[2][3][4][5] As a boy, he worked as a soda jerk and had three newspaper routes in Houston, until he finished high school as valedictorian at age 15.
He was among six lower division students to win a University Prize for excellence in declamation (summer, 1901) and took part in the Freshman Sophomore debate on whether England was right in the Second Boer War (March 15, 1902).
Not long after his unsuccessful bid for reelection, Miller headed the relief committee after the 1919 hurricane struck Corpus Christi.
Among the Miller group were Representative Martin Dies, Jr., Rep. Richard M. Kleberg, GE lobbyist Horatio H. "Rasch" Adams, Rep. Nat Patton, James P. Buchanan, and Rep. Hatton W.
When Kleberg opposed the "socialistic" and "radical" 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Administration bill, Miller and Lyndon Johnson persuaded him to vote yes because it was politically expedient.