Michigan in Ann Arbor. In this speech he described the opportunity to move not only toward

Transcription

1 Arthur W. Thomas LBJ and the Great Society 1 On May 22, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered a speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In this speech he described the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society. 1 It was not the first time he had used the phrase Great Society, but the speech did mark the start of Johnson s major domestic program. 2 Prior to the introduction of the Great Society, Johnson had lacked the slogan for his administration that previous presidents had. Kennedy had the New Frontier, Truman had the Fair Deal, FDR had the New Deal, Johnson now had a slogan that he could build on. In his speech at Ann Arbor, Johnson explained the basics of what his Great Society was to be built on. The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all, he said. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice. 3 Johnson went on win the presidential election in 1964 in a landslide. When he delivered his State of the Union address on January 4, 1965 he took the opportunity to set the Congress to work on creating the Great Society that he envisioned. we are only at the beginning of the road to the Great Society. Ahead now is a summit where freedom from the wants of the body can help fulfill the needs of the spirit, he said. 4 Johnson went on to propose the programs that would become his Great Society. He asked for reforms in education, health care, the environment, suffrage, crime prevention, the arts, and government waste. 5 Given the ambitious quantity and content of what Johnson was seeking in his Great Society agenda in 1965, how was he able to get so much of it passed? The answer is a 1 Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. Remarks at the University of Michigan. 2 Evans, R., Novak, R., Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power. p Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. Remarks at the University of Michigan. 4 Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. Annual Message to the Congress of the State of the Union 5 Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. Annual Message to the Congress of the State of the Union

2 2 Arthur W. Thomas combination of factors. First, there was the famed Johnson Treatment. With The Treatment came Johnson s knowledge of operations in the House and Senate. The other factor to Johnson s legislative success was the elections of A large margin of victory in the popular vote combined with majorities of over two-thirds in both houses gave Johnson the political capital to pursue the reforms he wanted to enact. The Johnson Treatment is very much part of the legacy of LBJ. Pictures of it in action show Johnson towering over his target. The Treatment came with Johnson getting right in the face of his target and pointing his finger on the other s chest. According to the journalists and authors Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare. 6 Hubert Humphrey described how he d [Johnson] take the whole room over There was nothing delicate about him. 7 Yet even with the intimidation and threats of force, The Treatment was a practiced and calculated tool each time it was used according to Doris Kearns. 8 Having first been elected to Congress in 1937, Johnson was well versed in political negotiations. 9 As such, he was able to get legislation through Congress quickly with his extraordinary legislative skill. 10 There is only one way for a President to deal with the Congress, he said, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. 11 Perhaps more important, at least generally speaking, than The Treatment, was the majority that Johnson had in both the House and the Senate. The Senate had 68 Democrats and 32 Republicans at the start of the 89 th Congress, a gain of one seat for Democrats over the 6 Dallek, R., Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President. P Dallek, R., P Dallek, R., P Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. LBJ Biography Milkis, S., Nelson, M., The American Presidency Origins and Development, P Davidson, R., Oleszek, W., Lee, F., Congress and Its Members. P.325

3 3 Arthur W. Thomas previous Congress. The House had 295 Democrats versus 140 Republicans, a shift of 37 seats in favor of Democrats. 12 The result would be that nearly 70 percent of Johnson s submissions to Congress became law. 13 Likewise, the presidential election went exceedingly well for Johnson. He got over 61 percent of the popular vote and 486 electoral votes. He only lost in states in the South and Goldwater s home state of Arizona. 14 With such a large margin of victory, Johnson could build his Great Society. 15 While it would seem that with such electoral success Johnson would have no trouble passing whatever he wanted to pass, he was not so convinced. I ve watched the Congress from either the inside or the outside, man and boy, for more than forty years, he said, and I ve never seen a Congress that didn t eventually take the measure of the President it was dealing with. 16 After Johnson outlined his desires in the State of the Union, the Congress went to work on the Great Society. The legislation that the 89 th Congress was able to pass was far reaching. In 1965 alone, they passed, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Higher Education Act, the Social Security Act, which created Medicare and Medicaid, and the Voting Rights Act. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) marked the first major instance of federal funding for education. Before ESEA federal monies for education were extremely limited. Johnson wanted to change that. His goal was to expand opportunities, especially for poor students. In a message to Congress on education, Johnson said that the price to the country of a student who does poorly was seven times greater than that of a student who does well. The problem for education reform in the past was three-fold. First, the view was widely held that it 12 Riddick, M., Zweben, M., The Eighty-Ninth Congress: First Session. The Western Political Quarterly p Riddick, M., Zweben, M., P Evans, R., Novak, R., p Evans, R., Novak, R., p Dallek, R., P.191

4 Arthur W. Thomas would mean forced integration of schools. Second, there was concern that aid would go to 4 parochial schools, a violation of the separation of church and state. Finally, and along the same lines, it was seen as excessive government control, especially during the Cold War. Previous civil rights legislation negated the concerns over integration and the Democrats liberal majority took care of concerns about government involvement. Johnson just needed to find a way to avoid breaching the separation of church and state. Using the Supreme Court s ruling in Everson v. Ewing Township (1947) Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel found a solution for Johnson. The ruling stipulated that federal funding could go to students at parochial schools, just not the school itself. With that in mind, Johnson sent his message to Congress on January 12, As the Congress worked on the bill, Johnson took an active role in pushing it through. After the House passed a version of the bill, Johnson convinced the Senate to pass the same bill in order to avoid conference committee. He got his wish on April 9 when the Senate passed the House bill with 73 yeas and 18 neas. 17 The other educational reform that the Congress passed in 1965 was the Higher Education Act (HEA). It marked another shift in federal funding. Instead of the government supporting institutions, it began to make loans to individual students. The effect of HEA has been clear. In 1950, only 15 percent of college aged people attended. In 1970, that had more than doubled to 34 percent, and one in four college students was getting federal help. By 1990, 52 percent of year-olds were attending college. 18 On the health care front of Johnson s Great Society was the Social Security Act. This act was responsible for creating the Medicare and Medicaid programs that so many people depend on still today. The passage of Medicare had been on agendas going back to FDR s days as 17 Dallek, R., P Dallek, R., P. 196

5 5 Arthur W. Thomas president. The roadblock to getting it passed during the 89 th Congress was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Congressman Wilbur Mills from Arkansas. Mills was one of the few people who Johnson s Treatment would not affect. Mills held a safe seat and was fiscally conservative. His fear was that Medicare would lead to budget problems. However, with the shift in power towards liberals in the elections of 1964, Mills recognized that his committee was going to change as well. As a result, Mills allowed the Ways and Means Committee to take the issue up. With an initial bill that covered only hospital costs and not doctors fees likely to get side tracked in the Senate, Mills and his committee developed a plan where there would be hospital insurance, doctors bills were paid and state administered coverage for the poor known as Medicaid. After the bill made its way through the House and Senate, the only concern remaining was whether or not the American Medical Association would accept the new law. With a variation on his Treatment, Johnson saw to it that they would. He invited members of the AMA to the White House. He started by asking them if they could develop a program to send doctors to Vietnam, appealing to the patriot in each of them. When they agreed he called the press in. When the reporters asked about the AMA s views on the Medicare bill Johnson responded, These men are going to get doctors to go to Vietnam where they might be killed. Medicare is the law of the land. Of course they ll support the law of the land. Tell him. The leader of the AMA agreed. 19 The Voting Rights Act broke down southern barriers to suffrage for minorities. It outlawed the literacy tests that were used in the south to prevent blacks from registering to vote. Early in 1965, Johnson did not move quickly on legislation on black suffrage. However, police brutality in Selma, Alabama captured the nation s attention. Public sympathy for the black cause 19 Dallek, R., P

6 6 Arthur W. Thomas was ever increasing. It culminated with Bloody Sunday on March 7. Nearly 100 state troopers and sheriffs deputies beat a group marching from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery. With a national outcry on his hands Johnson had to act. The Governor of Alabama, George Wallace also was seeking to prevent more bloodshed. Wallace asked Johnson to meet with him, and Johnson obliged and invited Wallace to the White House. When Wallace arrived Johnson gave him the treatment for three hours and gained Wallace s cooperation. The next step for Johnson was to initiate legislation. With such a strong national outcry, he chose to deliver a speech to Congress outlining what needed to happen. In his speech, Johnson pointed to the long history of injustice put on African-Americans. At the end, he had nearly everyone in attendance standing and applauding. Even Senators and Congressmen were moved to tears. The Senate broke a Republican filibuster and passed the bill on May 26. The House took longer, but passed the bill on July 9. The result was that, only a year later, all states except Mississippi had near 50 percent of blacks registered to vote. 20 The legacy of the Great Society is very much mixed. Johnson was of the belief that the future would look on his program. I believe that thirty years from now Americans will look back upon these 1960s as the time of the great American Breakthrough, he said. 21 Yet even at the time some expressed concerns that the Great Society combined with Johnson s other policies represented to much of a concentration of power. Hans Morgenthau went so far as to say The President of the United States has become an uncrowned king. Lyndon B. Johnson has become the Julius Caesar of the American Republic. 22 Others summarized the critique in somewhat less dramatic fashion saying The charge is that it exaggerated the capacity of government to change 20 Dallek, R., P Johnson, L., My Hope for America. P Morgenthau, H., A Dangerous Concentration of Power. Gettleman, M., Mermelstein, D., The Great Society Reader: The Failure of American Liberalism P. 523

7 Arthur W. Thomas conditions and ineffectively "threw money at problems," overextending the heavy hand of 7 government, pushing the nation too far, too fast, leaving a legacy of inflation, alienation, racial tension and other lingering ills. 23 The latter is a more accurate assessment then the former. It is true that ESEA did not achieve its goal of expressly helping poor children. However, it did cause states to put more effort into education. 24 Mills concerns about the budget deficits that might come from Medicare have been realized. Even though it has problems, it is a vast improvement than elderly citizens falling into poverty prior to Medicare. 25 The Watts riots in Los Angeles did take some of national sympathy away from the black cause. That said, in spite of the lost moment more and more blacks became involved in the political process, culminating with Barack Obama s election as president. 26 Two main factors allowed Johnson to pass portions of the Great Society in The first was The Treatment. For each bill, there was at least one key figure that Johnson had to persuade in order to pass the legislation. The second was the timing of the shift in power in the Congress. The Democrats gains, especially in the House removed barriers that had prevented similar legislation in the past. Given today s polarized political climate that can seem deadlocked at times, it is important to remember that prior to Johnson s Great Society many initiatives could not make it through Congress. Yet it only took one election and everything changed. 23 Levitan, S., Taggart, R., The Great Society Did Succeed. Political Science Quarterly. P Dallek, R., P Dallek, R., P Dallek, R., P. 207

8 Arthur W. Thomas 8 Bibliography Dallek, R. Lyndon B. Johnson. New York: Oxford University Press, Davidson, R., Oleszek, W., Lee, F. Congress and Its Members. Washington, DC: CQ Press, Evans, R., Novak, R. Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power. New York: The New American Library, Inc., Johnson, L. My Hope for America. New York: Random House, Levitan, S., Taggart, R. "The Great Society Did Succeed." Political Science Quarterly, 91, no. 4 ( ): Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. "Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union." Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. June 6, (accessed March 20, 2010).. "President Lyndon B. Johnson's Biography." Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum (accessed March 20, 2010).. "Remarks at the University of Michigan." Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. June 6, (accessed March 20, 2010). Milkis, S., Nelson, M. The American Presidency. Washington, DC: CQ Press, Morgenthau, H. "A Dangerous Concentration of Power." In The Great Society Reader, by M., Mermelstein, D. Gettleman, New York: Random House, Riddick, F., Zweben, M. "The Eighty-Ninth Congress: First Session." The Western Political Quarterly 19, no. 2 (1966):