Word: rayburns
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Persuasion & Reason. Samuel Taliaferro (pronounced Tolliver) Rayburn has served in the House longer than any other man-nearly 49 years, more than a quarter of the history of that body. He was Speaker for 17 years, more than twice as long as his nearest competitor, Henry Clay. He served with-Rayburn rejected the word under-eight Presidents, through three wars and countless world crises. In nearly half a century on Capitol Hill, Rayburn watched and guided more than 3,500 Congressmen, including Jack Kennedy. Rayburn was a careful leader and a firm believer in the art of the possible...
...Speaker, Rayburn reached the pinnacle of his ambition. He might have become President-Franklin Roosevelt offered him the vice-presidential nomination in 1944, and gave it to Harry Truman when Rayburn rejected it. "I'd rather be Speaker than any ten Senators," he sometimes said. "I love the House." It was a love that stretched back to early boyhood. As a suntanned youngster in Bonham, Texas, he peeped under the flap of a fairground tent and, with thumping heart, listened to the thunderations of Joe Bailey, a hell-for-leather Congressman. That did it. Later, Sam confided his ambitions...
...easy. The Rayburns were a poor farm family, and Father W. M. Rayburn-a Civil War cavalryman who had ridden to Appomattox with Robert E. Lee-was barely able to feed his eleven children. "Character is all I have to give you," he told his sons. "Be a man." Sam went off to East Texas College, paid his own way by sweeping floors and ringing the school bell. Before he left home, his father pressed $25-the family savings-into his hand...
After college, Sam pursued his dream and won election to the Texas legislature. At night he studied law, passed his bar examinations at 26. At 29 he was Speaker of the Texas house of representatives, the youngest in history. Two years later, when he was 31, Sam Rayburn went off to Congress, as the newly elected Representative of Texas' Fourth District. He was home at last...
Although he presented a cool exterior to the public, and rejected intimacy, Sam Rayburn was a warmhearted humanitarian. The day after his close friend, former Vice President Alben Barkley, died, Rayburn let his emotions show. Stepping into the well of the House, he delivered a moving eulogy in a choked voice. "God bless his memory," he said. "God comfort his loved ones. God comfort...