The Evening Statesman

CANNON AND ROOSEVELT AND SCANDAL.

Republican sincerity isn't hard to get at.

By throttling the real investigation of postal affairs and relegating the subject to a speaker's committee of seven members the republican representatives recently demonstrated their full sympathy with the Payne Roosevelt method of smothering and burying national scandals.

The minority demanded a sweeping investigation of federal frauds-the very thing which the republican party has repeatedly and boastfully promised in the event that the nation should find itself dissatisfied with special investigations-and the majority raised bedlam.

Weighed in the light of his party's actions, of what account is the boodle postscript of Mr. Roosevelt appended to his late presidential message? The republican side of congress appears to view with more liking the Roosevelt letter congratulating Mr. Payne upon the accomplishment of reform.

Indeed, it is very much more comfortable to view the scandal business as a closed incident and regard the congratulation as final and conclusive.

What a committee of seven appointed by Speaker Cannon will do is easily foreseen-unless Speaker Cannon should see in the situation a presidential opportunity for himself.

The country would hail this as a glorious development.

Politics, and politics alone, can get to the bottom of the federal scandals. Let a strong opposition to Roosevelt get under way, headed by Cannon, and make a party issue of corruption, and the country may see of what stuff the machine and its swindling system are made.

On the floor of the house, when William Alden Smith of Michigan condemned the administration for its arrogant treatment of the only department of government which comes in direct touch with the people, and shouted the name of Speaker Cannon for president, the house thundered its acquiescence, members rose and shrieked till they were hoarse.

Democrats joined republicans in crashing applause-but a party struggle developed that the republicans were shouting for a Cannon investigation rather than Mr. Smith's denunciation of the administration.

One sort of a Cannon investigation would accord very well with the Payne-Roosevelt policy.

It would suppress the truth and further the administration's attempt to fool the American public. And probably that is the sort we shall witness.

But the other sort, in which lies Cannon's political opportunity, would throw a bomb into party calculations and set the republican voters clamoring for his nomination.

Fearlessness and vigor pitted against the opportunism and milk-and-water "reform" of Mr. Roosevelt, would, by all the probabilities, achieve a tremendous popular victory. But whether it should or should not result in political benefits to Cannon, it certainly would rip open the great scandal situation for the people and put an end to the stigma which has so long rested upon the nation.

It will be interesting to watch Mr. Cannon's appointments.