Joseph G. Cannon Quotes



The phrase had been a common one in naval parlance to indicate a cannon on board a ship that had broken free of the ropes and restraints and was rolling around. These were very dangerous to the ship. Roosevelt, as Secretary of the Navy was very familiar with that use. Today, the term is almost exclusively used in the Roosevelt political/administrative sense.


The debate over whether the government ought to buy what it needs in the marketplace is as old as our country. Despite men like Jefferson having been strong advocates for market purchases of goods and services for government, there is even by the 21st century a marked tendency to have government actually do the needed work and create the needed merchandise. Even when the private sector is used, the market is avoided by sole source, non-competitive contracts and in the case of military research the National Laboratories were created which are means of avoiding the competitive marketplace and have the work done by entities that are Federal proxies.