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MISSOURI'S CLARENCE CANNON, 79, has presided over the spending of more than a trillion dollars -exactly $1,040,597,183,594.75 -in his 18 years as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Homely (to an opponent who accused him of being two-faced, Cannon once replied: "My God, if I had another face don't you think I'd use it?"), hunched (5 ft. 7 in., 142 Ibs.) Clarence Cannon is perhaps the House's most unpopular member, has had fist fights with at least three colleagues; Tennessee's equally terrible-tempered Senator, the late Kenneth McKellar, once threatened to gavel Cannon's head during a conference committee hearing. But he is also the House's hardest-working member (roughly, from 10 a.m. to midnight seven days a week) and one of its ablest. Brought to Washington in 1911 as aide to Speaker Champ Clark, Lawyer Cannon became parliamentarian, began compiling his monumental Procedure and Precedents, by which the House still does business. In 1922 Cannon was elected to the House from Speaker Clark's old district, Missouri's Ninth ("The Bloody Ninth"), which sprawls across 24 northeastern counties and includes Mark Twain's Hannibal. As the dour guardian of the House's power of the purse. Cannon fights an unending battle. "We've got to keep people from taking more and more money out of the U.S. Treasury," he cries. "Every day they devise a thousand new ways to do it."
ARKANSAS' WILBUR DAIGH MILLS, 49, is the youngest chairman in the history of the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee, co-protector with Appropriations of the House's constitutional power to originate all money bills. Son of a small-town banker. Mills lives in Kensett, which by legend got its name when natives told Missouri Pacific surveyors, trying to decide where to build a station: "You ken set it hyar or you ken set it thar." Since 1939 he has represented the hill-and-dale Second District, which also boasts such place names as Morning Sun, Evening Shade and Oil Trough. Stocky (5 ft. 8 in., 180 Ibs.), gracious Wilbur Mills has a first-rate fiscal mind, is a Rayburn protege, ranks high on the list of possible future Speakers. But he is in a dangerous political situation: with Arkansas due to lose two Representatives after the 1960 census. Mills cannot risk being gerrymandered out of Congress by a legislature under the segregationist thumb of Governor Orval Faubus. Mills therefore has recently taken a strong segregationist position, this year masterminded the disputed House seating of Little Rock Segregationist Dale Alford, won respect for his political footwork, lost points for the speakership.
Two to Five. Historically speaking, the practical balance of powers among the five House rulers is explained by the fact that their jobs were once held by two men. For many years the Speaker was also chairman of the Rules Committee, and the chairman of Ways & Means (which handled appropriations along with tax bills). The majority leader was the other major figure -and he was generally the creature of the Speaker. This meant in effect that one man held all the reins of power.