“Mr. Speaker, in the four terms that I have served in this House I have seldom asked your indulgence.” After the absenteeism fight, he didn’t make another speech for almost another three years. Entire years went by without Lyndon Johnson addressing the House even once.3 In fact, until 1948, when the necessities of his campaign for the United States Senate changed his methods, he had, during eleven years in Congress, delivered a total of ten speeches—less than one a year.