The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson #1)

by Robert A. Caro

Sam Johnson had not made a speech for so many years, but he had never made a better speech than the one he made now for his son. Describing it, Lyndon Johnson was to say that while making it, “My father became a young man again. “He looked out into all those faces that he knew so well and then he looked at me and I saw tears in his eyes as he told the crowd how terribly proud he was of me and how much hope he had for his country if only his son could be up there in the nation’s capital with Roosevelt and Rayburn and all those good Democrats. There was something in his voice and in his face that day that completely captured the emotions of the crowd. When he finally sat down, they began applauding and they kept applauding for almost ten minutes. I looked over at my mother and saw that she, too, was clapping and smiling. It was a proud moment for the Johnson family.”