For a century we labored to settle and subdue a continent. For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people. The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization. Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society. The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice . . .

President Johnson was announcing his vision of the Great Society and explaining how that vision would go on to affect his governmental policies.

CS Question #1: What was Johnson's vision of a new America called?

Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, in central Texas. He felt the squeeze of rural poverty throughout his youth and went on to work his way through Southwest Texas State Teachers College. After years of teaching, Johnson successfully ran for a seat in the House of Representatives. He campaigned as a supporter of Teddy Roosevelt and a believer in New Deal government. The New Deal was a series of government reforms meant to provide forms of public assistance and work programs to a nation suffering the Great Depression. After serving six terms in the House, Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1948. By 1954 he had become the nation's youngest Senate majority leader in history. In 1960 Johnson ran for vice-president on the John F. Kennedy ticket. After Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Johnson was sworn in as President of the United States. First he finished Kennedy's works in progress - a civil rights bill and a tax cut. Then Johnson urged Americans to follow him in his vision of a Great Society. In 1964 Johnson won the presidential election with 61 percent of the popular vote, a stunning margin of victory.

CS Question #2: Who was Lyndon Johnson?

The Great Society as a vision was pursued through legislation. During the Johnson administration many new laws were passed and enacted. Sixty separate bills were passed to provide for the nation's public school system. Medicare was created to insure all Americans over the age of 65. Johnson pursued environmental and conservation policies to preserve the countryside. Great Society bills also launched the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, Job Corps and Head Start. Johnson pursued a battle against poverty, urban and rural, and his programs also worked toward removing obstacles to minority populations' right to vote. The Johnson administration also continued Kennedy's policies of space exploration and other government-funded scientific projects.

CS Question #3: What were some of the programs of the Great Society?

Johnson's remarks at the University of Michigan show his idealism in the Great Society:

It is a place where a man can renew his contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.

However, the Johnson era was one of great tumult. Despite the beginning of antipoverty and civil rights programs, unrest and rioting were occurring in black ghettos all over the nation. Frustration among Americans was spreading too fast for Johnson to contain. The Vietnam War was also underway, and protesters were rioting and sparking civil unrest. Instead of running for reelection, Johnson stepped aside to further his cause of peace and equality. He worked hard to produce a settlement with the North Vietnamese but died of a heart attack at his ranch on January 22, 1973, before peace talks were successful.

CS Question #4: What were some of the political issues of the Johnson era?

Further Thought:

1. Trace the roots of the Great Society from early progressive politics to the New Deal to Johnson.
2. What are civil rights and why are they important?
3. In what ways did the Johnson administration create "big government" and for what purposes?