The Fourth of July is a great American holiday, and I wish to celebrate it with something especially uplifting, but also of a more recent origin. Looking back for such an event, and counting backwards, I have found nothing more recent and more appropriate to fit this glorious occasion, than the following excerpt from President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” speech, dating back to May 1964. (LBJ delivered it during his election campaign against the Republican candidate Barry Goldwater.)---
“The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to rebuild and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce, but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.”
Despite the dark cloud of JFK’s assassination hanging over LBJ’s presidency, and the tragedy of Vietnam, which took control of his destiny like a runaway train, while he seemed powerless to stop it, we must never forget or diminish President Johnson’s best achievement in office, which was, of course, his Great Society Program.
To be quite honest, the passage quoted above is so heavily poetic and so naively impractical that I am having a hard time trying to reconcile it with my mental picture of LBJ. There is little doubt in my mind that he could never have written something like this by himself.
But let us put it this way. Had this excerpt been credited to some "Joe Johnson," as its real author, it wouldn’t have amounted to too much, except as a syrupy piece of wishful-thinking “dreamery,” something to shed a tear over, for a fellow poetic soul, and probably nothing more than that.
It is certainly to LBJ’s greatest credit that he delivered this momentous speech, imbuing it with the power of the Presidency, and that he also followed through with some significant practical steps. “Great Society” is therefore by far the greatest part of President Johnson’s historical legacy, by which primarily he ought to be remembered.
…Happy Fourth of July!
“The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to rebuild and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce, but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.”
Despite the dark cloud of JFK’s assassination hanging over LBJ’s presidency, and the tragedy of Vietnam, which took control of his destiny like a runaway train, while he seemed powerless to stop it, we must never forget or diminish President Johnson’s best achievement in office, which was, of course, his Great Society Program.
To be quite honest, the passage quoted above is so heavily poetic and so naively impractical that I am having a hard time trying to reconcile it with my mental picture of LBJ. There is little doubt in my mind that he could never have written something like this by himself.
But let us put it this way. Had this excerpt been credited to some "Joe Johnson," as its real author, it wouldn’t have amounted to too much, except as a syrupy piece of wishful-thinking “dreamery,” something to shed a tear over, for a fellow poetic soul, and probably nothing more than that.
It is certainly to LBJ’s greatest credit that he delivered this momentous speech, imbuing it with the power of the Presidency, and that he also followed through with some significant practical steps. “Great Society” is therefore by far the greatest part of President Johnson’s historical legacy, by which primarily he ought to be remembered.
…Happy Fourth of July!
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