St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1897-07-17
sPeAkER End WHlTE HOUSE.
Facts That Upset One so-Called Un~
a TSaIs+fou

Facts That Upset One So-Called Un~
written Law OF American Politics.
Various unWritten laws of American
politics seem to have lost their force of
late. There is that one to the effect
white house could expect ever to be
reelected to return to it-a rule broken
in the case of Cleveland. Another is a
law that no United States senator could
become president-a law broken in the
case OF James A. Garfield. Still another
of these laws has recently been brought
again into notice by the critics and ad-
mirers of Speaker Thomas B. Reed,
and there is travelling about in sonlc
newspapers an item to the effect that
'every man who has sought the speak
ership of the house since the founda
tion Of the government has done SO
with view to the presidential nonina-
tion of his party. It has always BEEN
enough to defeat his election except In
one lone, solitary instanee-that OF
James X. Polk
Such statements, of course, absurd.
The last democratic speaker of the
house of representatives, for Instance,
Charles f. Crisp, who presided over the
house in the Fifty-second and Fifty
third congresses, was not native of the
United States. having been born al Shelf
field, England, and he was therefore not
eligible to the presidency, and could not
have sought the speakership for two
terms with a view to the presidential
nomination of his party" Nor was
he the only foreign-born speaker of the
honse of representatives. Again. it is
not true that the previous service as
speaker of the house of representatives
has ever been a bar to other honors in
the field of American politics. Schuyler
Colfax was the speaker of three houses,
in the Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth and
the FOR tfttttI cuIIg gTtsses. tie asPiTed to
be vice president of the United States,
an Office to which he was nominated and
elected in 1868 He was never a cam
| didate for the presidency and never
aspired, SO far as public records show,
to the presidential nomination. Ma
thaniel P. Banks, who was speaker Of
the house in the Thirty-fourth congress,
aspired afterward to be governor of his
native state of Massachusetts, and his
service as speaker did not prove an OBJ
stacle to this, for he became governor
of Massachusetts, in 1868, being the sue
cessor Of John A. Andrews. John G.
Carlisle, who was the speaker in three
congresses, was never seriously regard
ed as candidate for the presidency. and
the obstacle to his ambition was not past
service as speaker of the house Of rep
resentatives, but the fact that he came
from Kentucky, a state south of the
Ohio river line, and was. therefore, re-
garded as unavailable on geographical
grounds. Galusha A. Grow, who was
speaker in the ThiTty-seventh congress,
was never, as far as anyone knows or
has heard, candidate for the presiden-
tial nomination. He is a member of the
present congress and prominent fig
ure in it. John Bell was speaker in the
Twenty-third congress, elected in 1884,
and his defeat for the presidency 26
years later could have had little connec-
tion with his service in the house of
representatives. and his successor,
James X. Polk, as speaker, who presided
over the house in the Twenty fourth
and Twenty-ffth congresses, was elect
ed president In 1s44.--N. Y. Sun.