Omaha daily bee., 1910-03-21
INSURGENTS YET ARE UNDECIDED
Cannon's Speech at Illinois Banquet
Displeases Them.
WRITHE UNDER CAUSTIC WORDS
DiSclaim Any Desire TO Dictate Course
of Legislation.
CAUCC-ES WILL SOON BE HELD
Norris Resolution Provides Formation
of New Committee in Ten Days
Regulars Predict Peaceful
Outcome.
UNDER CAUsTIC WORDS
yAUCC-Es WILL SOON BE HELD

WASHINGTON, March 2O.-The titanic
struggle over the speakershp Of the house
Of representatives, which reached its cli-
max late yesterday in the destruction Of
the speakers power in the committee on
rules and the determination by the house
to reconstruct that committee, yet leaving
Mr. annon the speakership itself, may have
marke not so much the ending of a three
days battle as the beginning of great
political war The recognition by all fac
tions of this possibility was the principal
feature today in the political situation in
Washington.
Hardly anybody here thinks the condition
of affairs after the momentOus battle rep
resents any satisfactory conclusion. The
speaker and his friends appear to interpret
the refusal of the house to depose him as
justifylng them in claiming to have wrested
victory from defeat, endorsement from re-
pudlation. Not a few of the insurgents who
voted for Mr.. Cannon's retention are Won
dering today If they made political
bluder; whether their anti-Cannon con-
stituents will not indeed hold their retain
ing him in the speakership to have nulified
their vote to eliminate him from the rules
committee. The republican regulars com
placently claim that the insurgents who
voted for the speaker have returned to the
party fold. The democrats taunt these in
surgents with having been recreant TO the
logic of their insurgency.
Few Really Pleased.
A Nobody seems really happy about the
outcome. Even in the senate the regulars
are apprehenslve lest the insurgent sena-
tors are wondering IL they have made the
most of their opportunities.
Ia
night before the Illinois republican as
sociation in which he cantemptuously de-
nounced the nine insurgent members of the
house who stood by him in the final tests
as cowardly members of congress without
the courage of their convictions has cut to
-the qtIek fhose~,f1en wlso. responded With
their votes 20 what they say they believed
to be their duty to the party and to the
country and saved him from utter humilia-
ton.
Today the feeling among these insurgents
one of bitterest resentment over the
attitude assumed towards them.
IF this is to be the manner of our treat
ment for saving the republican party" said
one of them today, who refused to allow
his name to be used, this battle just
ended will be followed by another beside
which the first one would be but a skirm-
ish.
Il can speak for no one but myself, but if
this is to be our reception, 1 am done We
were not towards. We of the Insurgents
who cast our votes yesterday against un-
seating Cannon, We're the bravest men in
that house. 1t took consummate courage,
and it will probably cost me my seat in
congress. But If we are to be met with
! calumny because we sacrificed ourselves
, to save the house of representatives from
chaos and disorder and to prevent the ruin
of the republican party. then l am in favor
Of carrying this war to the finish"
Angry Mt Cannon.
This member said he had talked with one
or two others of the iEsurgent leaders who
voted to save Cannon and they were in a
similar frame of mind.
! when l read in the papers this morning
! the speech which Speaker Cannon delivered
before the Illinois association last night
my blood boiled with indignation" said
| this insurgent.
The portion of the speakers speech whicl
has thus cnraged the insurgents who saved
him the speakership is as follows:
There was a new majority made today,
It consisted of the democrats and a Is per
cent slough from the republican party.
! They destroyed the committee on rule
Then what did they do? resolution was
presented declaring the office OF speaker
vacant Then what did these men who
have been denounclng my personality,
these simon-pure followers OF Cummings and
LafoIette, do then? Only eight of them
had the courage of their convictions. The
result was that while l was elected
speaker by majority Of twenty-siX last
March, they refused to turn me out by a
majority of thirty-six.
This combination abolished the COM
mittee on rules which las, after all, simply
the power to report to the house, although
some seem to think that it is like the
biblical example OF let there be light and
there was light You In Washington know
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