The famed Methodist bishop and Prohibitionist James Cannon Jr. was at one time one of the most powerful Democrats in Virginia. Then, in 1924, he opposed the Democratic presidential candidate Al Smith because of Smith’s wet, immigrant, Catholic supporters who were from, in Cannon’s words, “the sidewalks of New York.” Some charged the bishop with anti-Catholic bigotry, and his political leadership was damaged. Then, beginning in 1929, his moral leadership was damaged by a series of personal scandals. U.S. Senator Carter Glass promoted charges that Cannon had gambled in the stock market and hoarded flour during World War I. Wet political enemies claimed that Cannon had misappropriated Anti-Saloon League campaign funds. In addition, reporters sensationally charged that as his wife lay dying in 1928 Cannon had engaged in an adulterous affair with Helen Hawley McCallum (whom he married in 1930). Cannon survived congressional hearings and church investigations, but his reputation and the dry cause for which he stood were forever compromised. Assigned to distant California for the final years of his bishopric, Cannon retired in 1938 to Richmond, where he drafted an uncompleted autobiography. He died in 1944 and was buried at Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery.
Further Reading:
- Virginius Dabney. Dry Messiah: The Life of Bishop Cannon (1949)
- Robert A. Hohner. Prohibition and Politics: The Life of Bishop James Cannon, Jr. (1999)
This Vignette Provided By
Thomas R. Pegram, professor of history at Loyola College and author of Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933 (1998) and Partisans and Progressives: Private Interest and Public Policy in Illinois, 1870–1922 (1992)
