O'Neill, Tip, 1912-1994

Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., in full Thomas Phillip O’Neill, Jr., byname Tip O’Neill, (born December 19, 1912, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.—died January 5, 1994, Boston, Massachusetts), American politician who served as a Democratic representative from Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives (1953–87) and as speaker of the House (1977–86). He was a tireless advocate for social causes, and he frequently expressed his belief that it is the responsibility of the government to contribute to the good of society by helping the poor, the underprivileged, and the unemployed.

O’Neill grew up in a working-class section of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his father served on the Cambridge City Council. As a teenager, he joined the 1928 presidential campaign of Democratic New York Gov. Al Smith after learning that Smith, like O’Neill, was an Irish Catholic. In 1932 he campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt. He graduated from Boston College in 1936, the same year he won election to the Massachusetts state House of Representatives, where he served until 1952. In 1953 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives to fill the seat vacated by John F. Kennedy after Kennedy was elected to the U.S. Senate.

As a U.S. representative, O’Neill soon earned a reputation as a dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrat who was willing to speak his mind. He was a shrewd negotiator who marshaled support in the back rooms of the Capitol rather than on the House floor. In 1967 he became one of the first members of the House to oppose Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson vocally on the Vietnam War. O’Neill served as House majority whip in 1971 and as majority leader in 1972 before being elevated to speaker in 1977. He won favour with his younger colleagues for approving legislative reforms, including a new ethics code and a limit on outside income for House members. In 1974 he publicly called on Pres. Richard M. Nixon, who had been disgraced by the Watergate scandal, to resign. O’Neill later earned the respect of many Democrats for frequently opposing the conservative administration of Pres. Ronald Reagan; he often criticized Reagan publicly.

O’Neill remained a popular figure among Democrats throughout his career. In the early 1980s, Republican-sponsored television advertisements featuring an O’Neill look-alike who was meant to symbolize a bloated free-wheeling Congress not only failed to detract from O’Neill’s popularity but rather enhanced it. O’Neill himself appeared in television commercials for a credit card company and played a cameo role on the TV comedy Cheers.

O’Neill published his best-selling autobiography, Man of the House, in 1987. The publication of a book of his anecdotes and lore, All Politics Is Local, coincided with his death in 1994.