Lyndon Baines Johnson

Lyndon Baines legerdemainson, 36th chairman of the United States (196369), was innate(p) in a farmhouse on the Pedernales River near Johnson City, Texasi. Johnson grew up amidst poverty. On twain sides of his family he had a political heritage mingled with a Baptist background of pr all(prenominal)ers and teachers. He graduated (1930) from Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now Southwest Texas State Univ.), in San Marcos. He taught in a Houston high school before becoming (1932) depository to a Texas Congressman. In 1934 he married Claudia Alta Taylor and they had two daughters, Lynda Bird and Luci Baines.A staunch immature Dealer, Johnson gained the friendship of the influential Sam Rayburn, at whose behest professorship Franklin D. Roosevelt made him (1935) director in Texas of the National Youth Administration. In 1937, Johnson win election to a va stackt congressional seat, and he was consistently re-elected done 1946. Despite Roosevelts maintain, however, he was d efeated in a special election to the Senate in 1941. He served (194142) in the navy. In 1948, Johnson was elected U.S. Senator from Texas after fetching the elective primary by a mere 87 votes.A strong advocate of military preparedness, he persuaded the Armed works direction to set up (1950) the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee. Rising rapidly in the Senate hierarchy, Johnson became (1951) Democratic whip and then (1953) floor leader. As majority leader after the 1954 elections he wielded great power, exhibiting unusual skill in marshalling support for President Eisenhowers schedules. He suffered a serious heart outrage in 1955 tho recovered to continue his senatorial command.Johnson helpless the 1960 Democratic presidential nominating speech to John F. Kennedy, notwithstanding accepted Kennedys offer of the vice-presidential position. Elected with Kennedy, he ener complicateically supported the Presidents courses, serving as an American emissary to nations throug hout the world and as chairman of the National astronautics and Space Council and of the Presidents Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities. After Kennedys character assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, Johnson was sworn in as president and announced that he would strive to carry through Kennedys programs.Congress responded to Johnsons skilful prodding by enacting an $11 note of handion tax cut (Jan., 1964) and a sweeping civilised Rights Act (July, 1964). With Johnsons insistent backing, Congress finally adopted a far-reaching civil-rights bill, a voting-rights bill, a Medicare program for the aged, and measures to improve education and conservation. Elected (Nov., 1964) for a sufficient term in a landslide over Senator Barry Goldwater, he pushed knockout for his domestic help program.The 89th Congress (196566) produced more major legislative action than whatsoever since the New Deal. During the Johnson Presidency, Medicare and Medicaid were established to provide medical ins urance for those over 65 and those too poor to pay. During the Johnson Administration, the first environmental legislation was passed. A bill providing free medical care (Medicare) to the aged under Social tribute was enacted, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided new safeguards for African-American voters, and more money went to antipoverty programs.The departments of transferee and of Housing and Urban Development were added to the Cabinet. Johnsons domestic achievements were soon obscured by outside affairs. Johnsons actions (Feb., 1965) of bombing on North Vietnam aroused widespread opposition in Congress and among the universal and developed vigorous anti contend movement. As the cost of the war shot up, Congress scuttled many of Johnsons domestic programs. After Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy began campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination, Johnson announced (Mar., 1968) that he would not run for reelection. When Johnson retired from mooring (Jan. , 1969), he left field the nation bitterly divided by the war. He retired to Texas, where he died ii.In 1964 the American people seemed to give overwhelming endorsement to his achievements. His reelection was followed by the renowned series of legislative victories establishing the Great Societythe most visionary domestic program in American register. Conventional wisdom suggests that President Lyndon Baines Johnson pushed each Congress to the limit to obtain a maximum number of contentious legislative victories. Consequently, slim brinks were often expected and indeed planned for.A key Johnson legislative aide, Henry Hall Wilson, made this point explicitly, When we take in a fat Congress as we did in the Eighty-ninth, then we can hike up our demands to fit the situation. When votes are not razor edit in either case, then we are not doing a skilful jobiii. Johnson used just about everything in his extensive repertory to get Congress moving and excelled.According to Hugh Side y, During 1965, Johnson would zero in on a congress- man or a senator and get what he wanted, a exhaustively deal. He would lie, beg, cheat, steal a little, threaten, intimidate. But he never lost sight of that ultimate goal, his idea of the Great Societyiv. Substantial preparation was postulate to identify that the linchpin of the whole system was the treatment, Johnsons personal techniques of political mentation and political skillv.A Great Society for the American people and their married person men elsewhere was the vision of Lyndon B. Johnson. In his first years of office he obtained passage of one of the most extensive legislative programs in the Nations history. During World War II he served briefly in the navy as a lieutenant commander, winning a Silver thaumaturgist in the South Pacific. After six terms in the House, Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1948. In 1953, he became the youngest Minority Leader in Senate history, and the by-line year, when the Democrats wo n control, Majority Leader. With rare skill he obtained passage of a number of key Eisenhower measures.Johnsons Great Society program was designed to get by poverty in the United States. It consisted of a series of legislation, which included the course Corps, to provide vocational training for disadvantaged youth Volunteers in Service of America (VISTA) a domestic Peace Corps Head Start, to learn disadvantaged preschoolers, among other programs. The other part of the Great Society program was the passage of civil rights legislation proposed by the Kennedy Administration.In the 1960 campaign, Johnson, as John F. Kennedys running mate, was elected Vice President. First he obtained enactment of the measures President Kennedy had been urging at the time of his goala new civil rights bill and a tax cut. Next he urged the Nation to piss a great society, a get into where the meaning of mans life matches the marvels of mans labor. In 1964, Johnson won the Presidency with 61 percent of the vote and had the widest popular margin in American historymore than 15,000,000 votes.The Great Society program became Johnsons agenda for Congress in January 1965, an aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of horror and delinquency, removal of obstacles to the right to vote.Lyndon Johnson faced the toughest transition after Kennedys deathvi. Johnson had to confront the ruefulness and despair many people felt over the loss of a beloved leader and their antagonism toward someone who, however much he identified with JFK, seemed like a usurper, an unelected, untested replacement for the man the solid ground now more than ever saw as more adequate for the job. Johnson understood the essential need for continuity, for reassuring people at topographic point and abroad that the new President would be faithful to the previous administra tion.The death of a President was trauma enough, but Kennedys assassination made his passport a national crisis in self-confidence, a time of doubt about the durability of the countrys democratic system and its tradition of non-violent political change. Despite his mystic fears, Johnson was an inspiration to the country. His common appearances, his use of language, his management of the press promoted feelings of continuity and unityvii.The earmark of his Great Society social reform program, the War on privation strove to achieve what LBJs mentor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, could not, an end to the nations most distressing social ills and recognition that racialism still divided the nation into distinct economic and social groups. For American Jews, LBJs reformulation of New Deal liberalism into a group-based, race-sensitive political philosophy challenged long-held assumptions about the type of the state and pressed the communitys organized leadership into the forefront of nation al public policy debate. Millions of Democratic voters registered their disapproval of LBJ by abandoning their long-time political home and bolting to the republican Partyviii.Johnsons cynical idealism and the unmanageable mysteries of the times converged into the early-American, frontier-style presidency that finally pressure us to begin to redefine our nationhood. Lyndon Johnson was rude, intelligent, shrewd, charming, compassionate, vindictive, maudlin, selfish, passionate, volcanic and cold, vicious and generous. He play every part, he left out no emotion in him one saw ones self and all the others. He was not an idealist, but he served ideals when it suited and pleased him. He was not a reactionary, but he fanned reaction when it helped him advance himself.He was tireless and diligent, but he was also narrowly political, and he was suspicious of new ideas. He berated intellectuals because he envied them. He was as personally responsible for American history since 1950 as any o ther man of his time. Throughout his career he was consolidating his private wealth by a calculating use of public power, and there is an affinity between this squalid side of his success and the pestiferous commercialism in the national ethosix.President Johnsons Presidency will be remembered for the Great Society programs for which he wanted to be remembered, and for the Vietnam War, which eventually compel his resignation.i On both sides of his family he had a political heritage mingled with a Baptist background of preachers and teachersii Encyclopedia Article Title Johnson, Lyndon Baines. Encyclopedia Title The capital of South Carolina Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Publisher Columbia University Press. Place of egress New York. Publication stratum 2004. iii Doris Kearns, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream ( New York New American Library, 1976. iv ousel Miller, Lyndon New York G. P. Putnams Sons, 1980. v Bernard J. Firestone.1988.Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Uses of Power . Editor, Robert C. Vogt Publisher Greenwood Press. Place of Publication New YorkPage human action 7. vi At the height of his power as Senate leader, Johnson sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1960. When he lost to John F. Kennedy, he strike even some of his closest associates by accepting second place on the ticket. vii Robert Dallek .2004.Lyndon B. Johnson Portrait of a President. Publisher Oxford University Press. Place of Publication New York Page crook 227. viii ) Marc Dollinger .2001.The Other War American Jews, Lyndon Johnson, and the Great Society. Contributors author. ledger Title American Jewish History. Volume 89. Issue 4. Publication Year 2001. Page Number 437+ ix Ronnie Dugger .1982.The Politician The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson the Drive for Power, from the confines to Master of the Senate. Publisher W. W. Norton. Place of Publication New York Page Number 13.