Hey, Hey LBJ – Happy Birthday!

From the minute he (unnecessarily) took the presidential oath following the assassination of JFK, Johnson moved the nation forward.

Today is Lyndon B. Johnson’s birthday. Our 36th president has been remembered most for his leadership of the doomed Vietnam War. And while his leadership of this war, well his foreign leadership in general, was poor, this should only be a small part of our national memory. LBJ wanted to be a remembered president, and he has been – but for all the wrong reasons.

LBJ might have had little insight about foreign policy, but his presidency also led one of the great moments of social and domestic reform in the United States. He championed the Civil Rights movement. Unlike JFK, who had been hesitant to throw his support behind the movement, LBJ made it a priority. And his keen political insight allowed him to get away with it. In 1964, he pushed Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act. Recognizing the power of Kennedy’s death, he begged Congress to vote yes on the bill in the honor of the slain president. This explains some of the reason why historically we associate Kennedy with Civil Rights and less so with Johnson. Then the following year, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act – allowing most African Americans to vote for the first time (despite having been enfranchised nearly a century earlier).

LBJ also dreamt of a Great Society, one that included all Americans – not just the middle and upper class. The Great Society extended the ideals of FDR’s depression-era New Deal. Unlike its predecessor, the Great Society extended social programs to people of color, poor whites, and the elderly. And LBJ acted quickly – he knew that support for these programs would be short-lived. However, such programs greatly improved the lives of almost all Americans both then and now. Great Society programs include:

Project Head Start (1965) – provided food, health, & day care to impoverished preschool age children.

Medicare Act (1965) – medical insurance for those 65 and older. Extended to those with disabilities. Also paid for prescription drugs and nursing care.

Medicaid (1965) – Health insurance for low-income families.

National Endowment for Humanities & Arts (1965) – Funding for scholars, writers, musicians, & performers.

Public Broadcasting Act (1967) – Created corporation to fund PBS & NPR (one the great success stories).

Immigration & Nationality Services Act (1965) – Rolled back the restrictive 1924 Immigration Act that had aimed restrictions targeted at Asian & Latin American immigrants.

Fair  Housing Act (1968) – Prohibits discrimination based on race, national origin, religion, gender, familial status, or disability in selling or renting homes.

VISTA – A domestic version of Kennedy’s Peace Corps, dedicated to improving the lives of Americans.

Why do we forget about all this and only remember Vietnam? Well, for one LBJ most definitely led some of its largest blunders. While he recognized the problems inherent with Vietnam, the path had been set in motion by the presidents before him (starting with Truman and lasting through JFK). In his 1964 election year, he felt pushed to escalate the war by his staunch hawk Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater. Johnson also lacked the savvy to navigate relations with foreign leaders or even acknowledge cultural differences. This led him to decide, often recommended by his cabinet and military leaders, to attack the Viet Cong with full force. He could not consider the reactions of the Viet Cong enemy or even recognize their will to maintain autonomy. Finally, even LBJ’s most strident supports (namely Civil Rights leaders) found themselves turning their back on the president due to the war. In 1968, LBJ felt he had no choice but to withdraw from the presidential election – and he was right.

Today is a good day to remember both sides of our former president.

Fight the Rich Man’s Fight

I’ve been thinking about who fights our wars. I don’t know why I thought about it today, but its been on my mind since we discussed it in this quarter’s Vietnam section. The reality of the United States’ wars (and perhaps everywhere) is that privileged leaders and politicians decide our involvement but the impoverished youth give their lives.

Consider this, in the American Revolution, most people who fought participated through militias. They joined when the battle rolled through town, provided their own arms, and then disbanded. This worked for many men, particularly farmers who could not abandon their land for long periods of time to fight in the war. Logistically this was a poor system and George Washington knew it. He wanted (and had) a standing army. However, poor men (sometimes without their own shoes) filled its ranks and suffered the largest causalities. These men needed the salary (however trivial) the Constitutional Army provided because they did not have property.

Fast forward to the Civil War. Much of the nation resorted to a draft system to fight this horrendous war. More Americans died in this war than in all the other wars the U.S. has participated combined. However, wealthy plantation owners often sent their slaves to fight for them or paid others to serve their draft notice. And the poor took the cash and died. This happened across the Union as well, but seemed more prevalent in the South.

World War I partially fills this example, but the U.S. short involvement (just over a year) makes it a poor case study. And the Great Depression combined with the attack on Pearl Harbor made World War II a popular war to fight in.

Moving forward, the impoverished and minorities (often one and the same, due to Jim Crow and practiced segregation in suburbia) fought the first several years in Vietnam. In fact, part of the militant tone that overtook the Civil Rights movement in the latter half of the 1960s came directly from an understanding that African American men fought and died in the war at a much greater rate than their white counterparts. A draft that allowed college enrollment as a reason for deferral partially allowed for this discrepancy in the troops.

But the draft is over now. We are in locked in two (seemingly unending) wars. And yet, the impoverished make up much of our military troops (though not all). These men and women have little economic opportunities outside the military.

It’s an interesting historical dilemma. Invoking a draft (as has been done through much of our history) did not prevent class and racial discrepancies in our military. Removing the draft has left us again with a class discrepancy in the troops. For historians, it poses an interesting question: what does this demonstrate about military in the U.S.? What does it mean (or does it mean anything)?

For you readers: does it even matter?