by steam roller methods without a hearing...
...There is ncthing in all Cannonism that so makes an American's blood boil as that query "For what purpose does the gentleman rise...
...It is a story of deceit, trickery, and tyranny ttncqualhd coywheie in a free government...
...This is true if the House is willing to overturn rules on all occasions as it did when it adopted the Norris resolution...
...As a matter of fact they are packed of necessity...
...Cannon's committee held the purse strings for the Department of Agriculture and Cannon's will was usually carried out without question...
...And this is easy because the House is really a continuing body, though in theory it is created anew every two years...
...Calendar Wednesday" was inaugurated on which day committees must be called and Uncle Joe did his best to break this down on March 16 through calling up a report from the Committee on the Census which he ruled was privileged under the Constitution and therefore ahead of Calendar Wednesday...
...All the committees of the House were appointed by Cannon after a perfect understanding as to how their members felt about important legislation demanded by the people but not desired by "The System...
...GANNON instituted a system s^ bold a^ to command obedience and almost respect...
...To secure a place on this list, members were compelled to crawl abjectly to Uncle Joe in his sanctum and beg to be allowed to perform their functions of supposed representatives of a supposedly free constituency...
...He could move to "recommit the bill" to the committee from which it was reported, with inductions to report the amendment...
...Fassett made his mcti-n to recommit WITHOUT ANY INSTRUCTIONS...
...Cannon's Little Private List IT WAS Cannon who created a private list of members whom he would recognize in the course of a day and wrote out this list in his room and carried it with him to the Speaker's desk every morning...
...Even the White House and Postmaster General Hitchcock, political mentor of the Taft Administration, have turned their patronage over to Cannonism...
...Reed laid the foundation for one of Cannon's abuses when he invented his query, "For what purpese does the gentleman rise...
...The House overruled him en this point and this was the real beginning of the is-affection that ended in his defeat three days later...
...The Unanimous Consent Calendar devised by Fitzgerald of New York at the beginning of this Congress places all such 'eills on a calendar open to inspection to all the members and the calendar is read in order...
...Because Uncle Joe watches every roll call and punishment is sure and swift...
...The machine he had created as chairman of the Committee on Appropriations was used as a basis for Cannonism...
...The Cogs in the Machine THE principal cogs in the machine are the various big committees which handle the appropriations and decide on the important legislation...
...Recently an ugly charge was made on the floor of the House that the Sugar Trust has gra bed, contrary to law, valuable sugar lands in the Philippines...
...He called J. Sloat Fassett of New York to his chair and held a whispered conversation with him...
...How disobedience is punished was brought home recently to the writer when he learned that a recalcitrant member who had failed to follow orders had had all the work of the Geological Survey stopped in his district and that a soil survey that had been planned for one of his counties was suddenly abandoned by the Department of Agriculture...
...He had failed and thought that the House might stand with him in this, when the bill got into the Houee...
...The previous question is always demanded...
...If it is carried by a majority vote, there is no opportunity for debate or amendment of the rule...
...When the time came to make the motion to recommit, both Townsend and Fasctt arose at once...
...In fact, before Henderson's death Cannon had practically ruled the Committee on Rules through his influence with John Dalzell, even though Uncle Joe was not a member of the rules committee...
...Bills increasing the number of employees in the various departments are always passed alter a perfect understanding as to what Congressman shall name the extra employees...
...Norris of Nebraska and Murdock of Kansas who voted against the rules, were demoted in their committee assignments...
...And after a member of the House runs up against the enormous power of the Speaker and the amazing intricacies of Cannonism a few times, be usually quits trying...
...Townsend tried to appeal but, no appeal can be taken from a refusal to recognize a memler...
...Cut Cannon can still have a member cn the floor object to the bills...
...The way in which he secured the adoption of the Aldrich tariff I bill in place of the Payne bill by passing ever thooe members of the Ways and Means Committee entitled to places on the Conference Committee and placing men in their places upon whom ho could rely to do the bidding of Aldrich, was an open ani notorious betrayal of the House and a brazen determination to please Wall Street despite the House over which he presided...
...An example of Cannon's trickery is shewn in the way in which he overturned the most vital Fitzgerald air.sndmc.nt...
...Packing" the Committees MEMBERS of Congress themselves have been made to feel the mailed list of the Czar...
...The deal was defended on the floor of the House by Olmstead of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Cannon Committee on Insular Affairs and one of the faithful...
...The Public Buildings Committee decided that there is urgent need of Federal Buildings in these Congressional districts represented by the faithful where the majorities are close...
...I am," answered Fassett, though he is a member of the po toince committee, helped prepare the bill, spoke many times for its provisions and voted for its passage...
...But Reed used the query to prevent filibustering by the making of motions that the mover knew were out of order and which were mode to be ruled out of order, so that time could be consumed by an appeal from the decision of the chair...
...THE CANNON MACHINE GANNON began the creation of his machine over twenty years ago when Reed appointed him chairman of the most powerful committee of the House—the Committee on Appropriations...
...Sereno Payne, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means and author of the House bill, has never forgiven Uncle Joe for that...
...The cases of the Insurgents are still fresh in the minds of everyone...
...And straightway the committees of the House began to pigeonhole bills for parcels post, etc...
...To be concluded...
...Sit on the Pork Barrel...
...The Payne bill was a little better than the Aldrich bill...
...And at the beginning of his reign, Cannon transformed th • Speakership together with the Committee on Rules into an agency of his own personal will...
...The machine usually had to punish but once to secure obedience...
...Meanwhile he went to h.s Congressman for aid to get the transfer...
...The motion to recommit was, of course, voted down and the bill was passed intact...
...Sometimes they are really with the machine, but mere often they are afraid of it...
...The writer knows of a case that is inteiesting...
...In order to have any share in the legislation of the Houre, it is necessary to be a member of a committee...
...Members are returned from some disAN AMAZING STORY AMBITIOUS, autocratic, willful, cuh-itih-g, stubbor)/, and powerful, Uncle .1*.' set about to capture the House of Representatives ivith his machine as a foundation...
...Both said they wanted to move to recommit the bill...
...He prepared a motion to reroml mit the hill to the Postoffice Committee learned that Townsend would offer the amendment, through one cf his spies on the floor...
...But it remained for Cannon to arbitrarily refuse recognition by shouting "But the gentleman is not recognized for that purpose" not even daring to declare the proposed motion out of order...
...Especially if he has a constituency that thinks more of pork than of being represented faithfully at Washington...
...In this way, he would virtually get a record vote cn his amendment...
...This is true...
...Every good bill that has passed the House since Cannon has bee)i on the throne has been passed only after an agitation country-wide, and only after a hard struggle on the floor of the House and in the committees...
...It is one of the things that has been added to the Speakership outside the rules and which the Insurgents would specifically prevent by rule...
...He found John Dalzell of Pennsylvania cn the Committee on Rules and promptly made him a valuable lieutenant...
...tricts time after time (largely because of the pork they secured for their districts) and Cannon was able to secure the .bcLience (if every new member to his machine by his control of he pork barrel...
...Is the gentleman from New York (Fassett) opposed to the bill...
...It was Cannon who, not content with riding over the House through his power to appoint committees and through the operation of the Committee on Rules, first abused flagrantly the great power Of presiding over the House...
...Not only has Cannon packed the committees in favor of Big Business and against the people but he has demoted from their places on committees, members of the House who dared to, disobey his orders...
...Townsend protested that he was enticd to make the motion to recommit...
...It is a story of deceit, trickery, and tyranny unequalled anywhere in a free government...
...As chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, which became famous as "The Hog Combine," Uncle Joe had more real power ever the members of the House than did Henderson as Speaker...
...asked Cannon innocently...
...Cannon then had read a musty law of procedure that, like King Charles of Old, he had dragged from oblivion to suit his purpose...
...It provided that the motion to recommit shall be made by "The most conspicuous gentleman opposed to the bill...
...Parliamentary practice dictates that the motion to recommit shall be made by a member who is opposed to the bill and that it cannot be made twice on the same measure...
...This, in itself, means nothing to the prying eyes of constituents...
...But, under the rules, the House cannot control its own action or rather the Houte by adopting the rules has turned control of its actions ever to the machine...
...Fowler of New Jersey was deposed as chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency because he would not bow to the will of the Cano.on-Aldrich machine when the Alarich-Vreeland currency bill was under discussion...
...There he developed the idea of legislative pork to its highest efficiency as a personal agent...
...And while I was chairman of that committee, there was no exploitation of the Philippines," states Cooper...
...He was told that his ease would be looked up...
...queried Cannon...
...The Committee on Rules, appointed and controlled by Cannon became a substitute for the party caucus...
...There is the same condition when special orders are brought in from the Committee on Rules...
...But sometimes the members who would be compelled by their constituents to vote for such a motion if it contained definite instructions, prefer co fellow the Cannon machine if they can do so...
...It was Cannon's abuse of the power of recognition that brought about all the Fitzgerald amendments...
...This "Institution of the Speakership," as it has been described above, is Cannonism...
...The party whip was sent out among the members, not to find out what sort of special orders they desired the Committee on Rules to report, but to find out what sort of special orders they would stand for, and to give orders...
...Reed would refuse to reco~nize the member to make a motion not in order, and there is no appeal, from a refusal to recognize...
...His crnspiring with members on the floor to make privileged motions and his private list of members to be recognised had resulted in an abandonment of the call of committees altogether...
...It is Cannonism as it existed in the House of Representatives prior to March 19 of this year and as it still exists with the exception of the FORM of the appointment of the Committee on Rules and the actual membership of the Speaker on that Committee...
...There was hardly an appropriation of any size that went oat of Cannon's committee but that it was well understood beforehand in what Congressional districts the money was to be expended...
...One of the greatest abuses of this private list was in connection with requests for unanimous consent to suspend the rules on suspension days...
...This amendment provided that when a member had been unable to secure the adoption of an amendment to a bill in the Committee of the Whole, where no record vote is taken for prying eyes, he can make another try in the House proper...
...In the Interest of Big Business AND before the subject of packing committees is left, it is important to emphasize that it is not of so much concern that they are packed as it is FOR WHOM they are packed...
...It has serious business to perform both in stopping "dangerous" bills and in getting through others that will enable the "Allied Villainies" to get their tentacles a little more firmly fixed on the commercial life of the country...
...To retain the obedience of the committees and of the members of the House was easy as long as constituencies demanded "pork'' instead of honest representation at Washington...
...Or a messenger is sent to Tawney to have him make a privileged motion...
...And, be it remembered, there is no appeal from a refusal to recognize a member...
...And when Henderson Hied from softening of the brain a few years after he had been in office, Cannon elevated himself to the throne of the Speakership and annexed all its great powers and pie-rogatives...
...See what happens if a Congressman whose name is not down on the private list gets the floar for a motion that might embarrass the machine or B:g Dullness...
...Cooper was appointea at the suggestion of President Mckinley who declared that he wanted to prevent the exploitation of the Philippines...
...The Postoffice Committee was not as much concerned about the parcels post as it was about rates on "muckraking" magazines...
...The employee did cot get the transfer...
...Dalzell was so angry at Payne for not bowing to Crnnon's will during the preparation of the Payne bill by the House committee that he left the committee room in a huff at one time and did net return for several days...
...Through his machine, Cannon controlled the Republican caucus and it rarely became necessary to ca.'i it...
...For, of course, Big Business does net control the House for the fun of the thing...
...Ambitious, autocratic, willful, cunning, stubborn, and powerful, Uncle Joe set about to capture the House of Representatives with his machine as a foundation...
...Cannon held that, as a member of the House, he could object to such a request, and therefore compelled members to submit their small private bills to him before he would recognize them to ask unanimous consent...
...And bchii d it all, too plain to be hidden, is the hand of Big Business, ivhich had already controlled the Senate and which used Cannon in the 11,-use to coht)A the lower brat ch of Congress, popularly supposed to be near to the people...
...Not only was Cannon the first Speaker to pack the regular committees of the House, but he was the first Speaker to betray the House into the hands of the Senate through the packing of conference committees...
...How this ivas cone is an aniczirg story of greed, urrogance, power-lust, and viciousness...
...No man would be willing to assume the responsibility of appointing the committees of the House without wanting to know beforehand how the prospective members of those committees felt about important legislation...
...Cannon's Faithful "Objector" GANNON has said many times since his throne began to totter that the House can always control its own action by majoiity Vote...
...But the way of the transgressor is hard and, until this session, mighty few members have had the temerity to stand up against the House machine...
...The employee asked to be transferred...
...His Congressman told him, "My recommendation would do you more harm than good...
...Some of the faithful have as many as 150 constituents in 'he Government service while others have been unable to secure consideration for the claims of their friends...
...Uncle Joe calls his messenger to the throne...
...The abuse of the patronage of the executive derailments in the aid of Cannonism is so notorious as not to need further mention...
...Through his control of the committees, Cannon secured, almost at one stroke, control cf legislation...
...And behind it all, too plain to be hidden, is the hand of Big Business, which had already controlled the Senate and which used Cannon in the House to control the lower branch of Congress, popularly supposed to be near to the people...
...Cannon's Crafty Trick NOTE hew the crafty old Coar nullified this new rule...
...Mann objects and talks and talks until Cannon and his parliamentarian can find a way to circumvent the troublescome member...
...The important thing in the whole matter is IN WHOSE INTERESTS the House is controlled...
...And thus he held his club even over small bills of no moment to the country but possibly of big interest to the member who introduce'1 them...
...The messenger whiskers in the ear of James Mann of Illinois, the great objector for the Machine (albeit one of the most useful members of the House...
...And when the bills were finally passed, it was usually discovered that Big Business had secured enough jokers either in the Senate or in conference to take the st g out of them...
...For what purpose does the gentleman use...
...He took good care to retain real control of the Committee on Appropriations himself, and James Tawney, at present the nominal head of that committee, is nothing but a figurehead to work the will of his master...
...Townsend of Michigan had tried to amend the posteffice appropriation bill while it was in Committee of the Whole so as to secure an increase in the pay of rural carriers...
...Uncle Joe ruled that as Fassett was a member of the Postoflice committee he fitted that description better than Townsend and refused to recognize Townsend...
...This is true...
...Calls for volunteers had not brought enough men...
...If a Congressman wanted a soil survey in his district, he had but to secure Cannon's consent...
...And so the younger members of the House soon fuvnd that they must be subservient to Cannon if they were to enter the councils of the party or to take home any federal appropriations as baits for votes at the next election...
...But it still remains in the power of the Speaker to give or withhold parliamentary advantage through the power of recrg-nitien...
Vol. 2 • August 1910 • No. 34
