Cannon Mills and Kannapolis: Persistent Paternalism in a Textile Town

6. New Leadership, Market Decline, and Consolidation

Chapter 6 New Leadership, Market Decline, and Consolidation James William Cannon selected his youngest son, Charles Albert Cannon, as heir to his textile empire. Charles was born in Concord, North Carolina, on November 29, 1892. He attended public school there and the Fishburne Military Academy in Virginia. After secondary school, Charles enrolled in Davidson College, an elite Presbyterian college in neighboring Mecklenburg County. Anxious to enter his father’s business, however, he soon left Davidson. Charles Cannon began his career as a clerk and office boy at the Cannon Manufacturing Company in Concord. His first managerial position came in 1912 at age nineteen, when his father assigned him to the Barringer Manufacturing Company in Rockwell, North Carolina.1 There the younger Cannon displayed the managerial skill and business savvy that earned his father’s favor. Evidently Charles was much like his father in character and disposition. The youngest Cannon son shared the same religious and work values as his father. Charles devoutly attended his father’s First Presbyterian Church in Concord, where he served as a church elder until a disagreement in church policy led him to resign as elder and almost leave the church.2 In addition, Charles followed his father’s work ethic, which included maintaining “a rigid control of yourself, observing the rules laid down of strict attention to business, economy in handling the business and never having your integrity doubted [and] all times keeping a clear head.”3 Furthermore, like his father, Charles kept meticulous records and had a knack for analyzing the cost effectiveness of a project or operation. He 60 @ New Leadership, Market Decline, and Consolidation applied this analytical skill to both his personal life and his business. Once, when considering the cost of operating an automobile for personal use for five years, he developed a thorough cost analysis to ascertain the impact on his personal budget. This thorough analysis included the price of the automobile , interest, gas for five years at an average price per gallon, twenty-four tires, twenty-four inner tubes, a license, incidentals, repairs, insurance, and a chauffeur.4 The elder Cannon had ample opportunity to discover the business acumen of each of his six sons, for each worked at some point in the Cannon Group of family-controlled mills. Table 1 (page 66) discloses the management positions of Cannon family members in their various mills (approximately 1918). Of course, family control of the textile empire was most evident in the premier Cannon Manufacturing Company. From 1915 until 1918, only Cannons served as officers of the company. This only changed when James W. Cannon Jr. resigned as secretary and treasurer in December 1918 and a nonfamily member took the post. The family, however, remained in control through the time of the elder Cannon’s death in December 1921 by controlling the office of president and one other office along with having four Cannons on the board of directors (the board usually contained seven members).5 By 1921, Charles had become his father’s choice to head the family businesses.6 James Cannon had decided to curtail some of his business activities before his health declined. From 1915 until 1920, he did not serve as an officer of the Cannon Manufacturing Company, though he did remain active as a director and was busy with the other mills in the Cannon Group. The elder Cannon became chairman of the board and Charles became president and treasurer of the Cannon Manufacturing Company in 1921. By the time James W. Cannon’s health declined in midyear, his flagship company was in capable hands. Indeed, if anything, Charles’s handling of the strike of 1921 proved to Cannon that his youngest son was up to the task of running his textile empire. Charles deserved much credit for breaking the union in Kannapolis and Concord and would prove every bit an enemy to unions as was his father. James Cannon’s will further demonstrated the faith he had in Charles. At the elder Cannon’s death, Charles became the executor of the will along with David Blair, James’s son-in-law. Blair’s appointment as co-executor displayed Cannon’s lack of confidence in the ability of any of his other sons to manage his estate. The will gave the household and all contents to his wife, Mary Ella, along with the insurance benefits. The terms of the will held New Leadership, Market...