"And Crown Thy Good . . ."

THE PRESIDENCY

This was no humble Harry Truman, nervously starting his speech to the Congress before he had been introduced by the Speaker ("Wait a minute, Harry," interrupted Sam Rayburn on that April morning in 1945). Neither was it a young, buoyantly hopeful Jack Kennedy, though many of the familiar chiastic constructions had been put into the address by Kennedy Speechwriter Ted Sorensen. This was Lyndon B. John son of Texas, appearing for the first time as Chief Executive before Congress and, even while stressing the theme of continuity in U.S. Government, making it eminently clear that he meant to be his own kind of President.

To be sure, he invoked the name and fame of his late predecessor. "All I have," he said quietly, "I would have given gladly not to be standing here today. The greatest leader of our time has been struck down by the foulest deed of our time. Now the ideas and ideals which he so nobly represented must and will be translated into effective action."

"Let Us Continue." The President dealt first with U.S. foreign policy. "This nation will keep its commitments," he vowed, "from South Viet Nam to West Berlin. We will be unceasing in the search for peace, resourceful in our pursuit of areas of agreement, even with those with whom we differ, and generous and loyal to those who join with us in common cause." He pledged continuation of foreign aid to Asia, Africa and, through the Alliance for Progress, to Latin America -- but he made no specific mention of controversial aid to countries in Eastern Europe.

"In this age, when there can be no losers in peace and no victors in war," Johnson said, "we must recognize the obligation to match national strength with national restraint. We must be pre pared at one and the same time for both the confrontation of power and the limitation of power. We must be ready to defend the national interest and to negotiate the common interest. Those who test our courage will find it honorable. We will demonstrate anew that the strong can be just in the use of strength, and the just can be strong in the defense of justice."

President Johnson put the world on notice that under his Administration the U.S. would be steadfast in its support of the United Nations, in its maintenance of a military force second to none, in its dedication to the stability of the dollar and to expansion of foreign trade. He recalled Kennedy's famed Inauguration Day challenge: "Let us begin." And he now resolved: "Let us continue. This is our challenge: not to hesitate, not to pause, not to turn about and linger over this evil moment, but to continue on our course so that we may fulfill the destiny history has set for us."

Turning to domestic issues, the President flatly informed Congress that "our most immediate tasks are here on this Hill." And among those tasks, the U.S.'s first Southern President in 94 years--gave top priority to passage of a civil rights bill. "We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights," he said. "We have talked for 100 years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law. I urge you again, as I did in 1957, and again in 1960, to enact a civil rights law so that we can move forward to eliminate from this nation every trace of discrimination and oppression that is based upon race or color. There could be no greater source of strength to this nation both at home and abroad."

"No More Fitting Act." Next only to civil rights in importance, Johnson said, was the Kennedy Administration's tax-cut bill: "No act of ours could more fittingly continue the work of President Kennedy than the earliest passage of the tax bill for which he fought all this long year. This is a bill designed to increase our national income and our federal revenues, and to provide insurance against recession. That bill, if passed without delay, means more security for those now working and more jobs for those now without them, and more incentive for our economy."

The members of Congress heartily applauded Johnson's pleas--but there was little likelihood that they would dramatically speed up their legislative schedule so as to pass either the civil rights or the tax bill this year. The civil rights measure is presently held by the House Rules Committee, headed by Virginia's Conservative Democrat Howard Smith, faces a certain Southern filibuster when and if it finally reaches the Senate.

But the President is a past master at legislative maneuvering and just might --by supporting a compromise bill--give the Congress a chance to get the civil rights bill behind it before adjournment. The tax-cut bill, which has already passed the House, remains the subject of lengthy hearings before the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Virginia's Conservative Democrat Harry Byrd; even after Johnson's speech, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield could promise only that the bill would be first on the agenda for floor debate when the Senate reconvenes next January.

In descending order of importance, President Johnson listed other measures on which he wanted congressional approval -- aid to education, pending foreign aid, and several long-delayed appropriations bills. He was all too well aware of the difficulties of getting any sort of action out of the dawdly 1963 Congress. But he insisted: "I believe in the capacity and the ability of Congress, despite the divisions of opinion which characterize our nation, to act, to act wisely, vigorously, and speedily when the need arises. The need is here. The need is now. I ask your help."

"Let Us Unite." The President's longest, loudest applause came near the end of his speech when he implored: "Let us put an end to the teaching and preaching of hate and evil and violence. Let us turn away from the fanatics of the far left and the far right, from the apostles of bitterness and bigotry, from those defiant of law, and those who pour venom into our nation's bloodstream." The applause was led by the two aging men behind him -- House Speaker John McCormack, 71, and Senate President Pro Tempore Carl Hayden, 86, who are his legal successors.*

In his long political life, Lyndon Johnson has never been remarkably effective as a formal speaker. But this time, when he had to be, he was. And he was at his very best when he concluded with words that John Kennedy, who was given to more classical allusions, would never have used.

"Let us unite," said Johnson softly, "in those familiar and cherished words:

"America, America,

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown Thy good

With brotherhood,

From sea to shining sea."

* Since Andrew Johnson (1865-69), who was born in North Carolina and later lived in Tennessee. Two other Presidents since Johnson were born in Southern states, but neither was considered a Southern President. Woodrow Wilson, a native Virginian, lived in the North after he was 28, was Governor of New Jersey before becoming President. Texas-born Dwight Eisenhower moved to Kansas when he was a year old.

* Though the 1947 Presidential Succession Act specifies that the President Pro Tempore of the Senate is next in line to become President after the House Speaker, in practice Hayden probably would not follow McCormack. If McCormack were to become President upon the death or retirement of Johnson, the House would immediately elect a new Speaker, who--if otherwise qualified under the Constitution--would become first in the line of presidential succession.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.