Brief Biographies of Successful Men Who Have Passed Through the Crucible of Small Beginnings and Won Out.
Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.
[5]. Began March SCRAP BOOK. Single copies, 10 cents.
EIGHTH SERIES.
LONG REACH FOR A GAVEL.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Served Lengthy Apprenticeship Before He Was Called to Preside.
Joseph G. Cannon, Speaker of the House of Representatives, recently concluded a few words of advice to a writer investigating the condition of affairs in the national government by saying: “I don’t know but that I’d have you study twenty years before beginning to write.”
The advice was not given sarcastically. Cannon himself has gone about his work thoroughly, systematically, and, to all appearances, slowly. There has been nothing spectacular or hysterical about his progress, but the amount of ground covered has been enormous. Every new work undertaken has been based upon arduous and exhaustive preparation in other work leading to it. As a result he has come from a clerkship in a country store to the Speakership of Congress, and he has filled the office ably in a stirring and momentous period.
Joseph G. Cannon is descended from Massachusetts Quakers who migrated from the colony to North Carolina to escape persecution. His father was left a penniless orphan in infancy, and two maiden Quaker women adopted him and supported him until he was able to study medicine. The future statesman was born in Guilford, North Carolina, in 1836, and as the Quakers had protested persistently against slavery, the South became unsafe for them, and many, Dr. Cannon’s family included, moved North. The Cannons settled near the Wabash River, at Annapolis, Indiana.
Dr. Cannon was drowned when Joseph was fifteen years old. The doctor’s eldest boy was in college, and the family decided to allow him to finish his studies. The youngest was near-sighted, and was unable at that time to find employment. Joseph, the second son, had shown self-reliance, and had worked between school hours, so he was sent to work in the local general store. The first year’s pay amounted to one hundred dollars.