Word: mccormack
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that his three guests of honor had "each suffered the venomous abuse that often attends public life," Lyndon Johnson defended them as "adventurers, pioneers and statesmen who have blazed the trail of human dignity." Replying in kind, Vice President Hubert Humphrey likened Johnson to Franklin Roosevelt, House Speaker John McCormack toasted him as "a man bigger than life," and Chief Justice Earl Warren psalmed the joys of fellowship. "Behold," proclaimed Republican Warren, "how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity...
...President was not alone in lavishing praise on John McCormack. One after another, a dozen of his fellow Democrats rose on the House floor last week to laud the Speaker's virtues. "A kind man, a Christian, a gentleman," intoned Oklahoma's Carl Albert. "No human being has ever been more human," chimed in South Carolina's Mendel Rivers. "When the history of this era is written," apostrophized Louisiana's Hale Boggs, "no name will loom larger...
...eulogies were not exactly spontaneous. They came as a defensive reaction to reports leaked by disgruntled Democratic liberals that the 75-year-old Speaker was "losing touch" with his rank and file. Columnist Jack Anderson, Drew Pearson's alter ego, claimed that McCormack's major legislative concern was "the remodeling of the Capitol building's west front." A Washington Post editorial, concluding that McCormack no longer brings to the speakership the "energy, shrewdness and fighting capacity that it requires," urged that he "step down gracefully...
...McCormack's most palpable failure so far this session came in his handling of the Adam Clayton Powell affair. Deeply averse to any break with precedent, he unsuccessfully resisted both the Democratic-caucus move to strip Powell of his committee chairmanship, and the full House action to take away his seat pending a formal investigation. McCormack's stand particularly irritated young, liberal Congressmen, who have been increasingly unhappy about the Speaker's intractably traditionalist position. What McCormack failed to consider was that many a colleague was under heavy pressure from constituents to chastise the flamboyant Negro Congressman...
...McCormack substitute" devised by the Speaker, which would have merely suspended Powell from his chairmanship pending investigation, went down in humiliating defeat, 122 to 88. Then, in a thunderclap of ayes, Udall's resolution was shouted through by voice vote. The action handed Powell's chairmanship to the committee's second-ranking Democrat, Carl Perkins, a quiet Kentuckian and moderate liberal...