“Mr. Sam” (Sep 29, 2024)
by Scott Sosebee
Texas has been fortunate throughout its history to have a number of influential political leaders advocate for the state and play a large role for the entire nation at the federal level. Largely due to its large population, the state has also enjoyed an outsized amount of attention from national politicians. While those figures were prominent and noteworthy, perhaps no one exerted as much power for as long of a period at such a level as Sam Taliaferro Rayburn, a native of Northeast Texas who many, out of both affection and reverence, called “Mr. Sam.”
Rayburn was born in January 1882 on a small farm in east central Tennessee. Like so many other Southerners of the time, his life in a rural agricultural region was difficult, to say the least. Sam was the seventh of what would eventually be ten children, and he and his family scraped out a living from the land. When Rayburn was five, his father, William M. Rayburn, decided he could do better in Texas, so he and his wife, Martha, packed up the family and made the trek to Fannin County, where Willam was able to purchase a forty-acre farm just outside the county seat of Bonham. Fannin County, Texas, would be Sam Rayburn’s home for the remainder of his life.
Sam Rayburn was a fine student and received a scholarship to attend East Texas Normal College (now Texas A&M-Commerce) in Commerce. He intended to make teaching his career and finished his degree in three years despite holding down a job as a public school teacher at the same time he attended classes. Teaching was his vocation, but politics had grabbed Sam Rayburn when he was a young man and remained his avocation. Rayburn recalled later in his life that when he was perhaps eight years old, he heard Joseph Bailey—then a congressman from the area, who would later become a U.S. Senator—give a rousing speech. Bailey stirred an interest in Sam Rayburn. In an interview, Sam said that as he worked the family farm, he would bide the time on tedious chores by imagining engaging in political debates on issues of the time. So, while teaching would be a way to “pay the bills” for a time, politics and the law were his ultimate goals.
Rayburn taught at the small local Fannin County school for two years, but in 1906, when he was just twenty-four, the Ninth State Representative District of Texas’ seat came open, and he threw his hat into the ring, It was a vigorously contested election and his opponents used his age against him, but Sam Rayburn—perhaps using those imaginary debates—had honed a message that combined a good deal of old agricultural Populism with the emerging doctrine of Progressivism to win the election. Just as he had done while finishing his first degree, Sam combined his work as a State Representative with an academic career as he took law school classes through 1908, when he passed the Texas State Bar Exam to receive a license to practice law.
Rayburn quickly rose to a level of leadership in the Texas House of Representatives. His brand of politics was at the vanguard of a new political wave in Texas and the national Democratic Party. He won re-election to his seat two more times after his initial run, and in 1910, twenty-eight-year-old Sam Rayburn became the youngest Speaker of the House in Texas history. However, he was not destined to stay in that position long as, in 1912, he won a seat as the U.S. Representative from the Fourth District of Texas, an office he would hold for the next forty-eight years.
Just as he had done in the Texas House, Sam Rayburn steadily rose through the ranks of the Democratic Party congressional leadership. He took the usual path of first serving as a member on committees, becoming the head of subcommittees, and then serving as the chairman of the powerful Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee from 1931 through 1937. Such a steady rise with an adherence to party loyalty and supporting the policies of more senior leaders is what likely led Sam to develop his most notable political philosophy, one that he would tell countless young Representatives when they entered office. When asked how you can best serve, Rayburn would reply, “You go along to get along.”
Rayburn became the head of the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee at a crucial time. The Great Depression had begun to ravage the nation in late 1929, and during the 1932 Presidential election, New Yorker Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt ushered in his “New Deal,” as proposed series of legislative acts designed to ease the economic suffering in the nation and also to steer the United States in a new direction in terms of political philosophy. Many of those New Deal initiatives would have to pass through Rayburn’s committee, and he became an unabashed “New Dealer” who helped the President’s agenda make its way through Congress. He paid particular attention to the Rural Electrification Act. Rayburn knew what it was like to grow up poor on an isolated farm, and access to electricity was a vital way to end some of that deprivation. Along with Senator George Norris, Rayburn sponsored the bill and beamed as he attended the signing of the new law alongside President Roosevelt.
Rayburn’s good nature and skill in guiding legislation through Congress made him popular within the Democratic delegation, and in 1937, that reputation led him to become the Majority Leader of the House. As Majority head, Rayburn’s primary responsibility became wrangling and convincing members to support Party initiatives as they came through Congress. Again, his temperament and approach became an asset. His effectiveness was again rewarded when the Democrats made him Speaker of the House in 1940. He would serve in that office for twenty-one years, still the longest tenure in U.S. history.
His time as Speaker was one of strong and steady leadership. He helped make sure that Roosevelt’s stewardship of World War II encountered little opposition in the House, and he served as Chairman of the Democratic Convention in the election years of 1948, 1952, and 1956. “Mr. Sam” became an institution, a man who seemed to embody the notion of service and devotion to the nation’s idea of democratic governance. He passed away at his home in Bonham on November 16, 1961. His funeral services attracted international leaders: President John F. Kennedy, former Presidents Eisenhower, and Truman attended, along with then Vice-President, and future President Lyndon Johnson, all to honor the self-effacing man who came from a small Texas town to wield national power with a smile and good cheer.
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.