Evaluate the success of LBJ’s domestic policy.
In our Trump-era of inflamed racial tension and division, the time is right for a reassessment of President Johnson’s domestic policy. The historiography surrounding LBJ is largely dominated by debates concerning his foreign policy, particularly the Vietnam War. As such, he has been heavily criticised by scholars such as Hayley and Steinberg who use the war as the basis for their stance. However, any evaluation of LBJ’s presidency must also consider domestic policies, and in this respect, Bernstein and Divine have been instrumental in the resurrection of LBJ’s reputation. It is in this latter school of thought, seeking to rebalance assessments of LBJ, that this piece of work sits. For the purposes of this essay, a study of LBJ’s domestic policies will be confined to an exploration of his efforts to advance civil rights and his War on Poverty, although it is notable that these are just two aspects of his wider Great Society programme. To measure LBJ’s success in these areas, his aims must be clearly defined before examining the subsequent results of his policies. To this end, the first part of this essay will look at primary sources such as the 1964 State of the Union Address in order to glean LBJ’s aims, before continuing to examine how far these were achieved. This essay seeks to advance the view that LBJ’s domestic policies were not only successful, but also ground-breaking in what they were aiming to initiate. Statistics help illustrate how life improved for different sections of society (like the aging population), but measuring the broader impact of LBJ’s policies is far harder. Nevertheless, Johnson deserves recognition for this latter achievement – the way in which he combatted traditional American attitudes of individualism to place emphasis on welfare and civil rights, challenging institutionalised discrimination and widening the scope of government responsibility to include those on the fringes of society.
Addressing Congress in January 1964, Johnson outlined his key policy aims regarding the War on Poverty and civil rights. Of the former, he stated how he aimed to establish ‘better schools, […] health, […] homes, […] training, and better job opportunities’ wherever poverty existed – ‘in city slums […] in sharecropper shacks or in migrant worker camps’. Moreover, in a speech given in the same year, LBJ asked the crowd whether they would help ‘to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of poverty’. Whilst bound up in the powerful rhetoric of political speech, the discernable aims of LBJ’s War on Poverty are twofold: he aimed to improve the quality of public services such as schools, and wanted improvements to be far-reaching, helping lift the impoverished out of destitution regardless of their class, age or location. In addition, LBJ also outlined his aim to ‘abolish […] all racial discrimination’ ‘as far as the writ of Federal law will run’, outlining his wish to pass substantive legislation to end racial inequality. The issue of race was inextricably interwoven with that of poverty, something that LBJ made clear as he stated how ‘many Americans live on the outskirts of hope – some because of their poverty, and some because of their colour, and all too many because of both’. Increased opportunities, argued LBJ, ‘must be open to Americans of every colour’. In this, LBJ also sought to tackle the economic basis of poverty and address the way in which this impacted minorities, as well as white Americans. It is against these aims articulated by Johnson himself that the success of his domestic policies can now be measured.
Ostensibly, a strong case can be made for LBJ’s success in achieving his domestic aims pertaining to the War on Poverty, specifically in improving the quality of public services. For instance, Duggan justly praises LBJ for his contribution to education, placing emphasis on the extensive system of student loans and grants that he created. Through the passage of the Higher Education Act (1965) which provided the funds for loans and scholarships, LBJ’s policies enabled a higher proportion of students to continue their education: it is no coincidence that college enrolment rose by 120% during the 1960s when it had risen by only 59% during the 1950s. Here, LBJ may be perceived as having achieved success in improving the quality of education system by making higher education more readily accessible. By widening opportunities and providing the means for students to pursue education to a higher level, Johnson raised aspirations amongst high school students, again evident in the rising proportion of those graduating: in 1963, 41% of Americans had finished high school, rising to 81% by 1998. Although in keeping with a general upwards trend of those graduating, this dramatic increase over such a short period of time owes much to LBJ’s policies. Moreover, Heale, like Duggan, applauds Johnson’s efforts to combat the War on Poverty, stressing the importance of programmes such as Head Start in improving welfare provisions for those in poverty. This view can be substantiated with evidence drawn from a 1979 article in the New York Times, which highlights the extent to which federal food programmes initiated by Johnson helped reduce malnutrition amongst children. The Food Stamp programme (the nutritional element of Head Start) significantly reduced malnutrition in deprived areas, and as a consequence helped to reduce infant mortality, with a 50% decline in related deaths from 1967-1975. In these respects, LBJ can be seen as having achieved his domestic aim in his War on Poverty of improving the quality of welfare services, particularly in education and welfare provisions.
However, referencing statistics alone gives only a one-dimensional perspective of how successful LBJ’s War on Poverty was. Gelfand challenges the ostensible success of Johnson’s policies presented by Heale and Duggan to argue that there persisted a gap between that which the government promised and that which it delivered. There is truth in Gelfand’s assertion: domestic policies were limited in the demographic they reached, often failing to help those in remote, rural areas. The photography of Walker Evans in the 1930s reflects the plight of poor sharecroppers in Alabama, and his photographic series evokes a sense of the poverty in which this group found themselves. Working 40 years later, Ken Light conveys a similar sense of the destitution experienced by poor, white Americans living in rural America. Taken together, these documentary photographs illuminate the persistence of poverty, and how measures implemented by Johnson failed to eradicate it. For another demographic, however, life dramatically improved. The status of those aged over 65, historically susceptible to poverty, was significantly better by 1970, with only 25% of this group in poverty in comparison to 40% in 1959. This improvement can largely be attributed to the introduction of Medicare in 1956 through the Social Security Act, which helped a substantial proportion of the elderly receive health services that might otherwise have driven them into poverty. Johnson did aim to lift the impoverished out of destitution, regardless of class, age or geographical location, and with such an ambitious aim, it is unsurprising that he failed to achieve this entirely. However, his successes should be fully appreciated in the context of the time: as of 1963, there was little precedent for federal government intervention in public education or healthcare, traditionally the remit of state and local governments. That Johnson made these areas legislative priorities is significant in itself, notwithstanding the substantive impact of said policies.
The overall assessment of LBJ’s War on Poverty is multifarious. The proportion of those in poverty decreased – from 39 million in 1959 to 25 million in 1968 – but life in poverty persisted for many, with entire classes (working class, white, rural Americans for instance) not experiencing tangible change. A decrease should, however, be viewed as a triumph alone (especially with an ever-growing population), with millions benefitting from domestic measures implemented by LBJ. Where Johnson should be criticised, and has been by the likes of Bornet, is for trying to promise and ultimately achieve too much, especially given that he was fighting a war on another frontier: Vietnam. Bernstein argues that the Vietnam War starved the Great Society of vital funding and resources, which meant that it was unable to fulfil its potential. Like Bernstein, Dallek also portrays the Vietnam War as having inhibited LBJ’s ability to fulfil domestic promises. These assessments accurately encompass the dilemma faced by Johnson of how he was to balance commitments at home and abroad. Whilst his failure to strike this balance detracted from the degree to which the War on Poverty was able to fully achieve its aims, there is no doubt that the ambition and sentiment behind LBJ’s domestic agenda are truly ground-breaking. His support for an increased federal government role in the lives of individuals was virtually unprecedented, especially given the engrained conservatism that pervaded attitudes towards welfare. Passage of domestic legislation was incredibly difficult to achieve without distractions, let alone alongside US involvement in Vietnam and with, following the 1966 midterm elections, weakened Democrat control in Congress.
On civil rights, Johnson’s successes are more clear-cut. For instance, within his first year of office, the Civil Rights Act (1964) was passed, giving the civil rights movement its first codified, legislative recognition. The success of this act was twofold: it highlighted LBJ’s political talent in the bill’s passage through Congress, and also led to fundamental changes in the lives of minorities. Lawson asserts that by philosophy and style, LBJ was suited for achieving legislative breakthroughs within the constraints of the constitutional system. This is a fair assessment: before becoming president he had accumulated an impressive 26 years of political experience. A real sense of LBJ’s political manoeuvring was captured in contemporary press before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, with the Washington Post reporting that he was using ‘all his understanding and knowledge of the South […] in a torrent of personal and telephone conversations with Southern leaders with the single purpose of urging compliance.’ From this, LBJ’s personal commitment to the legislation is evident, doing all he could to secure the safe passage of his domestic agenda. The passage of key civil rights legislation was a clear success of LBJ’s domestic policies, but even the conception of these acts can be perceived as a triumph of reactionary politics. For instance, the Voting Rights Act (1965) viewed in the wider context of the civil rights movement, was a swift reaction to the violence emanating from Selma, Alabama in 1965. The widely-broadcast, divisive scenes provided the impetus for action needed, and Johnson responded, throwing his weight behind legislation guaranteeing all African Americans the right to vote. Using his political talent and experience, LBJ acted as a vehicle through which the ideals of the civil rights movement were translated into practical, statutory language.
Yet LBJ’s success extended beyond the purely legislative – real change occurred as a direct result of his domestic policies related to civil rights. Traditional impact of the Civil Rights Act (1964) tends to focus on the equalising consequences the legislation had for African Americans, but the act also had repercussions pertaining to gender. A picture of how this act interrelated with more than one minority group can be gleaned by looking at changes to the demography of the American workplace. For instance, there resulted a significant shift in the gender and race of Americans in managerial jobs, where both African Americans and women made rapid improvements. Women, in the period 1966-1983, saw their underrepresentation in management drop from 70% to 12% and African American men saw their underrepresentation drop from 90% to 54%. This change in employment opportunities available to women specifically is visually reflected in printed job advertisements of the 1970s. For example, a 1972 edition of Life magazine featured an AT&T advertisement depicting a female telephone installer at work, with the description: ‘she’s one of our first woman telephone installers. She won’t be the last.’ This advert is thus evocative of the shift experienced by minorities as a consequence of civil rights legislation, the successful passage of which LBJ was largely responsible. The results of the legislation reverberated throughout society, increasing the opportunities available to previously disadvantaged minority groups.
However, LBJ’s domestic success concerning civil rights has been questioned. Wolk argues that LBJ used his legislative skills to get Congress to act, but then took a laissez-faire approach to enforcement, a view supported by Harvey, who claims that the bureaucracy was often unable to cope with demands of implementation. Whilst there is substance to these arguments, this reasoning does not provide sufficient justification to negate the successfulness of LBJ’s civil rights legislation. Undoubtedly the workload of the federal bureaucracy increased as Johnson’s policies demanded more active government participation, but not so much so that effective implementation of policies was impeded. Moderation was necessary to ensure lasting changes within a federal system which placed emphasis on cooperation between Washington and local governments – the scale of LBJ’s policies and their implementation required a slow, gradual process. There remains, however, capacity to criticise Johnson’s domestic policies because of their failure to address the underlying issue of economics; a drawback of policies pertaining to both civil rights and to the War on Poverty. Fundamentally, there persisted a link between the economically deprived and poverty. Yet Johnson alone cannot be held responsible for this pitfall, especially given that he was only in office for 6 years. Rather, he laid down the framework for future improvements to be built upon. Johnson’s improvements in education, for example, should be seen as the first step in a gradual process of breaking down the cycle of poverty, which later presidents such as Carter and Obama have since attempted to continue. LBJ deserves credit for initiating this process in the first place, creating a foundation upon which rested the potential eradication of poverty. That future presidents, Johnson’s immediate successor Nixon especially, chose to denounce Great Society programmes and renege on the progress that they had achieved is something for which they can be judged, not Johnson.
In conclusion, now perhaps more than ever, in our nebulous political climate, can we fully appreciate Johnson’s domestic successes. This is not to deny the pitfalls of his domestic polices: they were limited in the respect that they did not help certain classes of people, nor did they succeed in addressing the fundamental economic basis of poverty. The Vietnam War further limited the resources and attention that Johnson was able to devote to domestic measures. However, these limitations are far outweighed by both the practical results of domestic measures, and the transformative thinking behind them. Although LBJ’s War on Poverty did not help everyone, it nevertheless achieved substantial successes, dramatically improving the living conditions of minority groups, as well as increasing opportunities in education and employment. Likewise, legislative successes such as the Civil Rights Act mark a watershed in American history, not only for African Americans, but for other minority groups. The success of LBJ’s domestic agenda ultimately lies in the philosophy behind it: Johnson’s inherent belief that a better America could be built for everyone, regardless of race, gender, religion or any other distinction of this kind, using the power and mechanisms of the federal government.