Joe Shannon

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The Sedalia Democrat (Sedalia, MO), September 17, 1931

Joseph Bernard Shannon (March 17, 1867 – March 28, 1943) was a Democratic political boss in Kansas City, Missouri, who was a rival to the more dominant James Pendergast political machine in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries.

Shannon was born in St. Louis, Missouri and moved in his youth to Girard, Kansas. He moved to Kansas City in 1879 where he was a constable and a city-market master, and he attended night school at Central High School.^[1] He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began to practice in 1905.

His faction was called the "rabbits" because its power base derived from those who lived along the Missouri River and the Kansas River. His rival was the "goats" and derived its power from those living in the hills of Kansas City and was headed by James Pendergast and then his brother Tom Pendergast.

Shannon was chairman of the Democratic State Convention in 1910; delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1908, 1912, 1920, 1924, 1928, 1932, and 1940; and member of the Missouri Constitutional Conventions in 1922 and 1923. He was a US representative from March 4, 1931 to January 3, 1943. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Kansas City.

References[]

External links[]

• United States Congress. "SHANNON, Joseph Bernard (id: S000287)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

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