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

by Robert A. Caro

Poverty, he was to say, only “tries men’s souls”; it is loneliness that “breaks the

heart. Loneliness consumes people.”

“I’m not asking you to send me, Pa,” Sam said. “I’m asking you to let me go.”

“I’ve always wanted responsibility because I want the power responsibility brings.”

When he lost control of that temper, he was deaf to reason; not even considerations of career or ambition could stand before it.

“He would be with you—always. The tougher the going, the more certain you could be that when you looked around, Sam Rayburn would be standing there with you. I never met a man so loyal to a friend.”

“The only way to get anywhere in Congress is to stay there and let seniority take its course.”

So many men had waited patiently for the tides of history to turn—and had been defeated before the turn came. Had been defeated, or had become ill, or had died. So many men who had once dreamed of rising to the Speaker’s chair had died without achieving their ambition. Was he to be only one of these?

It was during these years that, when some young member asked him for advice on how to succeed in Congress, he began to use the curt remark: “To get along, go along.”

TO GET ALONG, GO ALONG”—wait, wait in silence. It was hard for him to take his own advice—how hard is revealed in the letters he wrote home. “This is a lonesome, dark day here,” he wrote.

“Sam was a genius in handling men. He would send you to see a guy, and he would tell you exactly what the guy was going to say, and in what order, and he’d tell you how to answer each point.

“He had many worshippers, but very few close friends. You held him in awe. You didn’t dare get close to him. People feared to get close to him, because they were afraid of saying the wrong thing. And because people were afraid to get close to him, he was a very lonely guy. His life was a tragedy. I felt very, very sorry for Sam Rayburn.”

Lyndon Johnson was provided with ample opportunity to exercise the talents that had led people to call him “a professional son” on this man who so desperately wanted a son.

So strong was the wall that Sam Rayburn had built around himself that it was not easy even for Lyndon Johnson to break it down. But he broke it down.

“Now Lyndon,” he said, “don’t you worry. Take it easy. If you need money or anything, just call on me.”

For almost four years he had been tirelessly ingratiating himself with Congressmen, agreeing with their views, dancing with their wives, “always campaigning”—and where had the campaigning gotten him?

As a secretary

But the little daily humiliations—having to step back when his Congressman stepped into the MEMBERS ONLY elevator, having to wait outside the Congressional cloakrooms because he was not allowed inside—reminded him daily that, after almost four years, an assistant was what he was; that he was not a somebody, but a nobody—just one of the crowd of low-paid, powerless congressional secretaries.

Still a nobody

he was twenty-year-old James P. Coleman, a tall, skinny Mississippi farm boy who would shortly begin a whirlwind political career that would propel him to the Governorship of Mississippi at the age of forty-one.

His astuteness, however, allowed him to see through—and resent—Johnson’s attempt to make friends with him by portraying himself in their first conversation as just another country boy.

When the signatures on the ballots were checked against the membership list—by two tellers, one from each side, sitting in front of the audience—a number of votes for Payne did, in fact, prove to have been cast by non-members. With these votes included, Johnson’s candidate would have won. With those votes thrown out, Johnson’s candidate lost.

Lbj loses little congress presidency

“He wanted to get ahead. He had that burning ambition. He wanted to climb that ladder. But he didn’t know exactly how he was going to climb. Just what order he had in his mind I don’t think he knew any more.”

and it would be administered in each state by a state director.

“One day, Sam Rayburn, who had never been friendly toward me, came to see me,” Connally was to recall. “He wanted me to ask President Roosevelt to appoint Lyndon Johnson.… Sam was agitated.”

Sam Rayburn went to the White House. What he said is not known, but the White House announced that a mistake had been made. The NYA director for Texas was not

DeWitt Kinard after all, the announcement said. It was Lyndon B. Johnson.

THE APPOINTMENT made Johnson the youngest of the forty-eight state directors of the NYA. He may, in fact, have been the youngest person to be given statewid...

“When I come back to Washington,” he said, “I’m coming back as a Congressman.”

One goal in mind

“Lost generation” was a phrase occurring with increasing frequency in discussions of America’s youth. Attendance at the nation’s colleges had begun falling in 1931, with more and more parents unable to afford tuition, and with students having a steadily more difficult time obtaining part-time jobs to help pay their way.

When young men now want to move on, they find there is no place to go.” The hospitable Western “Howdy” had been replaced by the “Keep moving” of law enforcement officials who escorted newcomers to the nearest county line. And when they got as far west as they could—to golden California—they found guards posted on the highway to turn them back at the border, and those of them who made it into the state anyway were placed in forced-labor camps until

they could be dumped back over the state line.

The Depression was in its sixth year now, and, as one 1935 study put it, “boys and girls who were fifteen or sixteen in 1929 when the Depression began are no longer children; they are grown-ups”—adults who had never, since they left school, had anything productive to do; adults embittered by “years of suffering and hardship.”

In September, 1934, no fewer than 700,000 boys and girls of high school age had failed to enroll in high school. Now the September of 1935 was approaching, and unless something was done, that number would be even higher; hundreds of thousands more young people would join the ranks of that lost generation.

Lyndon Johnson’s appointment had allowed him to bring together, in a single office, the men he had scattered through the federal bureaucracy.

To the nucleus of a staff thus formed, Johnson added new recruits whose personalities documented yet again the fact that what Johnson called “loyalty”—unquestioning obedience; not only willingness but eagerness to take orders, to bow to his will—was the quality he most desired in subordinates.

Now he had to create—create out of nothing—a public works program huge in size and statewide in scope. And once it was created, he had to direct it—to manage it, to administer it. His only administrative experience was his work as Kleberg’s secretary; the only staff he had previously directed—this twenty-six-year-old who would now be directing scores of men—had consisted of Gene Latimer, L. E. Jones, and Russell Brown.

Complicating the problems of the Texas NYA director—the youngest of the forty-eight directors and one of the few without public works or administrative experience—was the factor that complicated every problem in Texas: its vast size.

the project “had to not only be good, but look good; it had to be something that would be popular.”

By June, 1936, 135 parks would be under construction, and 3,600 youths would be earning thirty dollars per month working on them.

Lady Bird Johnson would say that in their marriage “Lyndon is the leader. Lyndon sets the pattern. I execute what he wants. Lyndon’s wishes dominate our household.… Lyndon’s tastes dominate our household.”

But, no matter how late the hour or how large the number, she was expected to cook them dinner—and she did, with a graciousness and a smile that made them feel at home.

YET THE STAFF didn’t feel driven. In part, of course, this was because he had chosen them so well. His selections—men like Kellam, Deason, Roth and Birdwell—proved, every one, to be men who were not only willing to work all day, every day, but who were also willing to take orders, and curses, without resentment; to be humiliated in front of friends and fellow workers; to see their opinions and suggestions given short shrift.

Some new recruits resigned because they weren’t willing to work Johnson’s hours.

Some resigned because they weren’t willing to accept Johnson’s abuse; as Deason puts it with his usual discretion, “Lyndon Johnson pushed and shoved and cajoled—and [there were] those who could not bear to be pushed and shoved and cajoled.”

Lyndon Johnson liked to call a subordinate “son”—even though the employee might be older than he. He liked a subordinate to call him “Chief.”

Their distinguishing characteristic was a remarkable subservience and sycophancy; observers noted that they seemed to like calling him “Chief” and being called “son.”

And you know, once you start taking it, well, you get into the habit, you know, and habits get harder and harder to break. They got so used to taking his abuse that after a while they hardly knew they were taking it.”

Reinforcing gratitude and fear was ambition.

The Chief made his boys feel like part of a team, almost like part of a family. “Well now, let’s play awhile,” he would say.

And he made them feel like part of history, too. During those long evenings in the back yard, he didn’t merely read NYA regulations; he put them into perspective, an inspiring perspective, explaining how the NYA was trying to salvage the lives of young men and women who were walking the streets or riding the rails in despair, who were cold and hungry.

“Put them to work! Get them out of the boxcars!”