Word: took
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Harry Truman looked and acted like a man who had few qualms about the future. Congress was acting up again (see The Congress) and he still had four tough years ahead in the White House. But at 65, the President seemed to be in better shape than when he took office four years ago. "The President," proclaimed the White House physician, Brigadier General Wallace Graham, "is as close to being an iron man as anyone I know...
...help than hinder final passage. Henry Wallace fidgeted and squirmed as he charged that the State Department had kept mum on Russia's offer to end the Berlin blockade for fear it would spoil the treaty's chances. (No one thought to ask him why the Russians took part in such a deal.) Henry Wallace rattled on. The treaty, he cried, was "not an instrument of defense but a military alliance designed for aggression." Furthermore, it was a deal backed by U.S. big business, the Roman Catholic hierarchy and British imperialists, who were "whipping up a holy...
While the guests sipped & supped at ten round tables, Concert Pianist Jose Iturbi and Barriee Breeskin, one of Washington society's favorite orchestra leaders, took turns at the piano. After the last toast, the President strolled to the piano himself, rendered a competent Paderewski Minuet in G and a work of Chopin whose title escaped him. General George Marshall and Presidential Adviser John Steelman joined the three piano players for a friendly argument about music. "I'm nuts about Chopin," said the President...
Speaker Rayburn had relinquished the chair and was prowling around the House, perching here & there, nervous and anxious. Minority Leader Joe Martin took the floor to defend the softened version of the Taft-Hartley Act (the Wood bill), which was backed by the Republican-Southern coalition. Then Rayburn's compromise package was introduced. Sam himself stepped out on the floor. Eloquently, somewhat defensively, he appealed for votes for his measure: "Let us not have one sector of Americans known as labor . . . believe that we would press down upon their brow a crown of thorns...
Veteran Rayburn could tell from the dutiful applause that he had lost. In obedience to John Lewis' orders, some Democrats from Lewis' coal-mining districts slid over to the Republican side; Sam's proposition went down by a 211-to-183 vote. Then the House took a roll-call vote on the Wood bill. The coalition measure won its preliminary test...