Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
About this object
Speaker Joseph Martin’s portrait was commissioned in 1948 and completed in 1959 by artist Boris Gordon. Martin reportedly was not fond of the likeness, though it hung in his office from 1959 until the unveiling in 1967.
On this date, former Speaker of the House
Joseph W. Martin of Massachusetts died while on vacation in Hollywood, Florida. He had left Congress just a year earlier after spending more than four decades on Capitol Hill. During his long career in Washington, Martin spent eight terms as Minority Leader, and two as Speaker. The son of a blacksmith, Martin had been born in 1884 in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. After high school, he declined the chance to study at Dartmouth College and instead worked as a newspaper reporter. He went on to own an insurance company and took over as publisher of two newspapers. Martin served in the Massachusetts state house from 1912 to 1914, and in the state senate from 1914 to 1917. He stayed active in the Massachusetts GOP and won a seat in Congress in 1924. In his third term on Capitol Hill, Martin was appointed to the powerful Rules Committee, which controls the flow of legislation to the floor, making him one of the top Republicans in the House. Martin steadfastly opposed President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal agenda, and in 1939 was elected
Republican Leader. For the next 20 years, Martin captained his party in Congress, leading Republicans through World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. Martin, who never married and lived with his mother until she died at the age of 96, made Congress his life’s work. “He runs his side of the House laconically,” a reporter observed in 1955, “without any sort of excitement in any and all crises, and cooly assumes that in the fundamentals his people will go along with him.” As Speaker, Martin sought to limit the powers of the federal government and reduce taxes. “I worked by persuasion and drew heavily on long-established personal friendships,” Martin observed of his style as Speaker. “I found that I could best keep my members with me by tact and discretion.” In his first term as Speaker, he fought much of the domestic agenda of Democratic President Harry S. Truman. During his second term as Speaker six years later, he backed much of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s plans. In 1959, Martin lost re-election as Republican Leader to
Charles Abraham Halleck of Indiana. Seven years later, in 1966, Martin lost re-nomination to the House to
Margaret M. Heckler, who later served for eight terms on Capitol Hill.
