HOPEFUL BEGINNINGS
PROGRESSIVE "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" Hopeful Beginnings "President Johnson's "Great Soci-*¦ ety" is happily turning out to be a far more spacious concept than...
...Johnson's all too brief comment on taxation...
...This strikes us as a foolhardy and self-defeating course...
...President Johnson must have had something like this in mind when he prepared his State of the Union message...
...Our hopes for a creative reassessment of American foreign policy were quickened at the outset of his message when he said that "today the state of the union depends, in large measure, upon the state of the world...
...Johnson said a month before his inauguration, "tends to come rapidly in periods of intense activity and progress before the impulse slows...
...Gallup summed up one of his basic conclusions this way: "We have polled every major issue through almost thirty years, and we found that the public generally is ahead of Congress—particularly on any kind of change or reform...
...All this is not to suggest that we find ourselves in accord with everything the President has proposed...
...Much will now depend on how the President spells out, in terms of specific legislation, the glowing goals of his "Great Society...
...They underrate the high purpose of most people...
...Our hope for the months ahead is that he keeps it in mind when the going gets rough...
...George Gallup said a year or so ago...
...PROGRESSIVE "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" Hopeful Beginnings "President Johnson's "Great Soci-*¦ ety" is happily turning out to be a far more spacious concept than many liberals had dared to hope...
...But the beginnings of a great adventure in national rehabilitation are there—and hopeful beginnings they are...
...We would remind the Chief Executive of what Dr...
...Our most serious concern is that the President, who was long a member and leader of the Congressional Establishment, may listen to the false counsel of some of his cronies in Congress warning him that he is going too far too fast and in the process leaving the people behind...
...This is one of many phases of the Administration's program that The Progressive plans to explore in depth in the months ahead We were disappointed, too, in Mr...
...Great social change," Mr...
...I believe we are in the midst of such a period of change...
...His only recommendation was to cut excise taxes...
...The President's reflections on foreign policy in his State of the Union message struck us as unusually feeble, especially when contrasted with the power of his presentation on most domestic issues...
...And we believe that the President is dedicated to translating the wide-ranging goals of his recent utterances into specific legislation before the impulse for progress slows again in the country, as it does periodically...
...As for South Vietnam, the President glossed over the steadily worsening crisis in that unhappy country by lamely observing that three Presidents over the past decade have pledged support of that nation and we must go on as we have these ten years...
...He had nothing to say about the urgent need for tax reform to plug the loopholes which enable those who possess great wealth to escape their fair share of taxation...
...These, then, are the doubts and reservations we accumulated during the first fortnight in which President Johnson confronted the Eighty-ninth Congress...
...While they represent basic issues, these grievances do not decisively alter our overall judgment that he has made a hopeful start in focusing the attention of the Congress and the country on a multitude of problems, touching every phase of our lives, to which the Federal government can make a creative contribution for the betterment of all our people...
...He had nothing to say about the necessity for conversations with the Soviets on searching for a realistic formula that might hasten resolution of the potentially explosive issue of a divided Germany...
...Although he expressed a towering commitment to decisive action in the field of Federal support of education, his specific proposals struck us as too inadequate a down payment on a long overdue bill...
...There was not a word, for example, on the need to renew negotiations for disarmament...
...He was silent on one of the most compelling problems of all—the need to develop a more affirmative approach to Communist China, without which, most experts in Washington privately concede, there is little hope of achieving "the peace in Southeast Asia" which the President insisted is a major goal of American foreign policy...
...Much will depend, too, on how hard he is willing to fight for enactment of his program, especially when fighting comes to involve parting with some of the considerable deposit of popularity he has banked throughout the country...
...Commenting on his three decades of assessing the mood of America, Dr...
...Johnson has beckoned the Congress and the country to share his vision of an America that is not only economically stronger and socially more egalitarian, but culturally richer and physically more beautiful...
...In his first batch of messages to Capitol Hill since becoming President in his own right, Mr...
...What followed, however, was an uninspired commitment to struggle along with the policies of the past...
...If our record in South Vietnam since 1954 proves anything, it proves the need for a deep-going reassessment of our entire policy there...
...People rise above self-interest and politicians never learn this...
Vol. 29 • February 1965 • No. 2
