The Presidency: The American Dream

(See Cover)

Keep the right man in the right job;

He's the right man for ev'ry one;

He's the man to get things done.

So join the U.S.A.'s tomorrow,

Go with L.B.J. today,

'Cause Johnson is setting the pace,

President Johnson is setting the pace.

A full-throated baritone introduced Johnson Is Setting the Pace in a smoke-fogged Chicago banquet hall full of perspiring Democratic politicians. But Lyndon Baines Johnson, the guest of honor, was already handshaking his way toward an exit. He had more places to go, more things to do, and he certainly meant to go and do them.

What He Did. In the course of a single breathtaking, nerve-shaking, totally implausible week, the 36th President of the U.S. made nearly two dozen speeches, traveled 2,983 miles, held three press conferences, appeared on national television three times, was seen in person by almost a quarter of a million people, shook so many hands that by week's end his right hand was puffed and bleeding.

He received a hug and kiss on the ear from a freckled seven-year-old girl in Chicago, a Life Patron membership in the Disciples of Christ Historical Society in Washington, a warning from former President Harry Truman that he "takes too many chances mixing with crowds."

He went to the World's Fair in New York, watched a whiz-bang fireworks display in his honor outside a Chicago hotel, was nearly swamped by a shoulder-deep mob of schoolchildren in South Bend.

He announced the settlement of the U.S.'s 4½-year-old railroad labor dispute, made public U.S.-Soviet moves to cut back production of nuclear-arms materials, told reporters during a tour of the White House Rose Garden that the grape hyacinths there were about the same color as Texas bluebonnets.

He drolly advised former Venezuela President Rómulo Betancourt during a White House call that he should be careful during an upcoming cross-country auto trip because "we've got a lot of crazy drivers in this country"; he commanded Democratic congressional leaders at a legislative breakfast to "switch about twelve votes" in the House so that the Administration's once-beaten pay-raise bill could pass; he told a dead-broke Kentuckian on the porch of his shack to "take care of yourself, now"; and he quietly asked New York's Republican Senator Kenneth Keating during a plane ride to New York if he would please pray for him.

Topping the Others. There seemed to be no end to it, no ceiling on his energy, no limit to his endurance, no issue or individual to whom he would not offer a hayseed's aphorism or a statesman's advice. Ever since he took office five months ago, amid the numbing shock waves of John Kennedy's assassination, he has plunged into the presidency with a headlong velocity. No man in the White House has ever moved faster. Few have managed to brand their personality on the presidency so quickly and so indelibly. Corny as johnnycake, folksy as a country fiddler, persuasive as a television pitchman, he is also both efficient and effective, and he can already count several considerable achievements in his brief Administration.