Nicholas Longworth
Nicholas Longworth III (November 5, 1869 – April 9, 1931) was an American lawyer and politician who became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. A Republican, he was elected to the Ohio Senate, where he initiated the successful Longworth Act of 1902, regulating the issuance of municipal bonds. As congressman for Ohio's 1st congressional district, he soon became a popular social figure of Washington, and married President Theodore Roosevelt's daughter Alice Lee Roosevelt. Their relationship became strained when he opposed her father in the Republican Party split of 1912. Longworth became Majority Leader of the House in 1923, and Speaker from 1925 to 1931. In this post, he exercised powerful leadership, tempered by charm and tact.
This article is about the U.S. congressman from Ohio. For other people, see Nicholas Longworth (disambiguation).
Nicholas Longworth
Frederick H. Gillett
Frederick H. Gillett
Stanley E. Bowdle
April 9, 1931 (aged 61)
Aiken, South Carolina, US
Timothy Walker (grandfather)
Maria Longworth (aunt)
Clara Eleanor Longworth (sister)
Nicholas Longworth II
Susan Walker
Politician
Law
Early years and education[edit]
Longworth was the son of Nicholas Longworth II and Susan Walker. The Longworth family was an old, prominent, and wealthy family which dominated Cincinnati, Ohio. He had two younger sisters, Anna and Clara. Nicholas Longworth II was the son of Joseph Longworth and grandson of winemaker Nicholas Longworth I, both distinguished citizens of Cincinnati.[1]
Nicholas Longworth III attended the Franklin School,[2] a school for boys in Cincinnati, and then went on to attend Harvard College (Class of 1891), where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon (Alpha chapter) and the Porcellian Club. He was a talented, but not necessarily an industrious student; one friend wrote about him: "His good head made it easy for him to get perfectly respectable marks without doing much of any work."[3] After receiving his bachelor's degree from Harvard, he attended Harvard Law School for one year, but transferred to and received his law degree from Cincinnati Law School in 1894.
Longworth was a violinist, and on their first visit to Bayreuth, his wife Alice Lee Roosevelt reported that "Nick was really a musician and cared deeply for music...."[4] Later she observed that "In Washington, Nick never had much time to play his violin, and in those days there were very few people to play with him. In Cincinnati there were the orchestra, the College of Music, and the Conservatory to draw on, and soon we were having musical parties, at least once, and often two or three times a week. ... We would all have dinner first, the musicians and a few others who cared for music, and afterwards lose no time getting started, by about nine at the latest. From then on music and yet more music until midnight and usually long after."[5] In a letter to Longworth's sister Clara, Leopold Stokowski wrote "Your brother had a rare understanding of music. He penetrated directly into the spirit of music. It was his natural element."[6]
Majority leader and Speaker of the House[edit]
Longworth returned to Congress in 1915, after defeating Bowdle in an election rematch,[15] and served until his death in 1931. He became House Majority Leader in 1923, and rose to speaker in 1925,[8] succeeding Frederick Gillett, who had been elected to the Senate.
Soon after becoming speaker, he set out to restore to the speakership many of the powers that had been stripped away during the revolt against Joseph Cannon.[8] He also punished 13 progressives who supported Robert M. La Follette instead of Calvin Coolidge in the 1924 election. He expelled the rebels from the GOP caucus, and stripped even the committee chairmen among them of all seniority. Additionally, Longworth took control of the Steering Committee and Committee on Committees and placed his own men on the Rules Committee, guaranteeing that he controlled the work of the House.
Ignoring the progressive wing of the party, Longworth pursued legislation that aimed for balanced budgets and major tax reductions, resisting any new programs that would expand the role of government. However, Longworth defied President Herbert Hoover in 1931 by supporting the long-stalled veterans bonus bill; it passed but Hoover vetoed it, setting up the Bonus March of 1932.
Longworth reached across the aisle to Democrats, forging a productive relationship with John Nance Garner, that party's House minority leader, who relied upon informal methods to strengthen his party's influence. He enjoyed a close rapport with Garner, who said of Longworth, "I was the heathen and Nick was the aristocrat." Together they hosted a daily gathering of Democratic and Republican congressmen in a secluded room in the Capitol, which became known as the "Bureau of Education." This unofficial club provided a place for politicians to relax with a drink and get to know and work with one another across party lines.[16]
Final days and death[edit]
Longworth served as speaker until the end of the 71st Congress on March 4, 1931, and was speaker-presumptive for the upcoming 72nd Congress at the time of his death (as he had won reelection in November 1930 and as at the time Republicans retained a narrow 3-seat House majority).[17] He died unexpectedly from pneumonia on April 9 while visiting his friend Dwight Filley Davis (of Davis Cup fame), and Daniel J. Duckett in Aiken, South Carolina. His body was subsequently interred at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. At a memorial service held at the Library of Congress on May 3, 1931, his old friends Efrem Zimbalist and Harold Bauer played Brahms's D minor sonata.