The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1909-11-26
WEST TO LOSE CONTROL.
Due to Fight Made by the Insurgents
In Congress.


dispatch to the Herald says
In the basement of the white house
Offices is an apparatus which looks
something like an open refrigerator
1t has several large shelves made of
strips, with open spaces between them
and through the ceiling pipes lead
to various rooms above.
1t is known as the dog days cool
err" and has been adopted by the
president because he has been in.
formed that it's use will lower the
temperature in the rooms from ten
to twenty degrees. 1t holds eight tons
of ice. When chemicals, which also
are to be used, are applied and the
suction fans turned on, no heated i'm
agination will be able to Withstand
the cooling effect.
All signs indicate that its use will
be demanded in Washington long be.
| fore the summer comes. Indeed it
is predicted that soon after the Sixty
first congress meets in regular session
the president will have to summon
Speaker Cannon, Senator Cummins,
Senator La Toilette, Representative
Victor Murdoch, and a few other agi-
tated and agitating western politicians
to the offices and place them in the
frigid draught.
The president, in the interest of
getting legislation next winter, is
rather in favor of a cessation of hos
tilities, but the violent attack made
on Mr.. Cannon and "Cannonism" by
Senator Cummins, in Chicago recent
ly, and the reply made by the speaker
last Friday night, at Bloomington, ILL.,,
lend color to the view that the fight
will have to come off on the floor
of the house of representatives before
much can be done in the way of legis-
lation. When Senator CumminS,
member of another branch of con-
gress, but who controls nearly the
entire Iowa delegation, dedicates his
| life to over-throwing the speaker of
the house, and the speaker replies
with accusations of lying and bribery
there would seem to be no middle
ground until there has been meas
uring of strength in the open.
At the same time there is a feel
| ing growing in Washington that the
insurgents" in the house will be
able to muster up no more strength
than during the tariff fight If they
are stronger than they were in August
that fact is not known here. If their
constituencies are still in favor OF
having another long period of revision,
| 1t is not voiced by the reports that
are reaching the president and Repre-
sentative John w. Dwight, the repub-
lican whip" of the house, who keeps
fairly good track of the varying moods
of congressional idiosyncrasy. Indeed
it is pointed out as a significant fact
that Senator Cummins, who before
the president made his speech at Wi
mona, Mimi, on the tariff was in favor
of immediate revision, has altered his
programme and is now talking in fav-
or of the abstract proposition OF a
tariff commission.
The men from the west, who are in
the "insurgent" camp and also in
hopeless minority in their party, it
is pointed out here, have failed to
note one most important fact in the
shifting of the political power. For
many years the middle west controlled
congress. The states of Iowa, lll1-
nois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana,
Minnesota, Ohio, Michigan, Kansas
and Nebraska stood together. The
large republican majorities and the
constant increase in the congressional
representation caused the balance of
political power, so long as there was
a reasonable measure of solidarity
among the representatives, to. slip
across the Alleghanies. Thus, when
Speaker Reed retired from the house
that great growth of the middle west
enabled the late David B. Henderson
to win the speakership. New York
was divided, the east could not agree
and the gavel of the house went be-
yond the Mississippi.
Again, when Mr.. Henderson retired,
Joseph G. Cannon succeeded him by
the employment of the same cohesive
methods. The west was in the saddle.
So long as it stood together 1t was In
vincible.
buI lue ho'S
changed in consequence of the agi-
tation for low tariff and changes in
the Cannon rules. The west Is no
longer solid. IT has deliberately let
slip its chance further to control the
country and practically every import
ant committee that holds the purse
strings. 1t is divided A portion of
it is fighting "Uncle joe" Another
portion is fighting for him. The whole
western country, in consequence of
the politics" played by Messrs, La
Toilette, Cummins, Nelson, Clapp
Bristow, Brown and Burkett, who, al
though in the senate, claim the right
to control votes in the house, just as
Platt and Quay did in the days of
their power as bosses, has lost its
influence, maintained 81 long as its
statesmen stood together
AS a result the east and the Pa
cific coast will come into their own