Review of The Passage of Power, The Years of Lyndon Johnson Vol. IV
By Robert A. Caro, Illustrated. 712 pp. Alfred A. Knopf.
Proud fathers carve notches onto the furniture to measure their children’s growth; the office of the presidency has carved its notches on the edifice of American history. Three men in particular have left their imprint on the nation’s memory: Washington, who founded the country; Lincoln who preserved its unity; Roosevelt who saved it from economic ruin and lead it victoriously into the greatest war of all time.
Since reconstruction, no notable progress had been made with regards to civil rights: the black population of the supposed land of the free was still languishing in ghettos, segregated in all areas of life, largely condemned to life in poverty and racism, frequently in the form of lynching. Poverty and lack of social mobility were equally disturbing: despite the stupendous efforts of Roosevelt’s New Deal, the conditions in which the American poor lived were sufficiently bad even to shock British plutocrats. In 1955 the minimum wage was still a pathetically inadequate seventy-five cents an hour.
The social stasis was due to a legislative impasse. In the Senate a virtually invulnerable coalition had arisen in opposition to the New Deal, resolutely determined to prevent progress from being written into the books of law. It was this southern coalition of conservative democrats and republicans that held firm. Health insurance, affordable housing, aid for education, social security, civil rights, even anti-lynching legislation: all bills that passed the House dashed themselves against the Senate dam—and died. When during the 1950s the dam’s gates swung briefly open at last, it wasn’t the President, Eisenhower, who forced them open; the bolts were pulled back from within, by Lyndon Johnson, who not only won an increase in the minimum wage but extended its coverage to millions of workers who hadn’t been earning even that minimum. No sooner had Johnson left the Majority Leader’s desk than the gates swung shut again—more firmly than ever.
While the stalemate hadn’t begun under Kennedy, it had grown worse under Kennedy. The ideals he so movingly enunciated could not be integrated into American life by way of domestic reform. It took Johnson’s skill to pass the Civil Rights Acts of 1964. And yet many still associate the peak of American liberalism with the charismatic and eloquent JFK and the political stratagems of his brother Robert. The large, overbearing Texan Johnson lacked the polish and attainment of the Kennedys, and is chiefly remembered for his disastrous exploits in Vietnam. But Johnson might well be the greatest legislator in American history. Born in the poor Texas hill country, Johnson bullied, cheated and blackmailed himself to power. His ambition was an uncommon one, unencumbered by even the slightest excess weight of principle; his ruthlessness shocked even those who believed themselves to be inured against the ruthlessness of politics. House of Card’s fictitious Frank Underwood pales in comparison to this real life incarnation of the scheming power broker. But despite his towering ego and his devastating instinct for the weaknesses of others, he was at the same time a man of brilliant intelligence and authentic social passion, who led millions of blacks out of poverty and segregation and into the voting booth. His domestic achievements have left an imprint on American society equal in greatness to that of his predecessors.
Robert Caro, the author of what is frequently referred to as the greatest political biography of modern times, has depicted Johnson’s life in vivid and breathtaking detail, prizing every inch of drama from the archives and oral histories, barely masking both his respect for Johnson’s accomplishments and contempt for his sordid and disreputable career. Caro’s Ahab-like literary ambitions rival Johnson’s political ones; his scholarship is incontestable. The scope and meticulousness of his work, decades in the making, should serve as a testament against the decline of contemporary writing and as an example for the incumbent president alike.
Dominik Leusder
The Bell 