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Last of an old Tory line that removed from New Jersey to Ohio in 1804 and amassed a fortune in Cincinnati real estate and vineyards, Nicholas Longworth was born in 1869. He went to Harvard (1891), conducted the college orchestra. With money, social position and native wit, he went into politics under the guidance of Mark Hanna. After an apprenticeship in the State Legislature, he was elected to Congress in 1902. In the White House then was a slim saucy miss called "Princess Alice" Roosevelt. Congressman Longworth met her, danced with her, took her motoring in one of the capital's first cars. Under the chaperonage of Secretary of War William Howard Taft they, with others, made a junket together to the Orient. When their home-coming steamer docked at San Francisco, a newshawk spotted a very dapper young man busily engaged with bags and grips on deck while a pert and pretty girl sat on a trunk whistling at him the then popular tune, "I'd Leave My Happy Home For You." Alice Roosevelt and Nicholas Longworth were married in 1906 in one of the grand est White House weddings ever held.
Manfully the Ohio Congressman lived down such epithets as "T. R.'s son-in-law" and "Mr. Alice Roosevelt Longworth." No one could doubt his individuality and independence after 1912, when he refused to follow his father-in-law into the Bull Moose Party and was roundly trounced for re-election to the House. He went back to Congress two years later, was chosen the 40th Speaker in 1925. That year too his only child, Paulina, was born in Chicago. Said Longworth on first viewing his tiny daughter: "She looks more like a Roosevelt than a Longworth, but she's young yet."
In the Speaker's chair Longworth ruled with a strong fair hand. He was no less tyrannical than Reed or Cannon but he did it in such a pleasant smiling way that there was little resentment. Behind him he always had a healthy House majority which afforded him his opportunity to build up the "lower'' chamber's recent reputation for smooth, efficient legislating. No White House tool, he deserted the rostrum to fight and defeat President Coolidge on the 1929 Navy building program, President Hoover on the Soldier Bonus Loan. (This latter activity was chiefly motivated by the menacing hostility of Cincinnati Veterans, which almost cost Longworth his seat last year.)
Outside Congress, "Nick" Longworth was the gay, garrulous bon vivant whom Washington officialdom knew and loved best. About him in his Massachusetts Avenue home his friends constantly gathered informally. A thorough musician (he had a standing order for new compositions from the Library of Congress), he would play on the violin, the organ or the piano. Then he would sing old college ballads, sentimental ditties or long songs for men only. His favorite stories were Elizabethan. He maintained active membership in the Royal & Joyous Fellowship of Elbow-benders. He doted on doggerel. Example:
You may live without conscience,
You may live without heart,
You may live without culture,
You may live without art,
You may live without kinsmen—without uncles and aunts,
But civilized man cannot live without pants.