The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1910-03-01
JOE MUNCHES
HIS PEANUTS
Washington, Feb. 2S.-He's now
eating peanuts.
Who is?

Washington. Feb. 2s.-He's now
eating peanuts.
Who is?
Joe Cannon.
Fact The most rampageous legisla-
tive car in captivity has become alb
stemius and careful of his health. Lay
it to the high cost of living, if you will,
but he no longer refreshes himself by
fietcherizing a surreptitious bite OF
stogie while on duty. Stogies at three
for a nickel may be rich and delecta-
BILE, but they are not sustaining in the
hour of ordeal.
So Speaker Cannon eats peanuts on
the throne, and refreshes his stamina
while the insurgents vainly insurge
and glare at him greenly.
Peanuts.
Goober peas.
"Monkeyfood," as it is called by the
vulgar. .
That's what reinforces his vitality.
While the nation, in wrath at him,
prods his animals to tear the everlast-
ing ermine off him, he sits there like
Nero and just eats
PEANUTS!
This is the way Joe Cannon eats
them-he eats them as if he enjoys
them. 1t must be maddening to those
who have all their peanuts and bills
and reforms tied up in committee to
see him monopolize peanuts as well as
legislation.
For out in front the wild instinct to
yank him down from his lookout is
throbbing in the bosom of the trained
tigers and jaugars, but they find his
eyes upon them in spite of his devo-
ton to peanuts. He can manage con-
gress and a nickeIs worth of peanuts
at one and the same time.
By the way, the peanuts are sailed
peanuts, if you want to know.
When they are brought by a page,
Cannon places his hands upon them,
not lovingly, nor too eagerly, as if they
were a mess Of moist, mellow stogies,
but with a careful mastery motion.
Then he untwists' the bag, but with
his chin up in a perky fashion, as il
inquirirg, What in Gehenna are you
going to do about it?'
Gehenna is a congressional district
some members will think they have
struck when they go back and try to
explain Uncle Joe"
Then 'sUncle Joe" peers into the bag
with a birdlike ROBUSTNESS and sees
that it indeed contains-peanuts.
Deliberately he inserts his -alors
and scoops ZIP some of'those peanuts.
He pops them into the aperture just
over the bunch of tow on his chin,
and commences f1etcherizing.
The remainder of the peanuts are in
the bag and they are reasonably safe.
But are they left unguarded? Joseph
G. Cannon leaves nothing unguarded.
He is too seasoned in warfare to trust
anything to chance. Automatically he
twists up the bag so that the remain
der Of the peanuts are safe and secure
and a clinch-like the Danville dis
trict down in Illinois. Nobody would
dare swipe the imperial peanuts, but It
is just as well not to let temptation
beckon.
Well, somebody or other says some
thing or other of no Importance and it
is listened to tolerantly, and now it ~
time for more peanuts. So "UUcle
Joe" goes through the ceremony of IN
twisting the bag of peanuts with HE
same experiences with which he an
twists the screws upon congress to let
out pet measure. He claws another
helping of stogie substitute. and again
Eliminates.
All things have an end. Presently a
food shortage is reached. Cannon
makes sure of it with searching glance
into the recesses of the bag. Calmly,
without conjunction, as though it
were a part of the ritual, he wads the
paper up into a compact mass, much
as he crumples up the aspirations of a
new statesman from the west apd
hurls it-bing.-from the rostrum. vt
rolls down the carpeted steps to Iittar
the floor of the house like a cen
1gressman who doesn't belong