William Miller, 80; Congress Doorman, ‘Fish Bait’ Author

William (Fish Bait) Miller, the affable doorkeeper of the U.S. House of Representatives whose stentorian “Mistuh Speakah--the Prez-dent of the Yoo-nited States” echoed across the halls of Congress for nearly 25 years, has died.

Miller, who opened doors for such visiting House dignitaries as the future queen of England (who he greeted with a “howdy ma’am”) and then wrote a book that opened doors on the antics of congressmen, was 80 when he died Tuesday at his home in Greensboro, N.C.

Sherrill Bumgarner, director of Hanes-Lineberry Funeral Home in Greensboro, did not provide a cause of death.

In his long tenure, Miller introduced six presidents at joint sessions of Congress and countless other visiting statesmen to the House, letting each name spin forth in an elongated announcement accented by his native Mississippi drawl.

Wrote ‘Fish Bait’

The assembled Congress would then applaud and Miller would sit down at the front of the chamber.

What he saw and learned of the workings of Capitol Hill led to his book, “Fish Bait,” which also included accounts of the drinking and sexual exploits of several members of Congress.

Miller’s job came to involve more than guarding doors. He supervised 357 employees and an annual budget of $3.5 million. From his oppulent office he oversaw messengers, pages, barbers and janitors.

Fish Bait, who was assigned the sobriquet when he was 15 and still weighed only 75 pounds, was born William Mosely Miller in Pascagoula, Miss., a small town that was so near the Gulf Coast that “if you go any farther south you are going to get your feet awfully wet.”

And Fish Bait was always two words, he told interviewers. “Capital Fish, Capital Bait.”

Miller first arrived in Washington in 1933 and he took a job as a clerk in the House post office.

He was first named minority doorkeeper in 1947, when the Democrats lost control of the House. He had competition for the job in 1949, when the Democrats regained majority status, but he wrote personal notes to each member while his opponent sent a mimeographed letter.

Miller said he helped Democratic House members get their choice of offices by sanding his fingertips so he could identify by touch the metal disks drawn to determine office assignments.

Probably his most famous moment came in 1952 when Queen Elizabeth II, then the crown princess of England, and her husband, Prince Philip, visited Washington.

Miller walked up to her, said “howdy ma’am” and then proceeded to escort the royal duo around the House chamber.

“Wave to the boys and girls in the gallery,” Miller told the prince. “I will not,” Philip replied.

Five feet, eight inches and slightly pear shaped, Miller lost his job in 1974 in a power switch that cost Rep. Wilbur Mills most of his influence and all his appointments. Mills had become publicly involved with a stripper.

By then Miller had become a Capitol Hill legend. He prided himself on knowing the birthdays of most congressmen, of saying that “everyone’s important here,” of prowling the corridors of Congress in his bare feet, having left his shoes in the House barber shop where they were being shined.

After the power shift, the man who once told Rep. Bella Abzug to remove her hat in the House (she encouraged him to perform an anatomically impossible act) returned to Mississippi, where he co-authored “Fish Bait,” in which the lives and exploits of many congressmen were touched upon. He later moved to Greensboro to be near his daughter.

Miller said his favorite Democrats were former President Harry S. Truman (who laughed away Miller’s potentially damaging remarks to the royal couple) and longtime House Speaker Sam Rayburn.

“Sam Rayburn’s heart was as big as my head and your head put together,” he once said. “And Truman, I liked him because he said exactly what he meant and you always knew exactly where he stood.”

He also had fond remembrances of Republican Richard M. Nixon, who once sent him a birthday card that “made me feel like sovereignty, which I ain’t.”