Word: rayburnisms
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...Live." The wildest attempt to shoot down the bill came from Jimmy Hoffa's Teamsters and their lobbyist, Sid Zagri (TIME, July 27), but the quiet power play came from none other than A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany himself. Making a personal trip to Speaker Sam Rayburn's office last fortnight, cigar-chomping George Meany growled out the facts of life as he saw them. Labor, longtime friend of the Democrats, could not live with the bill as it was being written, he warned. "We can't live with the hot-cargo clause...
Texas Democrat Rayburn told Meany some other facts of life: the American people are thoroughly aroused about labor scandals, and will not tolerate inaction or empty gestures on the part of the Democratic majorities in both houses. At stake in the labor bill, said Mr. Sam, is nothing less than the 1960 congressional elections, perhaps the party's hope for the presidency. Therefore, snapped the Speaker with cold-eyed sternness, the labor bill would have teeth, among them the two that Meany felt most painful...
...House Speaker, is wary of rising competition from Missouri's youthful (43) Richard Boiling, who has been Mr. Sam's quarterback on labor-bill strategy. McCormack covertly began to work for Meany. Good Democrats should never split on labor issues, he soothingly told the Rayburn loyalists on the committee, and "Don't follow the Speaker down this road to ruin." As some of the Rayburn Democrats swayed, McCormack threw open support to a skeleton substitute bill drawn up by California's Teamster-tempted Jimmy Roosevelt...
...critical committee session, Arizona's Stewart Udall and New Jersey's Frank Thompson Jr. rallied the ten Rayburn Democrats behind the relatively adequate committee bill. They teamed themselves with Republicans, sometimes with union-bloc Democrats to kill off seven substitute bills offered in fast succession. In the final vote, Republican Boss Halleck provided six Republicans to side with the Rayburn Democrats (with still another Republican safetyman ready to switch if necessary) and vote out the committee bill...
...trying to strengthen the bill, Halleck and his allies will gain strength from the same argument that Rayburn used on labor's Meany: the American people mean business about labor racketeering, and they want a tough bill. The only question between them is how tough...