A Short 1940 Story, Mr. Rayburn, You Must Have Been Meant To Be President

[Lincoln Republican]

Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York and Congressman John Nance Garner of Texas are elected President and Vice President of the United States on November 8, 1932, and are sworn into office as the 32nd President and the 32nd Vice President of the United States on March 4, 1933.

Roosevelt and Garner are re-elected on November 3, 1936, and are sworn into office for the second time on January 20, 1937.

President Roosevelt, age only 58, dies of a heart attack while working in the Oval Office on April 12, 1940. 

Vice President John Nance Garner is sworn in as the nation's 33rd President at the White House on April 12, 1940. 

President Garner has one too many of his famed bourbons and fine cigars, and he too suffers a heart attack, on July 16, 1940, age 71.  His heart attack is not fatal, however, it is serious enough that his doctors tell him he must relinquish the stresses and strains of the Presidency if he wants to live much longer.  President Garner steps down from office on July 19, 1940, and goes on to live a long, happy life in retirement, dying at age 98.

As there is no Vice President, Speaker of the House William Brockman Bankhead of Alabama, father of famed actress Tallulah Bankhead, is sworn in as the nation's 34th President on July 19, 1940, at his home in Jasper, Alabama, where he is spending the summer, by a local judge.  President Bankhead returns to Washington the next day, where he is sworn in again by the Chief Justice of the United States.

President Bankhead dies on September 15, 1940, age 66.  (Actual date)

Again, as there is no Vice President, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, age 58, of Texas, is sworn in as the nation's 35th President at the White House on September 15, 1940.

President Rayburn considers himself to be an interim President, and does not seek the Democratic Presidential nomination for the 1940 election.  Instead, Rayburn runs for and wins his Texas House seat, Texas Congressional District 4, and is sworn in again as Speaker of the House on January 3, 1941, having resigned the Presidency immediately before being sworn in as Speaker.

In order to comply with the Presidential Succession Act, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate on January 3, 1941, Senator Wiliam H. King, age 77, of Utah, is sworn in as Acting President of the United States, at a ceremony in the Senate chamber, immediately after Rayburn resigned the Presidency.  King serves as Acting President until January 20, 1941, the inauguration day of the new President. 

In 1940, the Democrats nominate experienced Nevada Senator Key Pittman for President, and former U.S. Senator and former Nebraska Attorney General Richard Hunter of Nebraska for Vice President, who win the election, campaigning on carrying on the policies of popular deceased President Roosevelt.

President Elect Pittman dies on November 10, 1940, age 68, (actual date), only 5 days after being elected President.  By virtue of the twentieth amendment to the constitution, Vice President Richard Hunter is inaugurated as the nation's 36th President on the East Portico of the Capitol on January 20, 1941.  The new President, tragically, dies on January 23, 1941, (actual date), age only 57, a mere three days after assuming the Presidency.

Again, as there is no Vice President, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, age 59, is, again, sworn in as the nation's chief executive, this time as the 37th President of the United States, in a ceremony at the White House on January 23, 1941.

The events of the past nine months have kept Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes very busy.  How many times must it have gone through his mind that it was almost him on the other side of the swearing in ceremony, at the now far distant 1917 inauguration.   

President Rayburn serves faithfully and capably as President, leading, inspiring, and keeping up the nation's and the military's morale and spirits,  until January 20, 1945, the inauguration day of the new President, Thomas E. Dewey, and Vice President John W. Bricker.

At last, America seems now to have an elected President and Vice President for the long term.           

       
 

[ATFFL]

That is great and I am saving that for use in any Civic classes I may find myself teaching in the near future.

[Lincoln Republican]

Thank you.

I have made a revision to the story in which Sam Rayburn runs for and wins his Texas Congressional seat in the November 1940 election, and is again sworn in as Speaker of the House on January 3, 1941, after resigning the Presidency the same day.

I have as well made a revision that the President Pro Tempore of the Senate on January 3, 1941, Senator William H. King of Utah is then sworn in as Acting President of the United States, adding yet another President, until the inauguration day of the new President, January 20, 1941.

The whole story is fanciful, however.

In the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, some had wanted the Secretary of State next in line to the Vice President.  Some had wanted to see the Chief Justice of the United States in the line for succession.  The compromise that was worked out for the Presidential Succession Act of 1792 stipulated that the line of succession after the Vice President, was to be the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, then the Speaker of the House of Representatives.  In any case, these officers were to "act as President of the United States until the disability (of a President to serve) be removed or a President be elected."  The act also called for special elections to be held by certain dates, depending on when the disability or the vacancy occured, to elect a new President.

This act remained in effect until 1886, when Congress replaced the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives with members of the President's cabinet, with the Secretary of State first in line.  This system remained in effect until 1947.

The Presidential Succession Act of 1947, signed into law by President Truman, added the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore back into the line of succession, ahead of cabinet secretaries, but put the Speaker of the House ahead of the President Pro Tempore.  It remains the sequence used today.

While the Vice President becomes President in fact, other officers who succeed to the Presidency, Speaker of the House, President Pro Tempore, cabinet secretaries, become Acting President.

My story supposes the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 actually took place and was signed into law in 1939 by President Franklin Roosevelt, and it also supposes that a Speaker of the House who becomes President actually becomes President, rather than Acting President, and it also supposes that they serve in the office of President until the next Presidential election, and until the newly elected President is inaugurated.

(Details on the Presidential Succession Act taken from Wiki)     

[Lincoln Republican]

In reality, if Rayburn was sworn in as President on January 23, 1941, the constitution stipulates he would be Acting President, and that a Presidential election would be held in November of 1941.

The winners of the November, 1941 election for President and Vice President would then serve a full four year term.