(Cards Courtesy of Heather Schwartz)

The high point of Oklahoma committee chairmanships ended during the war. At-large Representative Will Rogers failed in 1941 to win election in the Seventh District. In 1942 veteran Congressman Wilburn Cartwright lost to State Senator Paul Stewart, in part due to anti-New Deal feeling. Only Elmer Thomas remained chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Seniority in the delegation also declined. At the opening of the Seventy-Ninth Congress in January 1945, only Thomas and Jed Johnson in the House had served more than a decade.

The U.S. emerged from World War II as the world's leading military and economic power. Congress modernized its own operations not only to meet the challenges of the postwar world but also to reassert its own powers following the long period of presidential primacy epitomized by FDR. For his co-sponsorship of the 1946 Legislative Reorganization Act, A. S. “Mike” Monroney of the Fifth District won Collier's Outstanding Legislator Award.