University of Texas Distinguished Alumni: Sam Rayburn
Sam Rayburn, Texas legislator and longtime speaker of the United States House of Representatives, was born in 1882 near the Clinch River in eastern Tennessee 1882. In 1887, the family moved from Tennessee to a forty-acre cotton farm near Windom, Texas. After Sam Rayburn won a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 1906, he attended the University of Texas law school between legislative sessions; he was admitted to the State Bar of Texas in 1908. In Sam Rayburn’s third term, he served as Texas Speaker of the House. In 1912, he was elected to be the Fourth Texas District’s representative in the US House of Representatives. He went on to serve in Congress for nearly fifty years.
In 1940, Sam Rayburn was elected Speaker of the House, and continued as Speaker in every Democratic-controlled Congress from 1940 to 1961. Rayburn's congressional career spanned the crucial and monumental years for the US Congress. Rayburn was a participant in the passage of most of the significant legislation of the first half of the twentieth century.
In his memoir Barn Burning Barn Building, the politician Ben Barnes has a very remarkable anecdote about Sam Rayburn. When Ben Barnes was a young up and coming politician in 1960, he drove Sam Rayburn to a reception. Ben Barnes asked Rayburn how he thought President John F. Kennedy would fare as President. Sam Rayburn’s reply was quite prescient.
"Son, I like Kennedy. He’s got a lot of bright people around him …But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that Richard Nixon got his ass beat. Nixon’s gonna try to come back. And I want you to promise me one thing. I want you to promise me you’ll do everything you can to keep him from coming back. Because if he ever gets elected, that man could destroy the presidency."Sure enough, Sam Rayburn’s prediction nearly came true.
After Roosevelt was elected President, Rayburn supported the Roosevelt’s New Deal. As chairman of the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, Sam Rayburn helped establish the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Public Utilities Holding Company Act, the Emergency Railroad Transportation Act, and the Rural Electrification Act. (In fact, the Rural Electrification Act so impressed Ben Barnes that he became a lifelong Democratic politician). During World War II, Sam Rayburn made sure the government fully supported the war effort. Rayburn eventually grew close to Lyndon B. Johnson, and they became instrumental in the election of John F. Kennedy.
Even though he was a major supporter of New Deal, Sam Rayburn was recognized as a moderate. He was a level-headed, sharp-witted, and frank man, which won him respect from both political parties. Rayburn never accepted money from lobbyists, did not go on travel junkets, and even refused travel expenses on speaking tours. Within his native Texas, Rayburn kept in close touch with constituents, and never forgot where he came from. He brought into many essential projects to his district, including rural electrification, farm-to-market roads, Lake Texoma, Lavon Lake, and the Veterans Administration Hospital, and an air force base.