Joe Bartlett

Image courtesy of Joe Bartlett, provided by Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives

“And William Tyler Page was a splendid man. He had that claw-hammered coat, you know. He dressed a fashion—a formality—100 years earlier. But he and Senator [Clyde] Hoey continued to do this into the 20th century. I enjoyed visiting with William Tyler Page. And I must confess, if I ever had an ambition in the process of my career—and I didn’t really have very many, because I thought how unrealistic it was for me to presume that fate might favor me that way, and I wasn’t kidding myself—but I so admired William Tyler Page and his knowledge of Congress that, yes, I said, ‘Gee, wouldn’t it be wonderful to follow in his footsteps.’ And so I must say, when I finally was elected to that job, it had much more significance for me than many people knew.”
— Joe Bartlett, April 7, 2006

Abstract & Transcript

In the summer of 1941, just before his 15th birthday, Joe Bartlett left the family farm in rural West Virginia to work as a Page on Capitol Hill. But what he expected would be a one-month position became a House career that spanned 38 years. Bartlett eventually served as the chief of Pages, then as a reading clerk and, in the 1970s, as Clerk to the Minority—the senior Republican staff officer in the House. In this first set of interviews, Bartlett recalled listening from the House Floor to President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech on December 8, 1941. Bartlett also described the Capitol in wartime; the daily routines and education of the House Pages; traditions such as the Congressional Baseball Game; the renovation of the House Chamber from 1949 to 1951; and many of the era’s leading Representatives and House Officers, including Sam Rayburn, Joe Martin, William Tyler Page, Joe Sinnott, and South Trimble.

Biography

Dorsey Joseph Bartlett was born on August 7, 1926, in Clarksburg, West Virginia. He was the sixth of ten children of Blanche Hacker Bartlett and Flavius Dorsey, an efficiency engineer in the glass business. Bartlett lived on the family farm in central West Virginia and attended local schools. After being named “America’s Typical Schoolboy Patrolman,” he was awarded a 30-day appointment as a House Page on August 1, 1941, with the help of Representative Wright Patman of Texas. Later, having impressed Doorkeeper Joe Sinnott and House Clerk South Trimble, Bartlett received irregular Page appointments while serving as Page Overseer and attending the Capitol Page School. Upon graduating in 1944, Bartlett enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was honorably discharged as a Private First Class in September 1945.

Returning to the Capitol after his service in World War II, Bartlett was appointed the Republican chief of Pages by Speaker Joe Martin of Massachusetts. He oversaw the work of several dozen House Pages, some as young as 11 years old. Commissioned from the ranks of the Marine Corps Reserve, Bartlett was recalled to active duty in January 1951 and served until June of 1952. From 1953 to 1971, Bartlett was a House reading clerk, sharing duties on the rostrum and working with the Speaker’s and the Clerk’s offices on numerous floor-related and administrative tasks. Bartlett also served as chief reading clerk for six Republican National Conventions. From May 1971 until he retired, Bartlett served as Minority Clerk.

In January 1979, a year after retiring from the Marine Corps as a Brigadier General, Bartlett retired from the House. During his career, Bartlett received honorary law degrees from the Atlanta Law School and Salem College. He was also awarded the Legion of Merit, and in 1982 he was the Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the Federal Executive Institute. Bartlett and his wife, the former Virginia Bender, have two grown daughters: Linda and Laura.