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April 26th at Pullman Yards in Atlanta. Get ready for culture, community, and good conversation. Lowe's helps refresh your garden in time for Mother's Day. Right now, get five bags of one and a half cubic foot Scott's Nature Scapes Mulch for just $10. Plus, select one and a half gallon annuals hanging baskets make the perfect gift. Now two for only $15. The best garden starts with great deals.
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We are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're feeling this, too, is a horror anthology podcast. It brings different creators to tell ten vile... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.... grotesque... Oh, my God.... horrific stories on what scares them the most. Please, don't let me.
You're feeling this, too. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we continue with our American stories. Our next story comes to us from Jeff Bloodworth, who's a professor of American history at Gannon University. He's also a fellow at the Jack Miller Center, a partner of ours here on our American stories.
Let's take a listen. John McCormack was the most American Speaker of the House in U.S. history. But the roots of this Americanness are not what he claimed them to be. The supposed son of Irish immigrants rose to national prominence alongside John Kennedy. In 1961, JFK was inaugurated as the nation's first Catholic president.
Later that year, McCormack became the first ever Catholic Speaker of the House. Proof positive of immigrant America's rise to the mainstream, McCormack ironically had reinvented his immigrant story. In this, he could not be more American. America is the land of reinvention.
Ben Franklin, who is often called the first American, established the template. Born in Boston, he escaped indentured servitude as a teen by fleeing to Philadelphia. In that city, he reinvented his roots and in the process, made himself into a founding father. McCormack followed a similar path. He reinvented his immigrant story to become Speaker of the House.
In that office, he presided over the most prodigious legislative session in American history and remade the nation's immigration policy. John McCormack claimed to be the eldest son of Irish immigrants, who dropped out of grammar school when his father died to be the family's breadwinner. In reality, his dad, Joe McCormack, was neither Irish nor dead. Joe McCormack was a Protestant Scotsman who hailed from Canada before settling in Boston.
The Nobies, as they were called, were despised in Irish Catholic Boston. And far from dead, Joe McCormack had instead abandoned his family. Added to this, the Speaker was not his eldest son. To succeed in Irish Catholic Boston politics, young McCormack had reinvented his family history. His living Scottish, Novie father became a dead Irish immigrant. His live Irish mother, who was born in Boston to Irish immigrants, was now born in the old country.
His three older siblings, who were very much alive, were said to have died in infancy. The eldest son of Irish immigrants who supported a widow mother was a biography more befitting an ambitious politician. McCormack came from humble roots. Once his father left, he did drop out of high school to work and support his mother and younger siblings.
That much was true. Tall, gaunt, and reserved, he lacked the shamrock style made famous by colorful Boston politicians. Tellingly, in Congress, he befriended powerful southern congressional barons of Scotch-Irish descent. The Scotch-Irish were Protestant Scots who had immigrated to Ireland in the 17th century before coming to America in the 18th century. The Scotch-Irish, as they were dubbed, largely settled in Appalachia and the south. Not coincidentally, McCormack, the reinvented Irish Catholic with a Scottish father, shared much in cultural style with these men.
In Congress, McCormack was a bridge who built relationships and alliances across religious and regional lines. But the reinvented Irish politician nevertheless carried an urban Catholic grudge, his entire political life. In the 1920s, rural Protestant America struck against Catholic urban immigrants via prohibition and immigration restrictions. Most everyone knows about prohibition, but forgotten to history was the 1924 National Origins Act.
This legislation was the source of McCormack's grudge. The 1920 census revealed that urbanites outnumbered rural Americans for the very first time in U.S. history. Massive overseas immigration to cities had shifted power to urbanites from rural Americans. In reaction, Congress passed the 1924 National Origins Act.
The law, in effect, froze immigration, especially for Catholics and Jews coming from southern and eastern Europe. Elected to Congress in 1928, McCormack devoted his very first House speech to denouncing the law. He may have reinvented his Irish immigrant story, but the congressman was a devout Catholic who loathed the anti-Catholicism and rule bias in the law. His career helped soothe these tensions. In 1940, he became majority leader alongside Texas speaker Sam Rayburn. For 21 years, the duo ruled over House Democrats, but their alliance was more than just a partnership between the two men. They established what was called the Austin-Boston alliance. In this, a congressman from Texas and Massachusetts held either the Democratic speaker or majority leader post for nearly a half century.
This cemented a political alliance between the Catholic and Jewish urban north and the rural Protestant south. McCormack was one half of the Democrats' political spine for more than his purported Irishness. A devout Catholic who never drank alcohol, he valued loyalty, remembered everything, and kept everyone's secrets.
There was never a hint of scandal in his political life. He and his wife Harriet Joyce were renowned for being one of Washington's most devoted couples. Unlike other congressional leaders who worked late and then hit the cocktail circuit, McCormack dined with his wife every night of their 51-year marriage.
Modest, thrifty, and upright, he was regarded as the moral compass of the House. In 1961, the legendary Sam Rayburn died. Elevated to the speaker's office, the 71-year-old McCormack became the first ever Catholic speaker of the House. Along with JFK and Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield, in 1962, America's three highest ranking officials were all Catholics.
This was yet another sign of immigrant America's rise. At the JFK's assassination, Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide victory gave Speaker McCormack an historic opportunity, and the speaker did not disappoint. In 1965, he passed 93% of all White House submitted bills, and that session, alongside Franklin Roosevelt's first Congress, is recognized as the first in American history. But no single piece of legislation pleased McCormack more than the 1965 Immigration Act.
Equipped with big majorities, passage of the bill was never in doubt. The only real roadblock was Cleveland Congressman Michael Feehan. He chaired the House Subcommittee on Immigration, and he opposed reform. The administration had pushed a bill that gave skilled immigrants priority, but Feehan made family unification primary. In other words, those migrants seeking entry into the U.S. with an American citizen as a family member were given priority. Feehan believed this would keep American demography unchanged.
Ironically, Feehan's stipulation resulted in the exact opposite of his intentions. By the 1960s, European immigration to the U.S. had ebbed, but migration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America surged. It was these migrants who used Feehan's family unification policy.
The results are clear. In 1965, 84% of the U.S. population consisted of non-Hispanic Whites. In 2015, that number fell to 62%. Today, this demographic change has made immigration into a hot-button political issue yet again. John McCormack would recognize today's debates, but Speaker McCormack's career shows that immigration is a solvable issue. We have survived these debates before and reached a consensus, so we can do so again. We did so in 1965 because Speaker McCormack, with his reinvented background, had built alliances beyond ethnic, religious, and regional boundaries.
The Austin-Boston alliance had bridged the rural, urban, and Catholic-Protestant divide. America is a land of reinvention. We Americans are almost always in the process of reinvention and becoming something new. But in doing so, we stay true to our roots. Americans like Ben Franklin and John McCormack know that where you are from is not as important as where you are going. And no finer sentiment has been expressed on our show. We Americans are almost always in the process of becoming something new.
Where you are from is not nearly as important as where you're going. A terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler and a special thanks to Jeff Bloodworth for bringing us the story of Speaker John W. McCormack. And what a story indeed it was. And a special thanks to the Jack Miller Center.
He's a fellow there, Professor Bloodworth. And the Jack Miller Center is a nationwide network of scholars and teachers dedicated to educating the next generation about America's founding principles and history. And does this all sound familiar? Immigration debates.
The divide between rural America and the city. Well, it's still here, folks. And that's why we love telling these stories.
The story of Speaker John W. McCormack here on Our American Stories. Men, if you're ready to reclaim your edge, listen up. I used to be held back by constant bathroom trips with multiple wake-ups during my sleep and looking for restrooms whenever I was out. Then I discovered Better Man. After just two months, I started experiencing fewer trips to the bathroom, less urge to go, and I even slept through some nights. I feel a noticeable boost in my overall well-being, even sexual stamina.
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Individual results may vary. I'm ready to fight. Oh, this is fighting worse. Okay, I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a best-selling author with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. Part of the power of Black queer creativity is the fact that we got us, you know?
We are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You Feeling This Too is a horror anthology podcast. It brings different creators to tell 10 vile, grotesque, horrific stories on what scares them the most. You Feeling This Too.
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. The best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. But if we're honest, most people run from them, staying silent, missing chances, and holding themselves back. I know this is true because I used to be like that, until I realized that negotiation isn't a talent, it's a skill that anyone can learn. And once I did, everything changed. I went from people pleaser to confident communicator, and now I teach Fortune 500 leaders and top executives how to do the same.
Listen to Negotiate Anything on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked.
Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeartPodcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope, about the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
