The efforts of Republican congressional leaders to secure passage of civil rights measures during the 1960's will be emphasized in this thesis. Also, an effort will be made to present objectively the views of Republican congressional leaders toward civil rights measures and to show how they contributed, in the day-to-day legislative proceedings, to the passage of these measures.

Sam Rayburn's record as Speaker of the House was undoubtedly his best known accomplishment during fifty years in Congress. Nevertheless he played a vital role as proponent of the New Deal during the period from 1933 to 1936 when he was Chairman of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. Since Rayburn's role in passage of early New Deal statutes has been neglected, the purpose of this thesis is to examine his contributions to the Roosevelt Administration as leader in the debates on key legislation.

This thesis is a study of the campaign tactics of the Arkansas gubernatorial elections as revealed by the 1948, 1950 and 1952 campaigns.

The purpose of this paper will be to look into the election returns to find some of the factors which have caused the trend of voters shifting away from the Democratic party towards the Republican party in presidential elections.