Word: longworths
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Last of an old Tory line that removed from New Jersey to Ohio in 1804 and amassed a fortune in Cincinnati real estate and vineyards, Nicholas Longworth was born in 1869. He went to Harvard (1891), conducted the college orchestra. With money, social position and native wit, he went into politics under the guidance of Mark Hanna. After an apprenticeship in the State Legislature, he was elected to Congress in 1902. In the White House then was a slim saucy miss called "Princess Alice" Roosevelt. Congressman Longworth met her, danced with her, took her motoring in one of the capital...
Manfully the Ohio Congressman lived down such epithets as "T. R.'s son-in-law" and "Mr. Alice Roosevelt Longworth." No one could doubt his individuality and independence after 1912, when he refused to follow his father-in-law into the Bull Moose Party and was roundly trounced for re-election to the House. He went back to Congress two years later, was chosen the 40th Speaker in 1925. That year too his only child, Paulina, was born in Chicago. Said Longworth on first viewing his tiny daughter: "She looks more like a Roosevelt than a Longworth...
...Speaker's chair Longworth ruled with a strong fair hand. He was no less tyrannical than Reed or Cannon but he did it in such a pleasant smiling way that there was little resentment. Behind him he always had a healthy House majority which afforded him his opportunity to build up the "lower'' chamber's recent reputation for smooth, efficient legislating. No White House tool, he deserted the rostrum to fight and defeat President Coolidge on the 1929 Navy building program, President Hoover on the Soldier Bonus Loan. (This latter activity was chiefly motivated by the menacing hostility of Cincinnati...
Outside Congress, "Nick" Longworth was the gay, garrulous bon vivant whom Washington officialdom knew and loved best. About him in his Massachusetts Avenue home his friends constantly gathered informally. A thorough musician (he had a standing order for new compositions from the Library of Congress), he would play on the violin, the organ or the piano. Then he would sing old college ballads, sentimental ditties or long songs for men only. His favorite stories were Elizabethan. He maintained active membership in the Royal & Joyous Fellowship of Elbow-benders. He doted on doggerel. Example...
...Seat. Of prime political importance last week was a House successor to Longworth from the Cincinnati district. If a Democrat is elected?and one came within 3,000 votes of it last November? the next House would be tied at 217, with one Farmer-Laborite. Immediately the Press began to nominate Mrs. Longworth for the place. The daughter of a President, she is smart, politically-minded. Her election would maintain the House's "widow tradition."* But her brother Archie scouted the notion that she would ever accept political office. Besides, most Cincinnati Republicans consider her something of an outsider; they...