Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn (January 6, 1882 – November 16, 1961) was an American politician who served as the 43rd speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

Texas speakers from the beginning of statehood until Rayburn's tenure were mostly ceremonial and powerless, similar to the president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate.

Under Texas state law the office actually had immense powers but the previous speakers never exercised them due to deference to party bosses.

He helped pass numerous legislation as Speaker such as shorter working hours for women, child labor laws, and appropriations for a Confederate widows home and a tuberculosis sanitarium.

Many decades later Rayburn rated his service as Texas House Speaker as the most enjoyable period in his long political career.

Senator Joseph Weldon Bailey was rocked by allegations of corruption and bribery involving oil companies so he announced his resignation effective January 1913.

The longtime incumbent representative of the fourth district, Choice B. Randell, ran for Bailey's open senate seat in the July 1912 primary election and lost.

Despite Rayburn's freshman status, in 1913, Garner helped him become a member of the powerful House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, which handled legislation pertaining to commerce, bridges, coal, oil, communication, motion pictures, securities exchanges, holding companies and the Coast Guard.

Rayburn's biggest contribution in this decade was to help create the U.S. Highway System in 1926, the first major victory of his lifelong dream to make paved roads available for all Americans.

[14] Rayburn was a big supporter of projects that helped make life easier for farmers and rural Americans like dams and farm-to-market roads.

In 1943–44, Rayburn helped to establish in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Louisiana the Southwestern Power Administration, which became a "mini-Tennessee Valley Authority" in the region.

These two agencies were primarily engaged in water and soil erosion control due to the negative effects of farming in America that led to catastrophes like the Dust Bowl.

After Rayburn talked to all representatives who were anti-draft and tried to persuade them to change their minds, the bill was passed by a vote of 203–202, a one-vote margin.

If this bill had been defeated, the U.S. Army stood to lose about two-thirds of its strength and three-fourths of the officer corps due to the end of the draft.

[19] In early 1944, top Roosevelt officials approached Rayburn and asked him to work discreetly with Congress to gain funding for the production of an atomic bomb.

The House Speaker was provided a government-funded vehicle and the representatives felt bad that now Minority Leader Rayburn would have no car in Washington.

He also had to deal with the southern Democrats' (Dixiecrats') reaction to President Truman's call for very swift civil rights legislation.

Rayburn had to be the moderate between the conservatives and liberals as well as the northern and southern Democrats so he rebuffed Truman's civil rights bills that many party members considered very fast but also rejected the southern Democrats' calls for a pro-segregation candidate to run in place of Truman in the 1948 presidential election.

Rayburn was a staunch supporter of Truman and was for a gradual civil rights legislation rollout that wouldn't be too fast and immediate due to the fears of the backlash by southern Democrats.

In 1949, after his successful efforts to win back the House, Senate, and Truman's re-election he became Speaker again and supported a repeal of the Texas poll tax.

He said that a repeal of the poll tax in Texas would aid the United States in its battle with the Soviet Union for the world's hearts and minds.

During his second tenure as Speaker he focused mostly on passing anti-Soviet legislation and getting House support for Truman and the military in the Korean War.

Rayburn sought to end the impasse by changing House rules to add three spots (two majority and one minority) to the committee.

He refused not only fees but travel expenses for out-of-town speeches; hosts who... attempted to press checks upon him quickly realized they had made a mistake... Rayburn would say, 'I'm not for sale' - and then he would walk away without a backward glance.

During these off-the-record sessions, the speaker and powerful committee chairmen would gather for poker, bourbon, and a frank discussion of politics.

It originally ran south from Chicago, through Oklahoma, and then turned westward from Texas to New Mexico and Arizona before ending at the beach in Santa Monica, California.

Several politicians have imitated this pattern, including Ronald Reagan's example of clearing brush when at home in California, while wearing fine suits in Washington.

[36] Their 1927 marriage ended after only a few months; biographers D. B. Hardeman and Donald C. Bacon guessed that Rayburn's work schedule and long bachelorhood, combined with the couple's differing views on alcohol, contributed to the rift.

[37] In 2016, the Plano Star Courier published a story about an article in the October 2016 issue of Southwestern Historical Quarterly (a scholarly journal published by the Texas State Historical Association) profiling Sam Rayburn's "lady friend" who was a woman named Margaret Fallon (Peggy) Palmer, the widow of former Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, and her close relationship with Rayburn.

One of his greatest, most painful regrets was that he did not have a son, or as he was quoted as saying in The Path to Power, Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, "a towheaded boy to take fishing".