After a 16-year career in the Massachusetts legislature, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill (1912-1994) won election as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1952. He was easily re-elected thereafter, rising to majority whip, then majority leader, and finally to Speaker of the House, 1977-1987.

Thomas Philip O'Neill, Jr., was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December 9, 1912, the third child of Thomas P. and Rose Ann Tolan O'Neill. His father was a bricklayer and a professional politician, serving on the Cambridge City Council and then as sewer commissioner for that city. Young O'Neill, a rabid baseball fan, acquired the nickname "Tip" after a major league ballplayer also named O'Neill.

His mother having died within nine months of his birth, "Tip" was raised by his father with the help of a housekeeper before his father remarried. A mediocre student at the St. John's parochial school but a social leader...