The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power by Robert A. Caro

Author:Robert A. Caro
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Lyndon B, Political Science, Johnson, Presidents & Heads of State, Presidents, 20th Century, United States - Politics and Government - 1933-1945, Political, Presidents - United States, bought-and-paid-for, United States, History, Historical, Biography & Autobiography, Politics, General, Political Parties, Texas - Politics and Government - 1865-1950, Biography, Political Process
ISBN: 9780679729457
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1982-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

AS HE ENTERED the home stretch, however, he made two improvements in his strategy.

One was his own inspiration. He always enjoyed such great success with elderly people; now he invested a valuable campaign morning in a visit to the Austin home of seventy-three-year-old Albert Sidney Burleson, who had himself been elected to Congress from the Tenth District, in 1898, as a young man of thirty-four, to begin a distinguished career climaxed by a term as Postmaster General of the United States under Woodrow Wilson. The investment paid off handsomely. Burleson, long retired and ailing, was an almost legendary figure in the district, from one of its legendary families (Burleson County was named for his grandfather, a hero of San Jacinto). And Johnson emerged from his home bearing his handwritten statement that “I hope the people of this district will elect a young man who can develop. … To elect an old man is for the people to throw the office away.” The statement made page one in the Austin newspapers, and, of course, in the weeklies. And Johnson made the most of the statement; at climactic moments during his speeches, one White Star, planted in the audience, would shout, “General Burleson is right!” and another would shout back, “Let’s send a young man to Congress!” and a third would shout, “Let’s do what General Burleson says!”

The other improvement was his father’s inspiration.

Lyndon Johnson was very dejected as he sat, on the day the Express poll appeared, in his parents’ home in Johnson City after hours of campaigning, talking to his parents, his brother, his Uncle Tom, his cousin Ava Johnson Cox, and Ava’s eight-year-old son, William, known as “Corky.” The leaders were almost all against him, he said; he had several large rallies scheduled, and he had not been able to persuade a single prominent individual to introduce him.

So, Ava recalls—in a recollection echoed by Lyndon’s brother—“his Daddy said, ‘If you can’t use that route, why don’t you go the other route?’”

“What other route?” Lyndon asked—and his Daddy mapped it out for him.

There was a tactic, Sam Johnson said, that could make the leaders’ opposition work for him, instead of against him. The same tactic, Sam said, could make the adverse newspaper polls work for him, instead of against him. It could even make the youth issue work for him. If the leaders were against him, he told his son, stop trying to conceal that fact; emphasize it—in a dramatic fashion. If he was behind in the race, emphasize that—in a dramatic fashion. If he was younger than the other candidates, emphasize that.

Lyndon asked his father what he meant, and his father told him.

If no leader would introduce Lyndon, Sam said, he should stop searching for mediocre adults as substitutes, but instead should be introduced by a young child, an outstanding young child. And the child should introduce him not as an adult would introduce him, but with a poem, a very special poem. You know the poem, he told Rebekah—the one about the thousands.

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