Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1909-11-10
Cnmmins NE. Cannon.


AS between a statesman like Senator
Cummins, who has the courage of his
convictions TO stand up and publicly
condemn a leader of his own party,
and Speaker Joseph G. Cannon, who
tries to read such statesman out of
the party because he will not grovel
at the feet of powerful party bosses"
and kings of finance, the people have
only respect for the former and lack
or confidence In the latter
Senator Cummins' formal reply to
Cannon was printed In full in The
Argus Monday, and was doubtless read
with interest by all who follow great
national issues closely.
This able address was not only a
deserving condemnation of Cannon
ism. but an arTaigament of the entire
so-called republican majority which
made possible the perpetuation of such
an offense against the people as the
Aldricn-P Payne Cannon tariff law. And
it is a serious slam at President Taft,
who. lacking the courage to stand up
with La Toilette, Cummins, Dolliver
and other ''progressives' who con-
denim violation of party pledges, rose
automatically, looked first to one side
and then to the other, counted the nu-
merical strength of the "standpatters"
and of the ''progressives." and. seeing
the ''standpatters" in the majority,
emitted the opinion that the Aldrich
law was "all right
Cummins adroitly meets the Cannon
Aldrich charge that because he would
not kneel TO the republican gang he
was no longer a republican. Speaking
of the republican majority, Cummins
said:
Il know that they are strong, and
do what they please without rhyme or
reason; but am sure that this is the
first time they have become so intox-
icate6 with their power as to imagine
that they constitute the republican
party. There is d republican party,
and it is composed of something like
100000 of men. They came togeth-
er by their representatives in 1908 and
they made platform. In so far as it
related to the work of congress, it be-
came the duty of every republican
member of the senate and of the house
to execute it; but to say that because
a majority of the republican members
of congress were in favor of attaching
certain duties to certain commodities,
and other members in a minority were
in favor of attaching other duties to
the same commodities, that therefore
the minority had rebelled against the
party, is nonsense of so sublime a de-
gree that it provokes not debate, but
derision."
Democracy cares not whether Cum
minis and the insurgents adopt their
own or a more democratic way of
fighting the fundamental evil at which
he aims when he attacks Cannonism.
As Louis F. Post IN his Public says:
Cannon is clearly within his rights
when he refuses to be Jonah for the
pluto-republican ship. He is the truest
representative the republican party
has as at present organized. 1t would
be the same rotten hulk If he were
overheard as It is now. The only
effect of dumping him would be to
fool the innocent men in the fore
castle. Having personif1ed republican
rottenness as "Cannonism,'' they might
think the rottenness had been sweet
ened if Cannon were sacrificed. But
Cannon doesn't intend to be sacrificed.
No whales belly cot for him. He be-
lfeves that he represents the dominant
interests in the party, and he is right,
Cannon is an effect, not a cause; a
mere smell and not the putridity."
The real putridfty is the republican
majority in congress at which Cum
Minis dares hurl his shafts of fact and
sarcasm. 1t is this putridity which
caused the serious slump in the re-
publican vote in Massachusetts. It Is
this putridity and corruption which
will replace trustgoverned republicans
with trustworthy democrats when the
congressional elections are held next
fall Cummins is right as far as he
goes. He is right in laying the blame
at the feet of the republican majority
in congress, but he cannot correct
that evil by electing more like them.