EDITORIALS
SOMETHING DOING '' A CQUIESCE in the President's recommending measures to pacify the-public,"—"Delay intro ducing bills upon the legislation recommended." —"Delay calling the committees...
...Some reasons for such a course on the part of this institution have recently come to be better understood...
...The cotton cloth schedule would have been lowered...
...But he was willing to make any personal sacrifice that might be involved in any course he deemed best for the interests of the people...
...They form an economic oligarchy, They run and ramify into every Congressional district...
...Pin chot, "you have destroyed your usefulness as a helpful subordinate of the government...
...For there are wolves in sheeps' clothing that will do the will of privilege under the name of Progress just as readily as under the name of Reaction...
...Morgan and Mr...
...We hope the sugar trust may learn it "by heart" and at heart...
...They form a class as sympathetic as any board of directors and they control the tools of democracy as readily as they ever controlled the tools of the countries of Europe...
...The little band of progressive Senators and Representatives are powerless to call committee meetings, determine what bills shall be reported, or compel consideration of any measure in Senate or House after it has been reported...
...Barring those items in which the House had a separate vote, namely, lumber, hides, barley, barley malt, and a single amendment pertaining to oil, and the other items where the effects of the President's efforts were shown, the compromise was one between Speaker Joseph G. Cannon on the one hand and the United States Senate on the other...
...If the United States Navy were run as a private enterprise by the United States Steel Corporation, do you suppose they would permit some other concern to make a profit on the coal supply...
...No, Cannonism is not these things, any more than it is the autocratic power which the Speaker holds over the political career of the members of the House...
...For Joseph Cannon is not Cannonism...
...So long as the public depends in any degree upon the competition between railroads to insure reasonable rates for transportation, to which the public is legally and morally entitled, just so long is the act of Mr...
...Morgan's railroad consolidation represents the consolidation of natural monopolies, endowed with special privileges, privileges which are conferred to be exercised in the public interest and not against it...
...It may even permit the people to hug to themselves the belief in victory...
...Before it becomes law,—or as a part of it, if enacted,—provision should be made for the administration of the public domain in that region...
...But in two respects it is unfortunate...
...It is only at rare intervals that any sound issues from the strong-hold of this committee...
...About the middle of January it became known that the progressive Senators had planned to openly attack the program of delay on the Senate floor and that day after day they would demand prompt action on progressive legislation in the public interest...
...It may appear to bow before the popular storm...
...Thanks to the vigorous and patriotic action of Pinchot and GLAVia it is not yet too late to save this national wealth from plundering hands, Congress must, however, take prompt measures to retain forever the title to these lands and provide for leasing under adequate royalty and effective regulations to conserve in the public interest these valuable resources...
...But do not cheer when that event occurs...
...So mote it be...
...In this dark retreat more bills of great public interest have been done to death than in any other quarter of the National Capitol...
...Since recognition to speak depends upon the favor of the Speaker, no opportunity comes to Progressives in the House to criticize the delay or suppression of legislation or to debate it when pending...
...Perhaps it would not be such an irrational thing to set apart, at the same time, a few thick seams from which Uncle Sam could dig his own coal for his own ships...
...All these things might be destroyed...
...The result was startling...
...But Cannonism will not pass away with the mere defeat of the present Speaker...
...Delay reports on the bills as long as possible...
...This bill was rushed through committee and reported to the Senate Friday the twenty-eighth...
...the interests which were responsible for the Aldrich Tariff Law...
...If progressive senators and members could not be influenced or coerced through the loss of their patronage and by political and legislative sandbagging, into submission or silence, or if the President insisted upon having something to show at the end of this session, or, if the tide of Insurgency continued to rise the country over, then, in such case, ,the bill or bills least harmful to special interests should be passed...
...Within twenty or thirty miles from deep water are rich deposits of anthracite,—a finer steam coal than any now supplied to our war vessels...
...SOMETHING DOING '' A CQUIESCE in the President's recommending measures to pacify the-public,"—"Delay intro ducing bills upon the legislation recommended...
...Morgan cannot have the privilege of consolidating twenty companies for the same purpose...
...Report and pass certain other bills in the House so late in the session that it will be impossible for them to receive consideration in the Senate...
...And this system will not be dislodged without a fight...
...The Navy and the Coal Fields of Alaska IT IS frequently prophesied that the great international conflict of the future in which the United States is to play a prominent part will be the struggle for the control of the Pacific...
...That would be a time for rejoicing, it is true, but it would also be a time for prayer and watchfulness...
...A marked reduction in the duty on sugar, and not an infinitesimal one, would have been made...
...Cannonism is not the czar rules of the House of Representatives...
...Such was the program, the plan, the decree of the Masters of legislation at the beginning of this session, subject to whatever changes the exigencies might require...
...But even this committee was moved...
...When in addition we realize that the operation of the law as at present administered will inevitably result in the establishment of a gigantic private monopoly to which the people of the western states must pay tribute in ever increasing amount as they become more and more de- pendent on this source of supply, it is obvious that immediate amendment of the law is imperatively needed...
...And when the end of Cannon comes, the privileged interests which make use of the power of the Speaker to frame all laws to suit their will...
...A very bad bill introduced by Senator Carter was amended by striking out about all of it but the title and the name of its author and appropriating the substance of a very good bill introduced by Senator Borah...
...The flood of messages received by the deposed forester denotes overwhelmingly and significantly that the country does not regard Gifford Pinchot as an object of commisseration...
...Delay calling the committees together for their consideration...
...TfSaid Representative Murdock in the office of the Wichita Daily Eagle: "If Cannon and his inordinate rule had been absent from the House of Representatives in 1909, the woolen schedule would not stand in the tariff law as it does today...
...The Why is so big that everyone ought to see it, including Mr...
...Remember that committee appointments, committee organization, committee action in the Senate and House are strictly under the same powerful control...
...But Mr...
...Herein lies the strategic importance of the Alaskan coal fields, and the necessity of their development under the perpetual control of the Federal government...
...Its ways have been darksome and hidden above all mysteries...
...Taft, by removing' Mr...
...He is quoted as having argued: "I cannot see why, if a farmer in New Jersey is permitted to buy up several adjoining farms and consolidate them under one management for economical operation and increase in productive capacity, Mr...
...All this is being done that we may be ready for any emergency affecting our national interests which may arise in the future...
...His record of devotion is too fine to admit of such speculation...
...For America is not ruled by men...
...We have sent out an immense floating dry dock to Manilla and have established coaling stations at various convenient points in the Pacific...
...When he has consolidated the "adjoining farms" he is still in a competitive business—competing with every other farmer, consolidated or otherwise...
...Then sidetrack them for the consideration of appropriation bills...
...He will be looked upon as a general, with a large measure of freedom in planning his own campaign...
...For instance, recently Chancellor Day delivered himself of another installment of his sentiments upon the subject of railway control and corporate consolidation...
...Kansas City Times...
...Cannonism is not the power of the Speaker to name committees and by that means control all legislation...
...We regret that he can not "see why...
...Report certain of the bills in the Senate...
...One of the reasons for undertaking the construction of the Panama Canal by the United States Government was that it would provide a shorter route for the American Navy when its services were needed for the defense of the Pacific Coast and our insular possessions to the west...
...In its latest report, recently issued, the sugar trust says its little lesson like this: "While the assets and business of your company are the property of its stockholders, yet your directors recognize the legitimate interest which the public has in a business organization which deals to a large extent in a necessity of life...
...But unquestionably Mr...
...The Meaning of Cannonism THE downfall of Cannon may be imminent...
...Morgan as a railroad capitalist is entitled to receive, for serving the public, a fair return on his investment, and no more...
...Cannonism is something far graver, far more dangerous, far more serpent-like than any one man, or the rules which he has used to enforce his will...
...Cannonism is the control of the House of Representatives by the same group of the interests which are entrenched in the Senate...
...The notorious joker in regard to structural steel would have been eliminated...
...Then they should scrutinize their acts more carefully than they have been doing during the past few months...
...Neither are these evils which we charge so hotly against...
...Morgan in consolidating competing railroads to remove the restraint of competition, an offense morally and legally...
...It even broke the tomb-like silence of the cave occupied by the Interstate Commerce Committee...
...Their debate upon the tariff bill was so informing, their exposure of its betrayal of public interest so complete, so convincing, that the President's Winona declaration that it was "the best tariff bill ever passed by the Republican party," proved so offensive to the American people that he never ventured to repeat it...
...And its Chancellor is endowed with a set of arrant Systemisms of economic and political theory...
...I cannot see why" says Chancellor Day...
...A hurry-up call went out for a meeting of the Committee on Postoffices and Post Roads to consider the Postal Savings Bank bill...
...the Speaker himself might be defeated or retire from the halls of Congress...
...A business corporation can have no asset more valuable than the good will of the public and that good will can best be obtained by explaining to the public the nature of any existing misapprehension as to its character and operations...
...He certainly did not desire to relinquish, the office he had developed to one of great prominence and importance...
...Reformed, by Hek...
...The test of the Progressives will come when they are faced with the difficulty of choosing a successor...
...Pass as small a number of these bills as possible in the Senate,—and so late that they will not be acted upon by the House...
...And the alarm spread...
...Nor is it the control of the "pork barrel," by which the appropriations, for federal buildings, for river and harbor appropriations, for all the good things that endear the Congressmen to hungry constituents, are passed around to those who are good and withheld from those who rebel...
...Henry Beach Needham, in Everybody's Magazine...
...Whether he foresaw it or not, he is in a better position now than he was before his dismissal to make a fight for the protection of the public domain against the plunderers of special privilege...
...But a new day has dawned, a new light breaks in the East...
...Pinchot's New Rank ''BY your own conduct," wrote the President to Mr...
...To allow these vast fuel resources to pass into private ownership, and to be exhausted for private profit without regard to the needs of the future would be the height of folly from this standpoint alone...
...Then the eyes of the people should be riveted on their Representatives more firmly than ever...
...One important and necessary provision has thus far been overlooked,—an adequate supply of coal for the fleet in these waters...
...He is no longer a "subordinate...
...Not much...
...The Senate is preparing to get ready to begin...
...But in the Senate there is still freedom of speech...
...They have the confidence of the public, because they deserve that confidence...
...It issued a call for a meeting on the 28th of January...
...Sessions were held day after day...
...It is endowed from the fortunes of System-made millionaires...
...It may abandon Cannon as no longer available for its use...
...They send their lawyers, their friends and their stockholders to Congress to do their willl...
...The committees act only when orders come for action...
...Pinchot must have foreseen the possibilities that might follow his "conduct...
...Delay consideration by the committees...
...America is ruled by a closely related group of interests, which have fastened monopoly upon the people by means of legislation...
...Pinchot on a technical violation of discipline at once deprived the government of the official services of one of its strongest men and at the same time made the forester a greater figure in national affairs than he had ever been before...
...The farmer is engaged in a competitive business and is not given by the public any franchise or monopoly privilege...
...A Misguided Pedagogue SYRACUSE University is a great school...
...Now let the country take notice...
...concerns in the country, the sugar trust has been the most industrious and most intelligent in saying nothing and doing nothing that would give the public the slightest clue as to the conduct of its corporate affairs...
...A bill to provide for the government of Alaska has been reported to the Senate...
...When he consolidates competing railroads he does it to stifle competition and to enable him to extort from the people more than he is entitled to receive for the service rendered...
...He is a private citizen, with all the rights of a private citizen, untrammeled by office or discipline or red tape...
...that the Senate group, with Aldrich its chief, and the House group, with Cannon its chief, perfectly cooperate...
...We are constructing an impregnable naval station at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands...
...This is the political system which lies behind Cannonism...
...It is to be hoped that neither influence is a material factor in the curriculum of instruction at Syracuse...
...all of the excessive authority of the Speaker might be taken away...
...It may arise in a more dangerous form in the shape of some one more cautious than he, more democratic in assurances and to all intents and purposes a Progressive...
...OF ALL the close-mouthed, gum-shoe, dark-lantern, sh-h-h, hist...
...Everything moves with military precision...
...Herein lies the power of the handful of progressive Senators, among whom are the ablest debaters on the Republican side...
...We are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in digging this inter-oceanic waterway...
...It would have been reduced...
...A pretty lesson...
...And in the great cause of national conservation the people will regard the change in his status as something of a promotion...
...the emasculation of railway control legislation and the enthronement of the land, mining and timber Interests of the West, will be busy choosing his successor...
Vol. 2 • February 1910 • No. 5
