THE ELUSIVE RECORD OF LYNDON JOHNSON

...The march of industrialization across Texas may force Johnson to re-evaluate his role in state politics and may open the door to a more liberal stance in Washington...

...On the other hand, it must be appreciated that Johnson is not "anti-labor" in the same sense as so many of his Southern colleagues...

...As Senator Pat McNamara, Michigan Democrat, puts it: "He trades apples for orchards all day long...

...To prop up their argument they insist that Johnson's innermost instincts are liberal ones, formed during his youth in the New Deal period...

...These are unions steeped in the militant traditions of the CIO...

...In the McCarthy fight, they admit, he remained very quiet...

...The Texas Observer has not only kept Johnson and state officials jumping with its alert coverage of the state political scene, but has been outspokenly liberal on such hot issues as civil rights and McCarthyism...

...Now Johnson takes credit for passing the measure...

...They complain, but they do nothing...

...The Democratic National Committee knows it, too, and grumbles...

...It was all done so neatly that only the Republican National Committee knew what had happened to it...

...But he delivered a unanimous Democratic vote for McCarthy's censure, no mean feat...

...He is in a position to use the club along with the carrot...

...It has grown substantially since then, too, as labor has followed the influx of the new petrochemical and aircraft plants...

...Johnson has the reputation for being the most successful cloakroom compromiser that Washington has seen in a generation...

...It must be added that while Johnson has done his duty in defense of the gas lobby time and again, it has never been a particularly cheerful chore...

...Some Shivers backers turned up prominently on the Johnson for President Committee that arranged his favorite son candidacy in 1956...

...Moreover, Johnson must view with some apprehension the rising fortunes of Texas' new Senator, Ralph Yarborough...

...By subtle tactics and skillful timing he is in a position to help or hinder bills in which others AL TOFFLER, formerly feature editor of Labor's Daily, is a Washington free lancer who has written for Coronet, The Nation, The New Republic, Frontier, and The Christian Science Monitor...

...He did this without reference to principle, but because his chief opponent, Coke Stevenson, had won the endorsement of the Texas AFL...

...It was Olds who had held together a quavery 3-2 vote on the Commission in favor of public power and the public interest...

...Unemployment is a high, wide, and handsome issue, made to order for an election year...

...Johnson's personal persuasiveness is legendary...

...Brown & Root is, incidentally, one of the largest anti-union hold-outs in the construction industry...

...Behind this facility lies his power as majority leader...

...It calls itself DOT—Democrats of Texas...

...George Reedy, the former United Press man who is Johnson's staff egghead, strawboss, and press agent, holds forth at great length about this theory of non-commitment, contrasting it with what he calls disdainfully, "The Senator of Position...

...DOT gets its chief impetus from organized labor, young energetic intellectuals, and from the Negro and Mexican communities...

...It would have expressly permitted the armed forces to maintain Jim Crow in the ranks...

...His intuitive grasp of political reality tells him that his chances of capturing the 1960 bid are slender...

...He supported Franklin D. Roosevelt's plan to pack the Supreme Court when seasoned backers of F.D.R...

...According to this theory, the less said about legislation in advance, the better...

...The Washington Post sent Ed Folliard, one of its crack reporters, to Houston to cover the story, and it printed the letter in full...

...On the other hand, Americans traditionally like to know where the people they elect stand, and it is possible to commit oneself to principle without necessarily committing oneself to language...

...Even liberals who are eager to cover Johnson with public praise gripe privately about his lone-wolf refusal to caucus or to consult them, and his arrogance which demands that the floor be instantly relinquished whenever he wishes to speak...

...Leader Joe Martin in their behalf...

...Johnson has consistently opposed these efforts...

...What aggravates the situation is that the White House, as usual, is diddling in a corner, trying to juggle statistics to make the mass unemployment look no worse than during Democratic recessions...

...Whether that comment is true or not, Johnson is very close to Russell...

...But last winter it was Johnson who in his own moderate fashion led the attack on the Administration for alleged penny-pinching in the face of Soviet advances...

...This is the gigantic nonunion contracting firm of Brown & Root, a company which also owns oil pipelines and some producing wells...

...That the AFL should have supported anyone as politically neanderthal as Stevenson is understandable only to those who knew the AFL before the merger...

...Anti-Johnson liberals deny this, saying that the Southerners wouldn't have resorted to filibuster for fear that they would be licked anyway, and that the act would have increased the likelihood of a change in the Senate rules...

...had fled with tails between their legs...

...Liberals of both parties have fought desperately to change the rules in order to weaken the filibuster weapon used so effectively by the South's extremists...

...He keeps the legislative mill grinding...

...Another was in favor of an amendment urging President Truman to use Taft-Hartley against striking steelworkers...

...There is one source of support, however, upon which Johnson can count...

...The result was a furor which killed the bill for this session...

...Russell gave Johnson the votes he needed to win the post of Democratic leader in 1951...

...This side is also presented by liberal Senators, but always in private, for the simple reason that Johnson's cudgel is large and well-knotted...

...Yarborough is the first Texas Senator to owe a good deal of his success to the state's burgeoning labor movement...

...Since then Johnson's record on labor has been ambiguous...

...At any rate, the Texas CIO, despite Johnson's blasts, stuck with him because, as one former official put it, "At least Johnson believed in the federal government...

...These links have never been fully explored...

...More important, they add, Johnson is the bridge that holds Northern Democrats and Southern Democrats in the same party...

...He promptly used it to stifle DOT influence...

...It was on his way to Brown's lush Virginia estate that Johnson was stricken with his heart attack in July, 1955...

...It is interesting, however, to note that recently George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, spent some time discussing labor legislation with Johnson...

...The record of Johnson's opportunism can be traced only in broad outline...

...In addition, they go on, Johnson gives incoming young liberal Senators a break when it comes to good committee assignments...

...In a showdown fight against ultra-rightist Allan Shivers in 1956, Johnson won control of the state party machinery...

...However, there is another side to the story...

...and, since the bill's chances were killed by the revelation, Johnson was relieved of the necessity of supporting it again this year...

...Organization, urbanization, and other changes are all brought into focus by a small but angry and courageous weekly paper supported by the DOT...

...For Johnson this must be an ap-petite-whetter...

...Thus, last summer, before Sputnik, Johnson led his Democratic troops in an economy assault that cut back defense appropriations...

...This game requires, as Johnson sees it, a minimum of Trumanesque hell-raising and a maximum of conciliatory appeals for "bipartisanship...

...They feel that they need Johnson and their Southern colleagues...

...His first fight was for public power and rural electrification in Texas, a fact of which Johnson is inordinately proud...

...they are not ready for any realignment which would oust the Southerners from the party...

...He is a careful craftsman who leaves few tell-tale traces behind...

...When he switches position it is done with a magnificent grace that dazzles the observer...

...In 1953 Johnson voted with the liberals against the Tidelands oil giveaway...

...He has close ties with, and makes dextrous use of, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and similar groups...

...Labor lobbyists and leadership have remained, on the whole, skeptical of Johnson...

...There are few civil rights votes on public record, for the simple reason that civil rights seldom reaches the Senate floor...

...In Texas, oil men have a choice between Shivers-type candidates and Johnson...

...Pretty soon the object of all this tactile attention, who is also bathed in a warm sea of flattery or promises, thinks that Johnson is a great guy...

...There is no question that premature commitment to specific language makes it difficult for a Senator to navigate effectively once the refined amendments begin to flow...

...In 1948, during his second bid for the Senate seat he now holds, Johnson mounted a massive oratorical offensive against organized labor...

...It was also of direct interest to contractors—-like Brown and Root...

...Yet Johnson is far too canny a politician to believe his own oratory...

...For one of the things which has made Johnson a great many enemies (and enemies who are strategically located) has been his shortsighted opposition to the development of a truly liberal Democratic Party in Texas...

...Today, however, for the first time, a liberal nucleus of some substance is developing in their midst...

...In all fairness to Johnson, however, it should be pointed out that he has not always been rewarded for his efforts in behalf of big oil...

...He in turn has done the company no harm in Washington where its biggest contracts are written...

...Within weeks after he returned to the Senate from the convalescence following his 1955 heart attrck, Johnson put in a 10-hour stint on the floor in a successful effort to pilot the natural gas gouge bill to victory...

...Johnson's job as majority leader is to keep both wings of the party working together...

...Despite all efforts to the contrary, a Senator's beliefs, and at least his voting record, begin to show after a while...

...With Olds gone, the Commission became energetically hostile to public power and obsequiously friendly to big oil and utility interests, a tendency the Eisenhower Administration merely reinforced...

...Johnson's tactics have been discussed often...

...It was a two-way coup for Johnson: the G.O.P...

...Johnson makes a conscious art of non-commitment...

...His liberal backers insist that the real oil money opposes Johnson in Texas when the chips are down...

...Johnson accepted the votes that the CIO got him...

...During his tenure as Texas state director of the National Youth Administration, Johnson demonstrated elementary human decency by giving Negro and Mexican youth a fair—though segregated—shake...

...His liberal admirers say that had Johnson not worked out a compromise, the Southerners would have filibustered and no law would have been written...

...Phenomenal resources of energy and a boundless power drive help him to do so...

...Brown & Root, distributing its largesse deviously, has been a heavy campaign backer of Johnson...

...They include Senate liberals who insist that the Texan is really a liberal fellow, despite all the talk about his deals with the South...

...Johnson's long arms wrap themselves about even the most casual conversation partner...

...Johnson consistently opposed civil rights legislation until last summer when he brought about the dilution of the bipartisan civil rights bill...

...Without Johnson, the implication is, the party would fall apart in the Senate...

...The state has been undergoing subtle, but profound, changes...

...Johnson also worked to prevent a thorough investigation of the lobbying that led to the sensational attempt by the gas lobby to bribe Senator Francis Case, South Dakota Republican...

...This was the crude letter in which Texas Republican boss H. J. Porter called on oil men to put up cash for his party in view of the efforts of House G.O.P...

...Johnson also runs the Senate in a fashion which has done no violence to continued Southern control of its centers of power...

...His vitality is so attractive that amateur psychologists under the Capitol dome say that Johnson radiates a subtle kind of sexuality that nobody talks about but of which many are aware...

...was embarrassed...

...The meeting dispelled some of Meany's tough-minded aloofness toward Johnson...

...It was only a Presidential veto that killed the bill later on...

...In this post, Johnson not only commands great influence on the committee assignments his colleagues get, but he also stands like a traffic cop directing the flow of legislation across the floor of the Senate...

...Johnson perhaps senses that Yar-borough's victory marks the end of an era in Texas politics...

...This is true of Johnson, too...

...Yet stranger things have happened, and Johnson knows, too, that when he puts his mind to something he usually wheedles, threatens, cajoles, or bargains until he gets it...

...If this interpretation of what happened is correct, and the signs all point that way, it would support the view that Johnson is seriously eying the 1960 nomination and wants to minimize his oil ties...

...may have profound stakes...

...On one occasion, when Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Clark, while presiding in the Senate, failed to recognize Johnson quickly enough, the Texas Senator charged out of the chamber muttering angrily...

...Liberals know this and complain among themselves...

...More recently there has been interesting unpublished speculation about Johnson's role in the fiasco that led to the demise of the gas bill this year...

...His admirers are legion...

...For the benefit of the oil and gas interests, Johnson went after Olds in the grand old manner of McCarthy— but before McCarthy patented it...

...Also, Johnson's efforts have not been entirely consistent...

...This tendency could be reinforced by a solid liberal stance in the elections this fall...

...Or take the issue of public power...

...Working with the Southerners, chipping off a few liberals here and there, and acting closely in concert with the G.O.P., Johnson has helped create a deep, perilous vortex in the center which leaves stubborn liberals isolated and ineffective, while sucking the unwary liberal into its waves...

...If the Senate's liberal contingent is augmented enough, it will help offset the Southerners, and either permit —or compel—Lyndon to shift ground...

...He has many friends among the DOTs...

...There may be some," he told the Senate recently, "who look upon the current situation as an 'issue' . . . The only issue is how soon we can get rid of the issue, so the working men and women of America can be employed on productive jobs...

...Moreover, it has not been the old line building trade unions (who have it in them to endorse a Coke Stevenson), but the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers and the United Auto Workers who have made the significant gains...

...He longs to put his hands firmly on the tiller...

...The result has been to surround, isolate, and weaken the DOTs...

...But in one recorded vote in 1950, Johnson voted for an amendment put in by Richard Russell of Georgia...

...In 1952 Johnson supported Russell's bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination...

...This service in behalf of the oil industry was only one of many...

...Moreover, this enhances Democratic chances in the 1960 Presidential race...

...The result is that on election day the voter is hard pressed to differentiate Democrats from Republicans on the basis of issues...

...Particularly with Democratic chances for 1960 iooking brighter, no one wants to rock the boat too vigorously...

...This measure was of direct importance to building trades unions who knew that locally established rates would almost always be lower than those set by the federal government...

...This stupid defensiveness opens a void into which stalks the decisive figure of Johnson, a sort of President-by-analogy, with plans for public works and stepped-up government spending...

...For example, between 1939 and 1953, according to the best estimates, union membership in Texas multiplied 240 per cent...

...And, as majority leader, they say, he has been effective in preventing the Senate from bogging down in fruitless palaver...

...Moreover, continue Johnson's backers, Johnson has been staunch for smali business, militant in the fight against Administration farm policies, internationalist in foreign affairs, anti-tariff on trade issues...

...More recently, in 1954, Johnson voted in favor of the big corporation farmers and against the interests of labor and agricultural workers when he backed a bill authorizing Uncle Sam to recruit cheap Mexican labor for farm factories...

...When Fortune asked him to state his opinions on a list of economic questions, he sent the magazine a brisk letter maintaining that for a Senator, and especially a leader, to commit himself in advance on issues weakens his effectiveness on the floor...

...For example, part of the stock Johnson treatment is what some call the "laying on of the hands...

...Johnson has been a leading proponent of public power since his first days in Congress...

...With the Democrats sniffing November victory even before the slump began, the recession comes almost as the coup de grace...

...The crusty ex-plumber is reported to have been "seduced" by the Texan's amazingly effective charm and his political assurances...

...Lone Star Democrats have been split for a generation...

...Johnson has been intimate with George Brown, partner in the firm, for many years...

...Finally, they say, should Johnson ever be elected to the White House, he would be freed of regional pressures from Texas and would thereby be able to assert his own liberal instincts more fully...

...Finally, some liberals apply another test to Johnson, that homily about liberalism beginning at home...

...Both have been actively breaking down anti-Negro job discrimination...

...A high-octane operator who is reputed to be one of the two or three most powerful men in the nation's capital, Johnson is now playing statesman with the unemployment issue as he did during the Sputnik furor he helped engineer...

...Since he won by only 87 votes in the entire state it might be said that the CIO elected him...

...Johnson's emergence is being watched by experienced Washington hands who know how intense his yearning for the Presidency grows at times...

...At the same time he declared an amnesty for ex-Shivercrats, who have been voting Republican in Presidential elections, while marching under the Democratic banner...

...But it is a contradictory, elusive record which provides slippery ammunition for both his supporters and his critics among American liberals...

...Reporters laugh and call it "the massage...

...One of these votes was against a minimum wage increase to 75 cents an hour...

...Johnson, despite his New Deal record on other matters, never could wax enthusiastic about unions...

...The chief general criticism is that Johnson is an opportunist, a kind of Democratic Richard Nixon, young, able, Western-born, aggressive, ambitious, and adept at demagogy...

...One Negro view of Johnson comes from Clarence Mitchell, the astute legislative representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: "Senator Johnson is a skilled manipulator, but the framework of his action comes out of Dick Russell's workshop...

...But what this "accommodation" does is to dilute the Democratic Party's liberal program, not merely on civil rights but on any number of other issues as well...

...Johnson himself calls it the "pressing of the flesh...

...His recent performance in helping liberals head off the Knowland anti-labor amendments, and a similar role he played in the Taft-Hartley amendment fight in 1954, help balance the record somewhat...

...According to a compilation of voting records by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education, Johnson had, by 1956, voted against labor three times and for it only twice on the five roll call votes selected as most crucial to unionism...

...Texas' Lyndon Johnson, Senate Democratic leader, with his preparedness hearings and now with his leadership in the politics of recession, has been dominating Washington, a circumstance made possible by the clumsy vacillation of the White House...

...Yet it was Johnson who wrote a new low chapter in Senate demagogy with his slashing smear campaign against the reconfirmation of Leland Olds to the Federal Power Commission in 1949...

...Support of the lobby costs him dearly in reputation outside the oil and gas producing states...

...A third was a vote against giving the Secretary of Labor, rather than local authorities, the right to fix minimum wages on interstate highway construction...

...But Johnson's beliefs remain wrapped in mists of his own making...

...The result of this hatcheting was the murder of the liberal majority on the Federal Power Commission...

...It is always frustrating for a man of action to see a hesitating bumbler lose control of the ship...

...Insiders know that Johnson had in his possession a copy of the now-famous Porter letter several days before its exposure -in the Washington Post...

...But he stumped the state declaring his passionate belief in Taft-Hartley and demanding that Stevenson do likewise...

...On the other hand, Johnson can storm petulantly at both colleagues and newsmen when his dignity is ruffled...

...This he does eminently well...

...In moments like these, Johnson's gnawing, restless ambition deepens...

...The AFL-CIO's latest figures place union membership in Texas at 335,000 in 1953...