Prohibition and Politics: The Life of Bishop James Cannon, Jr.

Prohibition and Politics: The Life of Bishop James Cannon, Jr. By Robert A. Hohner. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, c. 1999. Pp. xvi, 454. $45.00, ISBN 1-57003-281-5.)

James Cannon (1864-1944), a Methodist bishop and a leader in the American prohibition movement, confounded his contemporaries. "Damn him all you please," H.L. Mencken wrote in 1930, "the fact remains brilliantly plain that Monsignor James Cannon Jr., LL.D., is the chief figure in American public life today." "The virtue of Dr. Cannon," Mencken continued, "is that he is a frank and forthright man.... One knows precisely what he is in favor of and why. He wastes no time upon platitudes and politeness" (p. 257). By the mid-1930s Cannon would count Mencken among his friends. That association alone complicates an easy categorization of Cannon. Robert A. Hohner succeeds admirably in complicating our image of Cannon in this exhaustively researched and engaging biography.

Cannon defied the constraints of an era in which religious leaders were expected to confine their activities to the church. He became a national figure through his work with the Anti-Saloon League and through his efforts to organize opposition to the candidacy of Al Smith in 1928. He was aware that many found political activities anathema for a minister, but Cannon understood this work to be a means of protecting traditional American morality represented by rural, native-born Protestants. Although he was dedicated to containing the modernizing forces he associated with cities and their residents, Cannon nevertheless embraced some aspects of modern American life; for instance, he supplemented his ministerial salary with investments. He soon alienated many conservative leaders of southern Methodism by ignoring traditional definitions of a minister's proper activities. As his power increased, Cannon gained both allies and enemies, both in and out of his church. Cannon ended his career dogged by accusations of stock market speculation, embezzlement, and adultery--having drawn attention to himself as an advocate of traditional values. He eventually survived criminal charges of conspiracy to violate the 1925 Federal Corrupt Practices Act, as well as investigations by Congress and his church.

These controversies and scandals, Hohner argues persuasively, have prevented historians from understanding Cannon and his historical importance. Hohner seeks in particular to illuminate what he views as the "progressive aspects of his career," by suggesting that Cannon advocated "a new Methodism: united, educated, efficient, and centralized" (p. xi). As he seeks to demonstrate these progressive tendencies in Cannon's career, Hohner also illustrates the complexities of the progressive impulse that could couple concerns for morality with an interest in efficiency and could stand for paternalism and nativism as well as democracy.

Hohner's extensive use of primary sources, including manuscript collections, interviews, letters to the author, public documents, newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, circulars, articles, and books, as well as his command of the secondary literature, convinces the reader. The text offers other historians ready access to Hohner's research: he includes seventy-nine pages of endnotes, twenty-three pages of bibliographic references, and a fifty-four-page index. Even more impressive is Hohner's use of these resources to provide readers with a thorough account of Cannon's public and private lives. The book is well organized to retain a roughly chronological development while the chapters consider broad thematic subjects. The author conveys his arguments clearly and effectively. Hohner's evocative use of quotations allows the reader to gain a sense not only of Cannon's views, but also of the "intense, outspoken, and combative" style and personality that inspired allies and enemies (p. xi).

Prohibition and Politics is an important book that deserves a broad readership. It will have value to those with interest in religious and church history or interest in the history of Prohibition and of the South, and it will appeal to readers with broader interests in the early twentieth century. This biography suggests how complicated and nuanced political and cultural interactions could be in a period in which tensions between tradition and modernism frequently framed public debates. Hohner challenges simple categories and allows his subject complexity. In doing so he makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the politics and culture of the early twentieth century.

NANCY K. BRISTOW

University of Puget Sound