Former Resident Commissioner Manuel Quezon returned to the Capitol in 1937. He had become president of the Philippines two years earlier, and was back in Washington to discuss speeding up the islands’ independence process. While he was in town, Speaker William Bankhead presented him with an autographed gavel. One supporter noted that the gavel would never be heard in the House, but that he hoped that Congressmen would give their former colleague “a good hearing and a square deal.”
