The story, one of many, comes back to me now upon the death of former House Speaker David M. Bartley, 88, last week. He was buried Tuesday.
We are at Anthony’s Pier 4, the once famous and iconic Boston Harbor restaurant, waiting to order dinner one night in 1974.
After meeting him at his State House office on a story I was working on, he suggested we go to Anthony’s.
Anthony Athanas, the proprietor, who loved to fuss over politicians and celebrities, made sure that Bartley got a choice sea view table, even though I, elbowed aside, was picking up the tab — or at least my newspaper was.
Bartley, from working-class Holyoke, had earlier at the astonishing age of 33 become the youngest state representative elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1969. He served until 1975.
He was a valuable source for a lot of reporters, myself included. He was also the most effective leader of the House to come along in a long time.
Bartley was a pragmatic Democrat who could work with Republicans to get stuff done, as he did in the fields of education and gun control.
But the biggest issue of the era, which dominated everything else, was the history-changing move to reduce the size of the Massachusetts House from 240 to 160 members. It was sponsored by the then-vibrant Massachusetts League of Women Voters and supported by liberals who sought efficiency over unruly representation.
Bartley opposed the measure, and it was killed in the Legislature in 1970 after Bartley argued that the cut would hurt minority representation, which it did. The League argued that it would make the House more efficient by providing fewer legislators with offices and staff.
Anyway, as we were about to order when Anthony returned, this time followed by the imposing Edward J. King, who was later to become governor. King was alone and decided to join us.
King had not only been an outstanding football player at Boston College but had played professionally with the Buffalo Bills and the Baltimore Colts. Nobody stood in the way of the rugged lineman.
King had also built a reputation as the tough, non-nonsense executive director of the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Logan Airport.
King, however, had just been fired by newly elected Gov. Michael Dukakis, a fellow Democrat, who resented King’s alleged authoritarian ways, and who sought to end the neighborhood controversy King had stirred up with his airport runway extension plans.
After some small talk, Bartley and I ordered. When it was King’s turn, he ordered not one but two steak dinners. Then he left momentarily to work the room.
“Who else is coming?” I asked Bartley.
“Nobody.”
“What do you mean nobody? He just ordered two steak dinners.”
“You don’t understand. They’re both for him. He’s a big man. He needs two steaks.”
“Two steak dinners? On my expense account? The paper will kill me.”
“Don’t worry. Just tell them he’s going to be the next governor.”
King, despite the odds, did become the next governor when, campaigning as a conservative, he upset the liberal Dukakis in the 1978 Democrat primary. He then beat Republican Frank Hatch in the election. However, Dukakis came back four years later and beat King.
Bartley was gone by then, having resigned the speakership in 1975 to become president of Holyoke Community College.
He had seen the future. The voters in the 1974 election approved a ballot question that cut the size of the House to 160 members. For him the game was over.
But there was one last hurrah before Bartley threw in the political towel for good. That was when, upon the resignation of U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas in 1984, he ran for the Senate. He came in third in the Democrat primary that was won by John Kerry, Dukakis’ lieutenant governor.
Bartley, who was no John Kerry, would have been as good a senator as he was as a Speaker.
Now he’s gone, King is gone, Anthony Athanas is gone, Pier 4 is gone, and the era is gone too.
Nobody orders two steaks anymore.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.