order out of chaos

------------------ The first and most essential condition of Democratic success under a popular Republican President was party unity.  Johnson was mindful of Will Rogers's observation:  "I am not a member of any organized political party.  I am a Democrat." -----------------------

 [excerpt - Dallek, Lone Star Rising, Lyndon Johnson and his Times]

----------------------- He also remembered the old saw that a Democrat would rather fight a Democrat any time than fight a Republican.  In the winter of 1953, the Democrats seemed more divided than ever among conservatives, liberals, and moderates:  segregationists like Harry Byrd of Virginia and Richard Russell of Georgia seemed incapable of cooperation with southern and midwestern liberals like Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, Paul Douglas of Illinois, and Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. 

These competing factions could swamp senators in the middle like Johnson.

All the Senate Democrats, except for Russell, were "very, very skeptical of the Johnson leadership.  Johnson did not get the leadership [position -- Senate Minority Leader] because anybody thought he could handle it," George Reedy says.  "But there was just nobody else.  No liberal could have stepped into that position at that point without tearing the Democratic party to pieces, and no conservative could have stepped into it at that point."  Democrats, Time magazine said in 1953, were members of "a party which is looking for an excuse to fly to pieces."

============
...At the start of the 1954 session, liberal Democrats demanding a legislative program separate from [Pres. Eisenhower's] challenged [Johnson's strategy of] bipartisanship.  In early January, Lyndon reiterated his commitment to the strategy that had worked so well in 1953.  "We Democrats are going to take the only prudent course through which we can truly serve.  It is to examine the President's program item by item and take our stand on the basis of the national interest." 

Lyndon called it the "politics of responsibility" and suggested that the popular Eisenhower would do better with a Democratic than a Republican Congress:  "We understand the Republican National Committee has opened a drive to elect a Republican Congress. . . . It is rumored that the President contends privately this is an anti-Eisenhower plot."

===================
...Johnson enlisted the support of other moderates and reformed party institutions to advance Democratic unity.  He asked Earle C. Clements of Kentucky to become party Whip with expanded responsibilities.  Clements was a southern patrician with unassailable liberal credentials.  As someone from an influential southern family who had served his state as a congressman and governor, Clements was accepted into the Senate club or oligarchy as soon as he came to the upper house in 1951. 

As someone who had compiled a liberal voting record praised by organized labor

and middle-class consumers

and had gone all out for Stevenson in 1952, Clements was attractive to Senate liberals.  Eager to take advantage of Clements's standing with both wings of the party, Lyndon made him party Whip, gave him a special office and staff, and relied on him to round up party members for legislative votes. 

"Clements had a great sensitivity to what Johnson was trying to do," an aide recalled.  "When a particular action of some kind was coming up, Johnson would explain to Clements in three sentences what he wanted, and Clements would just get the full picture.  It might take him an hour to give me my orders -- I was leg man for the whip -- but three sentences were enough from Johnson." ---------------------------------- [end excerpt]

========================
========================

~~ "We are going to take the only prudent course through which we can truly serve.  It is to examine the President's program item by item and take our stand on the basis of the national interest."

~~ "...the politics of responsibility"

~~ ..."three sentences..."

~~ "...the only prudent course..."

~~ "truly serve..."

~~ "...serve..."

~~ ..."take our stand on the basis of the national interest."

~~ "...the national interest"

~~ "...examine the President's program..."

~~ "truly serve"

~~ "prudent course"

~~ "three sentences"

======================
{excerpts from Lone Star Rising.  Lyndon Johnson And His Times.  1908 - 1960.
author:  Robert Dallek.  copyright:  1991.  Oxford University Press, New York.}

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