US SPEAKER HOUSE CONGRESSMAN OKLAHOMA NIXON WATERGATE ALBERT LETTER SIGNED 1974
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CARL ALBERT(1908 - 2000)46thSPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DURING THE NIXONWATERGATE SCANDAL 1971-1977 &15-TERM US DEMOCRATICPARTY CONGRESSMAN FROM OKLAHOMA 1947-1977, At age six, Carl Albertknew he wanted to serve in the United States Congress. In 1947 he realized hisdream when he was elected to serve in the House of Representatives alongsideJohn Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon. Albert joined the Congressionalleadership and shaped the legislation ...known as Kennedy’s “New Frontier” andJohnson’s “Great Society.” In 1971 he began his own Speakership; six yearslater, when it ended, Congress had been reshaped and had weathered theconstitutional crisis of Richard Nixon’s "Imperial Presidency."<<>> HERE'S A LETTER SIGNEDBY ALBERT ON “THE SPEAKER’S ROOMS – U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES” LETTERHEAD, 1p., DATED AT WASHINGTON, D.C, JUNE 13, 1974 TO HUGH R. PLUNKETT AT VIDOR, TEXAS, RE A SIGNED PICTURE OF HIMSELF…The document measures8” x 10½” and is in VERY FINE CONDITION – BOLDLY EXECUTED BY ALBERT!A FINE ADDITION TO YOUR AMERICAN POLITICAL HISTORY AUTOGRAPH, MANUSCRIPT & EPHEMERA COLLECTION!BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OFTHE HONORABLECARL ALBERTCarl Albert(10 May 1908–04 February 2000), politician, was born Carl Bert Albert in McAlester, Oklahoma, the son of Ernest HomerAlbert, a coal miner and farmer, and Leona Ann Scott Albert. He attended atwo-room school and worked in cotton fields, where he sometimes carried a sackunder one arm and a book under the other. At McAlester High School he excelledas a debater, became president of the student body, and graduated in 1927. Thatyear, Albert entered the University of Oklahoma, where he majored in politicalscience and excelled as a public speaker, winning the National OratoricalChampionship in 1928. Albert, who had arrived in Norman with just $20, waitedtables and did odd jobs to finance his undergraduate education. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1931, he studied on aRhodes Scholarship at Oxford University, earning a B.A. in jurisprudence in1933 and a B.C.L. a year later. He was admitted to the bar in Oklahoma in 1935and practiced law in Oklahoma City.Albert entered the U.S. Army Air Force in 1941. He served in the Pacifictheater during World War II. By 1946 he had attained the rank of lieutenantcolonel and won the Bronze Star. He married Mary Sue Greene Harmon in 1942;they had two children.Having risen from poverty, Albert strove to expand economic opportunitiesfor others. During the 1930s he identified himself as a New Deal Democrat.Albert won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1946, when Democratswere losing their long-held majority, and represented the western portion ofOklahoma for the next thirty years. A Cold War liberal, he backed President Harry S. Truman'spolicies to contain Soviet expansionism as well as such domestic measures aspublic power, public housing, farm price supports, and federal aid toeducation. Because his district was poor, Albert saw federal aid as a“deliverer, ” not a “demon” (Albert and Goble, p. 156). Devotion to district, party, and the House hierarchy defined Albert's early congressional career.By the 1950s, Albert, known as the “Little Giant from Little Dixie, ” wasemerging as a powerful member of the House. Representing a securely Democraticdistrict, he gained seniority and caught the attention of Speaker Sam Rayburnof Texas, who made him majority whip in 1955. “I can tell big timber from smallbrush, ” Rayburn joked, in reference to Albert's five-foot, four-inch, 150-poundframe (Washington Post, 6 Feb. 2000). Quiet and self-effacing, Albertfollowed Rayburn's advice to “work hard, go along, and get along” (Peters, p.158). The Speaker, in turn, remarked that nobody studied legislation asthoroughly as Albert. Yet others noticed a “certain smarminess” in thefreckle-faced Oklahoman's “teacher's pet” demeanor that had “served him well onthe way up” (Farrell, p. 264). Even as a schoolboy, Albert once admitted, henoted his instructors' “likes and dislikes” and then “told them what theywanted to hear” (Albert and Goble, p. 39).Following Rayburn's death in 1961, John W. McCormackof Massachusetts became Speaker, and Albert succeeded McCormack as majorityleader. In addition to handling the day-to-day chores of leadership, Albert, who sat on the Education and Labor Committee, worked to enact President Lyndon B. Johnson'sGreat Society legislation. Civil rights, a concern of liberals by the 1950s, vexed the Oklahoman, whose constituents were conservative on racial matters. Hebelatedly endorsed the weak Civil Rights Act of 1957, then played a major rolein passing the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, siding with his party'snational leadership against the wishes of white Oklahomans. The majority leaderalso rallied votes for the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which fundedJohnson's War on Poverty. With Congress approving a spate of liberal reforms, Albert recalled his years as majority leader, from 1962 to 1971, as the mostsatisfying period of his career.Yet there were lapses in Albert's leadership. Despite the large number ofNative Americans in Oklahoma, he did not push “self-determination” for tribes.Listening to Indian leaders in his district, who had assimilated into Anglosociety, Albert instead helped Native Americans advance economically and jointhe American mainstream. “Red Power” advocates, who wanted Indians to retaintheir unique identity, rejected such a policy. During the 1968 DemocraticNational Convention in Chicago, Albert was embarrassed when, standing at thepodium, he failed to quiet rowdy delegates. President Johnson, watching thespectacle on television, immediately telephoned Dan Rostenkowski, a burly, jowly congressman from Chicago, who took the gavel from Albert's hand andbrought the hall to order. In his personal life, Albert, a chronic worrier, suffered a heart attack in 1966 and drank heavily at Washington parties, thoughnot at work. Nevertheless, he retained his leadership position and, followingMcCormack's retirement in 1971, became Speaker of the House.Albert's tenure as Speaker, from 1971 to 1977, was a difficult one.President Richard M. Nixonoften vetoed legislation passed by Congress, and House Democrats bickered amongthemselves. Older leaders, products of the existing seniority system, supportedthe U.S. war effort in Vietnam and remained conservative on race. YoungerDemocrats, critical of ongoing involvement in Vietnam and liberal on civil rights, wanted to diminish the power of committee chairs and open the House to newvoices. Albert, a part of the established House hierarchy, a hawk on Vietnam, and a proponent of busing, chose to unite his party by stressing economics. Buthis championing of New Deal–like programs, including expanded public works anda higher minimum wage, underscored Albert's own seniority and lack of freshideas. The Speaker gradually sided with reformers by taking power fromcommittee chairs, curtailing the seniority system, and opening committeeproceedings to public scrutiny.Watergate placed the Oval Office within Albert's reach. During thescandal, the United States was on two occasions without a vice president, making the Speaker first in line to become president. Following the resignationof Vice President Spiro T. Agnewin 1973, Nixon, in a fit of bipartisanship, purportedly offered the vicepresidency to Albert, who declined the honor, affirming that his place was inCongress. When Vice President Gerald R. Ford became president following Nixon'sresignation in 1974, the Speaker was again next in line to become president. Asthe crisis climaxed, with the House considering Nixon's impeachment, Albert wonwidespread praise by insisting that the president be treated fairly. ThereafterHouse Democrats tired of Albert's less-than-dynamic leadership.Albert retired from Congress in 1977 and returned to McAlester, where hekept an office. His hometown named a parkway, a junior college, and a lake inhis honor. The former Speaker wrote speeches and worked on his memoirs. He diedin McAlester.Albert took pride in his humble roots and liberal outlook. Like hissuccessor, Speaker Tip O'Neill, he believed that all politics was local and that an active state, promotingeconomic opportunity, could enhance the station of poor Americans, whethernorthern or southern, white or black, Anglo or Indian. “Not as a matter ofeconomics, nor logic, nor common decency, nor in fairness to futuregenerations, can we justify excluding the American poor from the mainstream ofAmerican life, ” Albert told the House in 1964 (Congressional Record, 88th Cong., 2nd sess. [1964]: 18277). Upon his death, leaders in both partieslauded Albert's statesmanship.BibliographyAlbert's papers are housed at the Carl Albert Congressional Research andStudies Center, University of Oklahoma, Norman. Albert's memoir (with DanneyGoble) is Little Giant: The Life and Times of Speaker Carl Albert(1990). A favorable view of Albert and Indian rights is W. Dale Mason, “TheCarl Albert Collection: Resources Relating to Indian Policy, 1963–1968, ” Chroniclesof Oklahoma (Winter 1993–1994), 422–37. A critical account is Dean J.Kotlowski, “Limited Vision: Carl Albert, the Choctaws, and Native AmericanSelf-Determination, ” American Indian Culture and Research Journal(2002). For Albert's relationship with his colleagues, see D. B. Hardemanand Donald C. Bacon, Rayburn: A Biography (1987); Tip O'Neill (withWilliam Novak), Man of the House: The Life and Political Memoirs of SpeakerTip O'Neill (1987); John A. Farrell, Tip O'Neill and the DemocraticCentury (2001); and James M. Cannon, Time and Chance: Gerald Ford'sAppointment with History (1994). Also valuable is Ronald M. Peters, Jr., TheAmerican Speakership: The Office in Historical Perspective, 2d ed. (1997).Obituaries are in the New York Times and the Washington Post, both 6 Feb. 2000. [Source: American National Biography]I am a proud member ofthe Universal Autograph Collectors Club (UACC), The Ephemera Society ofAmerica, the Manuscript Society and the American Political Items Collectors(APIC) (member name: John Lissandrello). I subscribe to each organizations'code of ethics and authenticity is guaranteed. ~Providing quality service andhistorical memorabilia online for over twenty years.~
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