Monday, Nov. 23, 1964 University Daily Kansan
Page 3
President Johnson Starts Second Year
By Alvin Spivak
WASHINGTON （UPI） President Johnson today began his second year as the nation's Chief Executive, confident that he can translate his landslide election victory into a solid record of achievement both in domestic and world affairs.
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Since assuming the presidency upon the assassination of John F. Kennedy 12 months ago, Johnson has shown himself a skilled master at working his will with Congress. He has dealt with crises on the world scene with firmness. He has won election as President in his own right and is looking forward to his coming four-year term with confidence.
With Texas vigor, Johnson has imprinted his own brand of presidential style on the American scene. It consists of a blend of forcefulness and persuasion, folksiness and shrewdness. Since Nov. 22, 1963, the New Frontier of the Kennedy era has been supplanted by the Great Society program of Johnson.
THE TWANG OF New England has given way to the homely drawl of Texas.
Johnson's most impressive first-year successes were scored in Congress where his long experience as a leader stood him in good stead.
In his first session of working with the House and Senate, Johnson won passage of 47 of 51 major
legislative proposals he adopted from the Kennedy program.
Chief among them were the Civil Rights Law and the two-year tax cut bill which Kennedy had submitted before his death. Other measures which Johnson obtained from Congress marked big breakthroughs in the fields of conservation, education and job opportunities.
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JOHNSON HIMSELF proposed a billion dollar "War on Poverty" and the program was approved.
Now backed by greater Democratic strength in Congress, Johnson already has churned up a new program of legislation he is confident will be enacted this session.
High on his priority list is a bill to institute medical care for the aged under the Social Security program. It was one of the four measures on which he was defeated last year.
Johnson also has announced he will ask and undoubtedly get Congress to cut federal excise taxes. Slated for elimination are the levies on such consumer items as cosmetics, furs, luggage, handbags and toilet goods.
STILL IN THE works is a series of studies undertaken by expert task forces in 15 fields. On their recommendations, Johnson anticipates constructing the legislation for the "Geat Society" he has made the theme of his administration.
Americans would join to "rebuild" the entire urban United States" in the next 40 years, preserve the natural beauties of the country and promote educational opportunities for the booming crop of youngsters now growing up.
He envisions it as one in which
continues in a state of jeopardous flux, prompting serious considerations of whether a stiffer U.S. military effort is needed. The unity of the NATO alliance is under strain with French President Charles de Gaulle pursuing a balky course. Red China has exploded its first nuclear weapon.
Further question marks were raised by the replacement of Nikita S. Khrushchev as Soviet Premier and leadership switches in Britain, Italy, Japan and other countries.
On the world front, Johnson played his role in a relatively minor key. In prospect is the possibility that he may take a more active part in the days to come.
The President underscored peace as the main aim of his administration and used it effectively in the campaign against his GOP presidential rival, Barry M. Goldwater.
On an earlier occasion, he moved swiftly when Communist Cuban leader Fidel Castro cut off the water supply at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo. Johnson immediately arranged for the shipment of water to the base and directed the dismissal of hundreds of Cubans working at Guantanamo with a resultant loss of needed dollars to Castro's hard-pressed economy.
THE PRESIDENT demonstrated toughness when last summer he ordered U.S. warplanes to strike against torpedo boat nests in North Viet Nam in retaliation for harassment raids against American destroyers in the Tonkin Bay.
For the most part Johnson's first year was marked by a continuance of the relative cold war calm that followed Kennedy's decisive handling of the Cuban missile crisis and the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Stormy problems still face him, however. The Viet Nam conflict
As a person, Johnson has taken on a mixed image—a combination of warm vitality and driving ego. He has gone with compassion to the porches of the poor in Appalachia . . . been accused of armtwisting to gain his ends in Congress . . . sorrowed when his long-time trusted aide Walter Jenkins was discovered to have been twice arrested on morals charges . . . charged with covering up for a protege, former Senate Democratic secretary Robert (Bobby) Baker.
He has pulled the ears of his beagles to the outrage of dog lovers, doted on his wife and two daughters, shaken hands with passing tourists at the White
House gates, taken the White House news corps on exhausting perambulating press conferences that have gone on for miles and on one occasion been chided in print for driving 90 miles an hour down a Texas highway with a swig of beer "within sippin' distance."
In his election triumph, he welded together an overwhelming coalition of support that ranged from top business executives to steel mill puddlers, that embraced Negroes, Catholics, farmers, liberals and huge numbers of Republicans.
It is on this broad base of support that he will serve in the next four years.
In his recent book, "My Hope for America," Lyndon B. Johnson, 35th President of the United States, wrote:
"From that awful day on November 22nd when President Kennedy was assassinated, I have had but one thought, but one conviction, but one objective; to be the President of all the people, not just the rich, not just the well fed, not just the fortunate, but President of all America."
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