The Path to Power

by Robert A. Caro

  Becoming a part of the hierarchy: Timmons, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Oct. 11, 1961. “Indefinable knack”: Richard Lyons, “Mr. Sam Made History in 48 Years’ Service.” WP, B9, Nov. 17, 1961. “Sam stands hitched”: WP, Nov. 17, 1961. “Employed him”: Alsop and Kintner, “Never Leave Them Angry.” Began to use: Hardeman.

  “He would help you”: Boiling. “The House soon spots”: Jones OH, pp. 110–12.

  “A lonesome, dark day here”: Rayburn to H. B. Savage, 1919, quoted in Dulaney, p. 32. Waiting in silence: Steinberg, pp. 63–76; Hardeman, Harding.

  “Truth-in-Securities” Act: Freidel, pp. 340–50. “I want it”: Alsop and Kintner, “Never Leave Them Angry.” Problems with the “Truth in Securities” Act: Schlesinger, Coming, pp. 440–42; Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 175–84; Parrish, pp. 42–72. Rayburn paid a visit: Moley, After, pp. 179–81.

  Rewriting the bill: Cohen, Corcoran; Landis OH and Landis, “The Legislative History.” “A countryman”: Cohen. “Rayburn who decided”: Landis OH, p. 161. “I had thought”: Landis, “The Legislative History,” p. 37. “Strong … right … just”: Cohen. “I confess”; “I went back”; “very obscene”; “Now Sam”: Landis OH, pp. 165–70. “A genius”: Corcoran. “Temporary dictatorship”: Parrish, p. 112. Moley was to write incorrectly: In After Seven Years, p. 181, and in 27 Masters, p. 243.

  Complexities in full House: Corcoran; Landis, “The Legislative History,” p. 41. In conference committee: Landis, “The Legislative History,” pp. 43–46; Landis OH, p. 169; Corcoran. On every crucial point: Freidel, p. 349.

  Securities Exchange Commission fight: Parrish, passim; Schlesinger, Coming, 456–70; Gadsby, “Historical Development”; Hardeman, Corcoran. In his own committee: Parrish, p. 132.

  Public Utilities Act: Parrish, pp. 145–74; Schlesinger, Politics, pp. 302–24; Steinberg, pp. 125–29; Hardeman, Corcoran, Cohen. “You talk”: Roosevelt, in Schlesinger, Politics, p. 314. Carpenter’s threat: Steinberg, p. 127. A rare public statement: Rayburn speech on NBC, Aug. 30, 1935, in Dulaney, p. 59.

  “Few people”: NYT, April 2, 1934. “He did”: Halberstam, p. 246. “I always”: Hardeman, “Unseen Side.” “Let the other”: Dulaney, p. 372. “In on the borning”: Pearson article, March 3, 1955, quoted in Anderson and Boyd, pp. 279–80. “I cut him”: Miller, pp. 231–32. “The ‘Sam Rayburn Commission’”: Douglas, George Washington Law Review, Oct., 1959, pp. 3–4. Putting FDR’s picture beside Lee’s: Hardeman; Time, Sept. 27, 1943.

  Given patronage: For example, Steinberg, p. 120. “A man in the shadows”: R. Tucker, “Master for the House.” “If you were”: Boiling. “A very big mistake”: White, “Sam Rayburn,” NYT Magazine, Feb. 27, 1949. Never ask you again: Hardeman.

  “Always”: Hardeman. “She-e-e-e-t”: Miller p. 230. “Afraid”: Harding.

  Pitied him: Hardeman, Harding, Rayden, Holton. “For all my children”: Steinberg, p. 35. “They crawled all over him”: Hardeman, “Unseen Side.” “I was the joke”: Steinberg, p. 207.

  Metze Jones: Dorough, pp. 183–84; Miller, pp. 228–29; Steinberg, pp. 78–79. Miller says that Rayburn later in life saw another woman once or twice a week, but Miller says, “I never found out who she was” (p. 229). Rayburn’s other aides do not believe this is correct. “A great hurry”: Steinberg, p. 79. “Oh, I’m so cranky”: Hardeman, “Unseen Side.” “Kept watch”; “It is true”: Miller, pp. 228–29.

  “I never felt that [the hostess] knew or cared”: Steinberg, p. 37. Trying to prolong the hours: Hardeman, Rayden, Harding. “Sometimes I had something planned, but”: Harding. “Those who went”: Steinberg, p. 200. “God what I would give”: Steinberg, p. 151; Dulaney, p. 176. Walking alone on weekends: Hardeman, Harding.

  “You are one member”: Rayburn to Sam Ealy Johnson, Feb. 22, 1937, “General Correspondence” file, Rayburn Library. Limited by custom: Latimer, Jones.

  Inviting “Mr. Sam” to dinner: Mrs. Johnson. Sitting beside Lyndon’s bed: Steinberg, p. 159; Hardeman.

  Johnson’s feelings: Hopkins, Latimer, Jones, Lucas. Coleman’s feelings: Coleman. The Coleman election: Lucas, Coleman, Payne. “My God”: Swist.

  “That burning ambition”; trying to get him a job in Texas: Hopkins. Wirtz offering a partnership: Jones.

  At Law School: Brown OH, pp. 1, 2, 5, 7, 19–20; Jones.

  College presidency: Jones. “I want to be”: Dale Miller. The job offer: Jones, Mrs. Johnson; Corcoran, who heard the story later.

  Rayburn going to see Connally: Connally to his biographer, Steinberg; quoted in Steinberg, Sam Johnson’s Boy, p. 94. Announcing and retracting the Kinard appointment: Kinard, Corcoran. “When I”: McFarlane, SHJ.

  19. “Put Them to Work!”

  SOURCES

  Books, articles, theses, documents:

  Davis, Youth in the Depression; Lash, Eleanor and Franklin; Lindley, A New Deal for Youth; Manchester, The Glory and the Dream.

  Edwin W. Knippa, “The Early Political Life of Lyndon B. Johnson, 1931–1937” (unpublished Master’s Thesis), San Marcos, 1967. Deborah L. Self, “The National Youth Administration in Texas, 1935–1939 (unpublished Master’s Thesis), Lubbock, 1974.

  Federal Security Agency, “Final Report of the National Youth Administration: Fiscal Years 1936–1943,” Washington, 1943. NYA, “Administrative and Program Operation of the NYA, June 25, 1935—January 1, 1937,” Washington, D.C., 1937. NYA, “Digest—NYA in Texas,” Feb., 1939. NYA, “Facing the Problems of Youth: The Work and Objectives of the NYA,” Washington, 1936. Mary Rodgers, “Youth Gets Its Chance,” a mimeographed pamphlet of the New York NYA, 1938.

  George Creel, “Dollars for Youth,” Collier’s, Sept. 28, 1935; Walter Davenport, “Youth Won’t Be Served,” Collier’s, March 7, 1936; “Texas Gets Better Roadsides,” Engineering News-Record, Sept. 23, 1937; “Government and Youth,” Life, May 15, 1940; “Texas Tech Again Receives NYA Funds,” Texas Tech Magazine, Oct. 1937; “Second Start,” Time, July 27, 1936; “NYA,” The State Week, Nov. 14, 1935; “NYA—‘Marginal’ Jobs Developed for Youth,” The State Week, May 7, 1936.

  Barker Scrapbooks, Barker Texas History Center. Birdwell Scrapbooks, LBJL. Johnson NYA Papers, LBJL.

  Oral Histories:

  Sherman Birdwell, Richard R. Brown, Willard Deason, L. E. Jones, Jr., Carroll Keach, Jesse Kellam, Ray Roberts, Fenner Roth.

  Interviews:

  Willard Deason, Edward A. Clark, Mary Henderson, Lady Bird Johnson, L. E. Jones, Ernest Morgan, J. J. Pickle, Horace Richards, Vernon Whiteside, one NYA staff member who asked not to be quoted by name.

  “NYA Group Interview” conducted by William S. White with Willard Deason, J. J. Pickle, Ray Roberts, Fenner Roth, Albert W. Brisbane, C. P. Little.

  NOTES

  “Moments of real terror”: Eleanor Roosevelt, quoted in Lash, p. 536. College attendance falling: Lindley, p. 158. “Shoes”: Lindley, p. 195. “Scalpels”: Lindley, p. 12. A study: Davis, pp. 18–19. “The more”: Lindley, p. 193. 5 million: NYA, “Facing the Problems of Youth,” p. 5.

  “Maybe”: Quoted in Lindley, p. 21. “Only boys”: Davis, p. 5. Comparison with old West: Davis, p. 29. “The worst thing”: Davis, p. 5. “To workers”: Manchester, p. 21. 2.25 million more: Lindley, p. 7. “Boys and girls”: Davis, p. 44. “Lost generation”: Quoted in Lash, p. 550. No fewer than 700,000: Davenport, “Youth Won’t Be Served.” “A civilization”: Eleanor Roosevelt, quoted in Lash, p. 538. Early began pressing: Lash, pp. 536–554 is the best description of Mrs. Roosevelt’s catalytic role in the creation of the NYA. The following quotes are from those pages. Discussion between Eleanor and Franklin is Fulton Oursler, Behold the Dreamer, quoted in Lash, pp. 539–540. “That was another side”: Lash, p. 540.

  “Minimum”: NYA, “Facing,” p. 9

  Recruiting Deason: Deason OH IV, pp. 17–18; Deason. Recruiting Kellam: Knippa, p. 53; Birdwell OH. Central staff: Rodgers, pp. 209–210. White Stars: Self, p. 20; Deason, Jones, Richards, Whiteside.

  Creating the program: Self, “The
NYA”; Lady Bird Johnson; Jones, Deason OHs and interviews; NYA “Facing,” p. 9. Roadside parks: “Texas Gets Better Roadsides,” Engineering News-Record; Knippa, pp. 58 ff; Johnson to Brown, July 29, 1936, Box 3, JNYA Papers: Griffith to Johnson, Aug. 27, 1936, Box 7, JNYA Papers; Self, “The NYA,” pp. 82–85; Deason and Deason OHs and interviews; Jones.

  Hiring Henderson: Jones, Jones OH I, pp. 14–15; Mary Henderson. Williamson Creek: AA, May 25, 1941. Quota: Self, p. 35. Additional projects: Birdwell Scrapbooks; “Texas Gets Better Roadsides,” Engineering News-Record; Griffith to Johnson, Aug. 27, 1936, Box 7, JNYA Papers.

  Resistance from local officials and Taylor: Deason. “The greatest salesman”: Deason.

  Directives: Lindley, pp. 184–188. “A lot of travel”: Deason OH V, p. 11. Dean Moore: Self, pp. 54–55, 63. Red tape: Self, pp. 53–57; Deason; Morgan. Other state directors: Rodgers, pp. 22–24, 210–212.

  The staff was very young: Analysis of staff résumés in Box 5, JNYA Papers, and interviews cited in Sources. “Very nervous”: Morgan. Dictating: Mary Henderson. “The nature”; “tomorrow”; competition: NYA Group Interview, pp. 22, 23, 28. “Goddammit”; cursing: Morgan. Hurting Henderson, other staffer: SHJ, confirmed by others. Without a pause: Jones. “I hope”: staff member. Gas lights: Steinberg, Sam Johnson’s Boy, p. 97; Deason, Birdwell OH, pp. 14–15.

  “Lyndon is the leader”: Lady Bird Johnson, quoted by Schreiber, “Lady Bird Johnson’s First Years of Marriage,” Woman’s Day, Dec. 1967. Guests: Jones; Deason; Mrs. Johnson, quoted in Self, pp. 23–4. “Hardest thing”: Deason OH IV, p. 25. “Lyndon would”: Birdwell OH II, p. 14, OH I, pp. 7–8. “We weren’t off duty”: Deason OH IV, p. 22; Deason. “When he woke up”: Mrs. Johnson.

  “The sifting out”: Deason. Morgan’s story: Morgan. “He knew”: Richards. “We knew”: Jones OH I, p. 12. “Let’s play awhile”: Deason OH II, p. 22.

  Inspiring: Deason, Birdwell OHs; Henderson; Jones. “Put them to work!”: Birdwell, quoted in Knippa, p. 55; Deason. “Deep days of the Depression”: Deason. 8,000 teenagers: Morgan. “I saw him get angry”: Morgan. “Absolutely frantic”; “Charlie! Charlie!”: Mary Henderson, Charlie’s wife. “Sense of destiny”: Deason OH IV, op. 10, 11. “I’m working”: Mary Henderson. “I named my only son”: Roth OH, p. 12. “It all went back to that NYA”: Deason. “I was very inept”: Keach OH II, p. 5. Johnson’s reason for making Keach his chauffeur: Latimer.

  Johnson on Congress Avenue: Clark. “Stand with me”: Clark.

  “A very bad start”: Williams, quoted in Time, July 27, 1936. Texas statistics: Self, p. 49. Negro colleges: Self, p. 61. Kept students in school; deserved to be in school: untitled form in Box 9, JNYA Papers; Self, pp. 62, 64; Texas Tech Magazine, Oct. 1937.

  Building facilities: Self, pp. 63–4, 88. Freshman College Centers: Self, pp. 36–7, 69–72. Resident training centers: Lindley, pp. 86–108; The Lubbock Avalanche, June 10, 1938; HP, July 26, 1937. “Theirs are not”: Lindley, p. 69. At San Marcos: Greenville Morning Herald, Nov. 22, 1938. “Kind of homesick”: Lindley, p. 91. “When you were young”: Brenham Banner Press, quoted in “Digest—NYA in Texas,” Feb., 1939, p. 10. “The lads from the forks”: Dallas Journal, April 1, 1938. “Similar roadside parks”: Oklahoma Farmer-Stockman, Oklahoma City, Okla., Feb. 15, 1937. “A first-class job”: Williams, quoted in Texas Outlook, May, 1937 (in Self, p. 45). By the end of 1936: NYA, “Administrative and Program,” pp. 28–29. Greenhouse: “Texas Gets Better Roadsides,” Engineering News-Record. Plans for 1937: The Mission Times, July 28, 1937; Waco Tribune-Herald, Feb. 28, 1937; DMN, Nov. 19, 1937; Galveston Tribune, Aug. 11, 1937.

  20. The Dam

  HERMAN BROWN

  The story of his life is based on the author’s interviews with his brother, George R. Brown; with Herman’s longtime attorney and Austin political tactician, Edward A. Clark; with another of his attorneys, Herman Jones; with one of Brown & Root’s Washington lobbyists, Frank C. Oltorf; with various Texas politicians who knew him, including Emmett Shelton, Harold Young, Welly K. Hopkins; with the Bureau of Reclamation official who worked most closely with him during the construction of the Marshall Ford Dam, Howard P. Bunger; and with a Pedernales Electric Cooperative official, E. Babe Smith.

  ALVIN WIRTZ

  Wirtz’s personal papers are at the LBJL. In addition, his correspondence with Lyndon Johnson is in the LBJA SN file.

  The Seguin Enterprise, 1925–1936.

  Interviews with Wirtz’s law partner, Sim Gideon, and his secretary, Mary Rather; with L. E. Jones, who was for a time his assistant; with his political intimates, Edward A. Clark and Welly K. Hopkins; with his client, George R. Brown; with Texas political friends and foes such as Charles W. Duke, Tom C. Ferguson, D. B. Hardeman, W. D. McFarlane, Daniel J. Quill, Emmett Shelton, Arthur Stehling, Tom Whitehead, Sr., Harold H. Young; with New Dealers in Washington such as Thomas G. Corcoran, Abe Fortas, Arthur (Tex) Goldschmidt, James H. Rowe; with Howard P. Bunger of the Bureau of Reclamation; with young men he advised, such as Willard Deason and Charles Herring. With Walter Jenkins and Lady Bird Johnson.

  Oral Histories of Russell M. Brown, Willard Deason, Virginia Durr, Welly K. Hopkins, Robert M. Jackson, Henry Wallace, Claude Wickard, Elizabeth Wickenden.

  “My dearest friend”: Johnson, quoted in AA, June 16, 1952. “Lodestar”: Mrs. Johnson in Woman’s Day, Dec., 1967. Wirtz personality: Durr, Hopkins, Deason OHs; Deason, Herring, Hopkins, Rowe, Goldschmidt, Hardeman, McFarlane, Clark, Gideon, Duke, Shelton, Young. “I have not called his attention”: Wirtz to Johnson, Dec. 12, 1939. “Independent Offices: REA,” Box 36, LBJA SN.

  THE DAM

  The legal problems encountered in the effort to finance and build the Marshall Ford (now the Mansfield) Dam are detailed in the files of the Lower Colorado River Authority, which are now in the LBJL, particularly Boxes 167, 168, 178, 179, 185. They are also detailed in the Alvin Wirtz Papers in the Library, particularly Box 36, and there are some revealing letters in correspondence between Herman and George Brown and Lyndon Johnson (Boxes 12 and 13, LBJA SN). They were also detailed in interviews with George Brown; with Wirtz’s law partner (and his successor as LCRA counsel, Sim Gideon); with the member of the original LCRA board who accompanied Wirtz on his early trips to Washington to try to solve the problems, Tom C. Ferguson; with the Bureau of Reclamation official supervising the construction of the dam, Howard P. Bunger; and with Abe Fortas, on whose desk, as will be seen in Chapter 23, most of the problems landed. Also helpful were interviews with Arthur (Tex) Goldschmidt, Thomas G. Corcoran, and Charles Herring, and with the following present and former officials of the Bureau of Reclamation: Thomas A. Garrity, Frederick Gray, Louis Maurol, Theodore Mermel, K. K. Young.

  Record Group 48, Secretary of the Interior, Central Classified Files, Selected Documents Relating to Lyndon B. Johnson, Roll 1, LBJL (Ickes Files), contains memoranda and correspondence relating to the dam, as do the files of the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA Files) at the LBJL.

  Jones, Fifty Billion Dollars; Long, Flood to Faucet.

  Comer Clay, “The Lower Colorado River Authority: A Study in Politics and Public Administration” (unpublished Ph.D. Thesis), Austin, 1948.

  Colorado River Improvement Association, Improvement of Colorado River from Austin to the Gulf, Austin, 1915; Application: Colorado River Project (of Texas), presented to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, Jan. 1933, San Antonio, 1933; Minutes, Board of Directors, Lower Colorado River Authority, 1937–1941; Contract Between the United States of America and LCRA in Regard to Operation and Maintenance of Marshall Ford Dam and Partial Reimbursement of the United States, March 13, 1941, “Trust Indenture—Lower Colorado River Authority to Chemical Bank & Trust Company as Trustee and the American National Bank of Austin as Co-Trustee,” May 1, 1943, Twentieth Century Press, Inc., Chicago. Report on Allocation of Construction Costs—Marshall Ford Dam—Colorado River Project, Texas, Washington, U.S. Dept. of Interior, 1947.

  Wirtz’s alliance with Insull: S
eguin Enterprise, 1927, passim; Clay, pp. 58–84; Long, pp. 73–86; Hollamon shooting: NYT, Feb. 27, 1934; Duke, Hopkins. “Run Out”: Duke. Redistricting; renaming the dam; Long, p. 78. Creating the LCRA: Clay, pp. 88–130; Ferguson, Clark, Gideon. “I want a birthday present”: Ferguson; AA, Feb. 23, 1937. Ickes considered: Foley to Fry, Jan. 11, 1936, “General Information File—Administrative Data … Wirtz A J,” Cong. Corres., Box 1, LCRA Papers; Foley to Wirtz, April 19, May 4; Wirtz to Foley, March 7, April 13, 26; Wirtz to Johnson, May 7; Foley to Fry, July 15, 1937, Wirtz to Farbach and to Johnson, Jan. 5, 1938, Box 36, LBJA SN; Corcoran, Ferguson, Gideon. $85,000: See Chapter 30. A voice in their selection: Bunger; Wirtz Letters and Papers, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, Boxes 36, 37, LBJA SN.

  Lack of authorization for dam: George Brown, Ferguson; Gideon to Gottlieb, Oct. 6, 1978.

  Forbidden to build it: Act of June 17, 1902, 32 Stat. 389 (43 USC 421); 33 L.D. 391–1905 of the Federal Board of Land Appeals; Mermel, Ferguson, Maurol; Gideon. Reaffirmed: For example, in 34 L.D. 186–1905, the Justice Department ruled: “This act contemplates that the United States shall be the full owner of irrigation works [including dams] constructed thereunder, and clearly inhibits the acquisition of property, for use in connection with an irrigation project, subject to … obligation to … a landlord holding the legal title.” If someone: Garrity. The difference in Texas: Bascom Giles, Commissioner, General Land Office of Texas, “Disposition of Public Domain,” Texas Almanac, 1941–1942, p. 338. No one had thought to check: Ickes file; Wirtz Papers, passim; Ferguson, Gideon, Fortas. Legislative prohibitions on LCRA: Chap. 7, 43rd Leg, 4th Called Session; Gideon. No realistic possibility: Gideon, Ferguson. Wirtz’s report; Wirtz’s solution: Wirtz Papers, passim; George Brown; Ferguson.

  21. The First Campaign

  SOURCES

  Documents and newspapers:

  The records of Johnson’s campaign headquarters are in Boxes 1, 2, and 3 of the Johnson House Papers (JHP).