Lyndon Baines Johnson

Lyndon Baines canson, thirty-sixth president of the unite renders (196369), was born in a farmho subprogram on the Pedernales River near Johnson City, Texasi. Johnson grew up amidst p overty. On both sides of his family he had a political hereditary pattern mingled with a Baptist flat coat of preachers and teachers. He graduated (1930) from Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now Southwest Texas State Univ.), in San Marcos. He taught in a Houston high in chill out before becoming (1932) secretary to a Texas coitusman. In 1934 he married Claudia Alta Taylor and they had dickens daughters, Lynda Bird and Luci Baines.A staunch hot bulker, Johnson gained the friendship of the influential Sam Rayburn, at whose behest President Franklin D. Roosevelt made him (1935) director in Texas of the re humankindal Youth Administration. In 1937, Johnson win election to a vacant congressional seat, and he was consistently re- elective through with(predicate) 1946. in spite of Roosev elts survive, however, he was defeated in a special election to the Senate in 1941. He served (194142) in the navy. In 1948, Johnson was elected U.S. Senator from Texas later on winning the Democratic primary by a mere 87 votes.A strong advocate of military preparedness, he persuaded the Armed Services Committee to settle up (1950) the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee. uphill rapidly in the Senate hierarchy, Johnson became (1951) Democratic cudgel and whence (1953) floor attraction. As legal age leader after the 1954 elections he wielded extensive office, exhibiting unusual skill in marsh alling support for President Eisenhowers computer course of studys. He suffered a serious heart attack in 1955 but recovered to continue his senatorial command.Johnson helpless the 1960 Democratic presidential nominating address to John F. Kennedy, but accepted Kennedys stretch of the vice-presidential position. Elected with Kennedy, he energetically supported the Presidents pr ograms, serving as an the Statesn emissary to nations throughout the world and as chairman of the National Aeronautics and shoes Council and of the Presidents Committee on Equal handicraft Opportunities. aft(prenominal) Kennedys assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, Johnson was utter in as president and de none that he would strive to carry through Kennedys programs. intercourse responded to Johnsons skilful prodding by enacting an $11 billion tax know (Jan., 1964) and a sweeping Civil Rights move (July, 1964). With Johnsons insistent backing, Congress finally adopt a far-reaching civil-rights bill, a voting-rights bill, a Medi worry program for the aged, and measures to improve education and conservation. Elected (Nov., 1964) for a full term in a landslide over Senator Barry Goldwater, he pushed severe for his domesticated program.The 89th Congress (196566) produced more major legislative action than any since the radical(a) Deal. During the Johnson Presidency, Medicare and M edicaid were established to provide medical indemnification for those over 65 and those too measly to pay. During the Johnson Administration, the first environmental economy was passed. A bill providing free medical care (Medicare) to the aged under Social protection was enacted, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided new safeguards for African-American voters, and more money went to antipoverty programs.The departments of Transportation and of accommodate and Urban Development were added to the Cabinet. Johnsons domestic achievements were in brief obscured by foreign affairs. Johnsons actions (Feb., 1965) of bombing on North Vietnam aroused widespread enemy in Congress and among the earthly concern and real vigorous anti state of war movement. As the cost of the war shot up, Congress scuttled many of Johnsons domestic programs. After Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy began campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination, Johnson announced (Mar., 1968) that he would not run for reelection. When Johnson retired from means (Jan., 1969), he unexpended the nation bitingly divided by the war. He retired to Texas, where he died ii.In 1964 the American spate seemed to let on overwhelming endorsement to his achievements. His reelection was followed by the far-famed series of legislative victories establishing the with child(p) companythe roughly great dealary domestic program in American history. Conventional wisdom suggests that President Lyndon Baines Johnson pushed each Congress to the barrier to obtain a maximum progeny of controversial legislative victories. Consequently, slim margins were a soundly deal expected and indeed planned for.A get wind Johnson legislative aide, Henry manor hall Wilson, made this point explicitly, When we have a fat Congress as we did in the Eighty-ninth, then we can hike up our demands to fit the situation. When votes are not razor thin in either case, then we are not doing a good jobiii. Johns on used just about everything in his extensive repertory to get Congress moving and excelled.According to Hugh Sidey, During 1965, Johnson would zero in on a congress- man or a senator and get what he wanted, a good deal. He would lie, beg, cheat, steal a little, threaten, intimidate. But he never incapacitated sight of that ultimate goal, his idea of the corking hosteliv. Substantial preparation was required to pick out that the linchpin of the whole system was the treatment, Johnsons individual(prenominal) techniques of political persuasion and political skillv.A slap-up Society for the American plenty and their fellow men elsewhere was the vision of Lyndon B. Johnson. In his first years of confidence he obtained passage of one of the most extensive legislative programs in the Nations history. During humans War II he served curtly in the Navy as a lieutenant commander, winning a fluid Star in the South Pacific. After six terms in the House, Johnson was elected to the Sen ate in 1948. In 1953, he became the youngest nonage Leader in Senate history, and the following year, when the Democrats won control, Majority Leader. With rare skill he obtained passage of a number of key Eisenhower measures.Johnsons Great Society program was designed to fight poverty in the United States. It consisted of a series of legislation, which included the moving in corps, to provide vocational training for deprived youth Volunteers in Service of America (VISTA) a domestic Peace Corps Head Start, to instruct disadvantaged preschoolers, among another(prenominal) programs. The other part of the Great Society program was the passage of civil rights legislation proposed by the Kennedy Administration.In the 1960 campaign, Johnson, as John F. Kennedys running mate, was elected Vice President. starting line he obtained enactment of the measures President Kennedy had been importunity at the time of his deatha new civil rights bill and a tax cut. Next he urged the Nation to bu ild a great society, a place where the meaning of mans life matches the marvels of mans labor. In 1964, Johnson won the Presidency with 61 portion of the vote and had the widest popular margin in American historymore than 15,000,000 votes.The Great Society program became Johnsons agenda for Congress in January 1965, an aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and pr in timetion of evil and delinquency, removal of obstacles to the right to vote.Lyndon Johnson faced the toughest transformation after Kennedys deathvi. Johnson had to confront the grief and desperation many people felt over the loss of a beloved leader and their antagonism toward someone who, however very much he identified with JFK, seemed like a usurper, an unelected, untested replacement for the man the dry land now more than ever motto as more suitable for the job. Johnson understand the essential need for perseveration, for reassuring people at home and abroad that the new President would be faithful to the antecedent administration.The death of a President was harm enough, but Kennedys assassination made his walk a national crisis in self-confidence, a time of doubt about the force of the countrys democratic system and its tradition of non-violent political change. Despite his private fears, Johnson was an inspiration to the country. His public appearances, his use of language, his management of the press promoted feelings of continuity and unityvii.The hallmark of his Great Society social reform program, the War on indigence strove to achieve what LBJs mentor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, could not, an end to the nations most grim social ills and recognition that racism still divided the nation into distinct economic and social groups. For American Jews, LBJs reformulation of fresh Deal liberalism into a group-based, race-sensitive political philosophy ch allenged long-held assumptions about the role of the state and pressed the communitys unionized leadership into the forefront of national public policy debate. Millions of Democratic voters registered their disapproval of LBJ by abandoning their long-time political home and bolting to the Republican Partyviii.Johnsons misanthropic idealism and the unmanageable mysteries of the times converged into the early-American, frontier-style judicature that finally forced us to engender to redefine our nationhood. Lyndon Johnson was rude, intelligent, shrewd, charming, compassionate, vindictive, maudlin, selfish, passionate, volcanic and cold, vicious and generous. He played every part, he left out no emotion in him one saw ones self and all the others. He was not an idealist, but he served ideals when it suited and pleased him. He was not a reactionary, but he fan reaction when it helped him advance himself.He was unfailing and diligent, but he was also narrowly political, and he was sus picious of new ideas. He berated intellectuals because he envied them. He was as personally responsible for American history since 1950 as any other man of his time. passim his career he was consolidating his private riches by a calculating use of public power, and there is an affinity surrounded by this squalid side of his success and the plaguy commercialism in the national ethosix.President Johnsons Presidency will be remembered for the Great Society programs for which he wanted to be remembered, and for the Vietnam War, which eventually forced his resignation.i On both sides of his family he had a political heritage mingled with a Baptist background of preachers and teachersii Encyclopedia member Title Johnson, Lyndon Baines. Encyclopedia Title The capital of South Carolina Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. publishing company Columbia University Press. say of proceeds New York. Publication category 2004. iii Doris Kearns, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream ( New York New American Library, 1976. iv Merle Miller, Lyndon New York G. P. Putnams Sons, 1980. v Bernard J. Firestone.1988.Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Uses of Power. Editor, Robert C. Vogt publishing house Greenwood Press. Place of Publication New York summon Number 7. vi At the height of his power as Senate leader, Johnson sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1960. When he lost to John F. Kennedy, he surprised even some of his closest associates by pass judgment second place on the ticket. vii Robert Dallek .2004.Lyndon B. Johnson enactment of a President. Publisher Oxford University Press. Place of Publication New York scalawag Number 227. viii ) Marc Dollinger .2001.The new(prenominal) War American Jews, Lyndon Johnson, and the Great Society. Contributors author. ledger Title American Jewish History. lot 89. Issue 4. Publication Year 2001. varlet Number 437+ ix Ronnie Dugger .1982.The Politician The Life and generation of Lyndon Johnson the Drive for Power, from the Frontier to Master of the Senate. Publisher W. W. Norton. Place of Publication New York Page Number 13.