Word: bankheads
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When the Democratic majority rewarded Joe Byrns's quarter-century of loyal Party service with the Speakership 17 months ago, the New Deal counted on quiet, able Floor Leader William Brockman ("Tallulah's Father") Bankhead of Alabama to help him keep that unwieldy majority marching in line. Leader Bankhead fell ill the day he was elected, did not take over his job until last January. Last week, in its unprecedented situation of being without a Speaker, the House was called to order by Clerk South Trimble less than twelve hours after Joe Byrns had breathed his last...
Down the centre aisle through the hushed House, escorted by Representatives O'Connor, Taylor and Snell, marched the sturdy, grim-lipped, white-suited Alabamian. A tactless Congressman started to applaud, was quickly shushed. Speaker Bankhead took his oath with shaking hand, head bowed to hide his tears...
...Navy band struck up a muted tune in the Speaker's lobby. The House rose as a flag-draped coffin was rolled in, placed among the flowers piled high against the rostrum, opened. For half an hour Representatives, clerks, pages shuffled by it. Then Speaker Bankhead's gavel rapped again and tall, grey Chaplain James Shera Montgomery, in flowing cutaway, began a prayer. When it was over the rear door swung open and in marched the U. S. Senate, escorted by the House's testy Doorkeeper Joseph J. Sinnott. As Speaker Bankhead cracked his gavel summoning...
After another prayer Michigan's Representative Louis C. Rabaut, to whose small, sweet tenor voice Joe Byrns had liked to listen, sang Absent and Thy Will Be Done. Leaning heavily on the rostrum, Speaker Bankhead declared in his soft Alabama drawl: "There were so tempered in the heart and soul of Joe Byrns elements of tolerance, patience and sympathy that he had drawn to him the ungrudging regard and affection of all men who came within the radius of his genial influence." Stumbling through his speech, Minority Leader Snell observed: "No worthier nor more dauntless friend nor foe than...
Speaker Byrns, Rules Chairman O'Connor, House Leader Bankhead and Whip Boland made every preparation to put the North Dakota firm out of business this time. Representative Boland announced that the Bill would be beaten by at least 50 votes, and Speaker Byrns pooh-poohed self-confidently. On the morning debate began, every Representative received a memorandum from the Farm Credit Administration ripping the Bill from stem to stern. That helped some but House leaders appealed to an even greater political authority. While the Bill was under consideration in Committee of the Whole, Speaker Byrns rose on, the floor...