[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 12]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 15924]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TUESDAYS IN TEXAS: SAM RAYBURN

                                 ______
                                 

                              HON. TED POE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 6, 2016

  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the name Sam Rayburn of Texas is well 
known to this House. It can be found identifying portraits and busts 
just outside this Chamber. It is the namesake of meeting rooms and 
offices throughout the Capitol complex. I, along with many of you, work 
in the Rayburn office building. I hold conferences in the Rayburn 
meeting room just across the hall. The name of Sam Rayburn is 
synonymous with statesmanship and devotion to public service at its 
finest. His importance to the tradition and legacy of this place can be 
summed up in the fact that at one time this chamber was referred to as 
``Sam's House.''
  Rayburn earned the admiration of even his rivals. Joe Martin, after 
losing the election for speaker to Sam Rayburn, said of his colleague 
``he is a man of great ability, of rare political acumen, and skillful 
in debate.'' He gained that reputation during a tenure in Congress that 
lasted almost 49 years, and a record long Speakership of 17 years. His 
leadership was vital, and well timed. He served this country during the 
critical years between the beginning of World War II and the Kennedy 
administration. It was the strike of his gavel that entered America 
into the war, and it was he that administered the oath of office to 
Vice President Lyndon Johnson.
  As a leader, he always preferred persuasion and good-humor to 
coercion. Following this philosophy, he used the influence of the 
speakership only sparingly and with subtlety and cunning. His 
authority, therefore, came from the general respect of his peers for 
the character of the man, not the power or prestige of his title. He 
was known for his unwavering integrity, his loyalty to friends and 
colleagues in both parties, his fairness, and his disdain for 
pretension. Rayburn once made the following remark, explaining his 
philosophy on leadership: ``You cannot lead people by trying to drive 
them. Persuasion and reason are the only ways to lead them. In that way 
the Speaker has influence and power in the House.''
  Sam Rayburn would become one of the most powerful individuals in the 
United States, but all this was preceded by humble beginnings. Rayburn 
grew up working on his father's cotton farm in North Texas. Even as a 
boy, he dreamed of becoming the Speaker of the House. He left the farm 
to seek out that dream, working his way through East Texas Normal 
College, which would later become Texas A&M University. He then taught 
school, and was eventually elected to serve in the Texas House of 
Representatives. While there he pursued a degree in law. In 1912 he was 
elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and remained there for 
almost half a century. He was a life-long bachelor, some say that this 
House was his love, his passion. Appropriately, then, perhaps, Sam 
Rayburn died in office. Despite knowing that his cancer was terminal, 
and several moments of unconsciousness at the Speaker's chair, he 
insisted on seeing the Kennedy New Frontier program through.
  Sam Rayburn served his country well, so well as to become a fixture 
of this institution, and remains so today.
  And that's just the way it is.

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