75 Facts About Sam Rayburn

Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn was an American politician who served as the 43rd speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

Sam Rayburn was a three-time House speaker, former House majority leader, two-time House minority leader, and a 24-term congressman, representing Texas's 4th congressional district as a Democrat from 1913 to 1961.

Sam Rayburn holds the record for the longest tenure as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, serving for over 17 years.

Sam Rayburn won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1912 and continuously won re-election until his death in 1961, serving a total of 25 terms.

Sam Rayburn led the House Democrats from 1940 to 1961, and served as Speaker of the House from 1940 to 1947,1949 to 1953, and 1955 to 1961.

Sam Rayburn served twice as House Minority Leader during periods of Republican House control.

Sam Rayburn preferred to work quietly in the background and successfully used his power of persuasion and charisma to get his bills passed due to having to navigate the post-Joseph Cannon era when each individual committee chairman had immense power in the House.

Sam Rayburn was influential in the construction of US Route 66.

Sam Rayburn served as Speaker until his death in 1961, and was succeeded by John W McCormack.

Sam Rayburn is the most recent Speaker of the House to die in office.

Sam Rayburn was born in Roane County, Tennessee, on January 6,1882.

Sam Rayburn was the son of Martha Clementine and William Marion Rayburn, a former Confederate cavalryman.

The Sam Rayburn family descended from Ulster Scots immigrants who emigrated to the Province of Pennsylvania in 1750.

In 1887, the Sam Rayburn family moved to a 40-acre cotton farm near Windom, Texas.

Sam Rayburn grew up in poverty as he, his nine siblings, and his parents all participated in running the farm.

Toiling in the fields made Sam Rayburn determined to get a good education and help the poor and downtrodden.

Sam Rayburn went to co-educational East Texas Normal College in Commerce, Texas, in 1900 with $25 that his father saved up to help take care of his first few months of college expenses.

Sam Rayburn obtained his teaching credentials before completing his bachelor of science degree, and earned additional income by teaching in the public school of Greenwood, a small community in Hopkins County.

Sam Rayburn graduated in 1903 in a class of 13 and taught school for two years.

In 1906, at the age of 24, Sam Rayburn won by a narrow 163 vote margin an election to the 34th district of the Texas House of Representatives.

Sam Rayburn defeated Clarence E Gilmore 70 to 63 in the speaker election.

Texas speakers from the beginning of statehood until Sam Rayburn's tenure were mostly ceremonial and powerless, similar to the president pro tempore of the US Senate.

Sam Rayburn helped pass numerous legislation as Speaker such as shorter working hours for women, child labor laws, and appropriations for a Confederate widows home and a tuberculosis sanitarium.

Many decades later Sam Rayburn rated his service as Texas House Speaker as the most enjoyable period in his long political career.

Sam Rayburn won election to the House of Representatives in 1912 after a bruising Democratic primary where he won by only 490 votes.

Sam Rayburn won the general election afterwards and became a Representative.

Sam Rayburn entered Congress in 1913 at the beginning of Woodrow Wilson's presidency and served in office for almost 49 years, until the beginning of John F Kennedy's presidency.

Sam Rayburn learned how to make deals and how to deal with adversity during his first two decades in the House.

Sam Rayburn worked as Garner's campaign manager during the 1932 presidential election and released Garner's delegates to vote for Roosevelt after a deal was made to make Garner the vice-presidential nominee.

From 1931 to 1937, Sam Rayburn was Chairman of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee.

Sam Rayburn was a big supporter of projects that helped make life easier for farmers and rural Americans like dams and farm-to-market roads.

Sam Rayburn helped pass laws that established the Soil Conservation Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps.

On September 16,1940, at the age of 58, and while serving as House Majority Leader, Sam Rayburn became Speaker of the House upon the sudden death of Speaker William Bankhead.

In early 1944, top Roosevelt officials approached Sam Rayburn and asked him to work discreetly with Congress to gain funding for the production of an atomic bomb.

Later that year, Sam Rayburn secured $1.6 billion to fund the Manhattan Project, the code name for the secret project that led to the creation of the atomic bomb.

Sam Rayburn had to hide the Manhattan Project through fake names and other deceptive means in appropriation bills until the bombs were used in 1945.

Sam Rayburn felt that because he lost in such an overwhelming manner he should step down as House Democratic Leader and not be the Minority Leader in the upcoming congress.

Sam Rayburn endorsed the northern Democrat John W McCormack for Minority Leader, but there was a "draft Rayburn" movement initiated by President Truman, McCormack himself, and all the northern and southern Democrats.

Many people in Washington were then aware of how important Speaker Sam Rayburn was to hold the Democratic Party together.

Sam Rayburn accepted the Minority Leader position and remained the House Democratic Leader for the rest of his life.

The House Speaker was provided a government-funded vehicle and the representatives felt bad that now Minority Leader Sam Rayburn would have no car in Washington.

Sam Rayburn had a strict personal rule to never accept gifts more than $25 to avoid being bribed.

Sam Rayburn returned all 50 Republican representatives' checks but graciously thanked them for their gesture.

Sam Rayburn had to deal with the southern Democrats' reaction to President Truman's call for very swift civil rights legislation.

Sam Rayburn had to be the moderate between the conservatives and liberals as well as the northern and southern Democrats so he rebuffed Truman's extremely fast civil rights bills but rejected the southern Democrats' calls for a pro-segregation candidate to run in place of Truman in the 1948 presidential election.

Sam Rayburn was against a swift poll tax repeal and other fast-track civil rights legislation but ordered the pro-segregation Democrats to run as a third-party due to his fears that the northern Democrats would boycott the election and help the Republicans win the election.

Sam Rayburn was a staunch supporter of Truman and was for a gradual civil rights legislation rollout that wouldn't be too fast and immediate due to the fears of the backlash by southern Democrats.

Sam Rayburn said that a repeal of the poll tax in Texas would aid the United States in its battle with the Soviet Union for the world's hearts and minds.

Sam Rayburn supported Truman's Fair Deal but the Conservative Coalition of conservative Republicans and conservative Democrats blocked the Fair Deal legislation from being passed.

Sam Rayburn chose not to run for re-election as a result and the Republicans won the House, Senate, and presidency.

Sam Rayburn heavily fought for Alaska after realizing that then-Democratic Alaska would counter then-Republican Hawaii in the Senate and Electoral College.

In 1961, Sam Rayburn wanted to pass more civil rights legislation along with President Kennedy but the powerful House Rules Committee was dominated by a conservative coalition of Democrats and Republicans who rejected any socially liberal legislation.

Sam Rayburn sought to end the impasse by changing House rules to add three spots to the committee.

Sam Rayburn defended his plan in a rare speech on the House floor.

Himself a protege of Vice President of the United States John Nance Garner, Rayburn was a close friend and mentor of Lyndon B Johnson and knew Johnson's father, Sam, from their days in the Texas Legislature.

Sam Rayburn was instrumental to Lyndon Johnson's ascent to power, particularly his rapid rise to the position of Minority Leader.

Sam Rayburn was a good friend of Jaja Wachuku, the first indigenous Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives, from 1959 to 1960.

Sam Rayburn said Rayburn made the driver turn around and return the money.

Sam Rayburn refused not only fees but travel expenses for out-of-town speeches; hosts who.

In shaping legislation, Sam Rayburn preferred working quietly in the background to being in the public spotlight.

Sam Rayburn was well known among his colleagues for his after business hours "Board of Education" meetings in hideaway offices in the House.

Sam Rayburn alone determined who received an invitation to these gatherings; to be invited to even one was a high honor.

Sam Rayburn coined the term "Sun Belt" while strongly supporting the construction of Route 66.

Sam Rayburn had a knack for dressing to suit his occasion.

However, while back in his poorer district in Texas, Sam Rayburn would wear simple shirts, blue jeans, cowboy boots, and cowboy hats.

Sam Rayburn married once, to Metze Jones, sister of Texas Congressman and Sam Rayburn friend Marvin Jones.

Sam Rayburn had corresponded with her for nine years, and at the time of the wedding Rayburn was 45 and Jones was 26.

The court's divorce file in Bonham, Texas, has never been located, and Sam Rayburn avoided speaking of his brief marriage.

In 2014, the Associated Press reported the existence of a letter Sam Rayburn wrote to Metze after her father died in June 1926.

In 2016, the Plano Star Courier published a story about an article in the October 2016 issue of Southwestern Historical Quarterly profiling Sam Rayburn's "lady friend" who was a woman named Margaret Fallon Palmer, the widow of former US Attorney General A Mitchell Palmer, and her close relationship with Rayburn.

In 1956, Rayburn was baptized by Elder H G Ball in the Primitive Baptist Church, known as Old Line Baptist or Hard Shell Baptist Church.

Sam Rayburn died of pancreatic cancer in 1961 at the age of 79 and was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Sam Rayburn's funeral in Bonham, Texas was a large spectacle attended by numerous VIPs, most notably President John F Kennedy, former presidents Harry S Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, and vice president Lyndon B Johnson.

Sam Rayburn was close friends with the wood shop instructor Prof.

Sam Rayburn was a descendant of George Waller, a Revolutionary War militia officer from Henry County, Virginia, and was an honorary president of the Colonel George Waller Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution.