Tip O'Neill

Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill Jr. (December 9, 1912 – January 5, 1994) was an American Democratic Party politician from Massachusetts who served as the 47th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987, the third-longest tenure in history and the longest uninterrupted tenure.

Born in North Cambridge, Massachusetts, O'Neill began campaigning at a young age by volunteering for Al Smith's campaign in the 1928 presidential election.

After graduating from Boston College, he won election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he became a strong advocate of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies.

O'Neill first became active in politics at 15, campaigning for Al Smith in his 1928 presidential campaign.

Four years later, he helped campaign for Franklin D. Roosevelt.

As a senior at Boston College, O'Neill ran for a seat on the Cambridge City Council, but lost; his first race and only electoral defeat.

The campaign taught him the lesson that became his best-known quote: "All politics is local."

He was educated in Roman Catholic schools, graduating in 1931 from the now defunct St. John High School in Cambridge, where he was captain of the basketball team; he was a lifelong parishioner at the school's affiliated parish church St. John the Evangelist Church.

From there he went to Boston College, from which he graduated in 1936.

After graduating in 1936, O'Neill was elected at the age of 24 to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, aided by tough economic times among his constituents; the experience made him a strong advocate of the New Deal policies of Roosevelt, which were just then coming to an end.

His biographer John Aloysius Farrell said his background in Depression-era working-class Boston, and his interpretation of his Catholic faith, led O'Neill to view the role of government as intervening to cure social ailments.

O'Neill was "an absolute, unrepentant, unreconstructed New Deal Democrat," Farrell wrote.

He became Speaker of the Massachusetts House in 1949 and won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1952 to succeed John F. Kennedy.

In the U.S. House, O'Neill became a protégé of fellow Boston Representative John William McCormack.

In 1949, he became the first Democratic Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in its history.

He remained in that post until 1952, when he ran for the United States House of Representatives from his home district.

O'Neill was elected to the congressional seat vacated by Senator-elect John F. Kennedy in 1952.

He would be reelected 16 more times, never facing serious opposition.

He represented northern Boston in the House from 1953 to 1987.

O'Neill voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968, as well as the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

O'Neill voted against the Alaska Statehood Act but in favor of the Hawaii Admission Act.

His district, centered around the northern half of Boston, was originally numbered as the 11th District, but became the 8th District in 1963.

During his second term in the House, O'Neill was selected to the House Rules Committee where he proved a crucial asset for the Democratic leadership, particularly his mentor, fellow Boston congressman and later Speaker, John William McCormack.

O'Neill broke with President Lyndon B. Johnson on the Vietnam War in 1967 and called for Richard Nixon's resignation in light of the Watergate scandal.

After wrestling with the issues surrounding the Vietnam War, in 1967 O'Neill broke with President Lyndon B. Johnson and came out in opposition to America's involvement.

O'Neill wrote in his autobiography that he also became convinced that the conflict in Vietnam was a civil war and that US involvement was morally wrong.

While the decision cost O'Neill some support among older voters in his home district, he benefited from new support among students and faculty members at the many colleges and universities there.

In the House of Representatives itself, O'Neill picked up the trust and support of younger House members who shared his antiwar views, and they became important friends who contributed to O'Neill's rise through the ranks in the House.

He quickly moved up the leadership ranks in the 1970s, becoming House Majority Whip in 1971, House Majority Leader in 1973, and Speaker of the House in 1977.

With the election of President Jimmy Carter, O'Neill hoped to establish a universal health care system and a guaranteed jobs program.

In 1971, O'Neill was appointed Majority Whip in the House, the number three position for the Democratic Party in the House.

However, relations between Carter and Congress deteriorated, and Carter lost re-election in the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan, a conservative Republican.

O'Neill became a leading opponent of President Reagan's conservative domestic policies, but O'Neill and Reagan found common ground in foreign policy, fostering the Anglo-Irish Agreement and implementing the Reagan Doctrine (despite considerable opposition to Reagan's support for the Contras in Nicaragua) in the Soviet–Afghan War.

O'Neill retired from Congress in 1987 but remained active in public life.

He published a best-selling autobiography and appeared in several commercials and other media.

He died of cardiac arrest in 1994.

O'Neill was the third of three children born to Thomas Phillip O'Neill and Rose Ann (née Tolan) O'Neill in the Irish middle-class area of North Cambridge, Massachusetts, known at the time as "Old Dublin."

His mother died when he was nine months old, and he was raised largely by a French-Canadian housekeeper until his father remarried when he was eight.

O'Neill Sr. started out as a bricklayer, and later won a seat on the Cambridge City Council and was appointed Superintendent of Sewers.

During his childhood, O'Neill received the nickname "Tip" after the Canadian baseball player James "Tip" O'Neill.