wash tub. so they had to transfer these between the wash tubs, and on an average day, near as i could tell, there were eight to ten loads of wash in the hill country family. and i'll never forget how my back hurt on wash days. tuesday is ironing, and i'm not going to bore you by going through the day of the week. i named it -- they called it. i named the chapter after what they call tuesday, because you -- the sad irons. because they didn't have electricity and an iron was a hunk of metal, and with a wooden handle which you would transfer from iron to iron and you would have to get them hot on the stove and that means you would have to stand next to the stove all day doing your ironing and it's nothing in the hill country for it to get to 105 and 106 degrees and day by day there. so these people were living lives out of the middle ages. they were living like peasants. lyndon johnson runs for congress at the age of 28, and he says,

he basically says if you elect me i will bring electricity. well, they elected him. let me just go back and lyndon johnson was a political genius and he gears his campaign to the women and what he said the line that he uses is if you elect me you won't look like your mother does. they elect him, but no one really believes that he can bring electricity. i mean, there is no dam, no source of dam in the hill country and a dam has been started at the edge of the hill country, but it's the depression. it's 1937. the company that was doing it has run out of money to do it, so the dam is stopped. and even if you build a dam how will you get electricity out to the scattered farms, isolated farms, miles, one by one laying across the hill? well, to watch lyndon johnson do that, to watch him do what he

had to do to get the dam built and then persuade the rural electricification administration to violate all their rules and lay these lines when i think they had a minimum of, like, ten people per mile and they wouldn't lay lines. but they didn't have that there, but he gets them to do it. keeps asking roosevelt for money to build the dam. every time he sees him he asks him for money and he has intermediaries and aides and they're always asking him and finally roosevelt said i'll give the kid the dam. electricity comes to the hill country and these people, the people of his tenth congressional district are brought in a stroke by one man, using -- he's a genius for government, brings them into the 20th century. and the fact that he did that means that we see in the hill country, the beginnings of what we're talking about. the beginnings of something else in lyndon johnson, not just an understanding of what should be

done to help people who are fighting forces too big for them to fight themselves and we're never going to get electricity on their own and no private company will be brought in there. it wasn't profitable enough and not just an understanding of what should be done to help people, but the ability to help them, a gift that he had. quite a rare gift, really? a talent that was beyond talent to use the powers of government, to help people trying to fight forces too big for them to fight themselves. you know, his father was a populist legislator, served six terms in the texas house of representatives and he used to say that the proper function of government is to help people caught in the tentacles of circumstance, the tentacles of circumstance, fighting things too big for you to help to fight yourself. joe said that i tried to write about the effect of power on the

powerless and the power was used and the powerless and you also tried to write about how power is used for the powerless and now we go forward to 1963. president kennedy was assassinated on november 22nd and lyndon johnson has become president. under president kennedy, there had been some vague, hardly defined early discussions about the anti-poverty program because over one-fifth of the united states and over 33 million people in that year, 1963 was still living below the poverty line. on the day after the assassination, on a saturday, november 23rd at the end of the day lyndon johnson meets in his office in the executive office and he still hasn't moved into the white house with four of president kennedy's economic advisers and he's with the economic advisers and the director of the budget bureau

and douglas dillon, the secretary of the treasury and gordon whose title escapes me at the moment and he is a deputy to heller. the meeting is about the budget and he comes in the middle of the budget process, knowing very little about it and has to get brought up to speed and it's a meeting, but at the end of the meeting as heller is leaving, he's walking out the open door and lyndon johnson is beside him, we know what heller said and we know what johnson's response was because both heller and acley left notes on the meeting and their notes coincide exactly. heller mentions the antipoverty program, and johnson shuts the door. he says that's my kind of program. i'll find money for it one way or the other. heller had up to that point,

johnson had said a lot of things about budget and his various priorities and heller had formed an impression, and his other remarks, johnson's other remarks was, quote, a little calculated, a play for support. there he was, lyndon johnson, the politician, closed quote. not about this, however. standing at that door, heller suddenly feels there was no calculation at all in lyndon johnson's response to poverty. that was so spontaneous, so immediate, instinctive, intuitive and an uncalculated response. all his life people who worked for johnson for years knew about those moments of instinctive, uncalculated responses, always in response to social injustice and social need.

those of you who read my books know there was a moment like that in 1949, we learned that a mexican american soldier has been denied and killed in the philippines during world war ii and was denied burial in south texas and the cemetery of the south texas town because he's not white. on the instant, john conley and walter jenkins are standing there when johnson hands him the telegram. johnson reads it and without a moment's hesitation ands by god, you are in arlington. all through his life there are these moments and here is another one. that christmas, that december, johnson goes down for a two-week vacation on his ranch and heller finds out that his analysis, his feeling -- that this was spontaneous, uncalculated and he finds out that that analysis was

correct. johnson is down on the ranch. the johnson ranch and the ranch that his father lost and that he has now bought back. and when heller and kermit gordon get there, they find that those words were meaningless. johnson has found new money, half a billion for an antipoverty program and he gives it a lesson in political tactics they had thought of a program as a targeted demonstration program with demonstration programs in a limited number of cities. johnson says -- tries to make them understand that a limited number of districts means that a limited number of congressmen are going to get benefits from that program. and he says in his memoirs, i was certain we could not start small and propel our program through congress. his quote is something like i knew we had to do it big or we

wouldn't get it through congress at all. and see, he's very determined. he keeps asking them, how will you spend this money? i've earmarked half a million to get this program started and i'll withdraw unless you fellows come through with something that's workable. very determined. and when you ask where this determination came from, as always with lyndon johnson, part of the explanation is political. he was weak with what he had an election coming up in ten months. he was weak with liberals, weak in the big cities of the northeast and the liberal urban areas. a campaign against poverty would strengthen johnson in these areas. so part of it is political, as always with johnson. but as always, part of the explanation is something more. something that had to do with the fact that when he was doing this, when he was thinking of this anti-poverty program he was doing it back in the hill country when his father hadn't

had gone broke and he had grown up in poverty. back in the ranch, back at his beginnings. how do we know that those beginnings were very much in his mind as he's dealing with the anti-poverty program that christmas? well, he talks very often during those weeks about his boyhood and about a particular thing in his boyhood, having to get up early. most of the books on johnson quote a very cute remark he made to reporters as he's flying down to the ranch. he says i've always been an early riser. my daddy used to come to my bedroom at 4:30 in the morning when i was working on the highway gang right out of high school and he twists my big toe real hard so he hurt and he'd say get up, lyndon. every other boy in town has a half hour's headstart on you. that's sort of cute, but there's

nothing cute about other things he said about being poor. i was interviewing an old hill country ally of his, a guy named e. babe smith who went back a long way with lyndon johnson. he recalls him saying -- he calls him early one morninging and says he hopes he wasn't woken him up. and he says, i'm sure you haven't, because you were a poor boy too, and therefore, you must have been getting up all your life, just like me. this is the quote, that's the only way we can keep up, he said, otherwise they're too far ahead of us. calls an attorney in fredericksburg who has known him since he was a boy, and says, we always get up early, don't we, when staling answers the phone on the first ring. we can't make it unless we do.

at the age of 9 and 10 lyndon johnson had worked in the cotton fields beside his cousin, pulling cotton all day under the broiling hill country sun. i asked -- that christmas, we know from the diary, the back-up diary that the aides kept that the presidential aides keep that johnson and lady bird visit him to bring her to poinsettia and i asked her if she remembered what they talked about, and she said she didn't except she was sure they talked about the cotton picking. she said whenever she and lyndon got together the subject of cotton came up. we always talked about the cotton. she said we just hated that so much. hate is a word that occurs very frequently when people talk about lyndon johnson's feelings about poverty. in a memoir that was written by

his longtime cardiologist that dr. willis hearst. dr. hearst writes that he hated poverty and he hated it when a person who wanted to work could not get a job and then he recounts an incident that occurred when he was accompanying johnson during his vice presidency on a trip to iran and they pass a group of iranian children and somebody remarks that they have rags for clothing and johnson flies into a rage and says as hearst recalls it, don't say that. i know rags when i see them. they had patched clothes and that's a lot different from rags, and i suddenly remember when i read this, reminiscence of dr. hearst, something that lyndon's brother sam johnson had told me about them growing up, and i couldn't quite recall which is why he quoted exactly in the book, but only in general.

i hadn't thought to take a note of it at the time, and i remember sam houston saying something like when he was describing their poverty that he and their sister rebecca had to wear patched clothes, and i remember he said something to me like they weren't rags. so these are the beginnings of lyndon johnson on the anti-poverty program, and the war on poverty, and you know how much the war on poverty meant to lyndon johnson if you just listened to the words with which he introduced the war on poverty in the first state of the union speech when he flew back to washington from the ranch to deliver it on january 8, 1964. the writing of the speech is interesting in that regard. johnson had persuaded ted sorenson, the late speechwriter for john f. kennedy, to stay on at least for a while and help him with his speeches a short while. and he had -- sorenson -- he had

flown sorenson and his three little boys down to texas, and they were staying at the louis ranch, which is some miles away from the johnson ranch. sorenson's little boy says dad was supposed to spend time with us that christmas, but all we remember is him scribbling in this little room at the end of the hall. he went down to the ranch house talking to johnson about the speech, but when you analyze those drafts and you can see them in the johnson library draft by draft, sorenson draft one, sorenson draft two, you see how much of it came from johnson. some of it when he delivers the speech, a real lyndon johnson words and sorenson had written this administration declares unconditional war on poverty in america. the speech is delivered by lyndon johnson is, this administration today here and now declares unconditional war on poverty in america. he had added four words today,

here and now. lyndon johnson words. and the speech said unfortunately, many americans live on the outskirts of hope. some because of their poverty and some because of their color. and all too many because of both. our task is to help that one-fifth american families with incomes too small to even meet their basic needs. our chief weapons will be better schools and better health and better homes and better training and better job opportunities to help more americans, especially young americans, escape from squalor and misery and unemployment roles. you know, it's interesting to watch that speech on tape today. as lyndon johnson says those three words, squalor, misery, unemployment, his eyes behind the thick glasses he had to wear

for speeches narrow. and i wrote, his lips set already in that grim, tough line, tightened and twisted into an expression close to a snarl. and he continued with words that while none of them applied specifically to his own life might nevertheless have had a special resonance for someone who had grown up in poverty and who knew it was only because you hadn't been given a fair chance. of course, lyndon johnson passed the war on poverty, passed so many of the other bills that will be discussed during the rest of this symposium. he showed in his presidency and he demonstrated in his presidency what he had demonstrated as a young congressman, a rare gift, a talent beyond talent, a talent that was genius for transmitting compassion into government

action and to transmute compassion into government action that would make the compassion meaningful. the life of lyndon johnson is a very complicated life, with two aspects showing all the complications, showing brightly through all the dark episodes. one is the compassion, the sympathy for, the empathy for people. poor people, people of color. people caught in the tentacles of circumstance. and the other is the great gift, the talent behind talent, to make compassion meaningful. meaningful how? to help people fight forces too big for them to fight alone. the proper role of government. and as i said at the beginning of my talk, it all went back to the beginning. now i may have talk too long, but if i could write short, i wouldn't always be writing thousand-page books. thank you.

the life of a sailor includes scrubbing the deck in the morning, working on the sails, climbing aloft, whatever the duties assigned. gun drill practice. but by the end of the day, you're ready for some rest. but you don't get a full eight hours asleep. aboard a ship like "constitution," it's four hours on, four hours off. >> this weekend on american history tv, the life of an enlisted man aboard "the uss constitution" during the war of 1812. >> the sailor lived in fear of being whipped. the thing a sailor never wanted to see was petty officer who was getting ready for a flogging. it's a phrase we still use today. don't let the cat out of the bag. you don't want to see the cat anine tails coming out of the bag for a flogging.

>> that's sunday 7:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. also this weekend, more from "the contenders" key political figures who ran for president and lost but changed political history. sunday, 1928 democratic presidential candidate, former new york governor al smith. >> up next, a look at the presidency of lyndon b. johnson. panelists discuss how lbj viewed government's role and the efforts at a instituting civil rights legislation and reform. correspondent bob schieffer moderates this panel. new york's hunter college hosted this hour-long event. >> fantastic. it's now my pleasure to introduce this extraordinary panel. it's supposed to flash some pictures up here. the guy with all the hair, that's me. a few years ago, so i don't have

to introduce myself. maybe they can run those. and that's -- yeah, there we are. okay. and the next one is ervin duggan, right there. he still has a lot of hair. it's a little gray, but erv, come on out. erv was one of his aides. he left the "washington post" to work at the white house. on education and welfare and disrights, he was commissioner of the fcc, the federal communications commission. for five years, six years as president and ceo of the public broadcasting system. now he is president and ceo of the society for arts in palm beach. if you ever go to palm beach you should look him up. that's an incredible operation he's got down there. senator george mcgovern, my god. [ applause ]

a world -- a world war ii bomber pilot who received the distinguished flying cross for his heroism, a history teacher, a member of the house. he was elected senator in 1962. opposed the war in vietnam vigorously, he was a democratic candidate for president in 1972. actually, i was the -- i was the counsel for the democratic party then, and george called me one day from south dakota when his vice presidential candidate tom eagleton had gotten into trouble and said how do you change the candidate for vice president? i said i don't know. he said, well, you better find out. you're my lawyer. he left the senate, stayed in

the senate 1980. he has done lots of work on food for peace. and this july, if i'm right, george, you will celebrate your 90th birthday, 90 years young. [ applause ] walter mondale, vice president of the united states under jimmy carter. [ applause ] god, don't we wish we had men like that in washington today? [ applause ] i got to know -- he was attorney general of minnesota, then he was appointed senator in 1964 to take hubert humphries' a place when lbj was elected president and humphry vice president.

1966 he was elected in his own right, democratic party nominee for president in 1994 and ambassador to japan for four years in the 1990s. he is still practicing law in minneapolis, and when he was vice president, i think it's fair to say that no one was more responsible for my getting the job as secretary of hew than you are. wonderful, wonderful man. bill moyers. [ applause ] one of our -- one of our country's most prolific and respected journalists. a 40-year run on public broadcasting with a new series this year, i think it's "moyers & a company." he helped organize the peace

corps. he was press secretary and a close confidante of lbj, publisher of newsday. when bill called me, i was working in the pentagon. when bill called me and said you got to come over here and work in the white house. and i said well -- he said, no it will be fun. bill, i never knew what fun was until i started working for lyndon johnson. and last, our moderator bob schieffer. he is the cbs news chief washington correspondent. [ applause ] moderator of "face the nation." all of you who rue the fact that "face the nation" is only a half an hour, it is going to an hour beginning in april. and we look forward to that, bob. he has covered all major washington beats -- the white house, the state department, the pentagon, and capitol hill.

i think he is proudest of all he said once in the fact that his university, texas christian university has named their school of journalism the schieffer school of journalism. bob? [ applause ] we have -- i'll turn it over to bob. but first this is lyndon johnson talking to everett dirksen about an excise tax problem he has to kind of give you a sense of what it is like. >> you're not going to beat me on excise taxes and ruin my budget this year. i've got ways and means holding hearings and we've got to come up with a recommendation one way or another. but don't beat me on that. you can do it if you want to and ruin my budget, but you holster economy and trying to balance it. and i cut the deficit 50% under what kennedy had. now you screw me up on excise taxes and get that thing going, i'll have hell.

now let my ways and means committee -- well, i know it. but got you also for good fiscal prudence. you know, you know that the way to do this is through the house committee. you know if you put it in, you're not going to get it. they're not going to let you write a bill on taxes in the senate. please don't press me on that. >> i'm not pressing. >> who are you going to take? are you going to take all the republicans? give me one or two of them and let them be prudent. you've got people on there -- well, you have enough votes. >> no, i haven't. you can beat me. and you ought nt to do it. you can see how you let me win by one vote and i'll call you back a little bit in this. >> you never talked that way when you were sitting in that front seat. >> i did if my country is involved. i voted when no one voted against him, i cast the vote on foreign aid and brought it out of the committee. >> you're a hard bargainer in. >> i'm not. but you just take care and take a look at this and see what i can do and i'll call you right back.

>> i think the first question to ask at this gathering here of this distinguished group, joe califano, do you think anybody talks on the telephone to anybody else in washington like that today? >> no. i don't think there is anything like that at all. and it was rare. it was rare even in those days. but there is nobody talking like him. >> i just reread harry mcpherson's book. harry mcpherson was an aide to lyndon johnson. it's a wonderful book. and he has in there, at one point he said lyndon johnson could deliver because he had a firm working relationship with republican leaders. he said the bolder, the more sweeping, the more complex the program that a president submits to congress, the more necessary it is that he and his helpers practice the nonintellectual art

of personal politicking with men and women of both parties. he says the grasp of the issues and the facility of expression are seldom sufficient to get the job done. and it seems to me, i wonder, and i just want to talk to each of you today, has washington lost the ability to negotiate? had they lost the ability to make a deal? it's not that way anymore. joe, why don't we just go around the horn here? >> well, i think they have lost the ability to make a deal. and i think it's, you know, i think senator mcgovern can certainly talk about it. even when he was virtually calling for johnson to get out of the white house, was still talking to him about food stamp programs and everything else. i mean, i think we've lost that. and just one example -- i mean, my recollection, bill can check me. was fundamentally he said you treat everett dirksen, who was the minority leader in the