Sam Rayburn

For more information on Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn, visit Britannica.com.

(b. Roane County, Kingston, Tennessee, 6 Jan. 1882; d. 16 Nov. 1961) US; member of the US House of Representatives 1913 – 61, Speaker of the House 1940 – 6, 1949 – 52, 1955 – 61 Sam Rayburn's parents were small farmers of Scottish-Irish descent and Primitive Baptist religion who moved to Texas from Tennessee in 1887. He studied education at East Texas State College (then the Mayo Normal School) and was employed as a teacher 1903 – 6. Elected to the Texas House of Representatives at the age of 24, he there displayed many of the talents including attention to detail and approachability that were to advance him in national legislative politics. While in the state assembly he studied law at the University of Texas and passed the state bar examinations in 1908. In his final two years in the Texas legislature, Rayburn was Speaker of the House.

Elected to the US House of Representatives in 1912, Rayburn became a member of the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee (which he chaired 1931 – 7). He quickly displayed a mastery of congressional procedures and acquired an unrivalled knowledge of its members. The close friendship with John Nance Garner promoted Rayburn's career: he was campaign manager during Garner's 1932 presidential bid and an intimate associate both when Garner was Speaker (1931 – 3) and when he was Franklin Roosevelt's Vice-President.

Rayburn was supportive of the New Deal (which accorded well with his own egalitarian philosophy) and helped steer many of its legislative measures through Congress. In foreign policy Rayburn supported Roosevelt's internationalism and had no truck with isolationism either before or after the Second World War. He made an unsuccessful bid to become Speaker in 1934 and became majority leader in 1936. He became Speaker in 1940 following the death of William Bankhead. His long tenure as Speaker enabled him to exert great influence over the shape of legislation, over the careers of congressmen, and over the politics of the Democratic Party.

The period of Rayburn's speakership was also the period of southern ascendancy in Congress. Rayburn well appreciated the role of the South in the Democratic coalition. He chaired the Democratic National Conventions of 1948, 1952, and 1956 and was Lyndon Johnson's floor manager for his fellow Texan's 1960 attempt at the Democratic nomination. The leadership which he and Johnson provided in the Congress of the 1950s worked with and around both the conservative coalition and the Eisenhower presidency. Inevitably by 1960 that leadership was criticized by some elements in the Democratic Party as too conservative and accommodationist.

Although he had backed Johnson for President, Rayburn deployed his support for President Kennedy in the critical battle in 1961 to make the House Rules Committee more responsive to mainstream Democratic Party sentiment. The enlargement of the Rules Committee cleared the way for the passage of some of Kennedy's legislative agenda and reduced the power of the conservative minority to block legislation. Although himself no enthusiast for radical civil rights legislation, this action together with his help in the passage of the 1957 and 1960 civil rights bills underlined Rayburn's essentially pragmatic approach to politics.

Rayburn's political strength derived from his ability to understand his fellow legislators and from friendships across party and generation as well from his love of the procedures and prerogatives of the House. He was not an autocratic Speaker and the authority he exercised was more personal than institutional. "Mr Sam", as he was popularly known, died in office from cancer.

Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn (1882-1961) served as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives longer than any man in the nation's history.

Sam Rayburn was born in Roane County, Tenn., on Jan. 6, 1882, the eighth of 11 children. When he was 5 years old, his family moved to northern Texas. At the age of 16 he entered Mayo Normal School (now East Texas State University) and graduated in 1903.

Following a 3-year stint teaching in nearby rural schools, Rayburn won election to the Texas House of Representatives. While serving in the legislature, he attended the University of Texas law school and passed the state bar exam in 1908. Two years later he was elected Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. In 1912 he led a field of eight candidates for U.S. representative in the Democratic party primary, thus assuring his election in overwhelmingly one-party Texas. He was renominated and reelected 23 times.

Rayburn was above all a devoutly loyal party man. Although the national platforms of an increasingly liberal Democratic party often conflicted with the social prejudices and economic conservatism of his Texas constituents, he almost always fell into line behind his party's leaders. Yet over his many years in Washington, Rayburn himself introduced and worked to get through Congress a substantial amount of progressive legislation, including bills to police stock market transactions under the Securities and Exchange Commission, to provide Federal aid to rural power cooperatives under the Rural Electrification Administration, and to break up the pyramiding of public utilities companies. In 1937 he became Democratic majority leader in the House and, 3 years later, Speaker.

Except for 4 years, Rayburn held the speakership for the next 21 years. During the two 2-year intervals of Republican House majorities (1947-1949 and 1953-1955), he resumed his duties as Democratic minority leader. He also served as permanent chairman of the Democratic national conventions of 1948, 1952, and 1956, relinquishing his post in 1960 to manage Lyndon Johnson's unsuccessful bid for the presidential nomination. Rayburn died on Nov. 16, 1961, in Bonham, Tex.

Further Reading

The only full-length biography of Rayburn is C. Dwight Dorough's laudatory Mr. Sam (1962). Rayburn's role in national politics and government is treated in Arthur S. Link, Wilson (5 vols., 1947-1965); Harry S. Truman, Memoirs (2 vols., 1955-1956); William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940 (1963); Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-1956: The White House Years (1963) and Waging Peace, 1956-1961: The White House Years (1965); and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (1965).

Additional Sources

Champagne, Anthony., Sam Rayburn: a bio-bibliography, New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Champagne, Anthony, Congressman Sam Rayburn, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1984.

Hardeman, D. B., Rayburn: a biography, Houston, Tex.: Gulf Pub. Co., 1990, 1987.

"Speak, Mister Speaker", Bonham, Tex.: Sam Rayburn Foundation, 1978.

Steinberg, Alfred, Sam Rayburn: a biography, New York: Hawthorn Books, 1975.

• Born: Jan. 6, 1882, Kingston, Tenn.
• Political party: Democrat
• Education: East Texas Normal College, graduated, 1903; studied law at the University of Texas at Austin
• Representative from Texas: 1913–61
• House majority leader: 1937–40
• Speaker of the House: 1940–47, 1949–53, 1955–61
• Died: Nov. 16, 1961, Bonham, Tex.

“To get along, go along,’ Sam Rayburn would advise new members of the House of Representatives. An extremely effective legislator himself, “Mr. Sam” was famous for hard work, fair play, and keeping his word to other members. “He's so damned sincere and dedicated to a cause and he knows his country and his job inside out so well,” said another representative, “that I would feel pretty dirty to turn him down and not trust him.” Except for two Republican Congresses, Rayburn served as Speaker of the House from 1940 to 1961. Democratic Presidents depended upon him to get the votes in the House for their programs. But despite the Democratic majorities, Rayburn had to contend with a coalition between conservative Democrats and Republicans. They especially dominated the House Rules Committee, chaired by former judge Howard Smith of Virginia. As one of his last acts as Speaker, Rayburn threw his prestige behind a plan to enlarge the Rules Committee and break the conservatives' control. “Boys, are you with me or with Judge Smith?” he asked House members. Rayburn won the vote by 217 to 212, clearing the way for the liberal legislation of the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s. In 1965 the Rayburn House Office Building opened, named in honor of the House's longest-serving Speaker.

See also Speaker of the House

Sources

• Richard B. Cheney and Lynne V. Cheney, Kings of the Hill: Power and Personality in the House of Representatives (New York: Continuum, 1983).
• D. B. Hardeman and Donald C. Bacon, Rayburn: A Biography (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1987)

Quotes:

"You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too."

"You'll never get mixed up if you simply tell the truth. Then you don't have to remember what you have said, and you never forget what you have said."

"If you want to get along, go along."

"If a man has common sense, he has all the sense there is."

"Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build it."

"In my many years as a Representative in Congress it is my observation that the district that is best represented is the district that is wise enough to select a man of energy, intelligence, and integrity and reelects him year after year. A man of this type and character serves more efficiently and effectively the longer he is returned by his people."

See more famous quotes by Sam Rayburn

For the football player, see Sam Rayburn (American football).

Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn
48th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
In office September 16, 1940 – January 3, 1947
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman
Preceded by	William B. Bankhead
Succeeded by	Joseph William Martin, Jr.
50th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
In office January 3, 1949 – January 3, 1953
President	Harry S. Truman
Preceded by	Joseph William Martin, Jr.
Succeeded by	Joseph William Martin, Jr.
52nd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
In office January 3, 1955 – November 17, 1961
President	Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy
Preceded by	Joseph William Martin, Jr.
Succeeded by	John William McCormack
10th United States House of Representatives Majority Leader
In office January 3, 1937 – September 16, 1941
Deputy	Patrick J. Boland (whip)
Preceded by	William B. Bankhead
Succeeded by	John William McCormack
11th United States House of Representatives Minority Leader
In office January 3, 1947 – January 3, 1949
Deputy	John William McCormack (whip)
Preceded by	Joseph William Martin, Jr.
Succeeded by	Joseph William Martin, Jr.
13th United States House of Representatives Minority Leader
In office January 3, 1953 – January 3, 1955
Deputy	John William McCormack (whip)
Preceded by	Joseph William Martin, Jr.
Succeeded by	Joseph William Martin, Jr.
Member of the United States House of Representatives from Texas's 4th district
In office March 4, 1913 – November 17, 1961
Preceded by	Choice B. Randell
Succeeded by	Ray Roberts
52nd Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives
In office 1911 – 1913
Governor	Oscar Branch Colquitt
Preceded by	John Wesley Marshall
Succeeded by	Chester H. Terrell
Member of the Texas House of Representatives from 34th district
In office 1909 – 1913
Preceded by	Rosser Thomas
Succeeded by	Robert R. Williams
Born	January 6, 1882 (1882-01-06) Kingston, Tennessee
Died	November 16, 1961 (1961-11-17) (aged 79) Bonham, Texas
Political party	Democratic
Alma mater	University of Texas at Austin
Profession	Law
Religion	Primitive Baptist

Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn (January 6, 1882 – November 16, 1961), often called "Mr. Sam," was a Democratic lawmaker from Bonham, Texas, who served as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives for seventeen years, the longest tenure in U.S. history.

Contents 1 Background 2 Personal life 3 Speaker of the House 3.1 Personal integrity 3.2 Legendary reputation 4 Tributes 5 Portrayals 6 Further reading 7 References 8 External links

Background

Rayburn was born in Roane County, Tennessee, and graduated from Mayo College (now Texas A&M University-Commerce) in Commerce in North/ Northeast Texas. After a year of teaching school, he won election to the Texas Legislature. During his third two-year term in the Legislature, he was elected Speaker of the House at the age of twenty-nine. The next year, he won election to the United States House of Representatives in District 4. He entered Congress in 1913 at the beginning of Woodrow Wilson's presidency and served in office for more than forty-eight years. Rayburn was baptized in the Primitive Baptist Church (which is also known as Old Line Baptist or Hardshell Baptist) by Elder H.G. Ball.

Personal life

Though a menacing and powerful presence on the House floor, Rayburn was incredibly shy outside of work.

He had married once, to Metze Jones (1897-1982), sister of Texas Congressman Marvin Jones and Rayburn's colleague, but the marriage ended quickly and no one really ever knew why. Biographer D.B. Hardeman guessed that Rayburn's work schedule and long bachelorhood, combined with the couple's differing views on alcohol contributed to the rift. The court's divorce file in Bonham, Texas has never been located, and Rayburn avoided speaking of his brief marriage. One of his greatest, most painful regrets was that he did not have a son, or as he put it in Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, "a towheaded boy to take fishing."

Speaker of the House

A statue of Rayburn in the Rayburn House Office Building

On September 16, 1940 at the age of 58, and while serving as Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, Rayburn became Speaker of the House upon the sudden death of Speaker William Bankhead. Rayburn's career as Speaker was interrupted only twice: 1947–1948 and 1953–1954, when Republicans controlled the House. During those periods of Republican rule, Rayburn served as Minority Leader.

Rayburn grew up in abject poverty, and would champion the interests of the poor once in office. He was a close friend and mentor of Lyndon B. Johnson and knew Johnson's father Sam, from their days in the Texas Legislature. Rayburn was instrumental to LBJ's ascent to power, particularly his unusual and rapid rise to the position of Minority Leader even though at the time, Johnson had been in the Senate for a mere four years. Johnson also owed his subsequent elevation to Majority Leader to Rayburn. Like Johnson, Rayburn did not sign the Southern Manifesto^[1].

Personal integrity

Early in his political career, Rayburn demonstrated the depth of his personal integrity. For example, although many Texas legislators were on the payroll of public service corporations, Rayburn refused to do so. As he recounted in a speech during his congressional campaign:

When I became a member of the law firm of Steger, Thurmond and Rayburn, Messrs. Thurmond and Steger were representing the Santa Fe Railroad Company, receiving pay monthly. When the first check came after I entered the firm, Mr. Thurmond brought to my desk one-third of the amount of the check, explaining what it was for. I said to him that I was a member of the Legislature, representing the people of Fannin County, and that my experience had taught me that men who represent the people should be as far removed as possible from concerns whose interests he was liable to be called on to legislate concerning, and that on that ground I would not accept a dollar of the railroad's money, though I was legally entitled to it. I never did take a dollar of it. I have been guided by the principle in all my dealings.^[2]

This practice of refusing to accept fees from clients who had interests before the Legislature was "virtually unheard-of" at the time.^[3] Later, while serving in Congress, a wealthy oil man had a very expensive horse delivered to Rayburn's farm in Bonham. No one apparently knew the oil man delivered the horse except him, Rayburn, and a Rayburn staffer. Rayburn returned the horse.^[4]

Legendary reputation

Sam Rayburn

In shaping legislation, Rayburn preferred working quietly in the background to being in the public spotlight. As Speaker, he won a reputation for fairness and integrity. In his years in Congress, Rayburn always insisted on paying his own expenses, even going so far as to pay for his own travel expenses when inspecting the Panama Canal when his committee was considering legislation concerning it, rather than exercising his right to have the government pay for it. When he died, his personal savings only totaled $15,000 and most of his holdings were in his family ranch.

Rayburn was well known among his colleagues for his after business hours "Board of Education" meetings in hideaway offices in the House. During these off-the-record sessions, the Speaker and powerful committee chairmen would gather for poker, bourbon, and a frank discussion of politics. Rayburn alone determined who received an invitation to these gatherings; to be invited to a "Board of Education" gathering was a high honor.

He coined the term "Sun Belt" while strongly supporting the construction of Route 66. It originally ran south from Chicago, through Oklahoma, and then turned westward from Texas to New Mexico and Arizona before ending at the beach in Santa Monica, California. Arguing in favor of the project, he stated famously that America absolutely must connect "the Frost Belt with the Sun Belt."

Rayburn also held a knack for dressing to suit his occasion. While in Washington, D.C., he would sport expensive suits, starched shirts, and perfectly shined shoes. However, while back in his poorer district of Texas, Rayburn would wear simple shirts, blue jeans, cowboy boots, and cowboy hats. Several politicians have imitated this pattern, including Ronald Reagan's famous examples of clearing brush while outside Washington, D.C., while wearing fine suits inside Washington.

The phrase "A jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build one," is attributed to Rayburn.^[5]

Rayburn died of pancreatic cancer in 1961 at the age of 79 and was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. By the time of his death, he had served as Speaker for twice as long as any of his predecessors.

His home in Texas, now known as the Samuel T. Rayburn House, was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

Tributes

Stamp issued by the United States Postal Service commemorating Sam Rayburn.

• The Rayburn House Office Building, which contains offices of House members adjacent to the United States Capitol.
• The ballistic missile submarine USS Sam Rayburn.
• The Sam Rayburn Reservoir in East Texas was named after him in 1963, and is a popular destination for bass fishing and professional fishing tournaments.
• Sam Rayburn High School in Pasadena, Texas, also bears his name and houses the desk he used as Speaker of the House.
• The Sam Rayburn Independent School District was named for him in 1964.
• A documentary tentatively titled "Rayburn: Mr. Speaker" is currently in production from filmmaker Reed Penney, according to a report by the Texas A&M University-Commerce campus newspaper The East Texan.
• Sam Rayburn Memorial Student Center at Texas A&M University-Commerce is named after Mr. Rayburn.
• Sam Rayburn Middle School in Bryan, Texas is named in his honor.
• Sam Rayburn Middle School in San Antonio, Texas was named in his honor.
• Sam Rayburn Parkway is a portion of U.S. Highway 75 that runs through Sherman, TX.
• Sam Rayburn Tollway is a toll road that goes through Dallas, Denton, and Collin counties in north Texas.^[6]
• Sam Rayburn Memorial Highway, roughly a forty mile section of Texas State Highway 121 that begins at Texas State Highway 78, two miles north of Bonham, Texas, and ends at its terminus with the Sam Rayburn Tollway in McKinney, Texas, was named in his honor.
• Sam Rayburn Elementary School in McAllen, Texas.
• Sam Rayburn Memorial Veterans Center in Bonham, Texas was named in his honor.
• The Rayburn room at The Greenbrier was named in his honor, as he was Speaker of the House during the decision to build the Bunker.

Portrayals

Pat Hingle played Rayburn in LBJ: The Early Years while James Gammon portrayed the Speaker in Truman.

Further reading

• Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power (1982).
• Anthony Champagne and Floyd F. Ewing, "RAYBURN, SAMUEL TALIAFERRO (1882-1961)." Handbook of Texas Online (2005) online version
• Anthony Champagne, Congressman Sam Rayburn (Rutgers University Press, 1984).
• Anthony Champagne, Sam Rayburn: A Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood, 1988).
• C. Dwight Dorough, Mr. Sam (1962).
• Lewis L. Gould and Nancy Beck Young, "The Speaker and the Presidents: Sam Rayburn, the White House, and the Legislative Process, 1941–1961" in Raymond W. Smock and Susan W. Hammond, eds. Masters of the House: Congressional Leadership Over Two Centuries (1998). online version
• D. B. Hardeman and Donald C. Bacon, Rayburn: A Biography (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1987).
• Alfred Steinberg, Sam Rayburn (Hawthorn, 1975

References

1. ^ http://www.jstor.org/pss/3020998
2. ^ H.G. Dulaney & Edward Hake Phillips, Speak, Mr. Speaker 20 (1978)
3. ^ Anthony Champagne, Congressman Sam Rayburn 32 (1984)
4. ^ Anthony Champagne, Congressman Sam Rayburn 31 (1984)
5. ^ Time - The Prelude of the 83rd
6. ^ [1]

External links

• Obituary, NY Times, November 16, 1961, Rayburn Is Dead; Served 17 Years As House Speaker
• The leadership of Speaker Sam Rayburn published 1961, hosted by the Portal to Texas History.
• Sam Rayburn at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn from the Handbook of Texas Online
• "Mister Speaker", Time Magazine, September 27, 1943
• Rayburn: Mr Speaker Documentary Website
• The Friends of Sam Rayburn Website
• Sam Rayburn at Find a Grave
• Address Delivered by The Honorable Sam Rayburn at the Dedication of the Marker over the Graves of His Great-Great Grandfather Col. George Waller and his wife Ann Winston Carr, Oakwood Cemetery, Martinsville, Virginia, May 6, 1951

Texas House of Representatives
Preceded by Rosser Thomas	Member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 34 (Bonham) 1909 – 1913	Succeeded by Robert R. Williams
Political offices
Preceded by John Wesley Marshall	Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives 1911 – 1913	Succeeded by Chester H. Terrell
Preceded by William B. Bankhead	Speaker of the United States House of Representatives September 16, 1940 – January 3, 1947	Succeeded by Joseph W. Martin, Jr.
Preceded by Joseph W. Martin, Jr.	Speaker of the United States House of Representatives January 3, 1949 – January 3, 1953
	Speaker of the United States House of Representatives January 5, 1955 – November 16, 1961	Succeeded by John W. McCormack
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Choice B. Randell	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 4th congressional district 1913 – 1961	Succeeded by Ray Roberts
Party political offices
Preceded by Arthur G. DeWalt	Democratic Caucus Chairman of the United States House of Representatives 1923 - 1925	Succeeded by Henry T. Rainey
Preceded by Samuel D. Jackson	Permanent Chairman of the Democratic National Convention 1948, 1952, 1956	Succeeded by John W. McCormack
Honorary titles
Preceded by Robert L. Doughton	Dean of the United States House of Representatives January 5, 1953 – November 16, 1961	Succeeded by Carl Vinson

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