When a Great Ship Cuts Through the Sea
SANDOZ, ROBERT
WASHINGTON-U.S.A. 'When a Great Ship Cuts Through the Sea...' By Robert Sandoz Washington When President Johnson showed up for his fifth State of the Union message with his hair curlier than...
...The conservative coalition in the House??Republicans and Southern Democrats??has not been stronger in years...
...and by suggesting that if ever there was a time "to know the pride and excitement of being an American," this is it, the President gave a performance that Jackie Kennedy's sister (whom he supplanted on one network) could have topped...
...Nonsense...
...For instance, the coalition forced cutbacks in antipoverty funding for fiscal 1968, and refused to authorize any funds for fiscal 1969...
...Johnson is a gracious woman who does not deserve to be blamed for her husband's war, and who, in fact, deserves credit for some of his more civilized programs at home...
...There is in the land," he said, "a certain restlessness—a questioning...
...Johnson treated the entire Vietnam question as nothing much more vexing than Excedrin headache number 26...
...The most-likely-to-be-passed trinkets in the State of the Union grab bag were the Commander in Chiefs call first for a war on lsd and then for 100 additional fbi agents, presumably to fight it...
...On balance, Johnson viewed the present state of the union with benevolent equanimity: "Our nation [read, "my Administration"] is accomplishing more for its people than has ever been accomplished before...
...Americans are prosperous as men have never been in recorded history...
...One would have thought he had introduced Raquel Welch in a G-string, or at the very least had announced a Congressional pay raise...
...Last year, Congress gave the President less than half of the $662 million he sought for his Model Cities program...
...Why...
...while we have accomplished much, much remains for us to meet and master...
...Instead, camouflaged amidst the "peace - at - the - earliest - possible -moment-is-our-goal" refrain, there was a stiffening of his position on negotiations, and this subsequently seemed to be reinforced by the appointment of Clark Clifford as Secretary of Defense...
...His proposals most pertinent to the times were those calling for a greatly expanded Model Cities program, a program to alleviate hard-core unemployment, and a massive housing program for low- and middle-income families...
...The day following the President's address to Congress, singer Eartha Kitt delivered her fiery denunciation of his Vietnam policy at a White House ladies' luncheon...
...It had the added virtue of superb timing, for Miss Kitt addressed herself to the actual condition of the country more honestly and eloquently??if not quite so neatly??than the President did the evening before...
...It was not applauded...
...Under different circumstances abroad, such proposals would have been considered additional evidence that Lyndon Johnson was indeed capable of shaping a great society...
...Near the end of his message, Johnson said, "This Congress??Democrats and Republicans??can earn the thanks of history...
...Congress, which does not dig the East Village, was crazy about the idea...
...A hundred G-men rounding up acidheads is not precisely what we need to cure our urban convulsions, but apparently it will have to do in an election year...
...When a Great Ship Cuts Through the Sea...' By Robert Sandoz Washington When President Johnson showed up for his fifth State of the Union message with his hair curlier than usual, it was explained (by whoever explains these things) that he had quit using that greasy kid stuff...
...We know," he thundered, "that the American people have HAD ENOUGH of rising crime and lawlessness in this country...
...Aside from a commendable child health program, Johnson didn't broach any significant new ideas, such as a negative income tax, a revenue redistribution scheme to bolster state government, or the role of the Federal government as an employer of last resort...
...Eartha Kitt's "tirade" (that's what the New York Times, as shaken as everyone else, called it) was a flashing gem, and it should be prized as such...
...Both Congress and the President evidently consider "lawlessness" the sexiest issue of this election year, and the competition to prove who can best get the blacks back in fine may be very spirited in the months ahead...
...Only once did he come close to voicing the mood of the nation...
...One imagines one of Dr...
...So few government leaders ever say what they really think, the way they really think it, that when someone else speaks openly, the rest of Washington is shocked...
...Gallup's agents polling a housewife in a cold-water flat in Newark or Detroit: "Madam, to what do you attribute the unrest in America today...
...What is most significant, and most depressing, about his State of the Union message is that it gave no hint he is reconsidering that choice...
...The incident flustered almost everyone in official Washington, partly because Mrs...
...Much of Congress was clearly enthralled at the prospect of cracking down on "those who preach disorder and violence...
...This extravagantly courageous proposal received more attention from Johnson??and probably will receive more from Congress??than legal protection against electronic bugging, which received none at all...
...And by a 62-vote margin, the House elected to drop the entire $40 million allotment for rent supplements requested by the Administration...
...Today, they merely serve as nostalgic reminders of all the promises and dreams he began to fulfill in the 88th and 89th Congresses, and that he might be fulfilling still were it not for Vietnam...
...But much of the stunned reaction to Miss Kitt's plain talk ensued because plain talk is such a rare commodity in this town...
...It was a hungry sound, perhaps the kind of sound that echoed through the Colosseum when the lions appeared to confront the Christians...
...but then how would a State of the Union message get to where it was going without this perennial transition...
...After taking a rhetorical bow for last year's memorable "Flammable Fabrics Act" (Let's hear it for those fabulous Flammable Fabrics...
...Johnson may get a Tainted Tuna bill and a few others, but if the 90th Congress is going to earn the thanks of anyone, it's going to be the Chicago Tribune, not history...
...He did grant that Robert Sandoz is a free-lance writer working out of Washington...
...One problem is that he does not have much money to work with, and between Vietnam, Wilbur Mills, and a cost-conscious, election-conscious Congress, his prospects of getting more via the tax surcharge he wants are limited...
...The President did not ask Congress for much, and much of what he asked for he won't get...
...In lieu of new programs, Johnson embroidered his message with legislative ornaments...
...Well, I'd have to say that when a great ship cuts through the sea . ") In the days just preceding the speech, there had been some speculation in the Capital that Johnson might take the opportunity to announce a bombing pause in response to Hanoi's most recent overtures...
...the President proposed legal protection for the American consumer/voter against radiation from television sets and other electronic equipment...
...Some would have liked the President to confess, "Frankly, because nobody likes me, nobody trusts me, and everybody has about had it with patience and perseverance in Vietnam...
...For in the context of a war which is costing some $25-30 billion a year, an aggressive urban rehabilitation program will barely get off the ground, and a "10-year campaign to build six million new housing units" is empty rhetoric...
...Maybe on his hair he had, but not in his speech...
...by his perfunctory treatment of the war in Vietnam and his cavalier disregard of how it hinders everything he asked for...
...He spoke glowingly of the artifacts of a great civilization??new cars, new highways, and 70 million television sets...
...The President must choose between the war and domestic needs, and although he denies that the choice exists, he has in fact long since made it...
...But Congress is going to do no such thing...
...The President devoted one sentence to civil rights...
...If the President talked superficially about Vietnam, unrealistically about domestic legislation, and unenthusiastically about everything else, he spoke with almost obscene gusto about crime...
...To ask for a billion dollars this year is futile, and he knows it...
...But what he actually said was that "when a great ship cuts through the sea, the waters are always stirred and troubled...
...By proposing utterly unrealistic legislation one moment and meaningless legislative frills the next...
...He knocked off the subject in a dozen brief, pedestrian para-graphs, none of them acknowledging that the disordered state of the union (and of Congress) is largely the result of uncertainty about our sense of purpose in Vietnam??a sense of purpose to which he claims Americans are so eminently prepared to lend their "will" and "moral strength...
...Last year, it carried the day on 37 important roll calls, usually motions to sharply curtail domestic spending...
...In a highly personal way, she dealt with what Johnson did not: the fact that the war and American unrest are inseparable, the fact that the war in Vietnam frustrates much of what remains to be done here...
...Legislators long thought to be comatose pounded their desks and cheered deliriously...
...Johnson continues to talk as if Congress might let him have the war and 300,000 housing units, a billion dollars for Model Cities, a $2.1 billion job program...
Vol. 51 • January 1968 • No. 3
