25 hours? Before Cory Booker, there was ‘Mr. Smith’

Jimmy Stewart as Jefferson Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, directed by Frank Capra, 1939. Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images When New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker finally said “I yield the floor” on Tuesday night at the end of the longest Senate speech on record, he had spoken for just over 25 hours. Politics See the moment Sen. Cory Booker broke Strom Thurmond’s record That almost perfectly matches the time Jimmy Stewart’s title character is supposed to have spoken in Frank Capra’s 1939 classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Booker’s speech ended with him quoting his former mentor, the late Rep. John Lewis, about getting into “good trouble,” and the Senate chamber erupting in cheers. Sponsor Message YouTube Stewart’s ends with him quoting his mentor, fictional Sen. Joseph Payne, but ends less happily — his voice ragged, hair unkempt, eyes bleary, as he collapses to the floor in a dead faint. Stewart, as new senator Jefferson Smith, has been arguing for nothing less than decency and the American way — arguing against “a man who controls a political machine, and controls everything else worth controlling in my state. A man even powerful enough to control congressmen.” Politics Cory Booker breaks a 68-year-old Senate record with a 25-hour speech Asked by one of those congressmen to yield the podium, he shouts, “I will not yield.” And he doesn’t. He keeps speaking until he can barely give voice to sentiments that were time-honored then, and that remain so today. “There’s no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties,” he croaks. “Great principles don’t get lost once they come to light. They’re right here. You just have to see them again.” The Senate wasn’t seeing them. Wasn’t listening, really. And in the film, the public didn’t even get a chance to listen because the corrupt politicians had the press in their pocket, so newspapers wouldn’t report on Mr. Smith, or if they did, they distorted what he was saying. Movies When Hollywood Went To Washington: The History Of Politics In Movies When Hollywood Went To Washington: The History Of Politics In Movies Listen · 5:44 5:44 Transcript Download