The San Francisco call., 1910-07-20
Joe CANNON
STANDS Still
ASWELLASPAT'
Congressman Murdock Declares
Speaker Has Barred Prog
ress for 80 Years
Insurgent Accuses Republican
Leader of Playing in Dark
With Tammany

r MPORIA, Kan, July 1e.-Con-
r. gressman Victor Murdock, Kan
1 sas insurgent in the house of
representatives, following the wake of
Speaker Cannon, today defended the
insurgent cause in his first political
speech of the campaign and replied to
the speakers charges made here yes
terday. He declared that Cannon for
80 years has been opposed to locomo-
ton in any direction" charged him
with affiliations with Tammany hall
and declared the greatest thing the
insurgents accomplished in the last
session of congress was to put the
speaker off the committee on rules.
II did not intend to get into this
campaign" he said. II have no oppo-
sition in my own district and I thought
1 would keep out of the contest. but
when Joseph G. Cannon came into the
state to speak against the things near
est my heart / could not conscientiously
keep out of the fight.
Progress Opposed
Speaker Cannon for 80 years has
been opposed to locomotion in any di-
rection. For more than quarter Of a
century he has stood against progress.
He is not only standpatter, but a
standstiIIer During his political life
he has opposed about all the progress
sive legislation that has ever been of
fered and the wonder is that so much
of it has managed to creep into the
statute books.
HE opposed the federal inspection of
meats, he stood opposed to irrigation,
to currency reform, to pure food laws
and regulations to civil service reform
and to practically all progressive legis-
lation since the civil war.
'I want to tell you something that
Cannon did not mention in his speech
yesterday While posing as a partisan,
as an ardent advocate Of party fealty.
he has played in the dark with Tam
many He did not hesitate to rejoice
when his boon companion, Lorimer OF
Illinois, was elected to the United
States senate by coalition with the
ten to the core; that has made stencil
in the nostrils of the nation.
Cannon has thoroughly poisoned the
springs of representative government
for 80 years. He has helped to block
the way to light and freedom.
Cannon Defeated
Speaker Cannon was interested in
just two things in the tariff bill-the
protection of petroleum and it's prod
ucts, and the tariff on ladies' gloves.
When the insurgents offered an amend
ment reducing the tariff on petroleum,
Cannon left his chair and ragged over
the floor of the house like a wild man.
He said the house could not make the
reduction. Then is when the insurgents
became revolutionists. We appealed
from the decision of the chair and we
won our fight. A big hand came down
out of the blue sky and smashed Can
non, the glove schedule, the petroleum
schedule and all, and that hand was
William H. Taft's.
"The greatest thing the insurgents
have done has been to put Cannon off
the commimttee on rules. 1t is no
longer necessary for members of the
committee to get down on their marrow
bones before the chairman for fear of
an adverse report to the speaker. The
insurgents not only wish to take the
power away from Speaker Connan. but
from all future speakers. The bulwark
OF the speakers power is his authority
to appoint the committees. We want
to take that away from him. 1t will
then be impossible for him either to
reward or punish members"
Insurgents Attacked
HERINGTON. Kan, July 19.-Speak-
er Cannon's second speech today, de-
livered here this afternoon. was a
tariff argument and an attack upon
insurgency. He said:
II am a republican-just a plain
simple republican. I am not a pro-
gressive, not an insurgent republican.
Whenever 1t is necessary to use an
adjective to describe the republicans,
then, before God, will leave the re-
publican party and climb tree, or
join the democrats"
Cannon then took up the tariff and
said he had had enough of revision for
long time.
Discussing the various schedules of
the Payne-Aldrich bill. Cannon referred
to the attitude of "Bristow and Bever-
idge and all of those democrats" He
continued:
La Toilette, Bristow, Cummins and
their followers call themselves insur-
gent republicans. They are trying to
lead you republicans out of the party
of Lincoln into the democratic party"
AUTO VICTIMS FUNERAL-san Leandro, July
19-The funeral of John Vera who was
killed hv an unidentified automobile Saturday