The age-herald., 1902-02-14
Washington Day by Day

other and entirely different relation. is not man whom the south has In the past had any special reason or excuse for loving
 Although a southerner by birth, NIT. Cannon was so vituperative towards the south ten years ago as to earn for him self the repulsive punning designation of "the foul-mouthed Cannon"
 While his coarseness. one might say his assertive uncouthness, Is Nessus shirt which clings to him so closely that he will never be able to send 1t to the cleans ing laundry of refinement yet the years are having some little softening effect upon this painted brave from Vermilion County Illinois.
 MT. Cannon at sixty-six. and with eight and twenty years experience in Congress is old enough to have acquired the out ward forms of culture, had he not been hopelessly handicapped by the double curse of ill-breeding and lack of educa- ton. He was born in North Carolina of that peculiar element of southern life which three-sccre sought habitation in the north, and like so many others of his class ne began early enough to harbor resentment against the people amongst whom he was brought into the world.
 This trail was most predominant in An crew Johnson, who was of the same class of south-haters, though he lived and died an east Tennessee southerner. Johnsons 8 hatred of the ruling class of the south was so fierce that 1t amounted to an un- controllable passion. Similarly affected were the Brownlows, the Houcks, Firing Brothers Key, the Whites of Kentucky, and the Warmaths-though Governor Warmoth, like the Whites, was of gentle birth.
 MT. Cannon entered Congress thirty years ago. but he was thrown out for one term by the Democratic uprising in the middle of Harrisons term as President, and therefore he is now serving his twen- ty-eighth year in the House. He is physi- cally an admirable type of man, though his mouth, oddly unconcealed by any mustache above his otherwise full-beard- ed face, is abnormally large. His rugged and rude force of intellect is unquestioned, undeniable, and he is fighter, fierce and relentless, though much too voluble. These mental characteristics, due to his lack of culture, alone prevent him from being a great man. But even as he is he sizes up fairly we'll with past powerful chairmen of the appropriations commit tee, narrow and unreasoning as he is.
 The solar successful opposition of MT. Cannon to the proposed passage of a force bill against the south is both surprising and gratifying; and in view of evidence that Speaker Henderson is in sympathy with MT. Cannons attitude, surprise and qualification are all the greater. MT. Can non pleads the fruitlessness of agitating such an issue, and therefore he in effect declares he is acting on the score of polit- ical and partisan expediency; it being true that every previous agitation for the passage of a force bill resulted in the election of a Democratic House. But southerners care nothing for MT. Can non's motives so long as he actually op- ROs7N to degrade the south.
 Inexpediency or what not, the Crum- packers, the Bartholdts, Gibsons and Moodys of the Republican two hundred in the House have already succeeded in greatly strengthening the Democratic po- sition by alarming the conservative ele- ments in the north. Northern capital in vested in the south, more particularly in Alabama and the Carolinas, which are especially aimed at by the force bill, now aggregates a vast sum, and good govern ment, prosperity and tranquility in the south are of vital import to the strong est of all northern influences-the money interests.
 The Northern capitalistic invasion of the South, which is of such paramount necessity to Southern material develop ment is rapidly gaining in proportions and spower, and the North cannot af- ford to suffer the Republican revolu- tionists in Congress to interfere with Southern political and governmental in-' dependence.
 As pointed out in this correspondence six weeks ago, there has been no dan ger of the passage of a force bill by the present Congress, though there was and Is grave danger attached to the possible attempt to pass such a measure. Dem- ocrats at the outset of the session deter mined with no little bitterness to make all legislation impossible so long as a force might be under the consideration of the House or the Senate: But supposing the Republican majority of the House should succeed by revolutionary methods in gagging and binding hand and foot the Democratic minority and thereby forcing the passage of a force bill, Sem ator Hanna and his following at the other end of the Capitol would unite with the Democratic senators in making the adoption of the bill by the Senate i'm possible. On the direct proposition to pass any bill interfering in any way with the political independence of the South, it is believed there would be a clear ma jority of the Senate on the negative side.
 The person Richard Henry Gibson, one South, was born in Maryland sixty-five years ago. but he has resided in Ten nessee since 1866. and may therefore be considered as one of the few survivors of carpetbaggerism in the South; for he tells us that in 1868 he was 'appointed"