Guns or Butter

by Bernstein, Irving;

  The Senate Finance Committee held hearings between August 22 and September 26, 1967. By this time Wilbur Cohen, usually ebullient and optimistic, was worn out and depressed. After testifying before the committee, he left for Bolivia on September 2, returning on the 14th. In La Paz he stayed at the American embassy and a dinner was given in his honor. He then went to Cochabamba to see his son, Bruce, a recent graduate of Reed College and presently a Peace Corps volunteer.

  The Senate hearings became a stage for political theater. Senator Robert Kennedy, now a candidate for President, testified against the House AFDC amendments, which he compared to the medieval poor laws. The House, he said, had vented its frustration by “punishing the poor because they are there and we have been unable to do anything about them.” He proposed an increase in welfare benefits financed in part by the Social Security tax. Dr. Wiley brought in six welfare mothers, who, instead of testifying, staged a noisy three-hour demonstration against the House bill. When they returned the next day, Chairman Long had the doors barred. He called the women “brood mares” and said, “If they can take the time to march in the street and picket and sit in the hearing room all day, it seems to me they have enough time to get jobs.”

  After returning from South America, Cohen dedicated himself to persuading Long to restore the administration’s OASDI benefits and the taxes to pay for them. By October 17 he thought he had brought Long around “because he wants an increase in benefits, wants to be fiscally responsible in covering the cost and because he wants something to bargain with Wilbur Mills in Conference.” Cohen also thought that Republican Senator John Williams of Delaware would go along.

  Despite these gleams of hope, the legislative wear and tear had made Cohen despondent. On October 25 he wrote Elizabeth Wickenden:

  I have never experienced frustration as I am now. Yes, in the Eisenhower Administration there was a frustration borne more of neglect and apathy. Now the frustration is on a real high level. Everyone wants to do something but can’t get enough others to join and get it done. You put your finger on it when you say we are torn apart—but on so many issues. … This has been the most difficult legislative happening in my 33 years of experience. I go home each night with the thought in mind that this is the last time! Nobody really appreciates the plight of intermediary in the legislative process. Everyone wants to be the one who takes a position “as a matter of principle.” I feel sometimes like I am negotiating a peace settlement between Israel and the Arabs. But then if someone did that I suppose they could claim they made a contribution.

  On November 14 the Senate Finance Committee reported H.R. 12080 with amendments. Cohen had won over Long, but he lost Williams. The vote was strictly on party lines, 11 to 6. All the administration benefits were restored: across-the-board 15 percent increase, average benefit boost of 20 percent, and a minimum benefit of $70. The higher costs would be covered primarily by raising the taxable earnings base more rapidly to $10,800 in 1972. The committee significantly modified the House welfare plan by excising the freeze, by eliminating coercive features, and by encouraging the employment of those certified to work by enrolling them in a new Labor Department job training program.

  While H.R. 12080 was now over 400 pages long, the Senate showed no mercy by accepting 27 new amendments. OASDI went through as the committee had recommended and the House version of welfare was again liberalized. The Senate adopted the bill on November 22 by a vote of 78 to 6. Four Republicans, including Williams, were in the minority. While Dirksen announced that “a great deal of mischief has been wrought,” he, nevertheless, voted aye with his wet forefinger lifted high into the political wind.

  Mills, who had the votes, dominated the conference. The across-the-board benefit increase was reduced to 13 percent and the minimum benefit to $55 a month. The House versions of the payroll tax and the earnings base were adopted. More important politically, welfare was restored, as Mills put it, “in substantially the form” in which it passed the House. There would be mandatory training for AFDC recipients and there would be a freeze on their number. The conference committee reported on December 11.

  With this report Mills put the President in an escape-proof box. If Johnson promised to veto the bill, there was the probability that he would be overridden and the prospect that he would be blamed for denying 24 million pensioners a substantial improvement in their benefits. If he remained silent, he would have to swallow a number of provisions he strongly opposed and would incur the wrath of liberals, including Bobby Kennedy, as well as labor and blacks.

  Gardner and Cohen wrestled with this dilemma all day on December 11. At first they thought that the President should remain silent, but later changed their minds. Both were offended by the reduction in benefits, the freeze, and the requirement that AFDC mothers enroll in training. In addition, Gardner was moved because the welfare changes “are going to be celebrated issues in the liberal community” and would be “perceived as anti-Negro measures by the Negro community.” Cohen added to Califano that the bill would be “an excuse for rioting next summer.” They both urged the President to come out against the conference report.

  Some 19 governors, 11 Democrats and eight Republicans were already on record against the freeze. Liberal Republican Mayor John Lindsay of New York was lining up the big-city mayors against the report. But Daley of Chicago and Barr of Pittsburgh, while agreeing with Lindsay on substance, Calif ano wrote, “will not oppose it [the report] without some word from the Administration.” The AFL-CIO decided that the battle should take place in the Senate and urged a filibuster. George Meany sent telegrams to all the members of Congress. Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma and Bobby Kennedy demanded a filibuster.

  On the afternoon of December 11 Gardner sent Johnson a memorandum recommending “with all the urgency I can express” that he issue a public statement opposing the conference report. If the President did not consider this “feasible,” Gardner suggested the following:

  I will not veto a bill that would provide increased social security benefits to 24 million persons, would take one million persons out of poverty, and includes many other important improvements. But the Administration will continue to press strongly for the three improvements in Social Security and the Welfare program which the Senate adopted.

  Calif ano thought it a “mistake” to issue the Gardner statement before the signing ceremony. He thought it unclear. Liberals and labor would say that the failure to veto “indicates that you want the bill to go through.” Those who stood with Mills would say “you went out of your way to stir up trouble.” Johnson did not issue a statement.

  Just before the House vote on December 13 the President called Mills to the White House in a last-ditch effort to change his mind. He thought the chairman was “like a shark in feeding frenzy” determined to punish black welfare mothers. Mills said, “Mr. President, across town from my mother in Arkansas a Negro woman has a baby every year. Every time I go home, my mother complains. That Negro woman’s now got eleven children. My proposal would stop this. Let the states pay for more than a small number of children if they want to.” When Mills left, Johnson said to Califano: “That’s the way most members feel. They’re just not willing to say it publicly unless they come from real red neck districts.” Later that day the House adopted the conference report by a vote of 390 to 3.

  That afternoon, December 13, Senator Muskie called the Senate Campaign Committee together to discuss the filibuster Harris and Kennedy had proposed. Twenty-five senators were present. Mansfield made a powerful statement against a filibuster. As Manatos put it, the majority leader told Harris and Kennedy that they lacked the votes “by the widest of margins.” A filibuster would damage the Democratic party, injure the President, and hurt those running in 1968. Bible, Church, McGovern, and Mondale, all up for reelection and the last three stalwart liberals, said they would suffer from a filibuster. Muskie said it would inflame Negro militants and alienate 24 million old people. Clinton Anderson said it would be “suicida
l.” Sam Ervin said he was reminded of the Aesop fable of the dog with a bone in his mouth who saw his reflection in the stream and, greedy, snapped at the reflected bone, losing the real one he had. With such opposition, there was no filibuster. On December 15 the Senate adopted the conference report by a vote of 62 to 14.

  There remained some liberal sentiment in favor of a veto. Meany and Reuther urged Johnson not to sign the bill. But those 24 million OASDI beneficiaries dictated otherwise. He signed the Social Security Amendments of 1967 on January 2, 1968. Since he could hardly have avoided inviting Wilbur Mills, by now an offensive option, there was no ceremony. The President issued a brief and bland statement in San Antonio, which had the virtue of being a long way from Washington.

  Of the galling conflict over welfare, Johnson merely said, “My recommendations were not adopted by the Congress. In their place, the Congress substituted certain severe restrictions.” He said he had directed Secretary Gardner to work with the states to establish “compassionate safeguards.” But Gardner was on the verge of resigning. On the affirmative side Johnson said that he was establishing the Commission on Income Maintenance under Ben W. Heineman, president of the Chicago &: Northwestern Railroad, to examine alternatives to the existing welfare system.4

  The passage of the amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act on September 22, 1966, and to the Social Security Act on January 2, 1968, reflect the collapse of the Johnson presidency. The dividing line was the congressional elections of November 1966. The 89th Congress had a solid northern Democratic majority; the 90th Congress was dominated by the southern Democratic-Republican coalition, in this case led skillfully, perhaps brilliantly, by Wilbur Mills.

  In normal times on the minimum wage business opposition much outweighed labor support. In contrast, OASDI enjoyed strong bipartisan backing, including southern Democrats and the GOP. But the administration made a fatal strategic mistake in joining old-age pensions to other Social Security amendments, particularly Aid to Families with Dependent Children. In the best of times AFDC was unpopular; in the immense white backlash against black militancy in 1967 the program was political leprosy. Mills trapped Johnson by compelling him to accept the punishing welfare amendments as the price for getting the improvements he wanted in Social Security. Johnson was helpless because he had lost control over the Congress.

  17

  Lyndon Johnson, Patron of the Arts

  THE notion of Lyndon Johnson as a latter-day Lorenzo de Medici, patron of the arts, is ludicrous on its face. He was a Texas hill country philistine. There is no evidence that he ever read a poem or a novel of his own choice. His interest in painting seems to have been confined to the noted western artist Peter Hurd for the portrait of Johnson, which he hated. Music, the theater, opera, ballet held no attraction. At the Kennedy White House parties for artists, writers, and musicians he stood about with his hands in his pockets and a sour expression on his face. He had a country boy’s healthy suspicion of these artistic types and, with Vietnam, grew to distrust them intensely. He never ceased venting his distaste for the people he called “the Harvards.” While he had an insatiable appetite for the media, particularly TV, it was for political news and particularly for coverage of himself. Yet Lyndon Johnson became a noted patron of the arts and the media.1

  Following World War II the performing arts in America enjoyed a solid expansion as measured by both the number of performances and the size of audiences. This was especially marked for opera, ballet, and off-Broadway and outside New York theater. Broadway and symphony concerts grew more modestly. In many cities this demand led to construction of new or refurbished theaters, concert halls, and opera houses. New York and Los Angeles, the nation’s leading cities in the performing arts, moved a step further by joining facilities into a unified performance center.

  Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on Manhattan’s West Side above Columbus Circle, fully operating by 1970, was architecturally spectacular, took 13 years to build, and broke all records for cost, $186 million. This was, Martin Mayer wrote, “a little more than double the entire annual box office income of all the nation’s professional symphony orchestras, opera and ballet companies, and repertory theaters put together.” Lincoln Center consisted of Avery Fisher Hall, the home of the New York Philharmonic, with 2,836 seats; the New York State Theatre, 2,729 seats, the house for the New York City Opera; the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, 1,060 seats, for repertory; the Metropolitan Opera House, seating 3800; Alice Tully Hall, 1,096 seats, for chamber music; the Juilliard School, including a theater; and a library and museum.

  The Los Angeles Music Center was located downtown on a rectangular site with handsome walks, fountains, sculpture, and reflecting pools. Its three units opened between 1963 and 1967. The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the south end had 3,250 seats, was the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and was available for opera, ballet, musical comedy, and recitals. The Ahmanson Theatre, with 2100 seats, was at the north end and provided drama, ballet, and musical comedy. The Mark Taper Forum was in between, with a circular theater with 750 seats arranged around a thrust stage.

  Washington had never attained standing in the performing arts and many felt that this deficiency in the nation’s capital should be remedied. In 1951 President Truman asked the Commission of Fine Arts to investigate ways in which the government could assist the arts. The agency made a comprehensive survey and reported to President Eisenhower on May 15, 1953. Among its recommendations was the establishment of a music center for the performance of opera, symphony, and ballet.

  Historically the mainstream Republican party held the view that the arts should be financed by private markets or by private philanthropy, that government must not provide subsidies. Eisenhower, whose main leisure time activities seem to have been golf and bridge, had no interest in the performing arts. Nevertheless, he did not object to the construction of a handsome arts building in Washington as long as the government did not pay for it. On September 2,1958, therefore, he signed the National Cultural Center Act. The site would be the rise overlooking Roosevelt Island and the Potomac. The National Capital Planning Commission would acquire an additional acre to add to the land already owned by the government. The center would come under the administrative control of the Smithsonian Institution.

  A board of trustees was formed with Roger L. Stevens as chairman. The noted architect Edward Durell Stone was chosen and he came up with an original idea quite unlike Lincoln Center and the Los Angeles Music Center. Everything would be housed in one enormous oblong structure, 630’x 300’. Side by side would be a 2800-seat concert hall, a 2300-seat theater for opera, dance, and musical comedy, an 1,150-seat theater for drama and musicals, a 550-seat film theater convertible to a thrust stage for drama and musicals, a pavillion for meetings and band concerts, an art gallery, and eating facilities. The estimated cost was a whopping $66.4 million.

  When Kennedy became President, he immediately changed the relationship between the government and the arts. John and Jacqueline Kennedy, their friend William Walton observed, were “susceptible to the comfort of the arts. They couldn’t live without them—it [was] woven into the pattern of their lives.” The President was deeply interested in literature, paid great attention to architecture, and had some knowledge of painting and sculpture. More important, according to Arthur Schlesinger, was Kennedy’s “conviction that the health of the arts was vitally related to the health of society. … Excellence was a public necessity, ugliness a national disgrace.”

  At the inauguration Robert Frost read a poem and the audience by invitation included many of the nation’s most distinguished writers, composers, and painters. The Kennedys converted the White House into a national stage for performances and dinners for musicians, artists, and writers. The Presidential Medal of Freedom was rehabilitated and awarded to leading artists. More important, Kennedy started on the development of a national arts policy and enthusiastically backed the National Cultural Center.

  He pushed the site overlook
ing the Potomac. He brought the trustees and the advisory committee to the White House for a concert and urged them to proceed with their important task. He proclaimed November 26 to December 2, 1962, National Cultural Center Week and on November 29 spoke on closed circuit television to groups in 75 cities to back the $30 million campaign Stevens had organized to fund the center. The program ran for two hours, Leonard Bernstein was master of ceremonies, and there were performances by Pablo Casals, Marian Anderson, Van Cliburn, Robert Frost, Frederic March, Danny Kaye, Bob Newhart, and Harry Belafonte.

  After the assassination a number of members of Congress introduced bills to rename the National Cultural Center after Kennedy. President Johnson not only embraced this idea enthusiastically, he worked out a critically important funding scheme. The campaign had raised $15.5 million by private subscription. Now the government would match that figure and, in addition, the center would be authorized to borrow a similar amount from the Treasury to be repaid by revenues produced by the underground parking garage. Congress quickly enacted the bill and Johnson signed it on January 23, 1964.

  Thus, the project became the John F. Kennedy Center and later the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It was completed in 1971 at a final cost of $71 million. The Kennedy Center immediately joined Lincoln Center and the Los Angeles Music Center as one of the three great architectural monuments to the performing arts in the United States.2

  While the center was a glittering monument in the nation’s capital, the Kennedy administration never removed its eye from the bigger goal: a national policy for the arts. Max Isenbergh, a State Department lawyer who was musical, wrote a discussion paper for an interested group of officials entitled “Issues Bearing upon National Cultural Policy.” Secretary of Labor Goldberg, whose wife was an abstract painter, arbitrated the salary dispute between the Metropolitan Opera and the Musicians Union, caused by the fact that the Met was broke. In his award in December 1961 Goldberg added a section written by his assistant, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, recommending “community responsibility” for the performing arts.