Clarence Cannon

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 ever of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Missouri.

Born in Elsberry, Missouri, the son of John Randolph Cannon, a farmer and merchant, and Ida Glovina Whiteside. 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.

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