House Speaker Sam Rayburn of Bonham particularly disliked Alger and was often brutal toward the Republican "interloper" in the Texas delegation. Lyndon Johnson, on the other hand, was often deferential to the Republican U.S. Senator John G. Tower, Johnson's 1960 general election opponent and long-term Senate successor, because of Tower's support for Johnson on the Vietnam War. Rayburn, though friendly with House Republican Leader Joseph W. Martin of Massachusetts, would have been elated had he lived to see Alger defeated after a decade of House service.