[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 1 (Monday, January 24, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12-S14]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH ADDRESS AT THE LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, last spring I joined my colleagues in
honoring President Lyndon Baines Johnson when we hung a portrait of our
former president on the one blank wall left in the President's Room in
our nation's capitol. As I noted at that time, I could think of no
other president or American who was as deserving of this honor as LBJ.
As the Senate Majority Leader and President, LBJ was a man of immense
skill, dedication and compassion. He is remembered by most Americans as
a great leader whose strength of personality helped him preside over an
extremely productive Senate that expanded Social Security, created the
Interstate Highway system, and passed one of the most important civil
rights laws of the 20th Century. Less well known, however, is LBJ's
tremendous ability to compromise. He truly believed in the message of
his favorite Bible verse: ``Come, let us reason together.'' Our nation
and our government needs more men and women who share this powerful
belief.
Today, I want to bring to the attention of my colleagues and all
Americans another aspect of LBJ's legacy that too often has been
overlooked--his work to bring justice to disen-
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franchised ethnic minorities and to improve the lot of the large number
of Americans suffering in unimaginable poverty. John Kenneth Galbraith,
the noted economist and former presidential aide, recently highlighted
LBJ's accomplishments in this area in an important speech at the LBJ
library in Austin, Texas.
As Professor Galbraith noted, historians often view LBJ's
administration in terms of its involvement in the Vietnam War. While we
should never underestimate the impact that war had on our country,
historians are remiss to view LBJ through this narrow prism. Those who
do fail to acknowledge his meaningful and lasting accomplishments in
expanding civil rights, protecting voting rights, and fighting poverty.
These victories have forever changed the face of America for the
better.
Professor Galbraith's speech is based on his personal and
professional relationship with LBJ. It is a testament to LBJ's
leadership and a tribute to the sometimes overlooked legacy of the
Great Society. This speech is an important step towards setting the
historical record straight and establishing a legacy of LBJ's
Administration that is historically accurate as well as comprehensive.
I ask unanimous consent that Professor Galbraith's speech be printed
in the Record.
There being no objection, the speech was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
Lyndon Johnson: History Reconsidered
(By John Kenneth Galbraith)
The task of the historian is never finished. As first
written, history responds to the dramatic, tragic or
otherwise seemingly dominant events of the time. Only in
later, more careful, more detached and, one trusts,
professionally more competent view does the deeper truth
emerge. Were it otherwise, historians would not be needed;
history would not have to be reconsidered and rewritten. It
is with such reconsideration I am here concerned--with an
historical view in need of substantial modification. I am
seeking the needed historical reappraisal of Lyndon Baines
Johnson, a revision and correction of a history with which I
was myself associated, had a modest role, and one to which I
have contributed. I here offer a more thoughtful, I trust
more informed, view of Lyndon Johnson, and notably as
President of the United States. First, a word of personal
history.
Lyndon Johnson was my age, or I his--he was born August 27,
1908, I a month and a half later. We were both of an amply
celebrated rural origin, and both had our early education in
country schools, rural-oriented colleges. Johnson arrived in
Washington as a congressional aide in 1931, I for a markedly
less impressive sojourn in 1934. We were both interested in
agriculture; I had a minor role with the Agricultural
Adjustment Administration--the Triple A--which continued as I
went on that year to Harvard. Johnson a year later became the
Texas director of the National Youth Administration. Two
years after that he was elected to the House of
Representatives.
At some time during these years we became acquainted; we
were brought more closely together by the two great human
rights advocates from Alabama, Virginia and Clifford Durr, to
whom we were both devoted, Johnson and I were proudly New
Dealers, fully committed to FDR who had our unstinting
support. Our friendship, if not close, lasted for nearly a
lifetime, to be ended by an unforgiving event central in the
appraisal of Lyndon Johnson and the correction of which I
here seek. That correction places him next only to Franklin
D. Roosevelt as a force for a civilized and civilizing social
policy essential for human well-being and for the peaceful
co-existence between the economically favored (or financially
fortunate) and the poor. History has settled on the great
contribution of the New Deal. Much needs yet to be said of
the achievements of the Johnson years, still sadly blotted
from memory by foreign and military policy and action. Next
only to Roosevelt, and in some respects more so, Lyndon
Johnson was the most effective advocate of human social
change in the United States in this century.
This was not a matter on which he left one in any doubt. On
the day after John F. Kennedy's assassination, I was in
Washington at the White House working on the sudden and
compelling array of funeral tasks. I was called by L.B.J. to
his vice-presidential, now his presidential, offices in the
Old State Department building. (I offer this revision of the
history on the 36th anniversary of L.B.J.'s first full day in
office.) We discussed a range of domestic problems and the
needed action. He spoke in Johnson language and emphasis of
his strong commitment. Knowing perhaps that nothing would
more assure my belief, he asked me to do a draft of the
speech he would shortly make to the Congress. The eventual
speech, which relied rather more heavily on Theodore Sorensen
and on L.B.J. himself, made clear his intention.
For Roosevelt it was the New Deal. Kennedy had given
currency to the phrase the New Frontier. For Johnson it would
be the Great Society--possibly a less compelling title.
Nonetheless, the action so taken has become part of our
everyday life and acceptance. But not in the history. The New
Deal is large in public memory; so, if somewhat less, is the
New Frontier. Much less is made of the Good Society and the
years of Lyndon Johnson. What was then greatly needed, even
urgent and wonderfully accomplished, lies in the historical
backwater. That we must recognize and retrieve.
The first and most important step taken by Lyndon Johnson
was simply to make all Americans full citizens and full
participants in the democratic process. This, in the Kennedy
years, had become an issue of major importance. In June of
1963, a few months before his death, Kennedy had called for
enabling legislation. His position, and especially that of
his immediate and strongly committed subordinates, was not in
doubt. But the decisive civil rights legislative action
remained for Lyndon Johnson. A further and major step was the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, this at the beginning of Johnson's
own new term and more than one hundred years after
emancipation.
In the New Deal years ethnic equality was only on the
public conscience; in the Kennedy presidency it was strongly
urged by Martin Luther King and many others. From buses to
lunch counters to restrooms to public accommodations,
agitation had focused attention on the issue and brought
some action. It was with Lyndon Johnson, however, that
citizenship for all Americans in all its aspects became a
reality. Not only were black citizens (as I choose to say)
rewarded; distracting agitation and conflict came largely
to an end. Not alone civil rights but civility in behavior
to the peace and benefit of all. All were rewarded by the
new peace. This we owe to the Johnson presidency. There
was much more.
Related to ethnic difference but going far beyond was the
continued existence of a mass poverty--of life at or below
the margin of survival. This also, a neglected point, means
denial not alone of the basic enjoyments of life but also the
denial of liberty. Nothing so limits the freedom of the
individual as the total absence of money. This, as too often
with the commonplace, we take for granted, ignore. This too
Lyndon Johnson recognized and addressed.
The problem of massive urban poverty and the more diverse
affliction in rural America, especially in the mountain
valleys down from New England to the Deep South, was a
continuing fact. There were (as there are still) two lines of
thought on how this should be addressed. One was to insure
everyone a basic income by public action. This a rich country
could afford; to this all the industrially advanced countries
are in some measure committed. The other course is to counter
poverty by specific remedial action designed to minimize its
more specific adverse effects and, most importantly, to
provide the mental and physical means for escape. The main
effort of the Johnson years was of the second order; the
basic steps in this effort continue to this day--money for
deprived educational communities, for education in general.
Head Start, food for needful children at the beginning of the
school day, food stamps for the old and hungry, the Jobs
Corps and major initiatives in education . . . including the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act sending funds to local
school districts along with support to higher education and
those pursuing it. And major help for those previously denied
health care and life itself from lack of money. This list of
humane accomplishments could be extended. The emphasis was
not alone on what the Federal government should do but also
on helping individuals and communities to help themselves.
The New Deal initiatives were more centralized, more
visible and more dramatic; those of the Johnson years were
less visible but not less important for aiding human
survival. What Johnson initiated is now accepted even by the
wonderfully adverse orators of our present age.
The work for civilized well-being is not complete. I have
long believed that we should accept, as we do only
reluctantly and partially now, a minimum income for all
Americans. This, to repeat, a rich country can afford. It
requires that we eliminate the welfare stigma and other
adverse attitudes. Some who are favored by a basic income
will not work; so with many who are now favored by a higher
income. Leisure is an evil thing for the poor; it is
rewarding for the affluent, sometimes even for professors.
Accordingly, our social effort must continue. But let there
be no doubt; in the years of Lyndon Johnson both ethnic
minorities and the poor became citizens of the republic, the
first by legal action, the second by still imperfect but
highly relevant remedial legislation.
Nor did this happen because of newly recognized need. It
happened because Lyndon Johnson was the most effective
political activist of our time. It is easy to advocate the
right action; it is something else and much more to obtain
it. Lyndon Johnson was not content with citing the need,
recommending the legislation. He was content only as he
obtained (and on occasion forced) the requisite action. No
President in our time has had such a commanding role as
regards the Congress, the result of both solid experience and
strong personality. Johnson's authority was based on
knowledge--he had a clear and comprehensive view of what he
urged. But
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there was more. Individuals at all levels in Congress and in
the Executive knew him. He was a good friend, had an engaging
personality and a compelling range of speech. No one went to
see him without returning to tell of some prescient
observation by Lyndon Johnson, some amusing or slightly off-
color metaphor.
Liking Johnson, politicians and other leaders aligned with
him. All wanted the association preserved, so they did as
Johnson commanded. We speak much of the power of personality;
in Lyndon Johnson it was evident, effective and had its own
distinctive style. Long before he became President, this was
well recognized in the Congress. Asked after the 1960
Convention why he had chosen Lyndon Johnson as Vice-
President, John F. Kennedy gave several reasons. The last and
perhaps the decisive reason: ``It wouldn't be worthwhile
being President if Lyndon were Majority Leader.'' When
President, Lyndon Johnson was effectively both. Kennedy, as
I've said on other occasions, used less power than he had as
President; Johnson used more.
I summarize: on civil rights and on poverty, the two truly
urgent issues of the time, we had with Johnson one of the
greatest changes of our time. I turn now to the historical
correction which, along with others of my political faith, I
need to make.
My association, even friendship, with Lyndon Johnson came
to an end with the Vietnam war. We had intensely discussed
it: Johnson's case was not unpersuasive. ``Ken, you have no
idea what the generals would be doing were I not here.'' And
this, I must add, I did not know. Next year the Harvard
University Press will publish ``American Tragedy: Kennedy,
Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War'' by David Kaiser.
It makes full, intelligent, even exhaustive use of newly
declassified documents--all are now available except for some
continuing and perhaps well-considered reticence by the CIA.
Kaiser tells in extensive and, to this day, alarming detail
of the military pressure on Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
The generals and their civilian acolytes took over, were even
eager for a war. Nuclear weapons were freely proposed. One
reads with relief and gratitude of the Presidential
resistance, that of Kennedy in particular but also that of
L.B.J. The widening military intervention was relentlessly
pressed. And so the war and the deaths.
Knowing that part of the world from presence and
experience, I knew that Communism was irrelevant in a
primitive village and jungle economy--as Marx would have been
the first to agree. There was also the irrelevance of our
military establishment in the densely covered countryside
that characterized much of Vietnam. The military forces of
the Viet Cong would have been swept aside in a few days in
Normandy. Here they could retreat conveniently and safely to
the jungle, or even to the water-laden reaches of the Delta.
Accordingly, I joined with others in opposition to this cruel
and hopeless effort and to sending our youth, still under
draft, to serve and die. In the political campaign of 1968, I
was accorded a measure of leadership. I do not regret my
effort against this error. One must, however, regret the way
in which we allowed the Vietnam war to become the totally
defining event of those years and likewise of the history. In
the Johnson years it was the Vietnam war and nothing else.
And so in the history it remains. Those of us who were
involved allowed that response; at the time, perhaps it was
inevitable. But certainly we have done far too little to
correct the history since.
The needed correction is clear. In the Johnson years two
major flaws in the American community and its polity were
addressed. What was called the American democracy became in
reality a democracy. All Americans became citizens. There was
a long step toward peaceful coexistence between ethnic
groups. And for the first time we had a clear recognition of
the presence of deep, unforgiving poverty in this generally
affluent land. The danger to domestic peace and harmony was
recognized. Poverty, economic deprivation, is still with us.
Income inequality is great and still growing. But recognition
of this together with the belief that something can and must
be done--that there can be remedial action--goes back to the
Johnson years. And so does the range of action for the young,
the poor, the ill and the old without which all would be much
worse.
Three Presidents in our lifetime have seen the social need
of their citizenry from their particular position in life.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, as I've elsewhere said, saw the people
of the United States as a tenantry stretching out from Hyde
Park. For them and their depression hardship he had a
landlord's responsibility. From Irish Boston, John F. Kennedy
saw a great minority still seeking to escape--and his family
had escaped--the trials and oppressions of a once beleaguered
community. (It helped that it had become a political force.)
Johnson's identification was with a larger, less easily
identified, politically less powerful community--the widely
distributed urban and rural poor. What Kennedy and his family
had escaped, Johnson had experienced at first hand. (His
personal encounter with rural privation was never
understated.) The basic motivation of all three Presidents
was the same: the sense of responsibility for a larger, less
fortunate community within the range of actual observation
and experience.
There is a final, greatly needed revision. We must accord
much more emphasis to the dangerous, even insane military
pressures to which Kennedy and Johnson were subject. We
should note that these were especially strong in 1965, the
time when Johnson's mind and effort were sharply focused on
poverty and civil rights and the requisite legislation.
When we think of Vietnam, we must think much more of the
generals (and associated civilians) who pressed powerfully
for the war, for the risks of a greater war and for an
opening for nuclear weapons. That, in the full light of
history, there were presidential errors here cannot be
doubted. We must, however, be grateful for what was resisted.
Thus the historical revision I seek, we must all seek. The
initiatives of Lyndon Johnson on civil rights, voting rights
and on economic and social deprivation and the responding
role of the state must no longer be enshrouded by that war.
Those of us who helped make the war central to the public
attitude and politics of the time have a special
responsibility here. That responsibility I would like to
think I have partly assumed on this favored evening.
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