[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 111 (Thursday, July 12, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S9070]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     REMEMBERING LADY BIRD JOHNSON

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, when Lady Bird Taylor met the man she 
would marry in the fall of 1934, her first reaction was to pull back. 
``Lyndon came on very strong,'' she said. ``My instinct was to 
withdraw.''
  And when an assassin's bullet thrust her into the national spotlight 
on another fall day in 1963, she withdrew again. America remembers this 
remarkable woman for the quiet dignity with which she let a nation and 
a stricken wife mourn the loss of a President they loved. And our first 
reaction to her in those days of mourning was gratitude.
  Now we mourn her passing, after a long tumultuous life that was 
marked above all by quiet service and a love of beauty.
  She was nothing like her husband.
  Lyndon Johnson was an overpowering figure who filled up every room he 
entered. His personality still reverberates through these walls. But he 
always knew what he needed to get ahead in life, and he saw in Lady 
Bird the tact and gentility he saw lacking in himself.
  He asked her to marry him on their first date.
  And soon the aspiring politician would marry this shy and pretty 
rancher's daughter. Sam Rayburn said it was the best thing Lyndon 
Johnson ever did.
  Lady Bird brought a deep love of nature from east Texas to the White 
House, and she shared it with America. Residents and tourists in 
Washington have her to thank for the natural beauty that surrounds us 
here and that makes us proud to call this city our Nation's Capital.
  Millions of travelers and commuters have her to thank for the flowers 
that line our roads. The blues, reds and yellows that light up 
America's highways are a living, lasting legacy to the woman who guided 
the Highway Beautification Act into law.
  A friend to every First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt, Lady Bird 
Johnson stepped out of the national spotlight as quietly as she stepped 
into it, again respecting the national mood at another painful moment 
in our history.
  She outlived her famous husband by more than three decades, and we 
didn't hear or see much of her over the years. But she'd remind us from 
time to time that she was still here, quietly accepting an honor for 
her husband or launching some good environmental work. And we were 
always glad to see her. She became for us a kind of living assurance 
that beauty and grace outlive tragedy and loss.
  We will miss her. We mourn with her daughters, Lynda and Luci, and 
their families. And we join them in honoring a very good American life 
that was spent in generous service to family and country.

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