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.In May 1943, for example, he made a state-wideappeal in Texas for postwar internationalism that closely reflected administration thinking.At the same time, when a conservative coalition in Congress of southern Democrats and Republicans began an assault on the social gains of the last ten years by liquidating the NYA and the NationalResources Planning Board, cutting the budget of the Farm Security Administration, and threatening to weaken the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Holding Company Act, Lyndon was one of a handful ofcongressmen asked by administration leaders to hold the line and win support for tax and other legislation it wished to steer through Congress.Shortly after, Roosevelt, in the most radical speech he ever gave,declared the need for a strong program of economic stabilization and an 54 :: lyndon b.johnsoneconomic bill of rights.He called for a tax on all unreasonable profits, and a useful and remunerative job for all Americans.In February, when theCongress passed a tax bill that raised $2.3 billion in new revenues insteadof the $10.5 billion FDR asked, Lyndon voted against the substitute measure.Moreover, when FDR vetoed the bill as providing relief not for theneedy but for the greedy, Lyndon was one of only ninety-five House members voting to sustain the President s veto.By 1944, both Rayburn and Lyndon felt that they were fighting for theirpolitical lives.Targeted by Texas reactionaries as principal advocates ofRoosevelt s drive to replace free enterprise and political liberty with socialism and dictatorship, Rayburn and Johnson were subjected to the strongestattacks they had yet experienced in their public careers.In a campaign costing nearly $200,000 which Rayburn said was more than had been spenton an election in the Fourth District in the past 30 years combined Rayburn s opponent, a Texas state senator, saturated the district withcharges that the Speaker favored creeping socialism and the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), a Negro controlled federal agency.Pointing to the extraordinary gains his north Texas constituents had madeduring his sixteen terms in the House and especially under the New Deal,Rayburn won, but only by 6,000 votes out of the 43,000 cast.Although the challenge to Johnson proved to be less substantial, Lyndon had to take it seriously.His opponents mounted shrill attacks that didLyndon more good than harm.By appealing to racial antagonisms withassertions that Johnson favored the destruction of the white primary, calling him a millionaire, and describing him as friendly to labor racketeersand hostile to war veterans, they aroused indignation in Johnson s favor.Carrying nine of the ten counties in his district, Lyndon won by a marginof almost two and a half to one.Lyndon entered 1945 in an upbeat mood.He was particularly pleased atthe birth of his and Lady Bird s first child.After nearly ten years of marriage,during which three miscarriages had deprived them of children and causedthem much sadness, Lady Bird gave birth to a healthy girl in March 1944.At the same time, he took great satisfaction from the progress of his political and business fortunes.The settlement of the Brown & Root tax casecoupled with his and FDR s reelections in 1944 rekindled his hopes for ahigher elected or appointed office.In 1945, Lyndon s political fortunes remained closely tied to FDR s presence in the White House.Despite some differences with the administration in the war years, Johnson continued to be seen, especially in Texas, as The Congressman :: 55an unqualified pro-Roosevelt man.Although Lyndon had never been a trueWhite House insider, he was nevertheless an ally with meaningful ties tothe President that would echo through the rest of his political career.Buton April 12, 1945, Johnson s reliance on FDR s political support endedwhen the President died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage.Like so many other Americans, Johnson was devastated.He had a profound sense of loss.As he told a reporter later that day, I was just lookingup at a cartoon on the wall [of Rayburn s office] a cartoon showing thePresident with that cigarette holder and his jaw stuck out like it always was.He had his head cocked back, you know.And then I thought of all the little folks, and what they had lost.He was just like a daddy to me always; healways talked to me just that way.I don t know that I d ever have cometo Congress if it hadn t been for him.But I do know I got my first greatdesire for public office because of him and so did thousands of otheryoung men all over the country. A secretary remembered that Lyndon s grief was just unreal.He just literally wasn t taking phone calls and he justliterally shut himself up.His grief was vast and deep and he was cryingtears.Manly tears, but he actually felt.that it was just like losing hisfather. The day of Roosevelt s funeral he was so upset he went to bed.Andhis grief lasted for weeks and months.Roosevelt s passing engendered a profound sense of loss in millions ofAmericans, but it did not mean the end of the ideas and programs launchedin the preceding twelve years.Johnson, like others in and out of the government, was a bearer of the New Deal legacy [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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