Mr. Speaker!

The Life and Times of Thomas B. Reed The Man Who Broke the Filibuster

James Grant

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2011
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781451611090
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

James Grant’s enthralling biography of Thomas B. Reed, Speaker of the House during one of the most turbulent times in American history—the Gilded Age, the decades before the ascension of reformer President Theodore Roosevelt—brings to life one of the brightest, wittiest, and most consequential political stars in our history.

The last decades of the nineteenth century were a volatile era of rampantly corrupt politics. It was a time of both stupendous growth and financial panic, of land bubbles and passionate and sometimes violent populist protests. Votes were openly bought and sold in a Congress paralyzed by the abuse of the House filibuster by members who refused to respond to roll call even when present, depriving the body of a quorum. Reed put an end to this stalemate, empowered the Republicans, and changed the House of Representatives for all time.

The Speaker’s beliefs in majority rule were put to the test in 1898, when the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor set up a popular clamor for war against Spain. Reed resigned from Congress in protest.

A larger-than-life character, Reed checks every box of the ideal biographical subject. He is an important and significant figure. He changed forever the way the House of Representatives does its business. He was funny and irreverent. He is, in short, great company. “What I most admire about you, Theodore,” Reed once remarked to his earnest young protégé, Teddy Roosevelt, “is your original discovery of the Ten Commandments.”

After he resigned his seat, Reed practiced law in New York. He was successful. He also found a soul mate in the legendary Mark Twain. They admired one another’s mordant wit. Grant’s lively and erudite narrative of this tumultuous era—the raucous late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—is a gripping portrait of a United States poised to burst its bounds and of the men who were defining it.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Description
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1: “Oh happy Portlanders”
• Chapter 2: Acting Assistant Paymaster Reed
• Chapter 3: “The atrocious crime of being a young man”
• Chapter 4: With a Flap of the “bloody shirt”
• Chapter 5: “Make it out of paper”
• Chapter 6: The Freshman Makes His Mark
• Chapter 7: “Before God and my country”
• Chapter 8: Battling Heresies
• Chapter 9: Maine’s Disgrace
• Chapter 10: For Want of a Quorum
• Chapter 11: Progress Stops in Washington
• Chapter 12: Votes for Women
• Chapter 13: “Monumental liar from the state of Maine”
• Chapter 14: Champion of Protection
• Chapter 15: Great Plains Land Bubble
• Chapter 16: To Count a Quorum
• Chapter 17: “I hope my enemies are satisfied”
• Chapter 18: For the Gold Standard
• Chapter 19: “God Almighty hates a quitter”
• Chapter 20: “Empire can wait”
• Coda: Roosevelt Comes to Portland
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author
• Photo Insert
• Footnotes
• Back Cover