52 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
that they couldn’t tip their hand too early when the voting for speaker got
under way. O’Brien was already anxious. Don’t give him a chance to call
a time-out and regroup. They’d spring the trap on the third ballot.
poed-KeRfAc , the RepuBLicAns filed into the House chamber at high
noon. “Day or O’Brien?” the gantlet of reporters asked. “No comment.”
“How long ago did you decide who you’d go for?” “No comment.” As they
were taking their seats, Dick Morphis discovered he’d been relegated to
the back despite having more seniority than Pritchard and Gorton, the
newly appointed assistant floor leader. “So in the midst of this huge
stress,” Slade was stunned when “Rigor” bounced down the aisle in a snit
and complained to Evans that he deserved a better seat. Normally a model
of affability, Pritchard snapped, “Shut up, Dick, and get back to your seat
or I’ll deck you!” Morphis turned pale and scurried back to his seat. Gorton
stifled a chortle.
O’Brien sat in the back row. His thin smile betrayed his anxiety. Day
and Perry were uncharacteristically dour. Copeland, the Republican whip,
demanded the doors be locked. O’Brien, Day and Evans were duly nomi-
nated for speaker in speeches testifying to their wisdom, integrity, infec-
tious congeniality and love of state and country. On the first ballot, the
Republicans cast all 48 of their votes for Evans. O’Brien received 45, Day
six. On the second ballot, the Republicans held ranks. O’Brien lost a vote
when Bill O’Connell, a Democrat from Tacoma, defected to Day. Just be-
fore the third ballot, a worried O’Brien approached Hurley, who had nom-
inated Big Daddy for speaker.
“How can you do this to me, Maggie?” O’Brien said, palms uplifted.
“I didn’t do it to you, John,” she said. “I did it for my voters.”^7
Out of the corner of his eye, O’Brien saw Day’s smirk and realized
there was no use talking to him either. “By this time, word of the impend-
ing confrontation in the House had swept through the Capitol like wild
fire.” The Senate had recessed to take in the drama across the marbled
hall. The galleries and wings were packed.^8
Evans swiveled in his seat to nod to Alfred O. Adams, sitting one row
back. “Doc, it’s time,” Evans said. Silver-haired, portly and dignified, Adams
was a retired orthopedic surgeon. His name was first on the roll call. It
galled the hell out of him to be voting for a chiropractor—a Democrat
chiropractor, no less—for speaker of the House, but he was a trouper.
The clerk will call the roll:
“Adams?”
“Day!” Doc boomed out. Heads whirled and the galleries gasped. The