When Hubert Humphrey became chairman of the liberal organization, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), he became a target of Republican conservatives for whom ADA was a dangerous leftist group, which they said took its program from the British socialists. One day Senator Homer E. Capehart was raving bout he organization and he charged that the ADA wanted to do to America what the British Labour party was doing to Britain.
Suddenly he shouted at Humphrey furiously: “Just name me one thing that Great Britain has that we don’t have!”
Said Humphrey quickly: “Westminster Abbey.”
Senators and galleries exploded in laughter and Capehart sputtered and sat down.
Source:
Boller, Paul F. “On the Floor.” Congressional Anecdotes. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. 220-21. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Hubert H. Humphrey, the Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics (Garden City, N.Y., 1976), 147-48.
Further Reading:
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)
[Labour Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)
Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster / Westminster Abbey
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