Douglas daily dispatch., 1926-11-13
"Uncle Joe" Cannon Dies

! taCheu tnem, decldTlllS II was not
right to look a gift horse in the mouth
! when the gift horse was in the White
House.
In the same way Cannon always
smiled when reporters exaggerated
stories about his swearing and gam
bling. Lampooned from one end of
the country to the other, he merely
shrugged his dropping shoulders and
went back at night to the game. Rails
ing the tariff in the afternoon and the
ante at night" was one of his pet re-
marks when asked how he killed time.
Because he never rushed to deny re-
marks attributed 20 him, he became a
rich sourse for some reporters to draw
on for imaginary interviews. During
the World war somebody wrote that
Cannon had said the army officers in
Washington wore spurs to keep their
feet from slipping off war department
desks. Hundreds of officers were bit
ter in denouncing the former speaker,
but he never denied it-he just smiled
and gave his cigar different tilt. OF
course he never said it. 1t was merely
an illustration of how words were
constantly put in his mouth.
AS speaker, Cannon knew how to
control a turbulent body. Holding the
gavel in his left hand-for he was left
handed-he gave the slab of his desk
a glancing blow that sounded like a
rifle shot, and brought unruly mem
bers to attention. Curses frequently
were flung at him as members surged
out of the chamber, but invariably he
smiled and smoothed the ruffled feel
ings Jof member denied recognition
by handing him a cigar. That was
Cannon's way, and while they hated
him in the chair, they loved him in the
lobby
AS chairman of the appropriations
committee back in the days when there
were no billion dollar budgets, Cannon
fought eternally to hold down expendi-
lures. He was the actual floor leader
in all appropriation fights. Never pre-
pairing a speech, he stood in the center
of hostile body, sometimes speaking
with the voice of a child, sometimes
screaming and biting off his words,
often prancing up and down the center
aisle, with his left arm waving. And
at the end when the rattle OF votes
showed that he had won, the veteran
danced up and down the floor and then
retired to the cloak room to do a High
land fling.
That was his style of debate. He
never pretented to be an orator and
he was not. Once as he was waltzing
up and down the aisle, Speaker Reed,
eyeing him closely, called out, sotto
voice:
"Joe, you can't make this speech on
mileage"
In his latter years, "Uncle joe"
standing at the entrance of the capitol,
heard the whirr of many airplanes and
saw a flock of machines overhead. 1t
recalled his own part in aircraft de-
velopment, Back in the days when
Professor Langley was secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution, he went be-
fore Cannon's committee with an esti-
mate of needs. Always modest, the
professor was about ready to pick up
his papers and leave when the chair
man asked If that would be all.
Langley looked at the chairman and
a smile touched his lips.
Il would like to have $4,000 for ex-
perimenting with flying machine" ;"
he said.
Cannon jumped half way out of his
chair, He glared at Langley, imagin-
ing he had lost his mind.
Great Heavens!" he shouted. "a
flying machine to ride up in the air?"
Langley told him it was exactly
that. The committee roared. Being
willing, however to take a gamblers
chance, and impressedA by Langley's
sincerity, the chairman, without a
word to other members, approved the
expenditure, fought for it in the house
and got it.
And then, when the Langley flying
ship fell into the Potomac river, the
newspapers attacked Uncle Joe" from
Maine to the Pacific He was car
tooned as Mother Shipton riding
through the air on a broom. But years
later the Wright brothers took the old
Langley ship from the National mu-
scum and Cannon saw it flying over
washing on.
In those days he was all energy and
never Stunned a fight. He got his
first notoriety, as he expressed it, dur
ing a clash years ago with Sunset"
Cox, who was attacking the republican
side Cannon tried to break in for a
word but at first Cox refused to yield.
Finally Cox agreed.
'And for how long?" asked Speaker
Blaine.
"As long as the gentleman will keep
his left hand in his pocket" Cox re-
piled, and Cannon took the floor. He
had not been speaking more than half
q minute when the left hand came
sweeping from the pocket to wave a.
gesticulating finger.
Times up" shouted Cox, and it
was.
The next year Cannon was cartooned
over the country. 1t was a good joke
and posters of him were stuck on
every tree in his district, with the left
hand out, sometimes with additional
fingers sprouting from the top of his
head. But Cannon said it elected him.
"Uncle Joe's" features were often
said to be of the Lincoln type. From
ears to chin he wore fringe of close
cropped beard, the upper lip clean
shaved.
Joe Cannon was a Quaker by chance.
His grandfather, a Scotch Irish Pres
byterian from northern Ireland, set