The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-06-30

/ have seen the day
| That 1 have worn a vizor, and could tell
A whispering tale in fair lady's ear
Such as would please.
In the work of president-making now
| going on from ocean to ocean, it would
| be a mistake to eliminate this man
! from calculation. Though past three
score years and ten, he is vigorous, and
could yet tread a measure on the
puncheon floor at a couple O'Clock in
the morning to the enlivening tune of
"a mess chicken" He is old but
tough. and has remaining far more vi
tally than many man of forty. Bis
marck. Gladstone and Disraeli were all
mighty rulers when they had seen more
years than Joseph G. Cannon.
1 take it that the ancestors of Speak
er Cannon were driven out of New
England for their religion. They were
natives of that section and Quakers.
The New England conscience of that
day scorned to go to heaven in COM
pany with a Quaker, and prosecuted
the sect. The Cannon family found
city of refuge and a welcome in North
Carolina, and there the future states7
man was born in 1886, May Z.
But the Quakers too, had a con-
science that gave them a deal of trou
with slave owner, and the parents of
Mr.. Cannon took him to the then west
to grow up with the country Perhaps
they tarried a while in Indiana, but
finally they located in Illinois, close to
the Wabash There Joe was sturdy
boy, healthy, active, self-reliant The
Cannons were Wings, followers of Hen
ry Clay. and long in the minority, for
until 1860 Illinois was a reliable Demo-
-,-a 10 4af fFer fnr. Ac1af lin
Van Buren, in 1S40 when the Wing tidal
wave engulfed nearly everything else.
In that early day Douglas, LambOurn,
Trumbull and Palmer were opposed to
Lincoln, Hardin, Linder and Oglesby,
and Illinois was famous for its fierce
political strifes. The boy Cannon was
Wing, and the young man Cannon
was charter member of the Repub-
lican party.
Aggressive and self-confdent. Joseph
g. Cannon secured a common school
education, studied law, came to the
bar and practiced law and politics. He
was prosecuting attorney seven years,
and in 1872 he was elected to congress.
He was seventeen times renominated
by his party and sixteen times re-elect-
ed, distinction achieved by no other
man of our history. He served in the
national legislature in congresses pre-
SiOeu over Dy 6idlney Kerr, ftdnudll,
Keifer, Carlisle, Reed, Crisp and Hen
derson. and in 1903 he was himself
| elected to preside over what ought to
be the greatest senate on earth.
The Forty-third congress lived when
carpet baggery and scallawaggery were
not yet eradicated at the south; but in
the southern delegations were A. H.
Stephens. L. Q. s. Lamar Roger O.
John Young Brown were from Ken
lucky. Among the northern Democrats
were Fernando Wood, s: s. Cox, w. s.
Holeman, Samuel j. Randall, John r.
Eden, S. S. Marshall and William r.
Morrison, the last three Cannon's col
leagues from Illinois. On the Republi-
can side were Kasson, Blaine, Hale,
Ben Butler, Dawes, the brothers Hoar,
Burrows, Tremaine, Kelley and Horace
Maynard.
1t was among these giants that Jo-
seph @. Cannon served his novitiate.
This was the congress that considered
Ben Buffers force bill, and perhaps
Cannon witnessed the savage assault
John Young Brown made on it's au-
thor, when, as the climax of the fierc-
est and most rhetorical philippe of any
congress, the orator characterized his
victim as everything that is pusillani-
nous in war, inhuman in peace, forbid
den in morales and corrupt in politics"
But Brown was something more than
| the rhetorician. He was a great law
yer. a powerful advocate, a ripe schoI-
ar, a wise statesman. Years before
Philander c. Knox pleaded in the su-
preme court against the Northern Sc
curities merger, John Young Brown.
then governor of Kentucky. against the
counsel of trusted advisers, took into
the courts the merger of the Louisville
& Nashville railroad. and that part of
the Illinois Central that lies in Ken
lucky, and was acquired from c. p
Huntington Browns action then was
prophetic of future policies Roosevelt
followed his example-another case of
Democratic thunder appropriated
Mr.. Cannon was never a SNOWY man
on the floor. His was a slow growth
No prominent man owes so much to ex-
perience- His rise was long delayed
but he finally got a Judgment on the
committee on appropriations. and then
his industry did the rest. He devel-
Oped great business capacity and never
shirked labor. After all, industry is
what tells in this life. Who that saw
them and heard them supposed that
Joseph G.. Cannon would reach high
er place in our parliamentary history
than James A. Mckenzie? But it is
not strange that he did. when we come
to know that while Mckenzie was
revealing in Balzac, Cannon was deep
in treasury estimates. Cannon had a
contempt for the marvellous genius of
the F'renchman; Mckenzie had an
aversion to detail In practical states
manship the tortoise beats the hare
every time. As an eloquent speaker
Mckenzie had few equals; as a con-
verSationaltst he was unrivaied. His
knowledge of literature was prodigious:
his sense of humor delightful He
laughed as we'll as argued free quinine
through congress. Sir Walter Scott's
description of the passages between
Lawyer Piaydell and Dominic Samp-
son describe tariff disputatlons between
"Quininc jim" Mckenzie and Pig
Iron" Kelley. Mckenzie was the best
example of American country gentle
man-hanGsome, eloquent, scholarly
generous. brilliant, farmer, lawyer, stu
dent. artistic N his tastes, genial in his
associations. We shall not soon look
on his like again.