Joseph Gurney Cannon (1836-1926) was the American politician whose arbitrary, often dictatorial, methods as Speaker of the House gave rise to the term "Cannonism."

Joseph Cannon was born in Guilford, N.C., on May 7, 1836, of old English and Huguenot stock. He grew up in Annapolis, Ind., studied 6 months at the Cincinnati Law School, and entered practice in Shelbyville, Ill., in 1858. He married Mary P. Reed in 1862.

A brilliant stump speaker in a racy, colloquial way, Cannon liked to pose as an untutored countryman. "I am," he said," one of the great army of mediocrity which constitutes the majority." More a standpatter than a reactionary, he was also a spoilsman, a protectionist, and an unqualified nationalist. "This country," he sometimes expostulated, is one "hell of a success."

After a long stint as an Illinois attorney general, Cannon was elected to Congress in 1872 and remained until 1923, except for the congresses...