Final Days and Death
Longworth served as speaker until 1931, after the Republicans lost their House majority in the election of 1930. Journalist Frank R. Kent of the Baltimore Sun wrote of him:
- "Without any revision of the rules he completely recovered the power of the speakership and was the undisputed leader of the House with as autocratic control as either Reed or Cannon. It is true he exercised this power with infinitely more tact and grace and gumption and without that touch of offensive arrogance that characterized former House Czars. But he was just as much a Czar. What Mr. Longworth clearly proved was this matter of leadership depends not so much on the rules but on the man.
While visiting his friend Dwight Filley Davis (of Davis Cup fame), and Daniel J. Duckett in Aiken, South Carolina, Longworth caught pneumonia and died unexpectedly. His wife Alice brought his body back to Cincinnati, where it was interred in the Spring Grove Cemetery. 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.
Read more about this topic: Nicholas Longworth
Famous quotes containing the words final, days and/or death:
“After a month or so I get used to the books final stage, to its having been weaned from my brain. I now regard it with a kind of amused tenderness as a man regards not his son, but the young wife of his son.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (18991977)
“In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They dont want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings.”
—Alfred Hitchcock (18991980)
“Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come amain:
Should it come today, what man may say
We shall not live again?”
—Langdon Smith (18581908)