Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-05-31
Joseph G. Cannon.

BILE of more cruel injustice than the
political hysteria which sometimes
leads good intentioned people to
form good opinions and rush to
erroneous judgments. An exam
pie of this in the last campaign
was the bitterness of the fight waged
against Speaker Cannon, who was an
athematiZed as representing all that
was bad in public life. His friends
and ncighbors answered these criti-
cisms by returning him to Washington.
Why? The eighteenth Illinois district
is one of the most intelligent in the
United States Nowhere in this broad
land of ours is the standard of Chris
tan civilization higher. Mr. Cannon
has spent the most active years of his
life among these people. He grew up
among them. They know him vastly
better than his critics, and they put the
seal of their hearty approval upon him
at the polls. They were deluged with
pamphlets, and resolutions, and cam
paign speakers employed in every pos
shle form of attack upon him. They
patiently heard the evidence and re-
turned the verdict mot guilty" To
Mr.. Cannon they said well done. good
and faithful servant, we have no fault
to find with your stewardship"
Now it must occur to even super
fetal observer of public affairs that if
the more or less sensational charges
made against Mr.. Cannon were true
the intelligent people of the eighteenth
Illinois district would not have re-
turned any such verdict. AS matter
of fact they were not true. In some
respects they were absolutely false, In
others grossly exaggerated, and in still
others nebulous and intangible. Mr..
Cannon was accused of blocking pro-
posed temperance legislation in COM
mttee. That was absolutely false. He
was represented as more profane than
Mephistcphcles himself. That was
gross exaggeration. He was as
saulted by some who could think Of
nothing definite to say against him as
a generally bad man. That was too
vague and cowarlly to merit anything
but the contempt of decent people
And the people of his district having
heard all that could be said against
him by the combined forces of the enc
my put the seal of their commentator
| upon him and returned him to the ma
tional capitol because they know, as
his associates at Washington know,
that there has never been d cleaner,
| more upright more ruggedly honest. or
more patriotic man in American pub
| lie life than Joseph G. Cannon. They
| know that not only has he been all his
life man whose sterling integrity and
devotion to duty has placed him utterly
| beyond The reach of questionable influ
ences ard commanded the absolute
confidence and respect of all his asso-
cates, irrespective of their political
affiliations; but they know also that he
| has been at all times, and in all places,
a man with the absolute courage of his
convictions. For many years he served
in congress with eminent distinction
AS chairman of the great COM
mittee on appropriations. Here he
was known as the implacable
foe of every appropriation that could
not justify itself upon the grounds of
good business and a sound public pol
icy. He was the perpetual terror of
would be raiders of the treasury. He
was interchangeable. He sifted every
proposition to the last analysis. If he
were convinced that a proposed appro-
priation was wrong in principle he al
ways insisted that it be thrown out; if
he thought it was right in principle
but cxorbitant in amount he demanded