[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 7] [Senate] [Pages 10124-10137] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]REMEMBERING LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is my understanding that the time between now and noon is set aside for remarks regarding President Johnson; is that right? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct. Mr. REID. Mr. President, in the summer of 1908, a man named Sam Ealy Johnson, Sr., rode through the Texas hill country, announcing to whomever happened to pass by, ``A United States Senator was born this morning!'' The name of his grandson--Lyndon Baines Johnson. I am pleased today to mark the beginning of the celebration for the 100th birthday of that boy from Texas who would not only be Senator, but Senate majority leader, Vice-President, and President of the United States. There is a tradition on the floor of the Senate of which our colleagues but few Americans are aware. [[Page 10125]] If you open any of the desks in the Senate Chamber, you will find carved the names of each Senator who was assigned the desk in years past. Among the names carved in my desk is Lyndon Baines Johnson. America and the world know Lyndon Johnson as the President with a steady hand that guided our country through a deeply troubled era--and was the guiding hand in creating the Great Society. But those of us in the Senate--and his family and dear friends who join us here today--know that it was this Senate Chamber--this Capitol Building--that was his home. Born in the Hill Country of Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson came to the Senate in 1948 after prevailing in one of the closest Senate contests in American history. As my colleagues well know, most rookie Senators arrive in Washington resigned to spending a few years getting to know the rules and traditions of this body--biding their time and gaining seniority. Not Lyndon Johnson. His rise to power was laser-fast. He was appointed to the powerful Armed Services Committee within his first 2 years, and was elected assistant democratic leader--or majority whip--in 1951. No Senator ever rose to the leadership of the Senate faster. But Lyndon Johnson had good timing as well as talent as his allies. In the 1952 election, Dwight Eisenhower was elected in a landslide, sweeping Republicans into power in both the House and Senate. Among the defeated Democrats was Majority Leader Ernest McFarland of Arizona. With just 4 years tenure, 4 years in the U.S. Senate, Lyndon Johnson became the Democratic leader of the Senate. At the time, the positions of majority and minority leader took a backseat to the powerful committee chairmanships. Lyndon Johnson had a different vision, and it is no exaggeration to say that he singlehandedly made the job of leader what it is today. After establishing himself as the legislative and political leader of the Senate Democrats, Johnson was uniquely well-positioned in 1954, when Democrats regained the majority and he became majority leader. What followed is the stuff of legend. Based upon his philosophy that ``The only real power available to the leader is the power of persuasion,'' Lyndon Baines Johnson used that power to the fullest. In just 1 day in 1956, Lyndon Johnson's Senate confirmed two appointments and passed 90 bills a record that may stand for all time. The quantity of Johnson's Senate work was impressive, but so was the quality. As an exhibit at the LBJ library says: By working to find common ground uniting liberals and conservatives alike, LBJ's Senate passed legislation to increase the minimum wage, extend social security benefits, increase public housing construction, create an interstate highway system, create a national space agency and enact the first civil rights legislation since 1875. The majority leader's inspiration was the prophet Isaiah, who preached ``Come now, and let us reason together,'' a philosophy--and a result--that unquestionably and dramatically improved the lives of all Americans. On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome members of Lyndon Johnson's family, his former staff, and friends of the Johnson family to the U.S. Senate to mark his 100th birthday and honor his life. This celebration is tinged with sadness that his beloved wife Lady Bird passed away last year and is not with us today. As President, Lyndon Johnson once said--``This nation, this generation, in this hour has man's first chance to build a Great Society, a place where the meaning of man's life matches the marvels of man's labor.'' Lyndon Baines Johnson's pursuit of a Great Society is a legacy that changed America forever and will last as long as our Republic stands. Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I am honored to rise today to speak on the life and legacy of Lyndon Baines Johnson. He served his country as a teacher, naval officer, Congressman, Senator, Vice President, and finally President of the United States. In every stop along the way of his storied career, he blazed new boundaries of the possible in American politics. When Lyndon Johnson first came to this body in January 1949, he was teased by his fellow Senators with the nickname ``Landslide Lyndon,'' due to his victory in the Texas senatorial primary election by just 87 votes. Within a few years he had taken the fastest path to being elected a floor leader in Senate history. Johnson went on to serve as both minority leader and majority leader during the 8 years of the Eisenhower administration, and shaped legislation dealing with the Cold War, agriculture, labor and civil rights. Lyndon Johnson showed the same compassion and courtesy to the Texas rancher or the destitute living in America's deepest pockets of poverty as he did to the powerful and the mighty. In fact, through his generosity of spirit, he made a friend out of one special Pakistani camel-cart driver. Some of my colleagues who are old enough may remember that in 1961, as Vice President, Johnson toured the country of Pakistan and at one point stopped to meet an illiterate camel-cart driver named Bashir Ahmad. Still displaying his Texan manners half a world away, the Vice President told the man, ``You all come to Washington and see us sometime.'' Imagine his surprise when Bashir Ahmad decided to take him up on his request. But the quick-thinking Johnson turned his unexpected guest's visit into a boon for American-Pakistani relations. He met Ahmad personally at the airport, to see the man at the end of his first-ever jet plane ride. Johnson treated his guest to a barbecue at the LBJ ranch in Texas, enabled him to step onto the floor of this U.S. Senate, and arranged for his visit to the Lincoln Memorial. He even brought together the camel-cart driver and the former U.S. President, Harry Truman, who was so taken with Ahmad's eloquence that he referred to the Pakistani visitor as ``His Excellency.'' The final Johnson touch came just as Bashir Ahmad was about to board his plane for the ride home back to Pakistan. He opened a telegram from the Vice President which read: ``Since your return to Pakistan takes you so close to Mecca, arrangements have been made . . . for you to visit there.'' This was just one example of many of the canny Texan's consummate political skills. Now just like Bashir Ahmad, I had the honor of being in Lyndon Johnson's presence once, and for a very momentous occasion. In August 1965, I came here, to our Nation's Capitol, to visit Senator John Sherman Cooper. In 1964, after receiving my undergraduate degree from the University of Louisville, I worked as an intern for Senator Cooper and watched up close as he applied his wisdom and experience to the issues that gripped Kentucky and the Nation in the 1960s. After completing my first year in law school, I came back to Washington to visit the Senator who had become my mentor and friend. I was waiting to see Senator Cooper in his outer office when suddenly he emerged and motioned for me to follow him. We walked together from his office in Russell 125 to the Capitol Rotunda, where I saw more people, and more security, than I had ever seen before. Then Senator Cooper told me what was happening: President Johnson was about to sign the Voting Rights Act, an act that was the culmination of Lyndon Johnson's years of effort in support of civil rights that had begun when he still served in the Senate. Soon enough, the President emerged. Every good biography of President Johnson describes him as a larger- than-life man, with an imposing physical presence. Let me testify right now, from personal experience, that they are correct. President Johnson seemed to tower a head taller than anyone else in the room. He was a commanding figure that immediately filled the Rotunda. [[Page 10126]] A journalist once described a typical Lyndon Johnson entrance as ``the Western movie barging into the room''--it's hard to put it better than that. I was overwhelmed to witness such a moment in history. As he was about to sign the legislation that he would later point to as his greatest accomplishment, President Johnson said, ``Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield.'' Although I am sure that if my good friend Phil Gramm, the former Senator from LBJ's own Lone Star State, were here, he would add one more honor that ranked above all the rest: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Texan. Today this U.S. Senate recognizes the legacy of Lyndon Baines Johnson and his many achievements. I join with my colleagues today in asking all Americans to celebrate the Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial. Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in the opening pages of his acclaimed biography, ``Master of the Senate,'' Robert Caro describes Lyndon Johnson in his prime, as majority leader. He recalls how LBJ would come barreling through those swinging double doors in the Democratic cloakroom and stride out onto this floor--all 6-feet 4-inches of him-- looking for that last vote he needed to carry his cause. He was, Caro said, like a force of nature. As the Democratic whip, I have the privilege of occupying an office in this building that LBJ used when he was majority leader of the Senate. This afternoon, I had the privilege of meeting in that office with a longtime assistant of LBJ's, Ashton Gonella. Mrs. Gonella regaled my staff and about how the office was arranged then, and what it was like to work for Lyndon Johnson. She said that her desk was located in an outer office, just outside LBJ's office. At 5 o'clock each evening is when the real negotiating began, she said. Part of her job was to spot a Senator as he walked down the hall, headed for an appointment with LBJ, and have that Senator's favorite drink mixed and ready for him by the time he reached her desk. The Senator would then walk in to see the majority leader and together, they would see if they couldn't find some way to reach an honorable compromise on the issue at hand. Those were different days in the Senate. If you come to my office today, the strongest drink you are likely to be offered is a cup of coffee or a soda. I tell that story about LBJ partly to illustrate a point: When it comes to negotiating compromises and finding that lost vote needed to pass a bill, few Senators in the history of this institution have ever come close to Lyndon Johnson. Stiff drinks were only one of the many means he employed. There is a famous series of photographs taken by a New York Times photographer. It shows LBJ as majority leader, trying to persuade Senator Theodore Francis Green of Rhode Island to see things LBJ's way. The photos depict what journalists used to call ``the full Johnson treatment.'' That experience was probably best described by the journalists Bob Novak and Rowland Evans in their book, ``Lyndon Johnson: The Exercise of Power.'' As they put it: The Treatment could last 10 minutes or four hours . . . Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint, the hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction . . . He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target . . . his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor and the genius of analogy made the Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless. Almost always, the ``treatment'' succeeded. He was a master of political power and persuasion. He knew how to accumulate power. More importantly, he knew how to use his political power to make government work. He believed that one of the purposes of government was to try to make America better and more just. When he was 21 years old, Lyndon Johnson had an experience that had a profound and lasting effect on him. He was studying at Southwest Texas State Teachers College and he took a year off to teach poor Latino children in the little town of Cotulla, TX, near the Mexican border. Nearly 40 years later, President Johnson spoke of those children and the impact they had on him. Proposing the Voting Rights Act to a joint session of Congress, then-President Johnson said, ``Somehow, you never forget what poverty and hatred can do when you see its scars on the hopeful face of a young child.'' He added: I never thought then, in 1928, that I would be standing here in 1965. It never even occurred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and daughters of those students and to help people like them all over this country. But now I have that chance--and I'll let you in on a secret--I mean to use it. When he was told that his support for the Voting Rights Act might cause problems for his Administration, LBJ reportedly replied: Well, what the heck's the presidency for? Only he used a different word than ``heck.'' As a Senator and as President, Lyndon Baines Johnson used what power he had to help give our Nation some of the most important legislation of the second-half of the 20th century--including the Civil Rights Act of 1957--the first civil rights bill in nearly a century--the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1965, the Voting Rights Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Fair Housing Act--the list goes on and on. He was not perfect, by any means. But he helped move America forward in many important ways. Another phrase that Lyndon Johnson used often was a passage from the Book of Isaiah. It has been a favorite passage of his father's. ``Come, let us reason together.'' He believed that in a democracy, people could usually find an honorable compromise if they would just talk to each other and ``reason together.'' In this year of the centennial of his birth, our Nation would be well served if we would all take that lesson to heart. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized. Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about one of the most significant Presidents of the 20th century, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Of course, I am especially proud that he is a Texan, my home State, and was the first President to be elected from Texas. This is the 100th anniversary year of the birth of President Johnson. We all know, during his 6 years as President, he was a passionate advocate for equal rights and expanded opportunities for all Americans. I did not know President Johnson personally because I was a freshman member, very new member of the Texas legislature, when he died in 1973. But the gracious family, Lady Bird Johnson, that ever wonderful hospitable wife whom we all loved, wanted to make sure all the legislators in Texas were invited to his funeral. So I was able to attend at the Texas ranch, which of course was a beautiful tribute to his life in the place he loved the most. Though I did not know him, I will certainly say that since I came to the Senate, I have heard story after story after story about his service in this body. The book about his life, called ``Master of the Senate,'' is considered required reading for all of us here. Because, in fact, he was a master of this Senate. He did things as majority leader that had never been done before. I have been privileged to know his wonderful wife Lady Bird Johnson, who is one of our most loved First Ladies in the history of our country. Lady Bird died last year, as was mentioned before. She, in her own light, left a legacy. He worked with her on many of the things she did. The beautification efforts Lady Bird contributed to our country are a part of the overall LBJ legacy. Of course, Head Start, which is one of the major accomplishments of the LBJ administration, giving every child that head start before they enter the first grade so there [[Page 10127]] would be a more level playing field, was also a Lady Bird Johnson initiative. They worked together to make sure the children of our country had that opportunity. I wish to talk a little bit more about that in a few minutes. But I do wish to mention two of the people I now consider among my real friends, Linda and Luci. Linda and I went to the University of Texas together. We became friends there. She is a wonderful person. I have become friends with Luci as I have worked for the LBJ Library. I will never forget, as long as I live, that I was in Austin and was promoting giving blood for one of the disasters, and they needed more blood at the blood bank. I heard on the radio that Luci Johnson had gone to give blood after she heard I was there and promoting the giving of blood. That is the kind of person she is. She and Linda truly carry on the legacy of their mother, Lady Bird who was a gracious, thoughtful, wonderful person. Linda and Luci take after their mother, and, of course, the President whom we all appreciated so much for the leadership he gave. They had a wonderful partnership, where they filled in for what the other did not have. Lyndon Johnson was born in Stonewall, TX, in 1908. After graduating from high school and spending a year as an elevator operator, he began his career in the field of education. In 1927, he borrowed $75 and started attending Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos, which today is Texas State University. After graduating in 1930, he devoted a year to teaching Hispanic children at the Welhausen School in Cotulla, which is 90 miles south of San Antonio. Decades later, when he was in the White House, President Johnson reminisced: I shall never forget the faces of the boys and girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up his mind, that this Nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American. Lyndon Johnson never did rest. After serving as a teacher and principal in 1935, he was appointed head of the Texas National Youth Administration. Then 2 years later, he ran for, and won, a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was subsequently reelected to the House in every election until 1948 when he was elected to the Senate. He later went on the ticket with President John Kennedy. It was on November 22, 1963, that fateful day that none of us will ever forget, that Lyndon Johnson became the 36th President of the United States. During his Presidency, Lyndon Johnson moved aggressively to confront the problems that plagued America, especially the extraordinary challenge that had vexed our country since its very beginning, the challenge of racism. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson used his formidable legislative skills, honed from his days right here in this Chamber as majority leader, to pass the Civil Rights Act. Then, in 1965, he pushed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. The Civil Rights Act was the culmination of a decade-long civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But in a real sense, it was the fulfillment of a two-century struggle to give life to the words in our Declaration of Independence, ``that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' During his term in office, President Johnson also embarked on a war on poverty, creating government programs such as food stamps, the Job Corps, the Community Action Program, and Vista, among others. The war on poverty was a part of a larger initiative that President Johnson called the Great Society. One of the most important aspects of the Great Society was improving American education. President Johnson believed that every American needed a solid public education to turn the aspirations of the Great Society into reality. In his words: We must open the doors of opportunity, but we must also equip our people to walk through those doors. From 1963 to 1969, President Johnson signed over 60 education bills, including a pair of landmark achievements: the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act. He also launched Project Head Start. In a very real sense, he was America's first education President. As President, Lyndon Johnson opened the doors of opportunity for millions of Americans, but he would be the first to acknowledge that we still have a long way to go. As a former teacher, he knew how important education was to the competitiveness of our country. Because of his achievements in the field of education, I worked with all of my colleagues to pass a bill last year naming the Department of Education headquarters after President Johnson. This is the only building in the District of Columbia that bears the name of our 36th President. While attending the naming ceremony last year, I couldn't help but think of Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson looking down on us and smiling with pride. I want to also mention something that my colleague, Senator Bill Nelson, mentioned because another of his legacies, of course, is NASA. We all remember when President Kennedy renewed our space initiative, but it was President Johnson who took that initiative--the wonderful words we all remember of President Kennedy, that we would put a man on the Moon--and implemented that vision and made sure that we had the wherewithal to do it. We needed the money. We needed to encourage scientists to propel us into space and put us eventually on the Moon. It was President Johnson, and we now have the Johnson Space Center near Houston, Texas, where we still remember the words: Houston, the Eagle has landed. When we did land on the Moon, it was the first words back to the Johnson Space Center that people heard Neil Armstrong say on that wonderful day. As a Texan and an American, I am certainly proud of the achievements of President Lyndon Johnson. In his farewell speech, President Johnson said: I hope it may be said, a hundred years from now, that by working together we helped make our country more just, more just for all its people, as well as to ensure and guarantee the blessings of liberty for all of our posterity. It has been almost 40 years since that speech and 100 years since his birth. Looking back, I think we can safely say that our country is more just, and it is more prosperous, thanks in part to the leadership of President Johnson. On this LBJ day in our Nation's Capital, let's remember a man who helped our country reach the promise of her founding document and gave us a vision of a better America that even now is worthy of our commitment. I am a cosponsor of the resolution honoring President Johnson's service and his positive legacy for our country. I am pleased to note that in the gallery we have the President's family, and we have the President's extended family. He always considered the Members of his Cabinet, the members of his staff, his extended family. We have the people who are carrying on his legacy, the people who run the LBJ library and the LBJ school, which is such an important part of my alma mater, the University of Texas. It is such a wonderful place for students to come and learn about his era in office, public service. We are in the process of expanding and renovating the library, making sure the library stays the wonderful edifice that it is, with all of the wonderful artifacts in it. There will be a plaza called the Lady Bird Johnson Plaza that will also celebrate the beautification she gave to our country right there on the campus of the University of Texas. The people who are keeping that legacy alive are also with us today. The LBJ ranch that he loved so much, where he and Mrs. Johnson are buried, is also now a park. It is a State [[Page 10128]] park and a national park where people can come and have the freedom to roam. They will be able to walk on trails. They will be able to see a great part of the State that I love so much and he loved so much. The fact that we are preserving that as a park will be one more way to show the love that he and Lady Bird Johnson had for our country. This is a great day for us in the Capitol. I am proud to be a part of the resolution honoring this wonderful family. I yield the floor. Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am pleased to come to the floor today to honor one of Texas' most famous leaders, President Lyndon B. Johnson. This year will mark the 100th anniversary of his birth, and the LBJ Foundation has chosen this week to honor his service to America in Washington, DC. Texas has a rich history of men and women--often from humble beginnings--who work to accomplish great things. Lyndon Johnson was no exception. Johnson was born near Stonewall, TX, nearly 100 years ago, to Texas legislator and poor farmer Samuel Johnson, Jr., and Rebekah Baines. Johnson was a natural public servant. In his early days he studied at then Southwest Texas University's teaching college. One of his first teaching jobs was at a small school in Cotulla Texas for Mexican- American children. His work with those students would forever shape his dedication to those in need. ``[They] had so little and needed so much,'' he once remarked. ``I was determined to spark something inside them, to fill their souls with ambition and interest and belief in the future.'' This eagerness to help others would be a noble and defining characteristic of Lyndon B. Johnson. While he spent time teaching at several schools across Texas, it was not long before Lyndon Johnson took his first foray into public politics. Johnson quickly worked his way through the Texas State Legislature and into the U.S. House of Representatives, and eventually into the U.S. Senate. The seat he took, I should note, is the same seat once held by another very famous Texan, Sam Houston. That same seat now carries a long and honored lineage, and it is my privilege to now serve in this esteemed seat. Early on, Senator Johnson made a name for himself as a man of action, who would work across the aisle to pass important legislation, and who held an incredible power of persuasion. He quickly became majority whip, and eventually majority leader of the Senate. I know that one of his greatest accomplishments in the U.S. Senate was the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957--a landmark bill to help ensure the right of all people to vote. Of course, Johnson's legacy as a staunch defender of civil rights would not end there. Of course, Lyndon Johnson's presidency would come in the wake of national tragedy. Despite the conditions under which he took office, President Johnson helped console a nation in mourning, and ensure that America would recover--both physically and emotionally. President Johnson continued the same fervent defense of Civil Rights in America that he had begun early in his life. He helped enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the famous Voting Rights Act. At the same time, Johnson worked tirelessly to ensure a better education for all American children, and was a key proponent of NASA and the space race. Despite the turbulent times under which he served this country, President Johnson did his best to unite our country and promote a freer, more equal society. He will long be remembered for his great advances for the sciences, education, and civil rights--to name just a few accomplishments. It is my pleasure to stand today and honor President Johnson for his service, not only to Texas, but to our Nation as a whole. In his service to our country he never forgot the many Texas values with which he was raised, and as such he and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, became iconic figures in Texas History. Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, this year we celebrate the centennial of the birth of a man who dedicated his life to the proposition that all of us are created equal. A legislator, a president of the Senate, a President of the United States: Lyndon Baines Johnson. It wasn't just that Lyndon Johnson was one of the first Presidents to care deeply about the well-being of people of color. It was that he was uniquely capable of turning that desire to help into results. It is almost impossible to overstate the impact of the legislation he pushed through Congress, impossible to overstate how much better off we are as a nation thanks to his heroic efforts to guarantee civil rights voting rights and educational opportunity for all. Whatever else people will note about Johnson's life, whatever disagreements anyone had with him, whatever brush historians will use to paint him, there is no one who can convincingly cast doubt on his very real devotion to the interests of the less fortunate. In 1928, Johnson took time off from teacher's college to teach at a small school for young Mexican Americans in Cotulla, TX. Right before he signed the Higher Education Act in 1965, Johnson thought back on his time in the classroom. He said: I shall never forget the faces of the boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American. I was 11-years old when he spoke those words. Seven years later, when it was time for a Latino kid from a working-class family to go to college, I could do it, because of educational assistance from the federal government, assistance Johnson had championed. Because of him, I could go on to law school. Because of him, I felt that no door in public service could legitimately be closed to me. It is a powerful truth, and it is very clear: I would not be standing here today if it weren't for Lyndon Johnson. If he were still standing here today himself, still a U.S. Senator, it is hard to believe there would be an atmosphere of hyperpartisanship. It is hard to believe that he would allow compassion to lose out to suspicion in guiding the business of our Nation. If only he could be with us today, each time we are on the verge of a crucial vote that will test our conscience, if only all Senators could see Johnson's figure towering over them, feel his hand on their lapel, hear his voice in their ear, pushing the legislative process toward a just conclusion. So as we remember his life this year, there is no better time to rededicate ourselves to the greatest of the principles for which he lived. There is no better time to make sure that when we sit in the presiding chair, we swing the gavel for justice; that when we speak, we raise our voices for equality; that when we vote, we vote for compassion for fellow human beings regardless of the color of their skin, the language that they speak, or the country in which they were born. Even in his absence, let us remember his conscience. Let us allow his memory to shame the shadows of bigotry out of this Chamber. And let us fill our hearts with his spirit, so in our Nation, the spirit of progress will endure. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). The Senator from Hawaii. Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, in 1960, when I was a young Member of the United States House of Representatives, I had the high privilege and the great honor of seconding the nomination of Lyndon Baines Johnson for President of the United States at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. But, as we all know, Senator John F. Kennedy was nominated. However, before the convention adjourned, Senator Johnson was selected as Senator Kennedy's running mate. In November of that year, the Kennedy-Johnson team prevailed by a very close [[Page 10129]] margin. But in 1963, the tragedy of Dallas brought this winning combination to an abrupt and sad halt. Lyndon Johnson succeeded President Kennedy, but it was sadly clear to all of Lyndon Johnson's friends that this was not the way he wanted to become President. Nonetheless, Lyndon Johnson assumed the awesome responsibilities of the Presidency and carried forward the unfinished work of President Kennedy. A year after the assassination, Lyndon Johnson guided the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into becoming our Nation's landmark law on civil rights. It was a great step forward in the rights of men and women. It was also a great step forward for our Nation. But Lyndon Johnson did not stop. In 1965, he secured passage of the Voting Rights Act, opening polling places to all African Americans in the South. Two years later, he nominated the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court. His nominee, Thurgood Marshall, became recognized as one of the High Court's finest Justices. In fact, it was Lyndon Johnson who, during the 11-year period from 1957 to 1968, was behind the first five civil rights laws in our history, either as author or chief architect or primary sponsor. For a southerner like Lyndon Johnson, taking such a leading role on civil rights took a special sort of courage. Yet he knew he was doing the right thing. He transformed the Emancipation Proclamation of more than 100 years ago into becoming a reality. Civil rights was one of the building blocks that President Johnson envisioned for the Great Society of America. His Great Society Program, which the Congress embraced, provided greater support for education, especially of poor children. From 1963 to 1968, Congress followed his lead and enacted more than 40 major laws to foster education. He also supported the arts and humanities by establishing the national endowments. His Great Society declared war on poverty. He aided millions of older Americans with passage of the 1965 Medicare amendment through the Social Security Act. He also championed older Americans with the passage of legislation in 1967 against age discrimination in the workplace. As President, Lyndon Johnson also worked for peace and the survival of mankind. In 1967, he secured the ban on atomic weapons in space, and this is the universal law at the moment. The following year, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed, and it still stands. Unfortunately, Lyndon Johnson did not seek reelection in 1968 because of the war in Vietnam. But his legacy of leadership in both the Senate and the White House continues to this day. The man from Texas will always loom large in the history of the United States. For me, it was a most special privilege and a great honor to have known and worked with Lyndon Baines Johnson. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). The Senator from Tennessee. Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I first came to the Senate in 1967 as a young aide to Senator Howard Baker and was here during the last two years of the Johnson Presidency. So, I heard firsthand stories about Lyndon Johnson, the Senator, and his larger-than-life, in-your-face personality with other Senators. I felt, in the elections of 1966 and 1968--which were my first in politics--how his support for civil rights legislation had made him a controversial President. I felt, also, at my age, the agony of the war in Vietnam. And I watched, with surprise, on television in 1968 when he said he would not run for another term in the Presidency. Now, today, 40 years later, I see him as I think most Americans clearly see him: as one of our most consequential Presidents and public figures. Every January or February, my youngest son and I go to Cotulla, TX. Senator Hutchison spoke of Cotulla, TX as the place where Lyndon Johnson taught in the elementary grades. I never cease to go to Cotulla, TX without thinking of what a remarkable comment it is upon our country to think that a graduate of San Marcos State could go to Cotulla, TX, and be teaching in an elementary school, and then 13 years later be in the Senate and on his way to being the Minority leader, the Majority leader, the Vice President, and then President of the United States. There are many examples of how in our country anything is possible. I know of no better example than the life of Lyndon Johnson. Others will say more about President Johnson and his contribution to the Senate and to our country, but today I want to say a few words about his family. My contemporaries were the Johnson children, Luci and Lynda, and especially Lynda and Chuck Robb. Chuck was Governor of Virginia when I was Governor of Tennessee. We have known each other well since that time. I saw their daughter, Jennifer, this morning, and I can remember when she had our youngest son Will in a headlock one time at a Governors Conference. I can remember learning, either from Lynda or perhaps it was from Luci, lessons about how children--and the Presiding Officer will appreciate this, especially since his father was a distinguished Governor of Pennsylvania--about how to grow up in a family where your parents are public officials, as Senators or Governors or even Presidents, in their case. One of the Johnson girls told me she did not like very much going to political events--our children were much the same--until one day their father, President Johnson, said: Let me make a suggestion to you. I want you to find one interesting thing about three people at the event you go to, and then come back to me afterwards and tell me what you found out. Lynda told me that changed the way she thought about going to those events. It gave her a way to go to them and make them more interesting. I told all of our children that, and they did it as well. It was good advice for children of parents in public life. But in speaking of the family, I want to especially speak of Mrs. Johnson, Lady Bird, and her contribution to preserving the natural beauty of America. Mrs. Johnson convened the first White House Conference on Natural Beauty, saying: Surely a civilization that can send a man to the moon can also find ways to maintain a clean and pleasant earth. She became the de facto leader of the scenic conservation movement. She raised our consciousness about the natural world in our lives. It is fair to say she is probably the most influential conservationist in America since Teddy Roosevelt. When I visit my wife's home in the State of Texas in the spring, there are bluebonnets everywhere. Texans are immensely proud of those flowers. In Austin--and Luci Baines reminded me today it is still going stronger than ever--is the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Many States copied Texas' idea of planting wildflowers in the interstate medians. Lady Bird and Lyndon passed the Highway Beautification Act to free us from highway billboard blight and rampant ugliness. With her encouragement, President Johnson also persuaded Congress to pass the Wilderness Act, the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. She became the first woman to serve on the National Geographic Society's board of trustees. President Johnson used to joke about how he would turn around and there would be Laurence Rockefeller and Lady Bird in the East Room of the White House cooking up some new conservation agenda for him to pass in the Congress. Her legacy of natural beauty is secure, but because she is now gone, America's legacy of natural beauty is not so secure. We seem to have forgotten how much natural beauty is an essential part of our national character. Someone once said: Egypt has its Pyramids, Italy its Art, and our country the Great American Outdoors. Or, to put it less grandly, when I am at home in Tennessee, I see the streets named Scenic Drive and Blue Bird Lane, and I read the real estate ads describing the beautiful mountain views. And, if you ask Tennesseans why they live in Tennessee, even the most grizzled will say: [[Page 10130]] Because there is not a more beautiful place in the world. Many Americans feel that way about our hometowns. After Lady Bird, there have come a number of stronger and more outstanding environmental organizations devoted to clean air, clean water, and climate change, and more recently, other conservation causes. But most of them seem to have diminished interest in scenic beauty. There was recently on the Senate floor an effort that nearly succeeded to gut Lady Bird's Highway Beautification Act. It would have allowed hundreds of illegal billboards to become legal. There has been almost no organized outcry about the profusion of thousands of cell towers along the same interstates and in the same communities that Lady Bird sought to protect from junkyards and billboards. These cell towers have replaced almost every available scenic view in America with a tall tower, usually ugly, always with blinking lights. And, most of it is unnecessary because they could have been co-located, or be smaller, or they could have been put below the ridge tops, or even camouflaged. And we still could have had access to our cell phones and our blackberries. The National Park Service even erected a cell tower in clear view of Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. In our enthusiasm to deal with climate change, we are spending billions of dollars to encourage Americans to erect thousands of giant wind turbines that are twice as tall as football stadiums and can be seen for 20 miles, without thinking to pass legislation that would keep them away from our most scenic views, beaches, and mountaintops. If Ansel Adams were alive today, he would probably be distraught because he would have fewer and fewer beautiful places in America at which to aim his camera. Lady Bird left America a legacy that honors an essential aspect of the American character, one that today is, unfortunately, too often ignored. If it continues to be ignored, it will never be undone. It is almost impossible to unclutter a highway or renew a view scape once that has been obliterated by ugliness. So, I would hope that one result of this commemoration of Lyndon Johnson's birthday would be to encourage someone among us--or more among us--to revive in us Lady Bird's passion for the natural beauty of America, to encourage once again the planting of wildflowers, to preserve the view scapes, and to remind American communities of how satisfying it can be to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa. Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, Lyndon Johnson has always been a personal hero to me. Every time I find myself in Austin, TX, I make a visit to the LBJ Library. Only for me, it is not a trip, it is more of a pilgrimage. I have been to that library so many times I think I could conduct a blindfolded tour by now. I was just there a couple months ago. My favorite place in that library, of course, is the Great Society Room, with the plaques on the wall listing the incredible array of legislation and programs that Lyndon Johnson passed into law. You go down it and you read them all: the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Job Corps, VISTA, Upward Bound, the Food Stamp Program, legal services for the poor, the Community Action Program, Community Health Centers, Head Start, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Higher Education Act, Medicare, Medicaid, the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, public broadcasting, the National Mass Transportation Act, the Cigarette Labeling Act, the Clean Air Act, the Wilderness Act--Mr. President, it takes your breath away when you look at what this one person, with a Congress, was able to accomplish. So, Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the ``failure'' of the Great Society. Yes, the ``failure'' of the Great Society. At least that is what I have been hearing ever since I first started running for office in 1972 and 1974, coming to the House, and then to the Senate. All those years I have heard from most of my friends on the other side of the aisle and the conservatives what a great ``failure'' the Great Society was. In fact, this supposed ``failure'' has become an article of faith among conservatives. As President Reagan said on May 9, 1983: The great expansion of government programs that took place under the aegis of the Great Society coincided with an end to economic progress for America's poor people. So I thought I would come to the floor today to discuss the ``failures'' of the Great Society. Well, I wonder where to start. But I suppose a good place to start is with the great Civil Rights Act of 1964. Think about it. Prior to that act, African Americans faced brazen discrimination and segregation--the American version of apartheid. In many parts of our country, African Americans could not eat in the same restaurants or at the same lunch counters as Whites. They could not use the same bathrooms, the same swimming pools, the same water fountains, the same motels, the same hotels. They literally were consigned, as we know, to the back of the bus. Well, because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Lyndon Johnson's championship of it, those Jim Crow laws and practices were ended in the United States of America. It became illegal to discriminate based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin. Now we take it for granted that people of color, different nationalities, different religions are seen in our parks and playgrounds, our libraries, our swimming pools, our sports arenas, our motels and hotels, but it was not so long ago that this was not so. Hardly a ``failure.'' Another ``failure'' of the Great Society, of course, the Medicare Program. Let's take a look at that. At the bill signing ceremony on July 30, 1965, President Johnson enrolled former President Harry Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented him with the first Medicare card. We always talk about life after age 65 as the ``golden years.'' For many, prior to Medicare, life at 65 used to be the ``nightmare years''--with tens of millions of Americans unable to even afford basic medical care, condemned to living out their senior years in the misery of untreated or poorly treated illnesses or diseases. Here, Mr. President, I want to get personal. See, my father, Patrick Harkin, was 54 years old when I was born. My father had an eighth grade education. Most of it he spent as a coal miner. Now, most people don't think there are coal mines outside of Pennsylvania or West Virginia, but Iowa at one time was the second largest coal-producing State in the Nation. Young kids who didn't go to school went to the coal mines. So my father worked for the greater part of more than 20 years in the coal mines. Later on in life, he suffered what they called then the miner's cough, which we now know is black lung disease. My mother died when I was 10. My father was just about 65, and he had paid enough in, in the 1940s, to qualify for Social Security. So he had Social Security. He had three kids under the age of 18 and no money. He lived in this little two-bedroom house out in the middle of smalltown Iowa. But we had Social Security that kept us together. But I can remember it was like clockwork: Every year, every winter, my father would get sick. He had this miner's cough, and usually in the winter it would get worse and he would come down with pneumonia or something like that. Since we didn't have a car, one of my cousins or someone--and my father did not want to go to the hospital because we didn't have any money. He wouldn't see a doctor because we didn't have money. So one of my cousins or somebody would come over, and he would finally get so sick he couldn't stand it, and they would rush him to Mercy Hospital in Des Moines. Thank God for the sisters of mercy at Mercy Hospital. They would nurse him back to health, get him OK, send him back home. This happened [[Page 10131]] like clockwork every winter. My father was always bothered by it. He was proud. He didn't like to accept charity. Heck, if left to his own devices, he probably would have died a long time before then because he just wouldn't have accepted that kind of medical care. I can remember coming home on leave from the Navy for Christmas 1965. Now, I hadn't been paying too much attention--I was just trying to keep alive, so I wasn't paying too much attention to legislation and things such as that. I didn't mark the passage of the Medicare bill. I didn't know it even happened. As I said, I was just in the military doing my thing. But I can remember coming home on that Christmas break and seeing my dad, and he showed me his Medicare card. Now he could get medical care. He could go to the doctor. He could go and get taken care of before he got so sick he had to go to the hospital every time. You can't imagine what this was like for him. You see, he felt he had earned this through a lifetime of hard work, working for our country, raising a family. This was not charity. He had earned this. It was part of his Social Security. So when someone tells me about Medicare, part of the ``failures'' of a great society--hardly a ``failure.'' I wonder why there aren't more people out here rushing to introduce bills to repeal it if it is such a great ``failure.'' It has saved so many people in our country, such as my father, who lived out the remainder of his years in a little bit better health because of Medicare. So it is very personal with me. Another ``failure'' of the Great Society was the Higher Education Act. In 1965, it was rare for young people from disadvantaged and low- income backgrounds to go to college. The only way I got there is I had an NROTC scholarship because of the Navy. That was the only way I was able to go to college. So President Johnson passed the Higher Education Act, creating work-study programs, loans with reduced interest rates, scholarships, opening the door to college for tens of millions of Americans to have access to the American dream--again, hardly a ``failure''. In August 1964, Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Food Stamp Act. Prior to that act, hunger was shockingly widespread in America, especially in Appalachia and rural parts of our country and in our inner cities. Thanks to the Food Stamp Program, hunger in America is rare. Tens of millions of Americans--more than half of them children-- are ensured a basic nutritional minimum thanks to this program. The farm bill we just passed, with the Presiding Officer's help in getting it passed, expanded the Food Stamp Program. It took out some of the barriers to access, so families in America can get more access for their families and their kids. In the State of the Union Address in 1988, President Reagan said that the Great Society ``declared war on poverty and poverty won.'' He said this in the State of the Union Address. It is another Reagan myth. Look at the facts. Look at the data. From 1963 until 1970, during the impact of the Great Society programs, the number of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent. The poverty rate for African Americans fell from 55 percent to 27 percent. The poverty rate among the elderly fell by two-thirds. This is an amazing success. What is unfortunate is that the poverty rate has not fallen significantly since 1970. Our progress has been stalled. Indeed, in the last few years, the gap between the rich and the poor in this country has grown dramatically. So we need a new generation of American leaders committed to reducing the gap. We need a new generation of leaders with Lyndon Johnson's passion and commitment to fighting poverty and hunger and homelessness and inequality and discrimination. Any fairminded observer would say that LBJ's Great Society was far from a ``failure;'' it was a monumental success. The Great Society programs defined the modern United States of America as a compassionate, inclusive society, a genuine opportunistic society where everyone can contribute their talents and abilities. The Great Society is very much the living legacy of our 36th President. We see the Great Society today in cleaner air and water, young people from poor backgrounds going to college, seniors and poor people having access to decent medical care, and people of color exercising their right to vote and live in the neighborhood of their choice. We see the Great Society in Head Start, quality public schools, vocational education, college grants and loans--all those rungs on the ladder that people need to achieve the American dream, even those from humble, hardscrabble backgrounds, such as Lyndon Johnson himself or this Senator from Iowa. Americans have a tendency to take for granted the achievements of the Great Society. But just imagine an America without Medicare, without the Civil Rights Act, without the Voting Rights Act, without title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, without Head Start, without community health centers, without vocational education. I could go on and on. It would truly be a greatly diminished America, a less secure America, a less just America. And without the great companionship of Lady Bird Johnson, it would be a less beautiful America. I know the Johnson family is here today, including Linda Bird, Lucy Baines, and their families, and many close friends and colleagues of President Johnson and members of his administration. I thank them for keeping the LBJ legacy alive and not letting it become invisible. Before I close, let me quote from a small part of a speech that was given by Joseph Califano just this Monday at a luncheon here in Washington commemorating the legacy of Lyndon Johnson. Obviously we all remember Joe Califano being Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Listen to what he said: Of even greater danger to our Nation, by making the presidency of Lyndon Johnson invisible, we lose key lessons for our democracy--courage counts and government can work-- and it can work to the benefit of the least among us in ways that enhance the well-being of all of us. I can think of no sentence that sums up the legacy of Lyndon Baines Johnson better than that. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the full speech of Joseph Califano printed in the Record immediately following my remarks. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. (See exhibit 1.) Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, as every truly great leader in our Nation's history, Lyndon Johnson brought us a giant step closer to achieving our highest ideals. He fought passionately for social and economic justice for all Americans. He fought to put the American dream within reach of every citizen. That is the legacy we salute today. That is truly the success--and not the ``failure''--of the Great Society. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Exhibit 1 Seeing Is Believing: The Enduring Legacy of Lyndon Johnson (Keynote Address by Joseph A. Califano, Jr., May 19, 2008) For many in this room, Lyndon Johnson's Centennial is a time for personal memories. We remember how LBJ drove himself--and many of us--to use every second of his presidency. We remember his five a.m. wake-up calls asking about a front page story in the New York Times--the edition that had not yet been delivered to our home; his insatiable appetite for a program to cure every ill he saw; his insistence that every call from a member of Congress be returned on the day it was received--even if it meant running the member down in a barroom, bathroom or bedroom; his insistence that hearings begin one day after we sent a bill to Congress; his pressure to get more seniors enrolled in Medicare, more blacks registered to vote, more schools desegregated, more kids signed up for Head Start, more Mexican-Americans taking college scholarships or loans; more billboards torn down faster--for the country, and for Lady Bird. And we remember his signature admonition: ``Do it now. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Not later today. Now.'' We who served him saw that Lyndon Johnson could be brave and brutal, compassionate and cruel, incredibly intelligent and infuriatingly stubborn. We came to know his shrewd and uncanny instinct for the jugular of both allies and adversaries. We learned he [[Page 10132]] could be altruistic and petty, caring and crude, generous and petulant, bluntly honest and calculatingly devious--all within the same few minutes. We saw his determination to succeed run over or around whoever or whatever got in his way. As allies and enemies alike slumped in exhaustion, we saw how LBJ's relentless zeal produced second, third and fourth bursts of energy--to mount a massive social revolution that gave new hope to the disadvantaged. As he did so, he often created a record that Machiavelli might not only recognize, but also envy. To him, the enormous popularity of his unprecedented landslide victory, and every event during his presidency--triumphant or tragic--were opportunities to give the most vulnerable among us a fair shot of the nation's abundant blessings. We saw these things. But somehow the world beyond--and even the people of his own party--seem not to see. Throughout this year, and last week in endorsing Barack Obama, John Edwards made reducing poverty a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. Yet he never mentioned Lyndon Johnson, the first--and only--President ever to declare war on poverty and sharply reduce it. A few weeks ago in his eloquent victory speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, Barack Obama followed a familiar pattern of omission. In recounting the achievements of previous Democratic presidents, he mentioned the pantheon of FDR, Harry Truman, JFK--but not LBJ. Not Lyndon Johnson--not the man who would be proudest of Barack Obama's candidacy and what it says about America, the president uniquely responsible for the laws that gave this man (and millions of others) the opportunity to develop and display his talents and gave this nation the opportunity to benefit from them. Earlier in the campaign, when Hillary Clinton publicly noted that ``it took a President'' to translate Martin Luther King's moral protests into public laws, she broke the taboo and mentioned President Johnson. The New York Times promptly rebuked her in an editorial for daring to speak that name-- and instantly things went back to normal: Lyndon Johnson was put back in his place as the invisible President of the twentieth century. The reason, of course, goes back to Vietnam. The tragedy of Vietnam has created a dark cloud obscuring the full picture of Lyndon Johnson's presidency. Without downplaying in any way the tragedy of the Vietnam war, I am convinced that to make Lyndon Johnson the invisible President--particularly for Democrats to indulge such amnesia as politically correct--is unfair not so much to him, but to our nation and its future. Why? Because if we make Lyndon Johnson's whole presidency invisible--if we are unable or unwilling to speak his name-- we become less able to talk about the lasting achievements of this nation's progressive tradition--a tradition that spans both parties over the last century. If we are unable or unwilling to see this President, we break the chain of history and deny our people an understanding of the remarkable resilience of progressive tradition from Theodore Roosevelt, through Woodrow Wilson. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, Harry Truman's Fair Deal and John Kennedy's New Frontier, to Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Of even greater danger to our nation, by making the presidency of Lyndon Johnson invisible, we lose key lessons for our democracy: courage counts and government can work-- and it can work to the benefit of the least among us in ways that enhance the well-being of all of us. Think about this: Americans under 40 have seen in Washington only governments that were anti-government, corrupt, mired in scandal, inept, gridlocked, driven by polls, favored the rich and powerful, or tied in knots by Lilliputian lobbyists and partisan bickering. Talk to many Americans today about Washington and they're likely to say: it doesn't work; it doesn't care; it doesn't understand my problems; the special interests control it. Tell an American that Washington can work, it can help them, and they react like doubting Thomas: I won't believe it till I see it. That's the political reality of our skeptical times: seeing is believing. So as we begin our observance of this centennial in this critical political year, here is the question: Do we want to rekindle support for progressive ideas, for a modem progressive movement? If so, if we hope to restore belief in a government that serves and lifts up the many as well as the few, if we want to make government work again, then we must see our history more clearly and tell it more completely. We must see the full vision and achievement of Lyndon Johnson's presidency, the domestic revolution that he not only conceived, but carried out. Failure to do so not only distorts our past, it short changes our future. For there is a connection between seeing and believing--and also between seeing and achieving. We live in an era of political micro-achievement. In recent years, it is considered an accomplishment when a President persuades Congress to pass one bill, or a few, over an entire administration: one welfare reform; one No Child Left Behind. Partisan attacks and political ambition choke our airways, not reports of legislation passed or problems solved. What a contrast. In those tumultuous Great Society years, the President submitted, and Congress enacted, more than one hundred major proposals in each of the 89th and 90th Congresses. In those years of do-it-now optimism, presidential speeches were about distributing prosperity more fairly, reshaping the balance between the consumer and big business, rebuilding entire cities, eliminating poverty, hunger and discrimination in our nation. And when the speeches ended, action followed, problems were tackled, ameliorated and solved. This nation did reduce poverty. We did broaden opportunity for college and jobs. We did outlaw segregation and discrimination in housing. We did guarantee the right to vote to all. We did improve health and prosperity for older Americans. We did put the environment on the national agenda. When Lyndon Johnson took office, only eight percent of Americans held college degrees; by the end of 2006, twenty- eight percent had completed college. His Higher Education legislation with its scholarships, grants and work-study programs opened college to any American with the necessary brains and ambition, however empty the family purse. Since 1965 the federal government has provided more than 360 billion dollars to provide 166 million grants, loans and work study awards to college students. Today six out of ten college students receive federal financial aid under Great Society programs and their progeny. Below the college level, LBJ passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, for the first time committing the federal government to help local schools. By last year, that program had infused 552 billion dollars into elementary and high schools. He anticipated the needs of Hispanics and other immigrants with bilingual education, which today serves four million children in some 40 languages. His special education law has helped millions of children with learning disabilities. Then there is Head Start, To date, more than 24 million pre-schoolers have been through Head Start programs in nearly every city and county in the nation. Head Start today serves one million children a year. If LBJ had not established the federal government's responsibility to finance this educational surge, would we have the trained human resources today to function in a fiercely competitive global economy? Would we have developed the technology that leads the world's computing and communications revolution? Seeing is believing. In 1964, most elderly Americans had no health insurance. Few retirement plans provided any such coverage. The poor had little access to medical treatment until they were in critical condition, Only wealthier Americans could get the finest care, and then only by traveling to a few big cities like Boston or New York. Consider the changes Johnson wrought. Since 1965, some 112 million Americans have been covered by Medicare; in 2006, 43 million were enrolled. In 1967, Medicaid served 10 million poor citizens; in 2006, it served 63 million people. The program is widely regarded as the key factor in reducing infant mortality by seventy-five percent--from 26 deaths for each 1,000 live births when Johnson took office to less than seven per 1,000 live births in 2004. The Heart, Cancer and Stroke legislation has provided funds to create centers of medical excellence in just about every major city--from Seattle to Houston, Miami to Cleveland, Atlanta to Minneapolis. To staff these centers, the Health Professions Educational Assistance Act provided resources to double the number of doctors graduating from medical schools and increase the pool of specialists, researchers, nurses and paramedics. Without these programs and Great Society investments in the National Institutes of Health, would our nation be the world's leader in medical research? In pharmaceutical invention? In creation of surgical procedures and medical machinery to diagnose our diseases, breathe for us, clean our blood, transplant our organs, scan our brains? In the discovery of ingenious prosthetic devices that enable so many of our severely wounded soldiers to function independently? Seeing is believing. Closely related to LBJ's Great Society health programs were his initiatives to reduce malnutrition and hunger. Today, the Food Stamp program helps feed some 27 million men, women and children in 12 million households. The School Breakfast program has served more than 30 billion breakfasts to needy children. Seeing is believing. It is not too much to say that Lyndon Johnson's programs created a stunning recasting of America's demographic profile. When President Johnson took office, life expectancy was 66.6 years for men and 73.1 years for women. Forty years later, by 2004, life expectancy had stretched to 75 years for men and 80 years for women. The jump was most dramatic among poor citizens--suggesting that better nutrition and access to [[Page 10133]] health care have played an even larger role than medical advances. For almost half a century, the nation's immigration laws established restrictive and discriminatory quotas that favored blond and blue-eyed Western Europeans. With the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, LBJ scrapped that quota system and put substance behind the Statue of Liberty's welcoming words, ``Give me your tired your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'' This Great Society legislation refreshed our nation with the revitalizing energies of immigrants from southern and Eastern Europe, south of the border, Asia and Africa, converting America into the most multi-cultural nation in the history of the world and uniquely positioning our population for the Twenty-First century world of new economic powers. In the year before Immigration reform was passed, only 2,600 immigrants were admitted from Africa, less than 25,000 from Asia and 105,000 from Central and South America. With the lifting of the quotas, in 2006, 110,000 immigrants were admitted from Africa, more than 400,000 from Asia and 525,000 from Central and South America. I can't see LBJ eating at an Ethiopian or Sushi restaurant, but I can see him tapping into the intellectual acumen, diversity and energy of this new wave of immigrants. Seeing is believing. Lyndon Johnson put civil rights and social justice squarely before the nation as a moral issue. Recalling his year as a teacher of poor Mexican children in Cotulla, Texas, he once told Congress, ``It never even occurred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and daughters of those students and to help people like them all over this country. But now I do have that chance--and I'll let you in on a secret--I mean to use it.'' And use it he did. He used it to make Washington confront the needs of the nation as no president before or since has. With the 1964 Civil Rights Act Johnson tore down, all at once, the ``Whites only'' signs and social system that featured segregated hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, toilets and water fountains, and rampant job discrimination. The following year he proposed the Voting Rights Act. When it passed in the summer of 1965, Martin Luther King told Johnson, ``You have created a second emancipation.'' The President replied, ``The real hero is the American Negro.'' How I wish that Lyndon Johnson were alive today to see what his laws have wrought--especially the Voting Rights Act that he considered the most precious gem among the Great Society jewels. In 1964 there were 79 black elected officials in the South and 300 in the entire nation. By 2001 (the latest information available) there were some 10,000 elected black officials across the nation, more than 6,000 of them in the South. In 1965 there were five black members of the House; today there are 42 and the black member of the Senate is headed for the Democratic presidential nomination. Seeing is believing. But LBJ knew that laws were not enough. Thus was born the concept of affirmative action. Johnson's conviction that it is essential as a matter of social justice to provide the tutoring, the extra help, even the preference if necessary, to those who had suffered generations of discrimination in order to give them a fair chance to share in the American dream. LBJ set the pace personally. He appointed the first black Supreme Court Justice (Thurgood Marshall), the first black cabinet officer (Robert Weaver) and the first black member of the Federal Reserve Board (Andrew Britmmer). He knew that if executives and institutions across the private sector saw qualified blacks succeeding in positions of high responsibility, barriers across America would fall--because for them, he knew, seeing was believing. Less known, and largely ignored, was Johnson's similar campaign to place women in top government positions. The tapes reveal him hectoring cabinet officers to place women in top jobs. He created what one feminist researcher called in her book, Women, Work and National Policy, ``An affirmative action reporting system for women, surely the first of its kind . . . in the White House. . . .'' LBJ proposed and signed legislation to provide, for the first time, equal opportunity in promotions for women in the Armed Forces. Signing the bill in 1967, Johnson noted, ``The bill does not create any female generals or female admirals--but it does make that possible. There is no reason why we should not someday have a female chief of staff or even a female Commander in Chief.'' LBJ had his heart in his War on Poverty. Though he found the opposition too strong to pass an income maintenance law, he took advantage of the biggest ATM around: Social Security. He proposed, and Congress enacted, whopping increases in the minimum benefit. That change alone lifted 2.5 million Americans 65 and over above the poverty line. Today, Social Security keeps some thirteen million senior citizens above the poverty line. Many scholars look at Social Security and that increase. Medicare and the coverage of nursing home care under Medicaid (which funds care for more than 64 percent of nursing home residents) as the most significant social programs of the Twentieth Century. Seeing is believing. Johnson's relationship with his pet project--the Office of Economic Opportunity--was that of a proud father often irritated by an obstreperous child- For years conservatives have ranted about the OEO programs. Yet Johnson's War on Poverty was founded on the most conservative principle: put the power in the local community, not in Washington; give people at the grassroots the ability to walk off the public dole. Today, as we celebrate LBJ's 100th anniversary some forty years after he left office, eleven of the twelve programs that OEO launched are alive, well and funded at an annual rate exceeding eleven billion dollars. Head Stan, Job Corps, Community Health Centers, Foster Grandparents. Upward Bound (now part of the Trio Program in the Department of Education), Green Thumb (now Senior Community Service Employment), Indian Opportunities (now in the Labor Department), and Migrant Opportunities (now Seasonal Worker Training and Migrant Education) are all helping people stand on their own two feet. Community Action (now the Community Service Block Grant program), VISTA Volunteers and Legal Services are putting power in the hands of individuals--down at the grassroots. The grassroots that these programs fertilize just don't produce the manicured laws that conservatives prefer. Of all the Great Society programs started in the Office of Economic Opportunity, only the Neighborhood Youth Corps has been abandoned--in 1974, after enrolling more than 5 million individuals. Ronald Reagan quipped that Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty and poverty won. He was wrong. When LBJ took office, 22.2 percent of Americans were living in poverty. When he left five years later, only 13 percent were living below the poverty line--the greatest one-time reduction in poverty in our nation's history. Seeing is believing. Since Lyndon Johnson left the White House, no president has been able to effect any significant reductions in poverty. In 2006 the poverty level stood at 12.3 percent. Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign has promised to create a cabinet level poverty czar in her administration. In the administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the President was the poverty czar. Theodore Roosevelt launched the modern environmental movement by setting aside public lands and national parks and giving voice to conservation leaders like Gifford Pinchot. If Teddy Roosevelt launched the movement, Lyndon Johnson drove it forward more than any later President--and in the process, in 1965, he introduced an entirely new concept of conservation: ``We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction;'' he said, ``we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities. Our conservation must be not just the classic conservation of protection and development, but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation.'' That new environmental commandment spelled out the first inconvenient truth: that those who reap the rewards of modem technology must also pay the price of their industrial pollution. It inspired a legion of Great Society laws: the Clean Air, Water Quality and Clean Water Restoration Acts and Amendments, the 1965 Solid Waste Disposal Act, the 1965 Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act, the 1968 Aircraft Noise Abatement Act. It also provided the rationale for later laws creating the Environmental Protection Agency and the Superfund. Johnson created 35 National Parks, 32 within easy driving distance of large cities. The 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act today protects 165 river segments in 38 states and Puerto Rico. The 1968 National Trail System Act has established more than 1,000 recreation, scenic and historic trails covering close to 55,000 miles. No wonder National Geographic calls Lyndon Johnson ``our greatest conservation president.'' Seeing is believing. These were major areas of concentration for Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, but there were many others. Indeed, looking back, the sweep of this President's achievements is breathtaking. Those of us who worked with Lyndon Johnson would hardly consider him a patron of the arts. I can't even remember him sitting through more than ten or fifteen minutes of a movie in the White House theatre, much less listening to an operatic aria or classical symphony. Yet the historian Irving Bernstein. in his book on The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson, titles a chapter. ``Lyndon Johnson, Patron of the Arts.'' Think about it. What would cultural life in America be like without the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where each year two million visitors view performances that millions more watch on television, or without the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden that attracts 750,000 visitors annually? Both are Great Society initiatives. The National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities are fulfilling a dream Johnson [[Page 10134]] expressed when he asked Congress to establish them and, for the first time, to provide federal financial support for the Arts to increase ``the access of our people to the works of our artists, and [recognize] the arts as part of the pursuit of American greatness.'' LBJ used to say that he wanted fine theater and music available throughout the nation and not just on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In awarding more than 130,000 grants totaling more than four billion dollars since 1965, the Endowment for the Arts has spawned art councils in all 50 states and more than 1,400 professional theater companies, 120 opera companies, 600 dance companies and 1,800 professional orchestras. Since 1965, the Endowment for the Humanities has awarded 65,000 fellowships and grants totaling more than four billion dollars. Johnson established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to create public television and public radio which have given the nation countless hours of fine arts, superb in-depth news coverage, and programs like ``Sesame Street'' and ``Masterpiece Theater.'' Now some say there is no need for public radio and television, with so many cable channels and radio stations. But as often as you surf with your TV remote or twist your radio dial, you are not likely to find the kind of quality broadcasting that marks the more than 350 public television and nearly 700 public radio stations that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting supports today. They, as well as the rest of the media, have been helped by the Freedom of Information Act, the Great Society's contribution to greater transparency in government. Seeing is believing. So is listening. For urban America, LBJ drove through Congress the Urban Mass Transit Act, which gave San Franciscans BART, Washingtonians Metro, Atlantans MARTA, and cities across America thousands of buses and modernized transit systems. His 1968 Housing Act, creation of Ginnie Mae, privatization of Fannie Mae and establishment of the Department of Housing and Urban Development have helped some 75 million families gain access to affordable housing. In the progressive tradition in which Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt confronted huge financial and corporate enterprises, Johnson faced a nationalization of commercial power that had the potential to disadvantage the individual American consumer. Super-corporations were shoving aside the corner grocer, local banker, independent drug store and family farmer. Automobiles were complex and dangerous, manufactured by giant corporations with deep pockets to protect themselves. Banks had the most sophisticated accountants and lawyers to draft their loan agreements. Sellers of everyday products--soaps, produce, meats, appliances, clothing, cereal and canned and frozen foods-- packaged their products with the help of the shrewdest marketers and designers. The individual was outflanked at every position. Seeing that mismatch, Johnson pushed through Congress a bevy of laws to level the playing filed for consumers: Auto and highway safety for the motorist a Department of Transportation and National Transportation Safety Board; truth in packaging for the housewife; truth in lending for the homebuyer, small businessman and individual borrower; wholesome meat and wholesome poultry laws to enhance food safety; the Flammable Fabrics Act to reduce the incendiary characteristics of clothing and blankets. He created the Product Safety Commission to assure that toys and other products would be safe for users. When he got over his annoyance that it took him five minutes to find me in the emergency room of George Washington University Hospital, with my three year old son Joe who had swallowed a bottle of aspirin, he proposed the Child Safety Act which is why we all have such difficulty opening up medicine bottles. Seeing is believing. By the numbers the legacy of Lyndon Johnson is monumental. It exceeds in domestic impact even the New Deal of his idol Franklin Roosevelt. It sets him at the cutting edge of the nation's progressive tradition. But there is also an important story behind these programs that speaks to the future--that offers the lessons of what it takes to be an effective President. What lessons does this President have for our nation and his successors, especially those who value the progressive tradition? First, Lyndon Johnson was a genuine, true believing revolutionary. His Texas constituency and the tactical constraints of his earlier offices reined him in before he became President. But his experiences--teaching poor Mexican American children in Corolla, Texas, working as Texas director of Roosevelt's National Youth Administration, witnessing the indignities that his black cook, Zephyr Wright, and her husband Gene Williams, suffered during his senate years when they drove from Washington to Texas through the segregated south--fueled his revolutionary spirit. He saw racial justice as a moral issue. He refused to accept pockets of poverty in the richest nation in history. He saw a nation so hell bent on industrial growth and amassing wealth that greed threatened to destroy its natural resources. He saw cities deteriorating and municipal political machines unresponsive to the early migration of Hispanics and the masses of blacks moving north. To him government was neither a bad man to be tarred and feathered nor a bag man to collect campaign contributions. To him government was not a bystander, hoping wealth and opportunity might trickle down to the least among us. To LBJ, government was a mighty wrench to open the fountain of opportunity so that everyone could bathe in the shower of our nation's blessings. He wanted his government to provide the poor with the kind of education, health and social support that most of us get from our parents. Second, Lyndon Johnson was perpetually impatient, relentlessly restless, always in a hurry. Andrew Marvell's words could have been written for him: ``But at my back I always hear/Time's winged chariot, hurrying near.'' Lyndon Johnson saw himself in a desperate race against time as he fought to remedy the damage slavery and generations of prejudice had inflicted on black Americans. Why? Because he feared that, once black Americans sensed the prospect of a better life, the discrimination they had once accepted as inevitable would become intolerable; they would erupt--and, subvert their own cause. ``Hell,'' he said to me during some of those eruptions, ``Sometimes when I think of what they've been through, I don't blame them.'' He saw himself in a race against time as he sized up Congress, political reality and attitudes of affluent Americans. LBJ knew that he must use--now!--the sympathy generated by John Kennedy's assassination and the huge margin of his own election victory in 1964. He knew that his political capital--no matter how gigantic in the early days of his presidency--was a dwindling asset. Third, Lyndon Johnson was a man of extraordinary courage. For me the greatest price our nation pays for our collective blindness is this: By rendering LBJ invisible we lose sight, for the future, of how much a truly courageous political leader can accomplish. Sure, LBJ had the politician's hunger to be loved. But, more than that, he had the courage to fall on his sword if that's what it took to move the nation forward. He did just that when, in an extraordinary act of abnegation, he withdrew from the political arena to calm the roiling seas of strife and end the war in Vietnam. To me no greater example of Presidential political courage exists than Lyndon Johnson's commitment in the area of civil rights. He fought for racial equality even when it hurt him and clobbered his party in the South. After signing the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Johnson was defeated in five southern states, four of them states that Democrats had not lost for 80 years. Still he kept on. In 1965 he drove the Voting Rights Act through Congress. In 1966, he proposed the Fair Housing Act to end discrimination in housing. His proposal prompted the most vitriolic mail we received at the White House, and Congress refused to act on the bill that year. In the November 1966 mid-term elections, the Democrats lost a whopping forty-seven seats in the House and three in the Senate. Border and southern state governors met with the President at his ranch in December. In a nasty assault on his civil rights policies, they demanded that he withdraw his fair housing proposal and curb his efforts to desegregate schools. Undeterred, in 1968, he drove the Fair Housing Act through the senate--tragically it took Dr. King's assassination to give Johnson the leverage he needed to convince the House to pass it. You have to see political courage like that to believe it. I was fortunate to see it close up. I want our people and future leaders to be able to see it. Fourth, Lyndon Johnson knew how to use power. Johnson married his revolutionary zeal, impatience and courage to a phenomenal sense of how to use power skillfully--to exploit a mandate, to corral votes, to reach across the aisle in order to move this nation, its people and the Congress forward. Lyndon Johnson felt entitled to every lever, to help from every person, every branch of government, every business, labor and religious leader. After all. as he often reminded us, he was the only President we had. He had no inhibitions in reaching out for advice, ideas, talent, power, support. He often saw traditions of separation of powers. or an independent press, or a profit-minded corporate executive, as obstacles, to be put aside in deference to the greater national interest as he defined it. He was brilliantly opportunistic, calling upon the nation and the Congress in the wake of even the most horrific tragedies--the assassinations of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King--to bring a new measure of social justice to all Americans. He knew how to harness the power of the protestors and the media to tap into the inherent fairness of the American people. He asked Martin Luther King in January 1965 to help with the Voting Rights Act by ``getting your leaders and you yourself . . . . to find the worst condition [of voting discrimination] that you run into in Alabama . . . . and [[Page 10135]] get it on radio, get it on television, get it on--in the pulpits, get it in the meetings, get it every place you can . . . . and then that will help us on what we are going to shove through in the end.'' He loved King's choice of Selma, Alabama. He knew, as he told Dr. King, that when the American people saw the unfairness of the voting practices there, they would come around to supporting his bill. And they did. He offers a defining lesson in the importance of mustering bipartisan support. These Great Society proposals were cutting edge, controversial initiatives and LBJ assiduously courted Republican members of congress to support them. His instructions to us on the White House staff were to accord Senate Republican minority leader Everett Dirksen and House minority leader Gerald Ford the same courtesies we extended to Senate Majority leader Mike Mansfield and House Speaker John McCormack. It was not only that he needed Republican votes to pass bills like the civil rights, health, education and consumer laws: he saw bipartisan support as an essential foundation on which to build lasting commitment among the American people. He knew that the endurance of his legislative achievements, and their enthusiastic acceptance by state and local governments, powerful private interests and individual citizens across the nation, required such bipartisan support. He didn't accomplish all he wanted. He called ``the welfare system in America outmoded and in need of major change'' and pressed Congress to create ``a work incentive program, incentives for earning, day care for children, child and maternal health and family planning services.'' He saw the threat posed by the spread of guns and proposed national registration of all gulls and national licensing of all gun owners. Congress rejected his proposals. But he did convince Capitol Hill to close the loophole of mail order guns, prohibit sales to minors, and end the import of Saturday night specials. He tried, unsuccessfully, to get expand Medicare to cover pre-natal care and children through age six, and used to say, ``If we can get that, future presidents and Congresses can close the gap between six and sixty-five.'' He spotted the ``for sale'' signs of political corruption going up in the nation's capital and called for public financing of campaigns. Our nation and its leaders pay a heavy price when such a towering figure--among the most towering political figures of American history--becomes at the same time America's invisible president. In this year, when for the first time in our history a black American is a leading candidate for the Presidency, when so many domestic issues dominating the campaign--access to health care, persistent poverty amidst such plenty, affordable higher education, effective public schools, environmental protection--are issues LBJ put on the national government's agenda, it is time to see the full measure of this President. Too many lessons of his presidency have been ignored because the Democratic party, the academic elite, political analysts and the mainstream media have made him the invisible president. In this troubled time, when political pollsters and consultants parse the positions of candidates for public office, Johnson's exceptional courage on civil rights should be a shining example for a new generation of political leaders. His recognition of the significance of bipartisan support for controversial--but needed--domestic initiatives, and his ability to muster such support, should be studied by politicians and citizens who seek to change the world. His unique ability to make Washington work. to nourish and maintain partnerships between the Executive and the Congress, the public and private sectors, and to focus the people on critical needs like racial justice and eliminating poverty demonstrate ``Yes, we can!'' to skeptical citizens who have never seen Washington get it done. It's time to take off the Vietnam blinders and let our eyes look at and learn from the domestic dimension of this presidency. Let everyone think what they will about Vietnam. But let us--especially Democrats--also recognize the reality of this revolutionary's remarkable achievements. It is encouraging to me that some of Johnson's severest anti-war critics have begun the call for recognition of the greatness of his presidency. Listen to the words of George McGovern who ran for president in 1972 on an anti-war platform and maintains that ``The Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations were all wrong on Vietnam:'' ``It would be a historic tragedy if [LBJ's] outstanding domestic record remained forever obscured by his involvement in a war he did not begin and did not know how to stop.. . . . Johnson did more than any other president to advance civil rights, education and housing, to name just three of his concerns. . . . '' `` The late John Kenneth Galbraith, another leading critic of the Vietnam War, has called for ``historical reconsideration'' of the Johnson presidency: ``In the New Deal ethnic equality was only on the public conscience; in the Kennedy presidency it was strongly urged by Martin Luther King and many others. . . . It was with Lyndon Johnson, however, that citizenship for all Americans in all its aspects became a reality. . . . On civil rights and on poverty, the two truly urgent issues of the time, we had with Johnson the greatest changes of our time. . . . The initiatives of Lyndon Johnson on civil rights, voting rights and on economic and social deprivation. . . . must no longer be enshrouded by that [Vietnam] war.'' And listen to Robert Caro, LBJ's most meticulous and demanding biographer: ``In the twentieth century, with its eighteen American presidents, Lyndon Johnson was the greatest champion that black Americans and Mexican Americans, and indeed all Americans of color, had in the White House, the greatest champion they had in all the halls of government. With the single exception of Lincoln, he was the greatest champion with a white skin that they had in the history of the Republic. He was . . . the lawmaker for the poor and the downtrodden and the oppressed . . . . the President who wrote mercy and justice into the statute books by which America was governed.'' Historian David McCullough has said that the threshold test of greatness in a president is whether he is willing to risk his presidency for what he believes. LBJ passes that test with flying colors. It's time for all of us to give his presidency the high marks it deserves. Lyndon Johnson died 36 years ago in 1972. But his legacy endures. It endures in the children in Head Start programs in hamlets across our nation, in the expanded opportunities for millions of blacks, Hispanics and other minorities. It endures in the scholarships and loans that enable the poorest students to attend the finest universities. His legacy endures in the health care for the poor and the elderly that are woven into the fabric of American life. It endures in the public radio stations millions of drivers listen to as they drive to and from work. It endures in the cleaner air we breathe, in the local theatres and symphonies supported by the National Endowments, in the safer cars we drive and safer toys our children play with. Seeing is believing. That legacy also endures--let us remember--in the unfinished business of our nation's long progressive movement that he pressed so impatiently for us to finish. LBJ knew that movement could be stalled, but he knew that it must never be stopped. So, over these few days, as we look back and celebrate this centennial, let us also look forward and let us inspire others to see clearly and fully. Because seeing is not only believing; seeing has everything to do with achieving. ____ Seeing Is Believing: The Enduring Legacy of LBJ With these acts President Johnson and Congress wrote a record of hope and opportunity for America 1963 College Facilities, Clean Air, Vocational Education, Indian Vocational Training, Manpower Training. 1964 Inter-American Development Bank, Kennedy Cultural Center, Tax Reduction, Farm Program, Pesticide Controls, International Development Association, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Water Resources Research. War on Poverty, Criminal Justice, Truth-in-Securities, Food Stamps, Housing Act, Wilderness Areas, Nurse Training, Library Services. 1965 Medicare, Medicaid, Elementary and Secondary Education, Higher Education, Bilingual Education, Departent of Housing and Urban Development, Housing Act, Voting Rights. Immigration Reform Law, Older Americans, Heart, Cancer, Stroke Program, Law Enforcement Assistance, Drug Controls, Mental Health Facilities, Health Professions, Medical Libraries. Vocational Rehabilitation, Anti-Poverty Program, Arts and Humanities Foundation, Aid to Appalachia, Highway Beauty, Clean Air, Water Pollution Control, High Speed Transit. Manpower Training, Child Health, Community Health Services, Water Resources Council, Water Desalting, Juvenile Delinquency Control, Arms Control, Affirmative Action. 1966 Child Nutrition, Department of Transportaton, Truth in Packaging, Model Cities, Rent Supplements, Teahers Corp, Asian Development Bank, Clean Rivers. Food for Freedom, Child Safety, Narcotics Rehabilitation, Traffic Safety, Highway Safety, Mine Safety, International Education, Bail Reform. Auto Safety, Tire Safety, New GI Bill, Minimum Wage Increase, Urban Mass Transit, Civil Procedure Reform, Fish- Wildlife Preservation, Water for Peace. Anti-Inflation Program, Scientific Knowledge Exchange, Protection for Savings, Freedom of Information, Hirshhorn Museum. 1967 Education Professions, Education Act, Air Pollution Control, Partnership for Health, [[Page 10136]] Social Security Increases, Age Discrimination, Wholesome Meat, Flammable Fabrics. Urban Reserch, Public Broadcasting, Outer Space Treaty, Modern D.C. Government, Federal Judicial Center, Deaf-Blind Center, College Work Study, Summer Youth Programs. Food Stamps, Urban Fellowships, Safety at Sea Treaty, Narcotics Treaty, Anti-Racketeering, Product Safety Commission, Inter-American Bank. 1968 Fair Housing, Indian Bill of Rights, Safe Streets, Wholesome Poultry, Community Exchange Rules, School Breakfasts, Truth-in-Lending, Aircraft Noise Abatement. New Narcotics Bureau, Gas Pipeline Safety, Fire Safety, Sea Grant Colleges, Tax Surcharge, Housing Act, International Monetary Reform, Fair Federal Juries. Juvenile Delinquency Prevention, Guaranteed Student Loans, Health Manpower, Gun Controls, Aid-to-Handicapped Children, Heart, Cancer and Stroke Programs, Hazardous Radiation Protection, Scenic Rivers. Scenic Trails, National Water Commission, Vocational Education, Dangerous Drug Control, Military Justics Code, Tax Surcharge. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized. Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I see the arrival of my seatmate, a great friend, Robert C. Byrd, and with permission, I would like to speak for about 2 minutes, if that is all right. I know he has some important words. Before he leaves the floor, I wish to commend my colleague from Iowa, Tom Harkin. Tom and I arrived in the Congress together 34 years ago in January of 1973. I have listened to him give eloquent speeches but none better than the one he just gave regarding Lyndon Johnson--not only the importance of the man but the importance of his work and what a better country we are today. We are not that more perfect union yet, but we are getting there. One major step in that direction was created by Lyndon Johnson and a guy by the name of Tom Harkin who has carried on that tradition as well. So he would be very proud of you. I thank the Senator from Iowa for his remarks this morning. I have some brief thoughts before deferring to my seatmate and dear friend, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia. Let me just say to all, we often reflect on the impact this institution has had on the United States, on our beloved country. But on this day, I think we cannot help but consider the impact certain Americans have had on this institution and on our great Republic. At this moment, we reflect not on legislative accomplishments, which are Herculean, as Senator Harkin has identified--appropriately so, and with great eloquence--or even how that might have changed the fabric of our country--it certainly did--but, rather, on the strength of character required by those who made such achievements possible. I wish to join my colleagues and others here today reflecting upon and paying tribute to one of this great institution's most revered figures on this centennial anniversary of his birth: the former Senate majority leader, the 35th President of this body and the 36th President of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Emerson wrote that: None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper, which is heard by him alone. If that is true, then when the whisper traveled through the winds sweeping across the Pedernales River in the plains of central Texas, Lyndon Johnson must have been listening carefully, indeed. I think we all believe that a society such as ours should aspire to greatness, aspire to that more perfect union our forefathers envisioned. But Lyndon Johnson understood something else of what was required of leaders to get us there: the importance of building alliances, however unorthodox; the ability to find agreement, even with those whom we most disagree with; and perhaps most importantly, Lyndon Baines Johnson recognized that this institution could achieve the most remarkable of things if its Members were willing to do the kind of work that more often than not was decidedly unremarkable. It was his Herculean skills in the legislative arena, of course, honed on this very floor and in these Halls, that proved such a complement to the wonderful rhetorical flourishes of those who identified the great goals we must achieve. But armed with his skills-- his maneuvering, his understanding of his fellow Members, of what they could tolerate, what they could agree with, how far they could move-- Lyndon Johnson was able, in his very hands, to mold the successful results of which Tom Harkin spoke so eloquently. In the absence of that ability, a lot of these achievements would have been nothing more than rhetorical flourishes. It took the brilliance of a legislator--not unlike the skills of the gentleman who sits next to me here this morning, Robert C. Byrd--to be able to fashion and create the very legislative achievements we talk about. Indeed, it is often said that it took the hardscrabble southerner from Texas to broker a Civil Rights Act. I don't know of anyone who would disagree with that or with the long litany of legislative achievements Tom Harkin has identified. But I think it does in a sense a disservice to just identify what was perhaps Lyndon Johnson's greatest skill, and that was moving a political body reluctant to change, as most political bodies are. To be sure, I would be remiss if I were not to mention my father's relationship with Lyndon Johnson as well. I sit at the desk my father occupied in this body for the more than 10 years he served here. But that relationship went back a lot longer than their years here. My father, as a young law school graduate at the outset of the New Deal, became the first State Director of the National Youth Administration in 1933, and Lyndon Johnson was a young man beginning his career in Texas politics and was running a similar program in that State. Their relationship started in the 1930s and blossomed during their years in public service in this very institution. I am sort of a creature of this place, in many ways, having grown up here. I was a mere child of 8 when my father came to Congress in 1952, and then to the Senate in 1959, with my seat-mate, Senator Byrd. I sat in the family gallery in 1959 and watched him take the oath of office. Three years later, I sat on the floor, dressed like these young men and women, as a Senate page and watched Lyndon Johnson maneuver through this building. In those days, there were no television cameras or microphones that can carry your voice through the halls of this room and beyond. I would watch Lyndon Johnson at this table in front of me here. Members would gather around because you could not hear everything he said--intentionally, I might add, as he was careful that not everything he said was necessarily heard by everyone about the schedule of the Senate, or he may have been talking about achievements that were made. I was here for some of the all-night sessions when the civil rights debates were going on. I developed friendships, which I still hold today, with the other young pages I worked with in those early days. Lyndon Johnson and my father and Lady Bird and my mother had a great relationship. I have shared with Lynda, Luci, and their families that I remember vividly Mrs. Johnson being at our home. My mother and she would meet with Mercedes Douglas, Justice Douglas's wife, to practice Spanish together. They had a great relationship over the years. I remember vividly, as well, President Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson hosting a surprise wedding anniversary party for my parents at a restaurant here in Washington one evening, as they celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary. So there are family ties that run long and deep. I remember in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson very graciously invited my father and Hubert Humphrey to come to the White House on the eve of the Vice Presidential nomination in Atlantic City. There was no doubt that Humphrey would be the choice, but it was the gracious act of a President to recognize a friendship he had with this young man from Connecticut, going back to the 1930s, that he invited him to be part of that raising the expectation that he might be chosen as a Vice Presidential running mate for Lyndon Johnson. My father seconded Johnson's nomination in 1960 when I was a page, as well, and watching history unfold. [[Page 10137]] So it is with great joy that I come to the floor this morning to celebrate a remarkable life that made a huge difference. When students ask us--as they oftentimes do--``can any one person make a difference in the life of other people?'' you need look no further than the initials LBJ. It is a story of how one individual, as Tom Harkin said, born in the hardscrabble territory of central Texas, grew up and served in this body, managed this institution, produced the results he did, and became President of a country that allowed us to achieve the great achievements of the 1960s. We are all beneficiaries of Lyndon Johnson's legacy. It is highly appropriate, not only today, this week, or in the year of this centennial anniversary, and with great frequency, to remind the young people sitting here today as pages that these great achievements didn't happen miraculously. They weren't given out with a gracious heart of those who fought. They were won in hard-fought battles that produced these results. Our generation, your generation, will have to fight hard, too, to make sure we are going to achieve good things and learn the lessons of Lyndon Johnson--how hard he fought to make a difference in his country and in the world in which we live. I am honored to be joining those who today celebrate the life, celebrate an achievement our country benefited from, and as long as we survive as a republic, the legacy of Lyndon Baines Johnson. It is a great moment that we ought to remember and cherish for years and years to come. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from West Virginia is recognized. Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, today the Senate marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lyndon Baines Johnson. The Senate has changed much, in a sense; in another sense, it has changed little since the days when Senator and Majority Leader Johnson strode through these halls and presided over this great body. I was fortunate to serve with Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson. I was fortunate to serve with President Lyndon B. Johnson. And although most Americans remember Lyndon B. Johnson in his role as President of the United States, it is as majority leader and Senator that I especially recall Lyndon B. Johnson. As I noted upon his death in 1973: In his heart, [he] was a man of the Senate. He had a deep and abiding faith in this body, and its place in the past and the future history of this Republic. It is, therefore, most fitting on the centennial of Lyndon Johnson's birth that he be remembered here in this Senate that he loved. Lyndon Baines Johnson was the majority leader when I came to the Senate in 1959, and from my first day in the Senate, and for the next 2 years, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson was a mentor and friend, as well as a leader, to me. At that time, my colleagues, the Senate had a long tradition that a newcomer to the Senate would not be assigned to the more important Senate committees. Yet--hear this, my colleagues-- Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson placed me on the Appropriations Committee, even though there were several other more senior Members who coveted a position on that prestigious committee. The rest, as they say, is history, still in the making, because I, Robert C. Byrd, am still on the Appropriations Committee. Whenever I went to Lyndon B. Johnson with problems concerning my State of West Virginia, in every instance Majority Leader Johnson was considerate and, in every instance, Majority Leader Johnson tried to be helpful to me. I acknowledged that support and leadership, not only to me but to the Senate, the Democratic Party, and to our Nation, in an address that I titled ``The Role of the Majority Leader in the Senate,'' given at the end of my first year in the Senate. I pointed out that Senator Johnson was ``the cohesive, the centrifugal force by which the majority is held together.'' When he became Vice President of the United States, I again paid tribute to my former colleague and mentor, declaring that his ``political leadership in the Senate [was] a guide and an inspiration to all of us.'' Amidst tragedy, on November 22, 1963, Lyndon Johnson became President of these United States. His administration achieved many accomplishments, especially in the areas of civil rights and social policy. I believe, however, in the observation I made at the time of Lyndon B. Johnson's death: The years Lyndon Johnson spent in the Senate might well have been the happiest and the most satisfying of his life. Lyndon B. Johnson will long be remembered here 100, even 200, years and more after his birth, for his leadership, his sagacity, his wit, for the sheer enjoyment he derived from working in the Senate, and his obvious love for this body and the great Nation it serves. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Menendez). The clerk will call the roll. The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. REED. Mr. President, this is an opportunity for me to speak about the supplemental appropriations bill, but I would be remiss if I did not recognize the extraordinary life and service of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. I can remember graphically, as a high school student at La Salle Academy in Providence, RI, going down to, at that time recently named, Kennedy Plaza in Providence to see President Johnson in a motorcade on his way to Brown University to deliver a major policy address with, at that time, the senior Senator John O. Pastore. They were both celebrating tremendous legislative accomplishments in education, health care, and civil rights, none of which would have been wrought except by the vision and work of Lyndon Johnson. We are commemorating an extraordinary President, an extraordinary gentleman, someone truly larger than life whose contribution and whose influence is with us today. In fact, many days on this Senate floor, I think our tact is to live up to his ideals and his accomplishments and to make them fresh again in both the heart and spirit of America. I hope on our best days we do that. ____________________