Background
Cannon was born on 13 November, 1864 in Salisbury, Maryland, the son of James and Lydia R. (Pimrose) Cannon.
Cannon was born on 13 November, 1864 in Salisbury, Maryland, the son of James and Lydia R. (Pimrose) Cannon.
He was graduated from Randolph-Macon College in 1885 and received a B. D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1888 and an M. A. from the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1889.
Licensed to preach in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, he served in various Virginia parishes in Charlotte County, in Newport News, and in Farmville, where he edited his first newspaper. He later edited the Baltimore and Richmond Christian Advocate and the Richmond Virginian. In 1894 Cannon became the first principal of Blackstone (Virginia) Female Institute. He resigned in 1911 to become the first general superintendent of the Southern Assembly of his church, located in North Carolina and known as Junaluska. He remained superintendent until 1919, although in 1914 he returned to his post in Blackstone. Elected bishop in 1918, he served until 1938. Cannon was active in the educational and missionary programs of the church, supervising missions in Mexico, Cuba, Africa, and Brazil. Long a member of the Anti-Saloon League, Cannon played a leading role in bringing prohibition to Virginia in 1914 and in passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, establishing national prohibition. In the presidential campaign of 1928, Cannon opposed Alfred E. Smith because of his stand against prohibition and perhaps because of his Catholicism.
After 1928 Cannon's career became increasingly controversial. He was accused of illegal stock activities, misuse of political funds, and adultery. He claimed that he was unaware of the illegality of his stock gambling, and he denied the other charges. His church upheld his position, with reservations. Although congressional investigation of the political charge led to a trial, the Department of Justice was unable to secure a conviction. Cannon died on Sept. 6, 1944, while attending an Anti-Saloon League meeting in Chicago, Ill. The standard references are Virginius Dabney's Dry Messiah, The Life of Bishop Cannon (1949), and Bishop Cannon's Own Story (1955), edited by Richard L. Watson, Jr.
He helped organize the Anti-Smith Democrats, who were largely responsible for the success in the Solid South of the Republican candidate, Herbert C. Hoover.
Quotations:
"The art of politics is knowing what to do next. "
"The American capitalists are richer and stronger than their counterparts in other lands. They are also younger and more ignorant, and therefore more inclined to seek a rough settlement of difficulties without diplomatic subtlety and finesse. All that does not change the fact that American capitalism operates according to the same laws as the others, is confronted with the same fundamental problems, and is headed toward the same catastrophe. "
"Trotskyism is not a new movement, a new doctrine, but the restoration, the revival of genuine Marxism as it was expounded and practiced in the Russian revolution and in the early days of the Communist International. "
"The workers of America have power enough to topple the structure of capitalism at home and to lift the whole world with them when they rise. "
One biographer described Cannon as an unpleasant and deceitful person. Although he “loved power and prestige, profit and pleasure, “ Cannon was a distant and aloof individual. One Anti-saloon League colleague described him as “cold as a snake” and another, with whom he has worked closely for forty years, reported having never seen him laugh and rarely smile.
