Lyndon Johnson's Acceptance Speech

Would the Great Society ever be Achieved?

Michael Streich, November 9, 2009

When Lyndon Johnson accepted his party’s nomination for the presidency on August 27^th, 1964, the United States was growing economically while confronting serious domestic problems that included the Civil Rights Movement and poverty. Johnson highlighted this when he said that the nation was “in the midst of the largest and the longest period of peace time prosperity in our history.”

 

But he also asserted that the needs of all could never be met by a “Southern Party or a Northern Party,” alluding to the Civil Rights Movement although never mentioning it by name. His speech was an affirmation of goals associated with the “Great Society” and directly addressed basic needs. Foreign policy was never mentioned in the speech as a specific. Ironically, the war in Vietnam was not even alluded to, although this would consume Johnson’s entire term as president.

 

Address the Basic Needs of All Americans

 

American novelist John Steinbeck helped Lyndon Johnson to draft the acceptance speech. Perhaps Steinbeck’s recollections of earlier poverty during the Great Depression, which inspired the 1939 Grapes of Wrath, helped to formulate the emphasis on Johnson’s “war on poverty” in the speech.

 

After citing the Old Testament passage “Thou shalt open thine hands unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy in thy land” (Deuteronomy 15:11), Johnson enumerated what he believed were the “needs and hopes” of many Americans. Significantly, he began with medical care for older citizens. No health care reform had been attempted since the administration of Harry Truman. Truman’s efforts were thwarted by a Republican Congress strongly tied to the health care industry.

 

Johnson’s other priorities included fair prices for farm products that would provide “decent incomes” for farmers. He addressed “decent” housing for all Americans and educational opportunities for all children. Johnson stated that every “man” who wants a job should have one. His other priorities were more general in nature.

 

General Goals of the Democratic Platform in Johnson’s Speech

 

Johnson declared that “Americans want victory in our war against poverty.” Although a lofty goal, such general statements are made without the expectation of fulfillment. Poverty might have been diminished, but the expectation referred more to a national mindset. It was an attempt to answer critics that deplored the growing gulf between the rich and the poor, the “haves” and the “have nots.”

 

Finally, Johnson referred to the “expanding and growing prosperity” of Americans. Consumerism had been growing along with average wages. More Americans were becoming first time homeowners in the burgeoning suburbs than ever before. A one-time “urban nation” was not a suburban nation. Yet this left many Americans, notably minorities and poor whites, unable to achieve the American Dream.

 

Civil Rights and Equal Justice

 

The Civil Rights Movement directly confronted the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, NJ after the party’s credentials committee refused to seat a southern black delegation. Throughout the South, communities were torn by violence as segregationists resisted federal intervention in public school desegregation. Johnson promised to “carry out what the Constitution demands and justice requires – equal justice under law for all Americans.” He decried those who “create disorder” and vowed to bring to justice the offenders.

 

Foreign Affairs and the Arms Build-Up

 

Johnson’s only direct reference to foreign affairs referred to defense appropriations, begun early in the Kennedy Administration. Although later historians would criticize the massive increase in nuclear weapons, including Polaris submarines, it was important to counter the build-up of Soviet arms and to appear militarily strong in the face of Republican Party criticisms.

 

Was the Great Society a Utopia?

 

All of Johnson’s specific recommendations were achievable although costly. Had the Vietnam War been avoided, the Great Society might have had a greater, more universal impact on Americans. But by 1968, Lyndon Johnson chose not to seek reelection in the face of a nation increasingly polarized by the conflict in Southeast Asia.

 

Sources:

 

Acceptance speech of Lyndon Johnson, 1964

Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley, Rise to Globalism (Penguin, 1997)

Jon Margolis, The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964 (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1999)

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