The Cordova daily times., 1920-06-05
THE CANNON THAT KEEPS ITS
 AIM

At eighty-four years of age the for mer speaker seeks another term in the House of Repres esentatives, and no constituency in the Union is more proud of it's honorable member. Thoughts of Morgan and Peters, of Merrill and Benton, of Kelley and Randall come to the many who reflect with awe that Uncle Joe" can re- member the close of Benton's 1egisla- tive career and the beginning of that of all the others. He is not old enough to have approved or disap- proved the appointment of Chief Jus tice Fancy, but he was quite old enough to read the Dred Scott deci- sion Within his lefetime the coun- try has chosen two Whig presidents, and he is nearly three score and ten years after the Wings went to pieces. No one would contradict him if he should say that the speculative ex-
 
 the gold fever of 1849. Submarine and seaplane builders may hear from his lips what an era was that of the iron ship. Born little after the Black Hawk war, yet he we'll knew the days of the war path in Wiscon- sin and Minnesota.
 At frequent intervals the press mentions the deaths of old men who years ago were active in public af- fairs but who had drifted out of all s!;cn activities, but were relics rather than participants in public life. It is not long since there departed a man almost unknown, he had sur vived nearly all his friends, he made no effort to keep up with the current, and few were aware that had they been the private secretary of one of what similar case was chronicled in the Middle West, an elderly man fish, ed in a lake, spoke courteously when he spoke at all, but was virtually a rec1use-he had been the private sec rtary of a statesman of national re- nown, but had dropped all interest in the nations life as if he had been 8 hermit. The observer of human na- ture meets at intervals with survi- vors who have practically nothing to bind them to the world of today. Such men ere at times picturesque, and may be instructive, but the in- struction they give is more like book than that of a man. History's real charm does not come to US until we recognize that like the Deity it was, a1d is, and is to come. The past is of interest because it explains the present the present because it devel- ops the past, and both are fascinating because on them depends the future.
 But while a survivor may be who'll ly of the bygone days no thinking man fails to recognize the magnetic force of a connecting link. When Sir Holland visited the Army of the Poto- mac he compared the medical ar rangements with those he had seen under the Duke of Wellington, and told young writers of his calls on patients who had known Dr. Johnson. Hollands book is one of the best books of "reminiscences in the lan- eusge. As a treve1er, a physician, a student, an observer of human life, he never allowed the fascinations of the past to allure him from the world that was coming on like a great riv- CT. The same charm marks the scientific career of Humboldt and the political course of Gladstone, the sp1endor of yesterdays sunset never caused them to forget today's morn ing and noon.
 MT. Cannon was born in the long era of Democratic supremacy. He knew the strength of the party which bought the Louisiana Territory, which brought nine states into the Union, plunged us into war with Mexico and outlived its Federal and Whig rivals. From Jefferson's day to Buchanan's the Democratic party knew only two defeats, for in 1924 all the four con-