And as I was doing this—reading or at least glancing at every letter and memo, turning every page—I began to get a feeling: something in those early years had changed. For some time after his arrival in Congress, following a special election, in May, 1937, his letters to committee chairmen, to senior congressmen in general, had been in a tone befitting a new congressman with no seniority or power, in the tone of a junior addressing a senior, beseeching a favor, or asking, perhaps, for a few minutes of his time to discuss something. But there were also letters and memos in the same boxes from
...more
