Chapter 4
The Father and Mother: A Study in Contrasts
Lyndon Johnson's parents represented a stark contrast in backgrounds and temperaments. Sam Johnson had married someone as idealistic as himself. Rebekah Baines, raised in a stately white stone house near Blanco, was the daughter of Joseph Wilson Baines, a respected attorney, former legislator, and Secretary of State under Governor Ireland. After her father's financial ruin through "disastrous droughts" and "over-kindness to farm tenants," Rebekah, a college graduate who taught elocution, met Sam Johnson while interviewing him for an Austin newspaper.
Their marriage united two very different worlds. Sam was a man of the people-rough-hewn, passionate about politics, comfortable in the company of farmers and ranchers. Rebekah was refined and literary, devoted to education and culture. Despite their differences, they connected through their shared political ideals, particularly their admiration for William Jennings Bryan. After a "whirlwind courtship," they married in August 1907.
Life on the Pedernales River proved especially difficult for Rebekah. Without telephone or neighbors to talk with, she faced what historian Walter Prescott Webb called the "nauseating loneliness" of Hill Country farm wives. When Sam was away on legislative business, she endured not just loneliness but dread-nights in pitch darkness with no visible lights in any direction, alone with rustling trees, splashes in the river, and howling winds.
Despite these hardships, Rebekah maintained her standards, using proper tablecloths rather than oilcloth and "making rituals out of little things" like serving tea in thin cups. She was deeply embarrassed that three of her five children were delivered by midwife rather than doctor-a fact she would later omit from family records, preferring to credit "the attending physician."
In 1913, after Lyndon and two daughters were born, the family moved to Johnson City, into a white frame house with Victorian gingerbread scrollwork. But Johnson City was primitive-a town where bread couldn't be purchased, indoor plumbing was nearly nonexistent, and the sense of isolation remained overwhelming.
Their home wasn't one of bitter conflict as some biographers portrayed, but rather a place where Sam would kid Rebekah about her ancestry and make her "laugh and laugh." They shared core values despite their differences, and would sit talking for hours, especially about politics. For a while, Sam's business ventures prospered-cotton farming, real estate deals, and even purchasing the local newspaper and hotel-allowing Rebekah leisure time for her literary pursuits and community activities.
Chapter 5
The Son: Early Signs of Ambition
Lyndon Johnson's early years revealed his intense desire for attention and leadership. From toddlerhood, he was remarkably restless and determined, constantly running away despite his parents' fears. When just eighteen months old, he would toddle determinedly across country to visit relatives, his face showing "utter maturity of expression." His mother noted his "highly inquisitive mind," but these escapes terrified her, especially when he might wander near the Pedernales River.
With peers, Lyndon was domineering. Though younger and smaller than his cousin Ava, he insisted on riding in front on her donkey. Even with boys much older, he became "the head of the ring" in all activities. If he couldn't lead, he wouldn't play-taking his baseball home if not allowed to pitch despite lacking skill. By age ten, he gravitated to adult spaces like the barbershop, reading the town's only newspaper first and pontificating to grown men about current events, arguing persistently with anyone who disagreed.
Politics became Lyndon's greatest passion from an early age. At the Johnson dinner table, Sam insisted the children engage with political topics like government ownership of railroads, the Socialist Party, and the League of Nations. After meals, Sam would organize spelling bees, arithmetic contests, and formal "debates" with the children lined up before the fireplace.
Father and son would have long conversations on the back porch swing, with Lyndon ignoring friends' calls to play. The resemblance between them grew striking as Lyndon reached adolescence-both physically and in mannerisms, particularly their habit of getting uncomfortably close during conversations, grabbing arms and lapels. But neighbors noted a crucial difference: while Sam was genuinely friendly beneath his intensity, Lyndon was driven by a need to dominate and win arguments at all costs.
As Sam's financial fortunes collapsed in the early 1920s, the relationship between father and son deteriorated. The once-proud "Johnson strut" became an object of ridicule in Johnson City. Banker who once courted Sam's greetings now sneered at him "playing cowboy." Even those who benefited from his political work, like pension recipients, joined in the mockery. O.Y. Fawcett, the local druggist, coined a phrase that gained wide circulation: "Sam Johnson is too smart to work, and not smart enough to make a living without working."
Young Lyndon, witnessing his father's humiliation, began openly defying him. He refused to do farm chores when Sam was away, ordering his younger siblings to do his work instead. He deliberately provoked his mother at mealtimes by eating with loud, slurping noises and cramming food into his mouth. Most significantly, he rejected his parents' emphasis on education, refusing to attend college despite their pleas-a decision that deeply wounded these education-devoted parents.
Chapter 6
The Bottom of the Heap: A Young Man's Rebellion
With the collapse of Sam Johnson's fortunes came a dramatic transformation in his relationship with his son Lyndon. Those who saw them together in 1918-1920, when Sam was successful, recall a son who idolized his father. But those who observed them in 1921-1923, after Sam's failure, describe a defiant boy who openly disobeyed his father and showed little respect.
Lyndon's reactions to perceived injuries were dramatic. After being spanked by a neighbor for fighting, ten-year-old Lyndon "let out a wail so loud I can still remember it," standing there with one knee britches leg fallen down, covered in dust, "screaming-you could hear him from one end of town to the other." This pattern continued into his teens; whenever he lost fights, he would run home crying loudly through the streets. "All anyone had to do was touch Lyndon, and he let out a wail you could hear all over town," recalled one neighbor. "He wanted attention. He wanted everyone to know someone had injured him."
With adults, particularly women, Lyndon displayed extraordinary charm and physical affection that amazed his peers. He would approach mothers in their freshly starched white dresses, hug them despite being dirty from fighting, and say, "Oh, Miz Redford, we didn't mean any harm. Why don't you let us play?" She would relent immediately. Other children quickly learned to let Lyndon do the asking when they wanted parental permission: "He could get them to let us do things that ordinarily they'd say no to."
What drove Lyndon's behavior-his exaggerated reactions to punishment, false claims of hunger, and public complaints about his family? Was it, as one neighbor believed, because "he wanted people to feel sorry for him"? For a boy who needed attention and distinction from his earliest years, now trapped in an undistinguished, poor family with only average academic abilities, perhaps pity was the only distinction possible.
Despite his desperate efforts, Lyndon couldn't escape being identified as a Johnson in a town where family was the primary identification. His was a family "steeped in scandal" going back fifty years when the original Johnson brothers went broke leaving debts across the Hill Country. Now history seemed to be repeating with Sam and Tom Johnson. One resident recalled his uncle watching Lyndon walk by and declaring with finality: "He'll never amount to anything. Too much like Sam."
This judgment was painfully reinforced after Lyndon's high school graduation in 1924. Though he and classmate Kitty Clyde Ross were "in love" throughout their senior spring, her father E.P. Ross-"the richest man in town" and one of Sam Johnson's creditors-forbade the relationship. When the school principal Arthur Krause asked permission to court Kitty Clyde, Ross encouraged it despite the age difference, as "the Rosses were so afraid Kitty Clyde was going to marry Lyndon." Lyndon would often see the Ross car drive by with Kitty Clyde and Krause inside, a painful reminder of his rejection.
Chapter 7
"Bull" Johnson: College Politics and Power
Southwest Texas State Teachers College was the Hill Country's only college-a modest institution with just four buildings perched on San Marcos's highest hill. For young people from the Hill Country's dog-run houses, Old Main's spires represented their only chance of escaping lives of physical toil.
Lyndon had additional reasons for anxiety. Three years away from school had eroded his already inadequate education, and Johnson City High graduates needed to prove themselves through qualifying examinations in subjects like algebra and geometry-his weakest areas. With barely enough money for registration and no financial support from his father, he feared having to leave school within weeks if he couldn't secure funds.
Johnson quickly transformed his humble campus job on the "Rock Squad" into an opportunity. While other students silently raked and lifted, he engaged President Cecil Eugene Evans in conversation whenever possible. The aloof, dignified "Prexy" Evans surprisingly responded to Lyndon's overtures, drawn by their shared interest in politics. Within five weeks of arrival, he'd created and secured a position as Evans' office boy at fifteen dollars monthly-a job that hadn't previously existed.
Despite his outward confidence, Lyndon suffered periods of deep depression at San Marcos. These "down" periods often coincided with delays in his mother's nearly daily letters of effusive encouragement. His estrangement from his father remained complete. Though he proudly displayed improved grades to Sam, saying "Does that look like I've got enough sense to take a college education?", his letters home were addressed only to "Dearest Mother," never acknowledging his father despite Rebekah's entreaties.
Johnson quickly positioned himself for campus prominence, securing the role of writing articles for the campus newspaper. As editor-in-chief of the College Star, he made his mark with oversized headlines and writing that showed early political instincts-lavishing extravagant praise on college officials regardless of their actual campus reputation. He portrayed the feared Dean Brogdon as "one of the best sports on the Hill" and wrote that Dr. Evans' notoriously dull speeches "bristled with interesting facts."
Johnson's flattery extended beyond his writing. He placed strategic notes at the end of examination papers, tailoring each message to its recipient. In faculty discussions, he would literally sit at professors' feet, face upturned in rapt attention, never disagreeing with anything they said. Students noticed he would enthusiastically agree with completely opposite viewpoints from different professors on consecutive days.
While faculty adored Johnson's deference, students disliked his contrasting behavior toward them. At Mrs. Gates' boardinghouse, students remembered his grabbing for the largest portions of food and monopolizing conversation. Though sometimes entertaining with stories, "he just wouldn't let" others speak. His tendency to exaggerate achievements and appropriate others' ideas alienated classmates who doubted his political connections. Students began asking him questions just to laugh at his transparent lies, like claiming his ten-cent tie from Woolworth's was actually a dollar tie from Austin's fancy Scarborough's store.
The most popular students on campus were the athletes who formed a "secret" organization called the Black Stars. When Johnson was unanimously rejected for membership, he helped form a rival group called the White Stars. Johnson's political acumen transformed campus politics. He orchestrated sophisticated campaigns, manipulated voting procedures, and even blackmailed a brilliant writer named Ruth Lewis into withdrawing from an election by threatening to expose a trivial lie about her briefly attending another university.
Johnson's political strategy was remarkable for its secrecy. While he'd always been prone to boasting in other areas of life, he maintained absolute discretion about his political maneuvers. He implemented strict secrecy rules for the White Stars: no three members could be seen talking together on campus; meetings moved to the Hofheinz Hotel where windows couldn't be observed; and members could even deny membership if directly asked. So successful was this secrecy that "the Black Stars didn't know we were organized-nobody knew."
In just over a year after returning from Cotulla, Johnson had engineered a remarkable political transformation. The campus hierarchy that had once scorned him was now controlled by his allies. Class presidents, Student Council members, Gaillardians, Star and Pedagog editors-all positions once held by his enemies had been systematically captured by Johnson loyalists. Despite being one of the most disliked students, he had created and manipulated the campus political structure with astonishing effectiveness, displaying what his brother Sam called his "natural vocation" for political stratagems.
Chapter 8
Teaching and Transformation: The Cotulla Experience
Johnson's teaching experience in Cotulla, Texas, revealed another dimension of his complex character. Driving south of San Antonio, he entered the desolate South Texas brush country-a vast, flat, treeless plain where temperatures regularly reached 110 degrees. Cotulla, sixty miles from the Mexican border, was primarily populated by Mexican residents who lived in crumbling shanties on the "wrong side" of the railroad tracks.
As the principal at Welhausen School, Johnson transformed education for his Mexican students through tireless dedication. He demanded excellence, instituted strict English-only policies, and stayed after school with struggling students until assignments were completed. Most significantly, he repeatedly told them that through education, "any baby" might grow up to become President.
His passion stemmed partly from seeing these children as his first real opportunity to be respected and admired. When a student once mocked his walk, Johnson spanked him and declared the class was "looking at the future President of the United States." Despite his outward confidence, Johnson showed occasional insecurity, insisting students sing a song praising him when he entered the classroom.
In Cotulla, Johnson was desperately lonely, writing daily to his mother and looking forward to rooming with his friend Boody when returning to San Marcos. His courtship of Carol Davis ended when she chose postal clerk Harold Smith, who shared her interest in music rather than Johnson's obsession with politics.
The Cotulla experience had a profound impact on Johnson's worldview. Years later, as President, he would recall: "I shall never forget the faces of the boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American."
Chapter 9
The First Campaign: Johnson's Political Birth
When Congressman James P. Buchanan died suddenly in February 1937, Johnson immediately recognized his opportunity. Though only twenty-eight and virtually unknown outside his small congressional district, Johnson launched an audacious campaign for the vacant seat. The odds seemed insurmountable-he represented the district's smallest county (Blanco) with barely 2% of the district's population, and faced seven other candidates including four seasoned politicians.
Johnson's campaign was revolutionary in its intensity. While his opponents delayed their campaigns-Avery starting March 9, Harris March 18, and Brownlee not until March 27-Johnson had already completed a tour of the entire district by March 5 when the election date was set. Each morning before dawn, Johnson would collect his daily itinerary from campaign headquarters at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel, then head out with his chauffeur Carroll Keach to traverse the unfamiliar district.
Johnson's formal speeches, delivered from prepared texts written by Wirtz and Henderson, proved ineffective despite their appropriate New Deal themes. But in person-to-person interactions, Johnson transformed. His face would "light up" with genuine warmth when greeting someone. His remarkable memory for names, faces and shared experiences created instant connections. When meeting voters, Johnson would grasp their hands while asking personal questions, then invariably find some connection: "I know your mother" or "I've met so-and-so."
Johnson's campaign focused on a single, powerful message: "Roosevelt. Roosevelt. Roosevelt. One hundred percent for Roosevelt." This slogan dominated his posters, calling cards, and letters. He shrewdly positioned the special election as the first opportunity for voters to support Roosevelt's controversial judicial reform plan, declaring: "The paramount issue of this campaign is whether the President shall be sustained in his program for readjustment of the judicial system."
Johnson's campaign intensity reached extraordinary levels. He insisted on visiting every voter, no matter how remote. When finding a farm they'd missed, Johnson would turn the car around without hesitation, even after exhausting days. "We would go back, no matter how hungry and tired we were," recalled Keach. As his cousin Ava Johnson Cox observed: "He went to the people that no one had ever gone to. He went to the people on the forks of the creeks."
On Election Day, Johnson made a critical tactical error. After voting in Johnson City and napping at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel, he learned he was leading in early returns. When South Texas political bosses called to ask when to report their counties' votes, Johnson instructed them to report immediately-violating the cardinal rule of Texas politics to withhold controlled precincts until knowing what totals were needed.
By 9:30 that evening, Johnson led O'Daniel by over 13,000 votes. Supporters hoisted him on their shoulders in wild celebration as newspapers prepared headlines declaring his victory. Lady Bird recalled, "He was announced the winner... We were talking about staff."
But in Texas, not all votes were counted on Election Day. While urban votes using voting machines were tallied immediately, some rural precincts using paper ballots wouldn't report for days. As Monday dawned, mysterious "late returns" from East Texas counties showed dramatic reversals favoring O'Daniel. By Tuesday, O'Daniel had pulled ahead by over 1,000 votes.
The bitter irony wasn't lost on Johnson-after ten years of meticulous planning and relentless work, he had relaxed for just one day. And he had lost.
Chapter 10
The Sad Irons: Bringing Electricity to the Hill Country
Having secured the financing and authorization for four dams along the Lower Colorado, Johnson now tackled an even more difficult challenge: bringing electricity to the Hill Country. By 1937, electricity had been an integral part of urban American life for over a generation, but in Johnson's congressional district, it remained virtually nonexistent.
Without electricity, Hill Country farmers milked cows by hand in predawn darkness, hauled water bucket by bucket from wells often 100 feet deep, and performed countless laborious tasks that had been mechanized elsewhere decades earlier. Women suffered even more severely, carrying hundreds of pounds of water daily, chopping and hauling wood, and cooking on blazing hot wood stoves even during the scorching summer months.
The washing process was brutally labor-intensive. Women would scrub clothes in zinc washtubs, then "punch" them in boiling water with a broomstick, rinse them in separate tubs, and finally treat them with bluing and starch. Tuesday brought the even more dreaded ironing day, using six-pound solid iron wedges heated on wood stoves. These "sad irons" burned women's hands, required constant cleaning, and forced them to stand for hours in suffocating kitchen heat.
Despite months of effort by county agents, the Pedernales Electric Co-op seemed doomed with fewer than two customers per mile signed up-far below the REA's required three per mile minimum. Johnson warned farmers that if they didn't establish their cooperative, Texas Power & Light might buy the dam-generated electricity and offer it only at unaffordable rates.
After failing with the REA Administrator John Carmody, Johnson asked Tommy Corcoran to arrange a meeting with President Roosevelt himself. On September 27, 1938, a telegram arrived at the PEC's Johnson City office announcing the REA had granted a $1,322,000 loan (later increased to $1,800,000) to build 1,830 miles of electric lines serving 2,892 Hill Country families.
In November 1939, the lights came on across the Hill Country. As Evelyn Smith and her parents returned home one evening, her mother initially feared their house was on fire, only to realize: "No, Mama. The lights are on." Stella Gliddon recalls, "All over the Hill Country, people began to name their kids for Lyndon Johnson."
Chapter 11
Through the Back Door: Johnson's White House Connection
Johnson strategically maintained relationships after Election Day through carefully crafted letters to powerful officials. Each letter portrayed Johnson as humbly grateful to that specific official for giving him his opportunity in the 1940 campaign, with flattery customized to appeal to each recipient's ego. Most significantly, he wrote directly to Roosevelt, thanking him for allowing him to "whiff a bit of the powder" in the campaign.
Johnson and Roosevelt developed a significant rapport, meeting frequently in the Oval Office and the President's private quarters. They discussed Texas politics, with Roosevelt increasingly making Johnson his point man for Texas matters-even over established figures like Jesse Jones. Lady Bird recalled her husband returning from White House meetings "on a sort of high," while Roosevelt considered Johnson "a most remarkable young man" and told staff he was "a comer, and a real liberal." Roosevelt even told Ickes that Johnson could "well be the first Southern President."
Johnson meticulously cultivated relationships with everyone in the White House, from secretaries to top officials. He had won over presidential secretaries Marvin McIntyre and Edwin "Pa" Watson, with Watson calling him "a perfect Roosevelt man." Most crucially, Johnson befriended Roosevelt's personal secretaries Missy LeHand and Grace Tully, gaining privileged, off-the-record access to the President.
Despite his talent for arousing paternal feelings in powerful men like Rayburn, Miller, Adams and Wirtz, Lyndon Johnson had been unable to translate affection into advancement. From the very day of his appointment as congressional secretary in 1931, he had viewed the position as merely "a stepping stone"-the bottom rung of a political ladder he was desperate to climb. But by 1935, nearly four years later, he remained stuck on that same rung.
Johnson's ambition governed every action. As he had written years earlier, "It is ambition that makes of a creature a real man." Pride, embarrassment, gloating-these were luxuries he wouldn't indulge. He immediately worked to secure Jesse Kellam's permanent appointment as NYA's Texas director, recognizing the agency's value as a potential statewide political organization. Just as he had used Kleberg's position as a stepping stone, Johnson was already planning his next political move.
Chapter 12
The Perfect Roosevelt Man: Johnson's Political Transformation
Pearl Harbor derailed Lyndon Johnson's career plans. He had expected to challenge Pappy O'Daniel again in 1942, with strong indications of Roosevelt's support and the advantage of name recognition from his previous campaign. With Brown & Root's financial backing and his established statewide organization, Johnson felt confident of victory. But the war-and his pledge to serve in it-made running impossible, delaying his Senate ambitions by seven years.
When Johnson finally ran again in 1948, his platform had fundamentally changed. Once the "perfect Roosevelt man" who proclaimed "100 percent" support for the New Deal, Johnson had quietly shifted allegiance to Texas's powerful conservative rulers. By 1948, he openly attacked "big labor racketeers" and "Communist union leaders"-a complete reversal from his first Senate campaign when he called himself "a friend of labor." The Dallas Chamber of Commerce, one of America's most reactionary business groups, found his record "satisfactorily conservative" and endorsed him enthusiastically.
Johnson even downplayed his New Deal support, claiming he had voted for only thirteen of twenty-seven major New Deal bills. This transformation shocked liberal supporters like Harold Young and Bill Kittrell, but as his Dodge Hotel roommates had observed years earlier, "Lyndon goes which way the wind blows." Before the paint had even faded on billboards proclaiming his loyalty to Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson had already turned against him.
Throughout his career, Johnson displayed a remarkable talent for adapting to changing political environments. His ability to read the prevailing winds and position himself accordingly would become one of his defining characteristics. This political flexibility-some would call it opportunism-allowed him to navigate the treacherous waters of Texas and national politics with remarkable success.
The patterns established in Johnson's early years would continue throughout his political career. His relentless ambition, his talent for cultivating powerful mentors, his willingness to work harder than anyone else, his mastery of political mechanics, and his ability to inspire both fierce loyalty and bitter resentment-all would remain constants as he climbed from congressional secretary to congressman to senator to majority leader to vice president and finally to president.
Robert Caro's masterful biography reveals not just the making of a president but the making of modern American politics. Through Johnson's story, we see how personal ambition, institutional power, and historical circumstance combine to shape both individual destinies and national policy. The young man who once declared to his classmates that he would someday be president had begun his remarkable journey-a journey that would ultimately transform America itself.
