JOSEPH GURNEY CANNON
CANNON, JOSEPH GURNEY, speaker of the United States house of representatives, has risen from the ranks to one of the highest positions in the gift of the American people. His advancement has been principally due to his industry, energy and integrity. In youth he laid the foundations of an excellent character and in early manhood he reached an honorable position at the bar and had the respect and confidence of the people among whom he lived. At the age of thirty-six he became one of the representatives of his state in congress and in this capacity he has served almost continuously until the present time. Alert and progressive, he has always favored wise legislation. He has been a very important factor in the congressional policy of the party to which he belongs. Though he has always been opposed to extravagant legislation, and has become noted for his quickness to perceive and his skill to balk projects which involve the use of the public money for unworthy purposes, he has taken a broad view of affairs and has always been ready to vote for expenditures which it seemed to him the public good required.
Mr. Cannon was born at New Garden, near Greensboro, Guilford county. North Carolina, May 7, 1836. He was the son of Horace F. and Gulielma (Hollingsworth) Cannon. While he was a boy, the family moved to Indiana.
His father was a physician, a man of learning and culture. Though he never held any prominent public office, he was a public-spirited citizen, interested in matters pertaining to education, and a recognized leader in the general affairs of the community in which he lived, owning and managing a small farm as well as practising medicine. His wife was a woman of more than ordinary intellectual ability and of deep religious feeling. The early ancestors of Mr. Cannon had settled in Massachusetts. They belonged to the Society of Friends, and suffered so much from religious intolerance that they removed to Nantucket, and from there to the Southern states. Mrs. Cannon, the mother of Speaker Cannon, was born in North
