Adolph Sabath served in the U.S. Congress an astonishing 45 years and 247 days. At the time of his death, he was the “Dean of the U.S. Congress,” the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives. It was a record he held until 2013. Sabath served under eight presidents and is still in the top 20 of longest-serving members of Congress.
Born in Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia), Sabath came to the U.S. at the age of 15 with less than three dollars to his name. He worked hard at various jobs, then started a real estate business, earning enough money to bring his family to the U.S. Not one to remain idle, he attended business and law school and was admitted to the bar in 1891. He served as a justice of the peace and police magistrate before being elected to Congress in 1906.
Sabath was a fierce defender of immigrants’ rights. In 1907, responding to a fellow Congressman who called immigrants “undesirables,” Sabath said, “Let us … give these worthy foreigners a welcome when they come, and to show them that our country ever extends the warm hand of sympathy and fellowship to the oppressed peoples of the earth.” He was a champion of the needy. In 1909, he said: “Do not tax the poor for the benefit of the rich; equalize the taxes; tax the rich in proportion to their wealth.”
In 1911, Sabath became well-known for his efforts to find Eliska Paroubek, a young Bohemian child in Chicago who had been kidnapped and murdered. The case was followed closely by the public and later inspired outside artist Henry Darger’s fantasy novel In the Realms of the Unreal. When the young girl’s body was found, Sabath helped pay for her funeral.
Sabath fought hard to dismantle prohibition until finally, in 1933, the 21st Amendment was passed. Afterwards, on the House floor, Fred Bitten, another Illinois congressman, asked Sabath to return a bottle of gin he had borrowed during Prohibition. Since there was still a hard liquor ban in force in D.C., Sabath replied that he couldn’t return the bottle just then, but as soon as it was legal, he would repay it with “twofold interest” and of a higher-grade gin than the one he had been lent.
As chairman of the House Rules Committee, Sabath was known to use less than orthodox methods — one time he pretended to faint in order to delay a committee vote. He spoke frankly and with a strong accent that many teased him about – he called Republicans “tools of the wested interests,” and Wall Street “that gambling institution.” He was well-liked and able to “disagree without being disagreeable.”
An early supporter of Franklin Roosevelt, Sabath fought for Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation, including workers’ compensation, wage and hours laws, and legislation that later became Social Security. Referred to as a “rallying point for progressives” he was an ardent defender of labor rights, civil rights, and civil liberties.
Sabath was so passionate about his causes that in 1949, when he was in his eighties, he and another member of the House (who was 14 years younger) exchanged blows on the house floor over a bill meant to help people afford housing.
Newspapers reported, “A fist-swinging brawl between the 83-year-old dean of the House … and Representative Cox … plunged the house today in a roaring battle over housing legislation … Cox slapped him in the mouth and knocked off his glasses … Sabath jabbed him with a left and a right. A couple of beauties.”
Sabath died two days after he was elected to his 24th term in the House of Representatives at the age of 86. Harry Truman, the last president he served under, said of him, “He exemplified in his life the virtues that make America strong, and in him the forgotten man always found a champion.”
Sabath is buried in a large, stately mausoleum in Forest Home Cemetery carved with the dates of his service and the words: “Patriot – Statesman – Loyal Friend.”
References: Newsday; Chicago Daily Tribune; New York Times; Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society; History, Art & Archives – United States House of Representatives; The Spokesman Review