Evening star., 1935-11-03
Capital Sidelights
By Will p. Kennedy.

Members of Congress who are in town
and Government employees from Massa-
chusetts are particularly interested in the
announcement that Representative
William P. Connery will enter the fight
for the Senate seat now held by Senator
Marcus A. Coolidge, if Gov. James M.
Curley decides not to be candidate.
BILLY" Connery stands especially
strong with labor and is chairman OF the
House Labor Committee, and with the
veterans. being an ex-Service man with
10 months of distinguished service in
France and ranking majority member
of the House Veterans Committee. He
has been a popular speaker and enter
tainer at banquets and other gatherings
in all sections of the Bay State, so that
he is well known to all the voters and
should prove an unusually successful
candidate. The Republican Campaign
Committee have frankly admitted that
they have no hopes of ever defeating
him in his home district.
For "meritorious service" with the
Yankee Division, Connery was promoted
from private to color sergeant OF the
101st Infantry Regiment, and the battle
SCARED flag he carried through all the
major engagements now hangs over the
main altar and before beautiful window
in the church in Natick, Mass, whose
pastor. Rev. Michael O'Connor, was chap
lain of the regiment. Another large
American flag flies each day on the
terrace in front of the church.
The Senate seat for which Connery
aSpires is one of the most historic. having
been honored by such men as Caleb
Strong, George Cabot. Benjamin Good
hue, Theodore Sedgwick, Jonathan
Mason. Timothy Pickering. John Quincy
Adams. James Lloyd. Nathaniel Silsbee,
Daniel Webster. Isaac c. Bates. Rufus
Choate, John Davis, Charles Sumner,
Edward Everett, Julius Rockwell. Henry
Wilson, George S. Boutwell,. Henry L.
Dawes, George F. Hoar, Henry Cabot
Lodge, Winthrop Murray Crane, John w.
Weeks and David I. Walsh.
Among the few members OF Congress
daily at work in his Office at the Capitol
is Representative Clarence Cannon of
ElSberry, Mo-, chairman of the subcom-
mittee in charge of the appropriation bill
for maintenance and improvement OF
the Capital City, the estimates for which
are now under consideration by the
Budget Bureau.
Few of those who associate daily with
Representative Cannon, who just plugs
along unobtrusively day after day with
out fanfare of trumpetS or publicity
acclaim, appreciate what background
he has and how much he has achieved
in his own quiet way. He comes of his
toric anceStry-deScendan from James
Cannon of South Carolina, who fought
under Marion in the campaign against
Tarleton; from William Whiteside of Vir-
ginia, member of the Revolutionary
Committee of Safety and signer of the
Tryon Declaration of Independence, and
of his son, Davis Whiteside, member of
the North Carolina House of Commons,
who fell at Kings Mountain. He himself
volunteered in the World War and the
order for his commission as captain was
countermanded by the War Department
on the date of the Armistice.
Representative Cannon is real stu
dent-formerly professor of history at
Stephens College, and has taken degrees
in courses from at least four colleges and
universities-B. S., A. B., A. NJ, IL. B,
and LII. D. He was first appointed par
liamentarian of the House by Speaker
Champ Clark and continued in that
Office under successive Democratic and
Republican administrations. He was
parliamentarian of the last four Demo-
cratic National Conventions-at San
Francisco in 1920, New York, 1924;
Houston, 1928, and Chicago, 1882.
He was editor of two editions Of the
Manual and Digest Of the House Of Rep.
resentatives. 1916 and 1918; author of
synopsis of the procedure of the House
in 1919 and more complete work on
procedure in 1920, of Cannons Pro-
cedure in 1928, published by resolution
of the House, and of two editions Of
the Convention Parliamentary Manual,
published in 1928 and 1892 by the Demo-
cratic National Committee; author Of
a treatise on parliamentary law in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica; editor and
compiler of the Precedents of the House
of Representatives, by act Of Congress-
He is a regent of the Smithsonian In
stitution.
One Of the most priced photographs.
treasured by very few members OF
Congress, is one Of three former Speakers
Of the House taken together-an OF
whom have since died: Frederick II.
Gillett Of Massachusetts,, Champ Clark
- HR,..>,,.S .nd Yoee,,t, n Tann0n of