The Great Society: Just the Beginning
When Lyndon B. Johnson became 36th president of the United States in 1963 following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with the power granted him. His childhood hero, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who initiated The New Deal program in 1933, inspired Johnson to enact a series of programs deemed The Great Society, a domestic plan to improve life in America.
In 1964 he gathered teams of experts to study many of the problems the country was facing. Once reports were in from these task forces, Johnson had a second review put into place, and drew in experts who specialized in pushing laws through congress rapidly. This included reforms in civil rights, education, and other branches of domestic policy. However, due to this elitist approach to solving issues, many of the resolves had no contingencies to provide funding after being put into place.
Several of the policies that were in place at the beginning of America’s economic war still remain today, but continuous cut backs and failure to comply with and/or acknowledge Johnson’s policies has not allowed the program to work as the president envisioned. Karen Tumluty from The Washington Post writes, “Today, the laws enacted between 1964 and 1968 are woven into the fabric of American life, in ways big and small. They have knocked down racial barriers, provided health care for the elderly and food for the poor, sustained orchestras and museums in cities across the country, put seat belts and padded dashboards in every automobile, garnished Connecticut Avenue in Northwest Washington with red oaks.”
Signing the Civil Rights Act 1964
Advancing civil rights became Johnson’s greatest aim and ultimate effect, passing four laws forbidding discrimination based on race including expanding voting rights for minority groups. However, with ambitions as great as Johnson had for this nation, some were destined to fail. Johnson had good intensions, such as his War on Poverty, which was intended to educate the people thereby providing greater economic opportunity. Unfortunately, pride and greed of those living in poverty led to manipulation of the system for personal gain.
Ultimately, President Johnson’s “Great Society” encompassed many great ideas for the benefit of the American people. Like Roosevelt, Johnson sought positive change for the spirit and welfare of the people, but his great ambition and ideas were not enough. Due to the mixed outcome, the Great Society then and now is still a subject of controversy today. The Great Society was a learning experience that laid a foundation for social change in America.
Excerpts from Great Society speech given at the University of Michigan, 1964:
For a century we labored to settle and to 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.
. . . The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.
