Clarence Andrew Cannon (April 11, 1879 – May 12, 1964) was a Democratic Congressman from Missouri serving from 1923 until his death in Washington, D.C. in 1964. He was a notable parliamentarian and chaired the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations. He is the longest-serving member of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Missouri.
Biography
Born in Elsberry, Missouri, the son of John Randolph Cannon, a farmer and merchant, and Ida Glovina Whiteside, a descendant of the Kemper family of Missouri and Germanna. Reflecting his family's influence and his rural, border-state background, Cannon maintained a lifelong devotion to the Southern Baptist faith and the Democratic party. He also possessed a firm belief in the superiority of the agrarian lifestyle and small-town values. In 1901, Cannon graduated from La Grange Junior College (now known as Hannibal-LaGrange College) in Hannibal, Missouri, from William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri in 1903, and from the law school of the University of Missouri in Columbia in 1908. After working as a high school teacher and principal, he served as an instructor of history at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri from 1904 to 1908. Though he retained a lifelong interest in the American past and wrote several books on family and local history, Cannon deemed the academic life too sedentary. Accordingly, he studied law at the University of Missouri while teaching at Stephens College. He earned an LL.B. and joined the bar in 1908. He established a law practice in Troy, Missouri, but soon transferred it to his home town of Elsberry.
Cannon was initiated into the Alpha-Omega chapter of the Kappa Sigma fraternity while an undergraduate at William Jewell in 1903.
In 1906, Cannon married Ida Dawson Wigginton; they had two daughters. The couple formed a close working relationship. Ida Cannon became her husband's most trusted political adviser. Starting in the 1920s, she traveled extensively over the back-country roads of northeastern Missouri campaigning for her spouse, while he remained at his congressional desk in Washington, D.C.
Politics
Cannon eagerly sought elective office, but his first two campaigns, for county school superintendent and state representative, ended in defeat. His political fortunes changed after his congressman, Champ Clark, hired him as a confidential secretary in 1911. When Democrats elected Clark Speaker of the House that year, Cannon found himself near the center of power in Washington.
Enjoying Clark's patronage, Cannon advanced to the positions of House journal clerk from 1914 to 1917 and House parliamentarian from 1917 to 1920. A quick study, he rapidly established himself as a leading authority on parliamentary procedure. His skills proved so impressive that the Republicans retained him after winning the House in 1918. In 1920 he became parliamentarian of the Democratic National Convention, a position he held through 1960. Cannon exercised lasting influence over the workings of Congress through publications such as Procedure in the House of Representatives (1920) and Cannon's Precedents of the House of Representatives (1936). After resigning as House parliamentarian, Cannon returned to his law practice in Elsberry.
Clark was defeated by Republican Theodore W. Hukriede in the 1920 Republican landslide. Cannon challenged Hukriede for his mentor's seat in the House of Representatives in 1922 and won. Popular with his constituents, he repeatedly won reelection, often without opposition, until his death.
Years in Congress
Heeding the concerns of his rural district, Cannon emerged as a leading advocate of agricultural interests. He supported parity payments to maintain farmers' incomes, low-interest federal farm loans, and soil conservation and flood control projects. The latter two were of special concern in Cannon's district, and one of the congressman's most enduring legacies involved securing federal funding for what eventually became the Clarence Cannon Dam and Reservoir in northeastern Missouri. Cannon also played a major role in the establishment of the rural electrification program and in obtaining government funds for agricultural research. "No farm legislation was approved by Congress during the Cannon years," a contemporary observer noted, "that did not bear the impress of Cannon's knowledge of parliamentary procedure and his influence in Congress."