Shannon Democratic Party

The Shannon faction, known locally as the Rabbits, was one of the two durable Democratic organizations competing for power in Jackson County, Missouri. Led by Joseph B. Shannon, it challenged Thomas Pendergast’s Goats in the county’s consequential Democratic primaries. The rivalry was not simply a contest of political styles: the winning faction sought jobs, influence, and control of public business, while an earlier patronage bargain guaranteed that neither side would be wholly shut out.

Identity and origins

The Rabbits were a Democratic faction rather than a separate party. In Jackson County, Democrats identified themselves as either Goats or Rabbits, in town and in the surrounding countryside. The Republicans rarely had enough support to carry a general election, so the contest that mattered most often took place inside the Democratic Party. The labels were worn with pride, and factional allegiance connected local political identity to the struggle over county power.

The origin of the names was uncertain. One explanation held that impoverished families aligned with James Pendergast had kept goats on the bluffs above the West Bottoms, while the territory associated with Shannon’s supporters had been overrun with rabbits. Another story attributed the Goat name to a boast by James Pendergast during a march to a political convention: his men, he supposedly said, would come over the hill like goats and send the Rabbits running. The accounts locate the labels in neighborhood loyalties and political folklore, but the book presents them as competing explanations rather than established fact.

Leadership and political style

Joseph B. Shannon was an able, popular Irish Catholic politician and no timid counterpart to the Pendergasts. He was described as smooth, well dressed, and handsome, with the confidence and personality to inspire followers. The Rabbit name therefore did not describe its leader’s temperament: Shannon was fearless and politically capable, not an easily frightened opponent.

The distinction between the factions was chiefly one of style. The Goats favored strength and large election-day turnouts; the Rabbits were reputed to rely more on cleverness. Neither style made the contest gentler. Both sides could use money or call on saloon toughs, and the factional battles brought ballot theft, vote buying, intimidation, and street violence into the struggle for control. The prize was practical power—jobs, influence, and business—not an abstract victory over reform. The account describes election stealing as a highly developed craft, refined through recurring contests between the factions.

The Rabbits competed within a political environment in which organization reached into everyday life. Under the Pendergast structure, ward leaders, precinct captains, and block leaders formed a neighborhood network; captains helped newcomers obtain utilities and arranged necessities such as coal, food, clothing, and medical care for people in need. The support was immediate and personal, without paperwork or the stigma associated with public relief. In return, the organization expected gratitude at the polls. Some voters also participated in repeat voting, adopting different identities to cast ballots multiple times. These practices describe the wider machine-politics setting in which the Rabbits and Goats competed; they should not be taken as evidence that every act was directed by Shannon personally.

Rivalry, patronage, and the Fifty-Fifty Agreement

The rivalry had limits as well as intensity. Years before the events surrounding Harry S. Truman’s candidacy, James Pendergast concluded that Shannon’s faction was not going to disappear. He and Shannon reached the Fifty-Fifty Agreement, under which patronage after an election would be divided evenly regardless of which faction won. The arrangement protected both organizations from total exclusion, but it did not end their competition. Rabbit and Goat loyalties remained strong, and their contests continued because each side still sought advantage within the shared system.

This bargain helps explain why factional conflict persisted even when the two organizations had agreed to divide the spoils. Their political world treated offices and influence as rewards to be apportioned, while local loyalties and electoral contests continued to determine which faction could claim the greater share of power. The agreement managed rivalry; it did not replace it.

The 1922 judge campaign

The Rabbits’ opposition was consequential in the 1922 race for eastern judge of Jackson County, an administrative position with control over county finances, employees, and contracts. The office was not a judicial post in the ordinary sense. One of three county judges, the eastern judge had a vote in decisions affecting the county purse, road overseers and work crews, clerks, other public employees, and awards of county contracts. Control of the position therefore mattered to both political factions.

On election day, the contest turned tense at Fairmont Junction near the Kansas City line. An armed group of Shannon supporters tried to take the ballot box before the Pendergast side could reach it. Two deputy marshals, sent at the direction of Truman’s Republican friend John Miles, confronted them. Shannon appeared at the scene and urged those present to quiet down and leave; the ballot box was not taken. Had the attempt succeeded, the account says, Truman would most likely have lost. Instead, Truman defeated the Rabbit candidate, Emmett Montgomery, by only 279 votes among more than 11,000 cast for the five candidates.

Shannon blamed the Republicans’ intervention for Truman’s victory, arguing that the result would have been different had they stayed out. The narrow margin and the confrontation show how much a county office could depend on the handling of a single polling place. For the Rabbits, the episode was one battle in their continuing contest with the Goats; for Truman, it was an early election won amid the factional struggle that shaped Jackson County politics.