The news & observer., 1905-12-03
FACES ON THE EVE OF CONGRESS
BY Gath---ln Washington Post.

the factory role. the East subject to
ii run competition. say in shoes. wants
free hides and Whitney wants no
tariff on his Nova Scotia coal Cannon,
type of the West, stormed for tariff.
and literally speaking. Roosevelt got
ali the votes <
So the President is now being jack.
strdwed out OF his majority as a for
mer specimen of the free trader, and
asked why he is inconsistent When
the PreSiuent thought George H. Ed
mundS was very great man, he and
Lodge supported that last chance New
ttneIander for President The Shib-
boleth School of Free Traders got or
behind.
80 .sevclt had lust then moved 10
Dakota, where he found raising cat
tie no joke. and the hide was much
of the steer He is now asked to CON
cede the rough riders hides to New
England because he once wrote books.
About 1867 a furious free trade pro-
paganda started in Chicago and ST.
Louis which struck Gen. Grants ad-
minStration and bolted his nomina-
tion in 1872. Since then, hardly, a
vestige of this propaganda is found
West. all its leaders living with Clan.
Despair. East, and throwing bones
at pilgrims. The South. newly cnam-
On John C. Calhoun's lawn a cotton
factory for college students blows its
whistle. Tillman made this college.
OF the Middle Average.
Speaker Cannon is the middle aver
age of Congressman. a queer COM
pound of the mill race which runs
Congress. and the Hoosicr-SuckcrTa
Heel, often looking like an escaped
comedian, not sure that he will not be
wanted for an act. He is, perhaps,
the later edition of Nathaniel Ma
con, Jefferson's Speaker of Congress,
a North Carolinian also, who said that
fist fights and bad roads made the
best militia in the world"
A person Of the eastern conscious
ness, we'll disposed to Cannon, may be
diSmayed by that weSterner'S vernacu-
lar. He says things of search, with
the smallest tact. Gratitude is not es-
pecially deep with him. The great
tide of national power which has run
him into it's mid-stream, stiffens his
sense without sOftening his courtesy.
He is believed to be honest, brash.
and quaint. Bradshaw, the Speaker of
the British Commons, who condemned
Charles to death may have his near
est reproduction in "Joe" Cannon,
who on party questions, is subservient
10 no Hldll, yet WOulu lcel a lt'nueI-
fOotS' appeal, if within his party
scope, and towards the opposition is
mutual without compliment. The real
Yankee. the Gen. Putnam Yankee, the
"Gumption Cute" Yankee. is found in
the ingot of the North Carolina clay
foothills, suckered in Illinois.
The immense glacier of the govern
ment invisibly moves along with such
pikestavers to bestride it. He has Il
very firm mouth, a challenge in his
dry face, parliamentary courage, like
the English civil wars, sagacity of
words without style, a ruling quality
without manner, and can sometimes
think for the whole Congress on q
matter of confusion, and say. "We
must sleep on this" If they did not
respect him they would not obey him.
They believe there is the core Of q
raw gentleman and crude statesman in
him. He never natters them. He is
the IIooSier schoolmdS.cr, a return
of Elihu Yale, who said he was of
three countries, but in his Brother
Jonathan soul had a college idea This
peculiar republic spans from Roose-
welt of Harvard. to Cannon, of the
country bar, like the French Revolu-
ton, which had every sort of leader
from Napoleon to Moreau. and yet
each sort of leader was a study, such
as Carlysle least understood