Carl Bert Albert was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 46th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977 and represented Oklahoma's 3rd congressional district as a Democrat from 1947 to 1977.
35 Facts About Carl Albert
2.
Carl Albert held the highest political office of any Oklahoman in American history.
3.
Carl Albert was born in McAlester, Oklahoma, the son of Leona Ann and Ernest Homer Carl Albert, a coal miner and farmer.
4.
Carl Albert grew up in a log cabin on his father's farm.
5.
Carl Albert later petitioned his local Masonic Lodge and became an active Freemason.
6.
Carl Albert earned enough money to fund the rest of his undergraduate education through working in the college registrar's office and participating in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps.
7.
Carl Albert graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1931, was the top male student, then studied at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship.
8.
Carl Albert received a Bachelor of Arts in jurisprudence and Bachelor of Civil Laws from St Peter's College before returning to the United States in 1934.
9.
Carl Albert opened a law practice in Oklahoma City in 1935.
10.
Carl Albert worked for a series of oil companies in leasing work until the start of World War II.
11.
Carl Albert joined the United States Army as a private in 1941.
12.
Carl Albert served briefly with the 3rd Armored Division, but was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Air Forces.
13.
Carl Albert served in the Judge Advocate General Corps as a prosecutor assigned to the Far East Air Service Command.
14.
Carl Albert earned a Bronze Star Medal and other decorations and left the Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1946.
15.
Carl Albert remained in the Army Reserve after the war, and retired in 1968 with the rank of colonel.
16.
Carl Albert was elected to Congress for the first time in 1946.
17.
Carl Albert was a Cold War liberal, and supported President Harry S Truman's containment of Soviet expansionism and domestic measures like public housing, federal aid to education, and farm price supports.
18.
Rayburn advised Carl Albert to seek the chairmanship of the Agriculture Committee in 1949.
19.
Carl Albert was appointed House Majority Whip in 1955 and elected House Majority Leader after Rayburn's death in 1961.
20.
Carl Albert was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1957.
21.
Carl Albert knew the bill had insufficient Congressional support for passage due to the opposition of ten Republicans and eight southern Democrats.
22.
Carl Albert advised President Kennedy to seek Senate passage of the measure first.
23.
Carl Albert calculated that the Senate should bring it to the House as a conference committee report on their own welfare bill, instead of trying direct introduction into the House.
24.
Carl Albert did not sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto, and voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1960,1964, and 1968, as well as the 24th Amendment to the US Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
25.
Carl Albert voted against the initial House resolution for the Civil Rights Act of 1957 on June 18,1957, but voted in favor of the Senate amendment to the bill on August 27,1957.
26.
Carl Albert chaired the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
27.
When Speaker John W McCormack retired in January 1971, during the second half of Richard Nixon's first term as president, Albert was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.
28.
In September 1972, Carl Albert was witnessed driving drunk and crashing into two cars in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington.
29.
Carl Albert would have been forced to resign from the office of Speaker as well as the House.
30.
Carl Albert was accused of accepting gifts and bribes from a lobbyist who was a member of South Korean intelligence.
31.
Carl Albert denied having accepted bribes and admitted receiving only token gifts, which he disclosed.
32.
Carl Albert decided to retire at the end of the 94th Congress in January 1977, and after leaving the House he turned the gifts over to the General Services Administration as required by law.
33.
Carl Albert died in McAlester, Oklahoma at the age of 91 on February 4,2000.
34.
Carl Albert is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in McAlester.
35.
Carl Albert married Mary Harmon in 1942; they had a son and a daughter.