Word: rayburns
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Back in mid-July. House Speaker Sam Rayburn bluntly told President Kennedy that any school-aid bill this session was "dead as slavery." But the President insisted that his congressional leaders keep trying to turn up some compromise-almost any compromise-that would satisfy the House, where the issue of aid to public schools was roiled by religious rancor and segregationist distrust. Last week President Kennedy learned the hard way that Rayburn had been right. In the Administration's second major legislative defeat of the week, the House voted down a diluted school bill by the humiliating margin...
...House allow committee chairmen to try to bring bills directly to the floor on "Calendar Wednesday" without going through the roadblocking Rules Committee. But up stood Louisiana's conservative F. Edward Hebert, a Catholic, to challenge Powell's attempt to put the bill before the House. Rayburn promptly ordered a roll-call vote on the issue, commented sourly: "This subject has been around long enough...
Despite his pain, Mister Sam remained indomitable. After weeks of back twinges, he was finally prevailed upon to consult White House Physician Janet Travell, who administered Novocain to comfort him. When the treatment was over, Rayburn arose to put his trousers back on. Dr. Travell noticed that he was wobbling first on one foot, then on the other. She suggested that he sit down to finish dressing. Cried Sam Rayburn: "I am 79 years old, and no woman is going to tell me how to put on my pants...
...Travell, who won her White House position by reason of her treatments for Back Patient Jack Kennedy, assured Mister Sam that his pain would disappear with heat packs and perhaps some rest back at his Texas ranch. But the House was not so sanguine; Rayburn's many friends were especially disturbed by the fact that he was recently unable to make an important floor speech on behalf of the Administration's foreign aid bill...
Inevitably, there was already some speculation about a successor if Rayburn were physically unable to carry on as Speaker. Among the most likely possibilities: Majority Leader John McCormack of Massachusetts; Missouri's Richard Boiling, a Rayburn protégé and a key liberal member of the House Rules Committee; Alabama's Albert Rains, a progressive Southerner; and Pennsylvania's Francis ("Tad") Walter, chairman of the Un-American Activities Committee and a conservative Northerner who commands respect for his parliamentary abilities...