The Path to Power

by O profissional

First of the series "The Years of Lyndon Johnson"

33. The Munsey Building

THE GREAT POLITICAL FUND-RAISERS—the Tommy Corcorans of Washington, the Ed Clarks of Texas—agree that most businessmen who contribute to political campaigns don't contribute enough to accomplish their purposes. They want Ambassadorships or contracts or input into policy, but they don't give enough to get what they want. Their contributions are grudging, or slow in coming, or too small to place the recipients under sufficient obligation to them. "There's always just a few," says Clark, "only the most sophisticated and the smartest," who give "real money" and who give it eagerly enough, and early enough, so that they can reap the maximum return on their investment. Herman Brown, on top of whose native shrewdness had been overlaid the sophistication obtained from more than a decade of involvement in the financing of state politics and politicians, was one of the few. "When Herman gave," says Ed Clark, "he gave his full weight." When Johnson's call reached Brown & Root headquarters, the response was immediate. Since the Federal Corrupt Practices Act prohibited political contributions by corporations, money could not come directly from Brown & Root. Because of a $5,000 limit on an individual's contribution to a political organization during any one year, not enough of it could come from Herman, or from his brother George. Therefore, Herman arranged to have six business associates—sub-contractors, attorneys, his insurance broker—send money, in their names, to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. And Herman acted fast. Johnson had made his telephone call on Monday, October 14. On Saturday, October 19, George Brown telegraphed Johnson: YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE CHECKS BY FRIDAY. … HOPE THEY ARRIVED IN DUE FORM AND ON TIME. JOHNSON WAS ABLE TO REPLY BY RETURN WIRE: ALL OF THE FOLKS YOU TALKED TO HAVE BEEN HEARD FROM. MANY, MANY THANKS. I AM NOT ACKNOWLEDGING THEIR LETTERS, SO BE SURE TO TELL ALL THESE FELLOWS THAT THEIR LETTERS HAVE BEEN RECEIVED. The amount of each check was the maximum contribution allowed under the law: $5,000. The initial Brown & Root contribution to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was $30,000—more money than the committee had received from the Democratic National Committee, which had in previous years been its major source of funds.

Nor was this the only money Lyndon Johnson received from Texas during his first week on the new job, for he had persuaded Sam Rayburn to make some telephone calls to Fort Worth and Dallas, and to stop talking in terms of hundreds. On October 14, Sid Richardson, through his nephew, Perry R. Bass, sent $5,000. On October 16, C. W. Murchison sent $5,000. And another $5,000 arrived from Charles Marsh's partner, E. S. Fentress. By Saturday, October 19, Johnson was able to bring to the offices of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, to be distributed to Democratic candidates for Congress, a total of $45,000. One week after he had taken his job, he was able to write Rayburn aide Swagar Sherley: "We have sent them more money in the last three days than Congressmen have received from any committee in the last eight years."

ONE TALENT that Lyndon Johnson had already displayed in abundance was ingenuity in political tactics. Now he displayed it again. By saying in his letter to the candidates that Johnson was only "assisting" the Congressional Campaign Committee, Drewry had thought he was keeping Johnson subordinate to the committee. All these first checks from Texas, of course, were made out to the committee—Johnson had to turn them over to the committee for deposit in the committee's bank account, and it was on this account that the checks for contributions to individual candidates were drawn. They were signed by the committee's chairman, Drewry, and mailed out, with an accompanying letter by Drewry, from the committee's office in the National Press Building, in the same manner as any other contributions, with no indication that the money that had made them possible had come from Texas, or that it had been raised by the efforts of Lyndon Johnson.

For a man who had pulled political strings to get a dam legalized, authorized and enlarged, Johnson's method of letting the candidates know that he, not the committee, deserved the credit for the contributions was relatively simple—but ingenious, nonetheless. He had had George Brown instruct each of the "Brown & Root" contributors, and apparently had had Rayburn instruct Richardson and Murchison, to send with their contributions a letter stating: "I am enclosing herewith my check for $5,000 payable to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. I would like for this money to be expended in connection with the campaign of Democratic candidates for Congress as per the list attached, to the individual named in the amount specified."

Johnson had, of course, compiled the list, and had determined the amount each of the lucky candidates was to receive. Since the committee would hardly dare to disobey such specific instructions from the "donors," it was Johnson rather than Drewry or Harding (or anyone else) who was determining who would get the Texas money, and how much. And, armed with this knowledge, he had no sooner left the committee headquarters, having handed in his checks, than he sent to each of the recipients the following telegram—which made it abundantly clear to each recipient who was really responsible for the check which he would be receiving from the Congressional Committee the next day: AS RESULT MY VISIT TO CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE FEW MINUTES AGO, YOU SHOULD RECEIVE AIRMAIL SPECIAL DELIVERY LETTER FROM THEM WHICH IS TO BE MAILED TONIGHT.

OF THE ELEMENTS in Lyndon Johnson's career, none had been more striking than his energy.

Procuring checks wasn't all he did that first week. Permission to "assist" the Congressional Campaign Committee had finally been given to him on October 14. Election Day was November 5. He had three weeks.

Within three hours, he had rented an office, furnished it, and filled it with a staff: Herbert Henderson, John Connally, and Dorothy Nichols from his congressional office; only Walter Jenkins was left behind to keep that office open. (The furnishings of the room in the five-room suite that would be his private office revealed a distaste for the spartan: the furniture rental order read "1 large Exec, desk, 1 swivel desk chair, 2 arm chairs, 1 club chair, 1 divan …") That same day he composed a questionnaire to be sent to congressional colleagues ("1938 votes received?" "Is your present opponent stronger than your 1938 opponent?" "Describe briefly type of campaign he is making and principal issues he is raising," "Where can you or a representative be reached at all times in your district?"), and dictated, to be sent with the questionnaire, a letter announcing his entrance into the campaign.

Although he was ostensibly assisting Drewry's committee, the office he had taken was in another building, the eleven-story Munsey Building at 1329 E Street, Northwest, off Pennsylvania Avenue, away from Drewry's eyes and supervision. He had done more that busy Monday. The letter and questionnaire were not sent to all his colleagues. Conferring over the telephone with Rayburn, McCormack—and with Paul Appleby, campaign manager for vice-presidential nominee Henry A. Wallace and a politician with a detailed knowledge of the political situation in Midwest congressional districts—he had selected from the 435 Democratic candidates for Congress several score who should be helped. His decision was based in part on which districts had had the closest results in 1938, but only in part. One of several lists hurriedly compiled by Henderson and Connally was titled: "The following men received a majority of more than 10,000 over their Republican opponents in 1938." Democrats had considered these seats safe, but only because they had not done a thorough analysis; Johnson did one, analyzing not merely the vote totals and percentages but the type of district, and found that many of them were in danger—and these Congressmen were selected for assistance.

By the end of the first week in his new assignment, he had further refined his lists. One refinement was caused by John L. Lewis. The coal miners' chief was turning against Roosevelt; although speculation was rife about the effect of his defection on the presidential race, no one was thinking about its effect on congressional candidates. Johnson assigned his staff to draw up a list of "Districts Which Produce 1,000,000 Tons or More Coal," and of the 1938 congressional results in those districts. Then, sitting down with a yellow legal pad, he went to work on the list himself. Fifteen districts in six states were involved; in 1938, Democrats had won all of them. Calculating the margin in each district, he added them up and divided by fifteen, and around this average he drew a circle in red, and drew a red arrow to it, for the average was only 8,268. Then he calculated the Democratic percentage of the vote in each district, carrying the long division out to several places, and the percentages confirmed the bad news: the fifteen districts could not be considered safely Democratic this year; their Democratic Congressmen needed help, too. Other lists were compiled—by him, personally; no aide was allowed to do this—compiled with the same painstaking thoroughness ("If you do absolutely everything …"). He also called a luncheon meeting in a private room at the nearby Hotel Washington. Present were Rayburn, McCormack, Appleby, Alvin Wirtz, and three White House aides, Lowell Mellett, Wayne Coy and Jim Rowe (James Forrestal was invited, but was unable to attend). At this meeting, the lists were further refined, so that when, that first week, the money from Texas having arrived, he began distributing it, the identity of the seventy-seven recipients had been determined by a rather intensive analysis: the type of analysis that for years had been routine for the Republican congressional committee but rare for the Democrats—and that had not been made at all in 1940.

ON THE QUESTIONNAIRE Johnson had sent out, candidates had been asked to "List suggestions as to how, in your opinion, we can be most helpful." Underneath had been left three blank lines, marked "1," "2" and "3." Many of the respondents, of course, asked for a visit to their district by the President, but that was not the reply most frequently made on the first line. The most typical reply was that of Representative Martin F. Smith of the State of Washington's Third Congressional District: "Financially." (Representative John F. Hunter of Ohio's Ninth Congressional District was firmer. "1" was "financial assistance," he wrote. "There is no two.") Others wrote a line or two of elaboration. "The best service that you could possibly render me would be to arrange a campaign contribution of $200 or $300," said Wendell Lund of Michigan's Eleventh CD. "The thing this district needs most of all is money," said George M. May of Pennsylvania's Tenth. And some, as though the mails were not fast enough, made the same point over the phone. Says an inter-office memorandum: "Robert Secrest [of Ohio's Fifteenth] called and talked with John Connally. Said the only help he needed was a little money. …"

Candidates who had dealt with the Congressional Campaign Committee in the past had little hope that they would get what they asked for. Secrest wrote on his questionnaire, "Nothing will help except cash, and I know that is scarce." Laurence F. Arnold of Illinois' Twenty-third noted that he had received $200 from the committee in 1936, but nothing in 1938; he had asked for $200 this year, he noted, and had not received even the courtesy of a reply. Emmet O'Neal of Kentucky's Third wrote, "I feel sure that there is nothing that can be done to help." He needed money, he said, "but I know … money is not floating around, so this is not meant as an indirect solicitation."

But, to their astonishment, their hopes were answered. Four-term Congressman Martin F. Smith had returned home to find that there was a good chance he wouldn't be re-elected to a fifth. He had stayed in the capital until October 8, and he had stayed too long; stepping off the train after the three-day trip home, he was promptly informed by campaign aides that he was in serious danger of losing his seat. His only hope was to increase his planned advertising in his district's forty-two newspapers, and to reserve radio time—and he didn't have enough money to do either. He left for a week-long tour of the district with no money in sight. And then, when he checked in with his campaign headquarters in Hoquiam one evening, Johnson's telegram was read to him. Naturally, he hoped that the Congressional Committee's airmail special-delivery letter to which the telegram referred would contain funds. Arriving back in Hoquiam several days later, he found on his desk not one but two letters from the committee. Ripping them open, he found in each a check—one for $200, one for $500.

Arriving, weary, at a hotel one evening, Representative Charles F. McLaughlin telephoned his headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, and was told that a telegram had been received from Lyndon Johnson; when he reached Omaha the next day, the airmail special-delivery letter to which it referred was already there—and it contained a check for $300.

All across the United States, similar scenes were enacted. Slumping into a chair in a hotel room or lying on the bed—shoes still on, too tired to take them off after a long day of campaigning (and worrying about campaign funds)—a Congressman would telephone his headquarters, would be read Lyndon Johnson's telegram, and would realize that funds were on the way.

Others got the news in their campaign headquarters. Representative Edouard V. M. Izac arrived home in San Diego to find, as he wrote Johnson, his opponent's face staring down at him from "hundreds" of billboards. He had no billboards, and, he found to his dismay, "no organization."

Thousands of copies of a hard-hitting pamphlet selling the "Roosevelt-Wallace-Izac" ticket had been printed in an attractive red-white-and-blue color scheme, but there was no money to mail them to voters, and, without an organization, no other way to distribute them; most canvassers who would distribute them door to door wanted to be paid for their work, and even volunteers required reimbursement for lunch money, carfare, gasoline and other expenses. And then the telegram arrived from his colleague from Texas, the telegram and then a check for $500. With it he could pay the necessary expense money to get the pamphlets distributed. And hardly had the workers fanned out from headquarters to, as he put it, "carry the Roosevelt-Wallace-Izac story from door to door" when another letter arrived—with another $500.

Others got the news at home. Nan Wood Honeyman had been campaigning in Portland for months, but was making no headway—largely, she felt, because Sam Rayburn had not been able to deliver on the commitment she believed he had made to her at the Democratic Convention in July. Receiving Johnson's questionnaire, she had responded with a telephone call on October 17, and John Connally's "memo for LBJ" summarizing the call (Connally may have been taking shorthand notes on an extension) began:

In your conversation of yesterday with Nan Wood Honeyman she pointed out the following things which would be helpful to her.

1. Finances …

Mrs. Honeyman had asked that contribution be sent to her at her house, and the next day there arrived at 1728 S.W. Prospect Drive the telegram (AS RESULT MY VISIT TO CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE … YOU SHOULD RECEIVE …). The first letter from the committee contained the pre-Johnson contribution: $150. She thought that was the airmail special-delivery letter to which Johnson had been referring. She was appreciative, but $150 wasn't going to help much. Her opponent was on the way home, she wrote, and "has sent word to raise an extra $1,500 for him right away in spite of the fact that his literature covers the city, he has been on the radio from Washington once or twice a week for some time and his face and 'One good term deserves another' on huge billboards meets me at every turn." Then, on October 19, the Johnson contribution—$500—arrived. RECEIVED 5 POINT PROGRAM TODAY, she wired back in jubilation.

And they were very grateful. "The text of your thoughtful and kind telegram had been read to me over Long Distance telephone, so that on my return from a thorough tour of four counties of my district, I today found two Air Mail letters," Martin Smith wrote Johnson. "I appreciate your personal efforts in my behalf." McLaughlin said simply: "I am glad you are where you are." When the first $500 arrived from Johnson, Izac had dashed off a letter: "Thanks a million." And before that letter could even be dropped in the mail, he had to add: "P.S. Your airmail letter of the 19th [the letter which contained another $500] just arrived. Again many thanks." "Dear Lyndon," Nan Honeyman wrote, "I have been on the verge of calling you all day instead of writing because it is such fun to hear you. … The second contribution from the National Committee arrived on the heels of the first one and the raise of the ante was grand and I know my gratitude belongs to you."

They were to become more grateful. For Lyndon had only begun raising money.

Some he obtained through personal acquaintance. Tom Corcoran, in New York raising money for Roosevelt, arranged for some cash contributions from garment-center unions, which he brought to Washington himself and gave to Johnson (as Corcoran was to relate). Another union with political money to spend was the United Mine Workers. John L. Lewis might be for Willkie, but did the UMW really want a Republican Congress? UMW chief counsel Welly Hopkins recalls that "He hadn't been in place [with the Congressional Campaign Committee] more than twenty-four hours when he called me and said he wanted to see what the mine workers could do toward helping the campaign." Hopkins presented Johnson's case to the union's secretary-treasurer, Tom Kennedy; Johnson went to see Kennedy, and, Hopkins says, "I think he went away satisfied as far as the responses that the mine workers made." Money from New York came not only from Seventh Avenue but from Wall Street, $7,500 arriving from the investment banker brothers Paul and Cornelius Shields through the offices of the wealthy New Yorkers he had met through Ed Weisl. Some he obtained because of his ability to arouse paternal fondness in older, powerful, wealthy men. Charles Marsh did not even have to be asked; no sooner had he learned of Johnson's assignment to save Congress for the Democrats than, busy though he was working on the Wallace campaign, he volunteered at once the two commodities with which he was so free: advice and money. Recalls Alice Glass' sister, Mary Louise, Marsh's private secretary: "Charles said to him, 'Boy, you've got to get some money. You can't do that on goodwill.'" Contacting four business associates in Texas, Marsh arranged that each would give him $1,000 per week until the campaign ended, and that he would add to their contributions $1,000 per week of his own, and forward each week a total of $5,000 to Johnson; "I had to keep track of who paid," she says. (Allowing Marsh to know that other men were similarly helping his "protégé" might have dulled the edge of his enthusiasm for the task, so this information was not given to him.) So fast did the money come in that Johnson was able to broaden his assistance. Martin Smith had been so thrilled to receive the Congressional Committee's checks for $200 and $500. Before the week was out, he would receive a second $500 check. A filled-in questionnaire and letter requesting financial help arrived from Representative William H. Sutphin of New Jersey on October 17. Johnson dictated a reply saying, "I am going to make an especial effort to find some way to get you some financial assistance," but before he had had a chance to sign and mail the letter, the influx of funds had enabled him to be more specific. On the bottom, he added a postscript: "Today I'm asking a Texas friend of mine to give me $500.00 for you. If he does I'll take it to the Cong. Committee and ask them to rush it to you tonight." Actually, Johnson had either the money or the assurance of it in hand when he wrote that, and the $500 was sent that night.

He had so much money, in fact, that he was not only meeting requests for funds, but soliciting more requests—asking Congressmen to ask for money. On the bottom of Lyndon Johnson's letter accompanying the $300 check for McLaughlin of Nebraska was a scrawled postscript: "If you badly need more funds, let me know and I'll try some more." To one Congressman who hadn't asked for funds, James M. Barnes of Illinois, he wrote: "Do you have desperate need for money, Jim? If so, wire or write me air mail how much and I'll try to get some and send through congressional committee for you."

JOHNSON WAS APPARENTLY anticipating a large contribution from the Democratic National Committee. He had asked its secretary, Paul Aiken, for $25,000, and seems to have felt he had received a commitment for at least a substantial portion of that amount, but when the check from New York arrived, it was for only $5,000, and after Johnson had taken that over to the National Press Building on October 21, he was out of funds. But although Sam Rayburn had not been easily convinced of the efficacy of Lyndon Johnson's fund-raising methods, his doubts must have been ended by the success of his first telephone calls to Dallas. Now the Speaker was going to Dallas in person.

Bonham, his home town, had scheduled a celebration in honor of his becoming Speaker, and Rayburn had left for Texas on October 17. At the celebration (at which bands from the eleven high schools in his district paraded through the streets of his little town), he was presented with a gavel carved by a local carpenter out of bois d'arc wood, and with a gift from Colonel W. T. Knight of Wichita Falls, unofficial spokesman of that city's oilmen, who, Rayburn's friend C. Dwight Dorough writes, "that morning … had collected $2,000 from people in Wichita Falls for the National Democratic War Chest, and … had come to present the money in person." The need for that gift—and for more like it—would shortly be driven home to Rayburn, for on October 23, he received two communications from Johnson. They were both enclosed in the same envelope. The first had been written, on the twenty-first, as a telegram, but not sent in that form; the secretive Johnson had marked the telegram "Personal & Confidential. Personal Delivery Only," but who could be certain that those instructions would be obeyed? "I started to send you the attached wire yesterday but because I hesitated to send a wire, I am enclosing it in this letter," Johnson wrote. The enclosed "wire" said that a "careful check" of congressional races around the country had disclosed that it was not 77 Democratic candidates who were in trouble, but 105. And, it said, there was no more money available to help them. "Barrel has been scraped." It urged Rayburn to appeal for funds. "Our friends can be helpful now if they want to be by writing me airmail special delivery Munsey Building and directing me to apply as per attached list which I will make up. Hope when you talk to them today and Wednesday in Dallas you will impress importance doing this at once. Hope we can get total at least equivalent to amount I suggested to Paul …"

In Dallas, where another celebration was held in honor of his new job, Rayburn rode through its streets at the head of a 200-car caravan. Then he conferred with the oilmen. Some of them had by this time exceeded the $5,000 limit on campaign contributions. Some of their new contributions were, therefore, in cash. William Kittrell, the veteran Texas lobbyist who had, years before, called Lyndon Johnson a "wonder kid," was an intimate of Rayburn and Sid Richardson and other oilmen. Worried that his "Personal Delivery Only" letter to Rayburn would go astray, Johnson wired Kittrell that he had sent the Speaker a letter, adding, PLEASE SEE THAT HE GETS IT. THIS IS URGENT. I AM GATHERING OTHER MATERIAL. ("Material" was the euphemism most frequently used by Johnson to refer to campaign contributions.) Some of the oilmen's response arrived in Washington in envelopes containing cash that were carried by trusted couriers (Kittrell himself was one of them, according to Corcoran and Harold Young), and were handed to Johnson. How much they contained is not known, because no record of these campaign contributions, or of their distribution to individual candidates, has been found. This money did not pass through the committee, or through the Munsey Building office; Johnson arranged for its distribution, in checks or cash, to candidates through outside means, including channels arranged by Marsh, one of which was Young. Only hints about the existence of these channels are contained in letters found in Johnson's office files; one example is a note from Johnson to Congressman Claude V. Parsons of Illinois on October 25: "I am sure that by now you have received all the material I had sent you, both through the committee and otherwise"; Parsons wrote back thanking Johnson both for the checks from the committee and "from Harold Young." There is also an unexplained reference in Johnson's files to money given "on (the) Chicago line." As for money that did pass through the committee, Johnson had said on Monday (in a statement borne out at least in general by his records) that he was out of money. On Thursday, he gave the committee $16,500.

RAYBURN DID MORE in Texas than merely raise money.

The independent oilman perhaps most influential among his fellow wildcatters was Charles F. Roeser of Fort Worth, president of the Independent Petroleum Association; in 1936, Jim Farley had been informed confidentially that Roeser "not only will get money himself, but will raise it from his friends." The contributions Roeser arranged in 1936 had been made through traditional Democratic channels—sent to Democratic National Committee Chairman Farley at the Biltmore. Roeser had planned to contribute through traditional channels in 1940, also; with Farley no longer national chairman, the oilman had asked Elliott Roosevelt, leaving Fort Worth for a trip north, to find out whom he should send the money to. But although Elliott was to wire him to send the money to Steve Early at the White House, those instructions were not followed, for before Roeser heard from Elliott Roosevelt, he heard from Sam Rayburn. The new Speaker "called me from Dallas and advised that I send my contribution to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in care of Lyndon Johnson," Roeser was to recall. Roeser had never met Johnson, but he followed Rayburn's instructions. "Dear Mr. Johnson," he wrote, "After talking with Sam Rayburn, I have decided to send my contribution for this year's campaign to you. … I am … leaving it up to the Steering Committee, headed by you, to decide in what districts these funds can be best used." And not only Roeser's own $5,000 campaign contribution but the contributions of the independent oilmen who followed his lead went not to the White House or to the Biltmore, as they would have done in the past, but to the Munsey Building. So, moreover, did the contributions of independents who did not follow Roeser's lead—of men such as Richardson and Murchison who followed no man's lead. For however independent they were, these men not only trusted Sam Rayburn, but were aware that now that this grim, unsmiling man was armed with the Speaker's gavel, he was the protector they needed in Washington, and they were therefore willing to follow his instructions—which were to send their money to Lyndon Johnson.

Roeser's terse letter to the young Congressman he had never met was a significant document in the political fund-raising history of the United States (and, it was to prove in later years, in the larger history of the country as well). Sam Rayburn had, on his trip to Texas in October, 1940, cut off the Democratic National Committee, and other traditional party recipients of campaign contributions, from the money of the newly rich Texas independent oilmen. These men had been seeking a channel through which their money could flow to the seat of national power 2,000 miles away, to far-off Washington. After Sam Rayburn's trip to Dallas in October, 1940, they had their channel, a brand-new channel which, ten days before, had not even existed. Sam Rayburn had cut them the channel. A new source of political money, potentially vast, had been tapped in America, and Lyndon Johnson had been put in charge of it. He was the conduit for their cash.

MONEY WAS NOT ALL Johnson was providing for the Congressmen. He wrote to candidates in the same terms in which he wrote to constituents. The letters which carried the welcome news of checks on the way contained also the promise of help in non-financial areas. In the letter he sent to the recipients of the October 24 and 25 checks, Lyndon Johnson wrote: "I want to see you win. In order to help you and others of our party out in the frontline trenches, I am devoting my entire time in an attempt to coordinate and expedite assistance to you from this end." Just call on me, he urged them—"call on me, at any hour of the day, by phone, wire or letter. My address is 339 Munsey Building and my telephone number is Republic 8284." That was a form letter: individual notes expressed in even more emphatic terms his eagerness to help. "I wish you would please keep in close touch with me and let me know if there is any way at all I can possibly help you," he wrote Nebraska's McLaughlin. "My services are available to you day and night on anything."

It was not, in fact, necessary for him to be called on.

He would have read in the newspapers that Senator George Norris, the great old champion of public hydroelectric power, was planning to speak in Portland, Oregon, and visit the Grand Coulee Dam to emphasize the administration's role in its building. On Thursday of that first week—the week during which he was single-handedly raising and distributing to Democratic congressional candidates virtually unprecedented amounts of money—Lyndon Johnson compiled a list of nine Democratic candidates in the Far West who were supporters of public power, and who were engaged in tight races. Then he wrote a memorandum: "I do hope that when Senator Norris gives his address … he will say something in support of these people in recognition of the battle they have been carrying on. Just one sentence would be helpful. …"No one had asked him to do this; he had just done it—and done it with his usual thoroughness, not merely pleading for "just one sentence," but drafting nine different sentences, each custom-tailored for one of the nine candidates. (That thoroughness, and his capacity for cultivating not only the mighty but their assistants, was also evident in the delivery of the memorandum. He spoke to Norris' assistant, Jack Robinson, about it in advance, and when he sent it to Robinson, he sent with it another memorandum asking him to "Please see to it that this gets the Senator's attention" and adding: "Call on me anytime for anything.") Prodded by Robinson, Norris delivered the endorsements.

Other nationally prominent New Dealers and Cabinet members were heading out of Washington on speaking tours for Roosevelt. Johnson asked them, too, to speak for the local Democratic congressional candidate as well. Labor was strong in the State of Washington, and Senator Claude Pepper was a symbol, because of his vigorous support of the wages and hours bill, of the New Deal's support of labor. SENATOR PEPPER SPEAKING SATURDAY IN SEATTLE, Johnson wired his Naval Affairs Committee colleague Warren Magnuson. SUGGESTED TO HIM THAT HE PUT IN GOOD PLUG FOR YOU. CONTACT PEPPER WHEN HE ARRIVES. Magnuson had not asked for the "good plug." He had gotten it without asking—as, all at once, Democratic candidates who had given up hope of obtaining assistance from Washington were receiving help for which they had not even asked.

Suddenly, Democratic candidates all across the country realized that there was someone in Washington they could turn to, someone they could ask for not only money but other types of aid.

And they asked. By his second week in the new job, requests were pouring into the Munsey Building—for voting records of Republican incumbents from the Democratic hopefuls opposing them; for information on the broad scale ("I am debating the congressman in McKeesport Saturday … and would like to receive all information about his voting record") or the small, for the little piece of information—difficult for someone unfamiliar with the federal bureaucracy to obtain—that could improve a speech (PLEASE WIRE ME BY WESTERN UNION … THE AMOUNT OF MONEY IN SOCIAL SECURITY FUND. I MUST KNOW BEFORE SEVEN O'CLOCK TONIGHT); for a vital, desperately needed, denial (wired Congressman J. Buell Snyder of Pennsylvania: FOLLOWING APPEARED IN PITTSBURGH TELEGRAPH QUOTE A BILL INTRODUCED BY SENATOR WAGNER WOULD COMPEL 81,000 TEACHERS OF PENNSYLVANIA TO TURN OVER INTO THE SOCIAL SECURITY FUND $147,000,000 WHICH THE TEACHERS CONSIDER [THEIR] ACTUAL SAVINGS FUND STOP GIVE ME WIRE ANSWER YES OR NO NO EXPLANATION WILL DO STOP THIS WILL COST 50,000 VOTES IN PENNSYLVANIA STOP GIVE ME WIRE SO IT CAN BE PUBLISHED AS IT COMES STOP BETTER FOR WIRE TO COME FROM WAGNER TODAY); for endorsements (Congressman Franck R. Havenner of California wired: SENATOR CLAUDE PEPPER WILL SPEAK IN SAN FRANCISCO TOMORROW STOP WILL BE GRATEFUL IF YOU CAN WIRE HIM ASKING THAT HE ENDORSE MY RECORD); for speakers ("We are requesting … Gifford Pin-chot, former Governor and the man who took the county 'out of the mud' with his Tinchot Roads' to come into Lancaster County, I feel that his visit would supply the spark needed here. Please join with us in urging him to come").

The requests were answered—with a thoroughness that would have been familiar to Gene Latimer and L. E. Jones, whose high-school debate coach had taught them that if you took care of all the minor details, if "you did everything you could do—absolutely everything—you would win."

Buell Snyder had asked that the denial he needed come "today," and it did; his wire was received at the Munsey Building at 1:12 p.m., and a return wire was on its way to Snyder's Uniontown, Pennsylvania, headquarters that same afternoon, for Johnson had immediately contacted Senator Wagner's secretary. The denial should come direct from Wagner, Snyder had said, and it did; the return wire was signed with the Senator's name. And it should "answer yes or no," and the first sentence of Wagner's wire was precisely what Snyder needed: MY ANSWER TO REPORTED STATEMENT IS EMPHATICALLY NO. And there followed a wire that could, as Snyder had requested, be published as it came: a long telegram detailing Wagner's version of the bill in question. That was fast enough service for even a desperate campaigner, but Johnson did not put his trust in Western Union; the next morning he sent his own wire telling Snyder that he should have received one from Wagner: IF NOT RECEIVED, LET ME KNOW, THIS JUST FOLLOW-UP. Answering every request, he did absolutely everything he could. The wire that Havenner had requested be sent to Pepper was sent and the endorsement by Pepper was made, and it was not just a pro forma endorsement, for Johnson had seen to it—telegraphing and telephoning, and then telephoning again, not only to the Senator's aides but to the Senator himself, tracking him down on his cross-country tour—that Pepper was given enough details to make it seem that he really was familiar with the Congressman's record.

Among the items of assistance for which Congressmen had been asking in vain were out-of-district speakers with particular appeal to their constituents, for oratory cost money—money for the orator's transportation, hotel room and meals (and, in the case of some, honoraria for the rental of their vocal cords)—and the National Committee, which was frantically attempting to scrape up funds to send Harold Ickes and other Cabinet members on cross-country tours for the national ticket, had none to spare for the requests of individual Congressmen.

Touching base only occasionally with the National Committee, Johnson had his staff compile lists of "Speaker Requests," and the dates of the meetings for which the speakers were requested; he coordinated them, and soon Congressmen with substantial numbers of Polish constituents were notified that Representative Rudolph G. Tenerowicz, past president of the Polish National Alliance, the Polish Alliance of America, and the Polish Union of America, was on his way to deliver one of his renowned speeches—in Polish, of course. (Having won his own, predominantly Polish, district in Hamtramck, Michigan, in 1938 with a majority of 54,000 votes over all other candidates, Tenerowicz needed to devote only limited time to his own campaign.) Candidates with substantial numbers of Negro constituents were getting a Negro Congressman who was also a renowned orator, Arthur Mitchell of Chicago, and many districts of varied ethnic composition were hearing from little Fiorello La Guardia of New York, who, half Jewish and half Italian, himself an Episcopalian married first to a Catholic and then to a Lutheran of German descent, was practically a balanced ticket all by himself—and could, ranting and shaking his tiny fists, wave the bloody flag in seven different languages. Democratic nominee Alfred F. Beiter, whose Buffalo district included many Italians—who, as he wrote to Johnson, "are inclined to be 'off-the-reservation' this year"—had been pleading, in vain, with the National Committee for a visit by Representative D'Alesandro of Baltimore, who, Beiter had been told, "makes a very good rebuttal talk to offset the Republicans' criticism of the President's 'stab-in-the-back' reference to Mussolini." Johnson could not get D'Alesandro for Beiter, but did provide Frank Serri, who, he assured Beiter, was a "distinguished Italian Brooklyn lawyer" and "fine orator." Into melting-pot, multi-ethnic districts whose candidates had been pleading in vain, before October 14, for a single outside speaker, now filed a parade of speakers, many with expense money from Lyndon Johnson in their pockets. Buffalo Congressman Pius Schwert, for example, got Tenerowicz for his Poles, Serri for his Italians, and La Guardia for various ethnic blocs—as well as Arthur Mitchell for the district's few Negroes. Thanks to Johnson, the breadbasket as well as the melting pot was getting speakers. Oklahoma's Phil Ferguson wrote him that Marvin Jones "can do more good than anyone. … If he could make Guymon the Saturday afternoon before election [it] would do a lot of good, in fact, it might mean the difference in my election, and then go to Beaver that night would have battle cinched." Jones was in Guymon the Saturday afternoon before election, and in Beaver that night—and during the last two weeks of the campaign, the Agriculture Committee chairman, identified by farmers throughout the United States with the AAA, was in more than forty rural districts to tell farmers how helpful their local Congressman had been in passing the programs that had saved their farms. Johnson not only dispatched the speakers, he amplified their voices; when, after he had arranged for a visiting speaker, a candidate said he hoped the speech could be broadcast on a local radio station, Johnson provided the funds for the broadcast.

He was providing other types of help as well. His entrée to Ickes—and to other high officials of Interior—was put to the use of other Congressmen. "A lot of projects were approved that Fall," Walter Jenkins recalls. "Mr. Ickes was very cooperative." Roosevelt had told Johnson to work through Jim Rowe, and Rowe's entrée to other departments—and the fact that he could speak in the name of the White House—was put to the use of still others. After more than a year of struggling with the War Department bureaucracy, Martin Smith had finally secured the requisite permit for construction of an airport in his district, only to see the project snarled in WPA red tape. By making him seem ineffectual in Washington, D.C., "this delay is not doing me any good politically," Smith wrote Johnson on October 26. "If I could get final approval of this project by the WPA, and have it approved by President Roosevelt, before the end of the coming week, it would be a great help." A week later, Smith received a telegram from the Munsey Building: YOUR WPA APPLICATION HAS BEEN APPROVED BY WPA AND IS AT THE WHITE HOUSE AWAITING THE PRESIDENT'S SIGNATURE. WILL DO MY BEST TO GET THIS SIGNED FOR YOU AND WIRE YOU BY MONDAY. Time was running out; Monday was the day before election, but on that day, another Western Union envelope was delivered to Smith:

HAPPY TO REPORT PRESIDENT TODAY APPROVED WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION PROJECT FIVE OUGHT OUGHT SEVEN TWO, APPROPRIATING THREE HUNDRED EIGHTY TWO THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED FIFTY EIGHT DOLLARS FOR IMPROVEMENT MOON ISLAND AIRPORT

There was help available for Congressmen now not only on projects but on personnel. A "local labor leader" in Scranton was employed by the General Accounting Office, Representative Patrick J. Boland informed Johnson; "will you kindly try to obtain [him] an increase in salary?" Another example of many requests in this area that Johnson handled had been addressed to Drewry first, by Representative John M. Houston of Kansas' Fifth Congressional District. In a casual conversation in a corridor while the House had still been in session, Drewry had assured Houston that if a federal job for one of his constituents would help in his campaign, he would obtain it, but when Houston asked for a job for one W. W. Brown of Wichita, "who swings a lot of votes" because of his membership in a "very strong" United Commercial Travelers local, "and is out of work," the chairman of the Congressional Campaign Committee was unable to deliver. But when his assistant, Cap Harding, appealed to Johnson for help, Johnson was able to deliver. Telephoning a bureaucrat in the Agriculture Department's Office of Personnel, he sounded him out on what was immediately available, and persuaded him to make a call to a higher official who had a $2,400-a-year job open in the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation. A wire went out to Houston informing him: AT REQUEST OF CONGRESSMAN LYNDON JOHNSON HAVE REQUESTED OUR REGIONAL DIRECTOR IN MILWAUKEE … TO FORWARD APPLICATION FOR EMPLOYMENT TO W. W. BROWN.

In other branches of political activity in which similarly urgent appeals came in from Congressmen, Johnson was also able to help. In the same letter in which he thanked Johnson for "sympathetically" helping him with various problems, Martin Smith added: "A new problem has arisen." This problem was a strike that had tied up lumber mills in his district, and was arousing resentment toward the New Deal, which had encouraged the new militancy in organized labor; "As you well know," Smith wrote Johnson, "the President, the Administration and the M.C. [Members of Congress] are given the bulk of the blame for allowing such conditions to prevail." Although this strike could be settled only by the labor leaders in New York, and Johnson didn't know those leaders, Tommy Corcoran did; the introductions necessary for Johnson to get them on the phone were arranged, and the very day he was informed of Smith's "new problem," he was able to assure the Congressman the width of a continent away that he was working on the problem: TALKED TO LUBIN AND HILLMAN TODAY, THEY ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE ON STRIKE.

This assistance was also provided with Johnson thoroughness. Every telegram had a "follow-up" (to Kent Keller: AFTER TELEPHONE CONVERSATION WITH YOU IMMEDIATELY WENT TO WORK ON HOSPITAL PROJECT. ASSUME YOU BY NOW HAVE RECEIVED WIRE FROM VETERANS ADMINISTRATION ADVISING YOU THAT PRESIDENT AND BUDGET HAVE APPROVED THIS). Mistakes in numerals were so frequent in telegrams that Western Union policy was to repeat them at the lower left-hand corner of the telegram so that the reader could double-check. This precaution was not sufficient for Johnson. He took his own precaution, insisting that the operator spell out the numerals as words (project five ought ought seven two). He sent two and three copies of some telegrams.

And his assistance was provided eagerly. When a Congressman asked him for help, he thanked him for asking. Replying to Smith's request for help on the Moon Island Airport, Johnson began: "Thanks much for yours of the 26th. It had no more than reached me when I immediately got to work on your project. … You can be sure that I will do my best." And he asked them to ask him for more help. "Do you have any other assignment for me?" he asked them. He reiterated his request: "Call on me, at any hour."

No matter how many assignments he was given, he tried, in those frantic three weeks, to carry out all of them—and, in fact, thought of additional help he could give the candidates. His work for Nan Wood Honeyman was an example.

Her telephone call to Johnson on October 17, the call which had been transcribed by John Connally, had asked for money—but for other assistance as well: for letters of endorsement from Rayburn and McCormack, and because "one of her big problems was the Townsend Plan," from a Congressman identified with assistance for the aged, Charles H. Leavy of Washington; and for "Honorable George Norris to speak in [the] district." That very day the Western Union messengers began arriving at the front door of her home—and each yellow envelope contained good news. The telegram that arrived that afternoon, of course, informed her that the AIRMAIL SPECIAL DELIVERY LETTER with a big contribution was coming. The next day two telegrams arrived from LYNDON. The first said that while he had been UNSUCCESSFUL ON LEAVY MATTER, the Rayburn and McCormack letters were on the way. The second said that HONORABLE GEORGE NORRIS would indeed SPEAK IN PORTLAND, OREGON. HAVE TALKED WITH HIS SECRETARY ABOUT YOU, AND FEEL SURE HE WILL NOT FORGET YOU. HOWEVER, SUGGEST YOU HAVE SOMEONE CONTACT HIS PARTY AND HAVE HIM REMINDED OF THIS TO PREVENT ANY POSSIBLE OVERLOOKING OF IT. (Johnson had even suggested a sentence that the Senator could include in his speech: "I would like to live in Portland so that I might vote for Nan Wood Honeyman to be my Congressman.") The Rayburn and McCormack letters were warm enough to satisfy even an anxious candidate, and Johnson's work with Norris' staff paid off on the front page of the Portland Oregonian: posing before the great dam after his speech, Norris had summoned Mrs. Honeyman to stand beside him, so that she was in the dramatic page-one picture.

In a letter which Johnson wrote on the 22nd, he told Mrs. Honeyman that he had been "thinking about … having you back here with us. That's the thing that would really tickle me and the big job I want to do between now and November the fifth. So if you don't write, wire, or phone me any time there is anything—big or little—I can do for you, I am going to be awfully mad at you." Mrs. Honeyman gave him little chance to be mad. If he couldn't get a letter from Leavy, she asked, how about one from Senator Downey, who, she said, "is next to Dr. Townsend in the eyes of his followers. … A suggestion from him that the local pensioners support me would carry a lot of weight. … I put this up to you as a real job." Johnson was glad for the job, he wrote her on the 23rd; he asked her to give him more jobs: "Nan, I will look into the Downey matter you mentioned and do everything I possibly can to help work this out for you. Please, please let me know if I can do anything else." And the letter of the 23rd brought other good news to Prospect Drive: "I am glad … the little financial contributions have helped you some," he wrote. "I talked with them again last night and gave them three hundred fifty more to send you air mail special, so that you should have received that by the time this letter reaches you." The next day, the 24th, there was another letter—and another $350. The extent of the money from Washington had by this time reached levels so unexpected that when, on October 28, Johnson asked her how much more money she needed, she said she had all she could use.

Downey wasn't the only Senator beloved by pensioners; Claude Pepper was, too, and he was at that very moment campaigning on the West Coast. Johnson tracked Pepper down in Los Angeles, and talked to him on the telephone. "I told him to do all he could for you and he heartily agreed," he wrote Mrs. Honeyman. John Rankin was an important name in public power; Mrs. Honeyman was informed that a letter from Rankin was on its way.

Johnson volunteered, in fact, an even bigger favor—one for which she hadn't dared to ask. She had requested letters from Rayburn and Norris; he got her one from a bigger name. He suggested she send a letter to President Roosevelt noting her role in the Bonneville Dam and Columbia River projects—a letter which would give the President an excuse to reply, and emphasize her role. He himself wrote a draft of her letter—and of the President's reply—and persuaded Rowe to arrange to have the letter sent over the President's signature: "My dear Nan: It was good to hear from you again and to receive from one who has fought shoulder to shoulder with me for the Columbia developments a picture of their present usefulness. …" Notifying her of this unexpected boon he had arranged, Johnson said: "I just thought this might give you another little push."

IT WAS NOT only Congressmen whom he was assisting.

In an era before the widespread use of political polling, information was a commodity very difficult for a politician to obtain quickly enough for him to make effective use of it. Without computers, even the famous Gallup Poll had to report its results several days after its polling had begun, by which time new political developments might have changed voters' attitudes. And little polling was done on the effect of developments on specific segments of the population. A candidate might wonder—might be desperate to know—how his strategy was working, but it was hard for him to find out.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had never before been used to fill this gap. But it was used to fill it now.

With many of the checks that went out, there went out also a request for a status report, not only on the Congressman's own chances in his district, but on the President's. And since many of the men Johnson was asking for these reports were veteran Congressmen—seasoned, experienced (and successful) politicians—their replies were often extremely informative. They were especially informative because when Congressmen took their own, local, polls, unscientific and rudimentary in technique though they were, they sent the results to Johnson, and he could pass them along to the White House—and the results of these polls, of course, were hard facts, the kind of facts for which a candidate and his advisors are so anxious. Ohio's Ninth Congressional District, which included Toledo with its large factories, was considered a fairly typical urban, industrialized district, and a good indicator of sentiment in such areas. In mid-October, its Congressman, John F. Hunter, had sent out "blind" postcards, postcards simply asking voters to write in their preference for Congressman and President and send the cards to a numbered postal box. He mailed them to 16,000 voters, and when, a week later, 3,654 postcards had been returned, he could report the figures to Johnson: 2,182 for Willkie, 1,472 for Roosevelt. But Hunter could shrewdly report to Johnson that the figures might not be as ominous as they seemed at first glance, because the return rate from factory districts was so "much less, by percentage, than from the Republican wards, it may be that factory workers are afraid to express their choice."

Most important, Johnson could not only get information for the President, he could get it for him fast. Roosevelt, worried about a Gallup poll which showed Willkie rapidly cutting into his lead, began a series of radio addresses on October 23. Sending out checks to congressional candidates around the country, Johnson had asked them to repay him with a report on how Roosevelt's speeches went over; within a day or two after each speech, he could tell the White House that, as one candidate put it after one speech—in a reaction echoed by other Johnson correspondents—"the President's broadcast of last night has caused [a] definite swing toward the President's candidacy."

John L. Lewis broke his long silence with a dreaded roar on October 25, endorsing Willkie and announcing that he would resign as CIO president if Roosevelt won; not only was the speech shrewdly timed—Lewis had delayed for weeks while press speculation about his intentions aroused interest in his speech, and had finally struck twelve days before the election for maximum impact—but it hit at what was perhaps Roosevelt's weakest point; in his Shakespearean voice, the miners' chief proclaimed that the President was determined to force the United States into war. Initial press reports speculated that Lewis' speech would have substantial impact on the campaign, but no one—including an anxious White House—could know for sure. Johnson, however, soon had specific reports—from the very districts in which the speech would have had the greatest impact. Using his list of "Districts Which Produce 1,000,000 Tons or More Coal"—the fifteen districts in six states, which, of course, contained the greatest concentration of the coal miners who formed the bedrock of Lewis' constituency—Johnson sent telegrams to the Congressmen from these districts asking for a report on the effect of Lewis' speech. The initial responses were surprising: one of the first said that the speech "has not injured us any"; if anything, it had helped; several CIO locals responded to Lewis' threat to resign by asking him to do so immediately. And later responses confirmed the trend: "The coal miners … rank and file … will stay with Roosevelt," one said. Because the telegraph was too slow for him, Johnson telephoned several of the fifteen whose judgment he particularly trusted (his selection displayed again his keenness as a reader of men; among them were Jennings Randolph of West Virginia and Michael Bradley of Pennsylvania, men who would rise). Their replies confirmed the others' (Randolph, scribbling a note "following up our telephone conversation of a few minutes ago," told him that Lewis' speech would "cut in to the Roosevelt vote in my congressional district" by only about 10 percent, and that the President could still expect to win by 15 percent). Johnson was able to tell the White House that the press reports were wrong; he presented a reassuring district-by-district summary of the limited impact of Lewis' defection—a summary backed by hard facts.

The White House, frantic for information, suddenly realized that there was a new source of it: a young Congressman from Texas.

TEN DAYS TO GO, and there was no time for the mail now. Now almost all requests were couched in Western Union's urgent capitals. For now defeat or victory was staring ambitious men starkly in the face, and so was the realization that just a little money might mean the difference between one and the other—if the money arrived in time.

A single ad might make the difference—just one more ad. MUST HAVE $250 BY THURSDAY NIGHT FOR LAST ISSUE ADVERTISING, wired James E. Hughes of Wisconsin. ADVERTISING PROGRAMS ACCOMPLISHING GREAT RESULTS DEADLINE THURSDAY NOON, wired Beiter of Buffalo. On Monday, October 28, James F. Lavery of Pennsylvania wired Johnson asking for $100 for BADLY NEEDED advertising. When he did not receive a reply by Wednesday, he wired again. If Johnson could not spare $100, he asked, could he send $90? CHANCES BRIGHT … IF WE GET RIGHT AWAY $14 FOR EACH OF FIVE COUNTY PAPERS AND $20 FOR TITUSVILLE HERALD.

One more mailing. HAVE SET UP MACHINERY TO REACH 11,000 VOTERS BY MAIL IF $250 MADE AVAILABLE BY THURSDAY, Kenneth M. Petrie wired Johnson. In Racine, Wisconsin, J. M. Weisman was staring at stacks of 65,000 circulars—and at the realization that he couldn't get them into voters' hands. URGENCY NEED AT LEAST $500 BY FRIDAY.

One more maneuver of a more informal character. Cap Harding's son, Kenneth, who would succeed him as director of the Congressional Campaign Committee, was running campaigns in California's Eighth Congressional District. "There was a colored minister who controlled the bloc of colored votes in San Jose, and we bought him for fifty dollars. A small amount of money judiciously spent could mean more than a larger amount of money spent on political advertising. Just a few bucks strategically placed could mean all the difference in the world. But those last few days of a campaign—when the deals were being struck—that was when you either had the cash or you didn't. And if you didn't—well, that could mean the end of a man's career."

Election Day itself was looming before these men—Election Day, with Election Day expenses. Arthur Mitchell, returning to his Chicago district from his travels on behalf of other Negro candidates, found to his shock that, as he wired Johnson: PRACTICALLY ALL COLORED BAPTIST MINISTERS HAVE BEEN EMPLOYED BY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. … I CAN AND WILL BEAT THEM IF I CAN GET THE MONEY TO HIRE WORKERS. … I NEED A MINIMUM OF $600_WHATEVER HELP I CAN GET SHOULD BE IN HANDS TOMORROW IF POSSIBLE. Byron G. Rogers of Colorado wired: COULD USE $500 FOR WORKERS IN SPANISH AND ITALIAN DISTRICTS. WIRE TODAY HOW MUCH I CAN EXPECT. Francis T. Murphy of Milwaukee: CAN CARRY DISTRICT BY 2000 BY GETTING VOTE TO POLLS IN KEY WARDS. NEED $300 FRIDAY TO CARRY OUT INTENSIVE WORK. … WIRE BY WESTERN UNION. Vernon Sigars of Missouri: NEED $1,000 NOVEMBER IST TO HIRE POLL WATCHERS.

There were other Election Day expenses, too, for San Antonio was not the only city and Texas not the only state in which money was piled on tables to purchase votes, just as Mexican-Americans were not the only immigrants whose votes were purchased; in New Brunswick, New Jersey, heavily inhabited in 1940 by first-generation Americans of Slavic descent and controlled by a ruthless city machine (to name just one Northeastern city in which this practice was widespread), the big oak desks of city officials were traditionally cleared of papers on Election Day and covered with piles of cash. In the big cities of the Northeast, votes might cost more than five dollars each; in the slums of New York and Chicago, at least, it was not uncommon for Bowery and Skid Row residents to be handed tens or even, in a close election, twenties for their franchise. And for those candidates who were not planning to buy votes, money might be needed for poll watchers to prevent illegal balloting by voters bought by their opponents. As for rural areas, certain "boxes" in the Tenth District of Texas were not the only precincts which could be delivered for a candidate if a payment was made to a local Sheriff or County Commissioner.

There was no time for circumlocutions now. Money was what was needed, and money was what was asked for. Some candidates, in their anxiety to obtain funds, entrusted to Western Union stratagems usually mentioned only in whispers. Hardy Steeholm of Dutchess County, New York, wired that TWO THOUSAND … WILL DO THE TRICK. The trick he had in mind was not, perhaps, a clean one; this Democratic candidate wanted the money for the payment not of Democratic workers, but of Republicans. SUCCESS OF CAMPAIGN NOW HINGES ON FINANCES NECESSARY TO LINE UP REPUBLICAN WORKER IN EACH POLLING DISTRICT. Martin Smith, who had gotten funds from Lyndon Johnson for radio and newspaper advertising, now needed more—for another purpose: I SHALL HAVE TO CONTACT KEY MEN IN THE CIO. … THIS IS GOING TO ENTAIL CONSIDERABLE EXPENSE. John E. Sheridan required a cash subvention to offset the use he expected his opponent to make of cash on Election Day. KNOW ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE TO BUY THE ELECTION … BY PAYING WORKERS AND VOTERS TO STAY HOME ON ELECTION DAY.

AND MONEY was what they got.

On Sunday, October 27, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson met with Franklin Roosevelt at the White House. The youngest of the three men reported that eighty-two Democratic Congressmen were in tight contests in which additional financial help—perhaps $1,000 per man—might be decisive. According to a summary of the conversation that Johnson wrote the next day, Roosevelt said that the Democratic National Committee should give the Congressional Campaign Committee at least $50,000 to distribute in these key districts. Johnson relayed his analysis of the situation—along with the President's message—to Rayburn's contact at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Biltmore, Swagar Sherley.

Dear Mr. Sherley:

Unless we are resigned to sizable losses in the House membership which may mean loss of control, the 82 men listed on the attached memo should receive financial help immediately.

If you will notice, 1,000 is to be given to each member unless otherwise designated. …

If you could get Ed Flynn to give the Democratic Congressional Committee 50 thousand tomorrow, I will raise the additional 26 [sic] necessary and tomorrow night will get out the funds according to the memo. …

The Boss said in his conference with the Speaker and me yesterday that he thought the Committee should get us at least 50 thousand in order to save this situation.

Excuse this hurried note because we are working day and night and am about to go out.

Sincerely,
Lyndon B. Johnson

The money from the Democratic National Committee was not forthcoming, so Johnson raised his own. He went to his original source, obtaining substantial new sums from Brown & Root. (Charles Marsh also sent money, perhaps only the $5,000 a week collected by Mary Louise Glass, perhaps more—it is impossible to be certain because Marsh's money was collected and distributed not by the Congressional Committee but through channels that Marsh arranged and no written record whatsoever of these transactions has been found.) And he went to his new source, working it this time not through Rayburn but by himself. Oilman W. W. Lechner of Dallas was in Washington, staying at the Mayflower Hotel. On October 29, Johnson spoke with him, and Lechner gave him a check for $1,500. On that same day, another $1,500 check arrived in the mail, from oilman Jack Frost of Dallas, who sent a note: "All of us down here want to see Hatton Sumners hold his position at the head of the Judiciary Committee. It would be a shame if Texas lost its chairmanship of this and other powerful committees." D. F. Strickland of Mission, Texas, a powerful Austin lobbyist—and an oilman—sent Johnson a money order for $1,000 also with a message: "I am particularly interested in reelecting a Democratic House so that my friends Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, Hatton Sumners, Milton West and other Texas congressmen may retain their present positions of honor and influence in the House." C. W. Murchison, First National Bank Building, Dallas, sent $5,000. Toddie L. Wynne, First National Bank Building, Dallas, sent $5,000. If the pipeline for political oil money from Texas had been opened two weeks before, Monday, October 28, 1940, was the date the flow was stepped up. How much money gushed up from Dallas on that date cannot be determined, because some never passed through the Congressional Campaign Committee, but was distributed, at Johnson's instructions, by others. But on Tuesday, October 29, one week before the election, the anxious Congressmen received a telegram from Lyndon Johnson:

AM ATTEMPTING TO GET ADDITIONAL HELP FOR CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE IN ORDER THAT WE CAN GIVE YOU MORE FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE. IF VERY URGENT WIRE ME TODAY ABSOLUTE MINIMUM AND DEADLINE.

A week to go—less than a week. There was desperation in those yellow envelopes now. THERE IS NO ABSOLUTE MINIMUM, George B. Kelly of Rochester wired. ANYTHING WILL HELP THE FIGHT AGAINST ODDS, VERY URGENT. Snatching the envelopes from the messengers, Henderson or Connally would read: WE NEED FUNDS AND NEED THEM BADLY, IMPERATIVE. ANY AMOUNT. Or WE ARE SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS BEHIND NOW WITH MORE EXPENSE TO COME. ABSOLUTE MINIMUM NECESSARY $350. Or APPROXIMATELY TEN THOUSAND MAJORITY FOR WILLKIE IN MY DISTRICT. MORE MONEY NEEDED. Or LYNDON URGENTLY NEED AT LEAST FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS BY SATURDAY. WOULD ESTIMATE FIFTEEN THOUSAND MAJORITY FOR NATIONAL TICKET IF OPPOSITION MONEY DOES NOT INCREASE OVER WEEKEND. Or LYNDON SITUATION IN DANGER HERE. … REALLY BELIEVE DISTRICT MAY BE IN TROUBLE DUE TO HEAVY REPUBLICAN EXPENDITURES. ANY SUM WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED. COULD USE $1,000. PROSPECTS AND MAJORITY UNCERTAIN.

Some telegraphed repeatedly. Two wires arrived from the new Congressman from Washington's Second District. Henry M. ("Scoop") Jackson, elected just a few months before in a special election, saw danger that his career would be over almost before it had begun. SLIGHT SHIFT MY DISTRICT TO REPUBLICANS. … THIS WILL BE CRUCIAL WEEK. MY ELECTION WILL BE CLOSE. HAVE RECEIVED NO ASSISTANCE FROM DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE. PLEASE WIRE ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. When he did not receive an immediate reply, Jackson wired again: ABSOLUTE MINIMUM $750 NECESSARY IMMEDIATELY. … MY RACE EXTREMELY CLOSE. AM ONLY NEW CONGRESSMAN IN STATE. NEED FUNDS NOW. PERSONAL CREDIT EXHAUSTED. WIRE ANSWER. Petrie's 11,000 pieces of mail had been set in type, but the $350 which would enable him to mail them, the $350 for which he had asked Johnson, had not arrived. He sent another telegram: ANXIOUSLY AWAITING REPLY.

Some of his fellow Congressmen were trying frantically to get Lyndon Johnson on the telephone. J. Buell Snyder spoke to one of his secretaries, and her report of his message was to the point: "In trouble. Needs help." Lenhardt E. Bauer of Indiana sent a wire at 1:37 p.m. on October 30: PLEASE CONTACT ME ON TELEPHONE EARLIEST POSSIBLE MOMENT. MUST TALK TO YOU. … When, four hours later, he had not heard from Johnson, he sent another telegram: NEED FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS STILL MUST TALK TO YOU.

In far-off Washington State, Martin Smith had been running hard, but time for him to make up the ground he had lost because of Congress' late recess was running out—and he feared he was still behind. Lewis County was his district's most rock-bed Republican territory, but picking up votes there was his best hope. On the twenty-eighth Smith left for Lewis—with a bullhorn; during the next three days, he was planning to address rallies and speak informally in the county's little towns. But Smith was afraid that, run as hard as he could, he would not be able to reach enough voters with a bullhorn to pull this race out. He could reach more by radio, and had reserved radio time on all five stations in his district, but FCC regulations required that radio time be paid for in advance. He had reserved space for last-minute ads in the district's daily newspapers—but they had to be paid for, too. Johnson had done so much for him, but what he had done wasn't enough. Leaving for Lewis County, Smith wired him: IMPERATIVE EVERY EFFORT BE MADE TO FURTHER ASSIST ME. Then, on the twenty-ninth Johnson's telegram arrived at his headquarters in Hoquiam. Tracking the Congressman down by telephone, his secretary, Robert A. Leroux, read him Johnson's telegram, and Smith told Leroux to reply: MINIMUM SHOULD BE FIVE HUNDRED AND DEADLINE SATURDAY. And the secretary added a sentence showing how hard his boss was fighting—and how much he needed Johnson's help. HAVE JUST SUCCEEDED IN CONTACTING CONGRESSMAN SMITH BY LONG DISTANCE AT ONALASKA LEWIS COUNTY WHERE HE'S HOLDING MASS MEETING WITH LOUD SPEAKER ONE OF TWELVE MEETINGS TODAY IN THIS STRONG REPUBLICAN COUNTY.

Henderson and Connally summarized, state by state, each candidate who replied, the amount he needed, and any additional information he furnished. Lyndon Johnson sat down with this list, and in the left-hand margin wrote the amount each man was to receive.

He wasn't wasting his money. A candidate's assessment of his chances was discreetly checked and rechecked through other sources; evaluations of the races in Illinois' twenty-five districts, for example, were telephoned to Johnson by the dean of the state's congressional delegation, Adolph J. Sabath, chairman of the House Rules Committee. If a report said that the candidate had a good chance to win, the candidate got his money. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Grover Hill, on a speechmaking tour through rural districts, reported from Kansas' Fifth that, although the race was close, Democrat incumbent John M. Houston "has good chance to win." Houston had responded to Johnson's telegram by asking for $300; that was what he got. But if a report was highly unfavorable, so was Johnson's response; Noel P. Fox, Democratic candidate in Michigan's Ninth District, told Johnson that he was leading by 1,500 votes, but Johnson knew better (Fox in fact was to lose by 12,000); "None," he wrote next to Fox's name. Other considerations might also influence Johnson's response. Montana incumbent James F. O'Connor, who was running well ahead in his district, had apparently antagonized someone in Washington. Johnson had promised him a contribution on the twenty-fourth, but had not sent it, and now O'Connor asked for $300. OPPOSITION USING …LOT OF MONEY TO ELECT REPUBLICAN IN MY PLACE, he said. IF HAVE HELP SURE CAN WIN. "None," Johnson wrote next to O'Connor's name. "Out."

Many of the candidates who responded received less than they had requested. Thomas R. Brooks telephoned the Munsey Building, telling one of Johnson's staff that he had a "slight edge," and said a scheduled election-eve visit to his heavily Norwegian district in Wisconsin by the Ambassador to Norway might pull him through—if he received money as well. He asked for $2,000, then lowered his request to $1,000 and, as the staffer noted, "finally came down to $500." Then he sent a wire: WHATEVER YOU CAN DO. "$250," Johnson wrote next to his name. C. Arthur Anderson, who "said he is in midst of a tough fight," had asked for $350. Receiving no immediate answer, he telephoned Johnson and reduced his request to $200. "$150," Johnson wrote beside his name.

Others did not fare that well. Francis T. Murphy said he had a "50–50" chance. He could win, he said, "by getting vote to polls in key wards," but money was needed to accomplish that. "None," Johnson wrote next to Murphy's name. C. H. Armbruster of Ohio asked for $1,000, but said he would take less; "urgent," he said. "None," Johnson wrote. "$ 1,000 would be a lifesaver," George W. Wolf wrote. "Two counties hold fate. … Hard battle." None.

Johnson's decision to cut off some candidates was not due to lack of funds. Most of the candidates who replied received at least a substantial portion of the amount they had requested. Scoop Jackson got $500 of the $750 he had requested, George B. Kelly $350 of the $400 for which he had asked. Some got all they had asked for. Rogers had asked for $500; "O.K.," Johnson wrote next to his name, "$500." Mitchell got his $600, Lee Guyer the $200 which enabled him to pay the printer. Some got more than they had requested—Myers of Pennsylvania $700 instead of the $500 for which he had asked, for example; Havenner of California $1,250—and in other instances Johnson did not wait for a candidate's request, but pressed funds upon him. J. Joseph Smith of Connecticut received a Johnson check—and the next day, November 2, a Johnson telegram: IF I CAN BE OF FURTHER HELP TO YOU IN THE LAST MINUTE RUSH, LET ME KNOW. Some, in fact, were given so much money that they asked Johnson to stop sending it. Michael Kirwan, who had told John McCormack on October 18 that he was "hard-pressed for money," had since received so much from Johnson—$200 on October 17, $500 on October 21, $350 more on October 24 (and these, of course, are only the contributions of which there is a written record)—that he replied to Johnson's telegram of the twenty-ninth by thanking him for "your offer of further assistance" but adding, "However, I believe I have sufficient to see me through." Charles H. Leavy of Washington had written on his questionnaire that he didn't need money; "Think I will be able to handle situation without outside help," he had said. Johnson had sent him $600 nonetheless. Now Johnson asked him how much more he needed—and Leavy replied by sending him a gift: a box of State of Washington apples.

ELECTION DAY. The day on which information—early information—was most precious, because a candidate, his fate riding on the ballots, is impatient for an early indication of a trend; because if he learns early enough that the vote is close, a last-minute effort to get out his voters can be mounted or intensified; and because, in states in which some portion of the vote is controlled (Illinois, with its controlled Republican votes in down-state counties and its controlled Democratic votes in Cook County, was a prime example), early information is helpful in preparing for the necessary late adjustment in the figures.

Washington's new source of information had geared up for Election Day. Sending out on October 29 his request for information on their finances to 175 Congressmen across the country, Lyndon Johnson had added a request for other information—early returns not only on their own races but on Franklin D. Roosevelt's—and ("if you do everything …") had followed that up in later telegrams, including one on the day itself.

He had let the White House know he would have information for it. Rowe already knew, of course, but as Rowe himself puts it, Johnson "never did anything through just one person." He was not well acquainted with Missy LeHand, and this was an excuse to communicate with her. He wired her that IF I FEEL THE INFORMATION IS OF SUFFICIENT INTEREST I WILL TAKE THE LIBERTY TO CALL THE PRESIDENT. FOR THAT REASON I AM LETTING YOU KNOW IN ADVANCE OF MY PLAN.

The information for which he had asked arrived—early, as he had asked. By 2:47 p.m. on Election Day, the first flash was in from Detroit. MICHIGAN FIRST DISTRICT VOTING HEAVY INDICATES BETTERING PREVIOUS DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY, Tenerowicz reported. By late afternoon, Western Union messengers were racing to the third floor of the Munsey Building in a steady stream. Other news came over the telephone; James Shanley of Connecticut telephoned at 6:45 because, as he was to write, "I certainly wanted to give you the first news in Washington."

In the evening, the telegrams bore hard news. The first telegrams from other Detroit districts were less optimistic than Tenerowicz's: the figures in the initial communication from Representative George D. O'Brien were close—too close (104 PRECINCTS OUT OF 222 … O'BRIEN 28,700, MCLEOD 24,769), but just twenty-four minutes later, O'Brien could dictate another wire (140 DISTRICTS OUT OF 222 … O'BRIEN 39,797, MCLEOD 28,586). Some of the telegrams were tinged with jubilation as well as gratitude. Edouard Izac's last pre-election wire had told Johnson: ROOSEVELT SHOULD WIN BY 10,000 … MY PROSPECTS DOUBTFUL, but on election night, the wire from California said: APPARENTLY WINNING BY APPROXIMATELY 8,000. THANKS. … Some were not. John G. Green, who had thought up to the last minute that he might beat out incumbent Republican Bernard J. Gehrmann, wired: GEHRMANN APPARENTLY REELECTED, DAMN TIRED. At 2:37 a.m., a single brief line arrived from Ernest M. Miller in Harlan, Iowa: PRESENT PARTIAL RETURNS INDICATE MY DECISIVE DEFEAT. Jubilant or dejected, however, the telegrams, taken together, added up to a great deal of information.

On the evening of Election Day, Johnson wasn't at the Munsey Building, but at the spacious Georgetown home of Jim Rowe's brother-in-law, Alfred Friendly, where a crowded election-night party was in progress. His staff, back at the Munsey Building, was taking the reports as they came in, and telephoning them to Johnson there. Many more reports came in than Johnson had expected so early in the evening, and he telephoned Walter Jenkins and told him to come out to Friendly's house. Jenkins was installed in a bedroom, where he sat on the bed tabulating the incoming information.

Johnson and Rowe bantered back and forth throughout the evening in the easy and—then—quite close camaraderie that existed between them. They had several wagers—twenty-five cents each, as befitted two young men with no money to spare—riding on the returns. Rowe, reflecting the prevalent Washington thinking on the likely outcome of the congressional elections, had bet that the Democrats would lose at least thirty seats in the House; Johnson had bet that the Democrats would lose less than thirty. And the two tall young men, both in their early thirties, also bet on several individual races, while they waited for a call from Hyde Park.

For some hours, no call came.

In the house above the Hudson, crowded with family and friends, the President sat at the dining-room table, with news tickers clattering nearby and big tally sheets and a row of freshly sharpened pencils lined up in front of him.

"At first," as Burns has written in an unforgettable scene, "the President was calm and businesslike. The early returns were mixed. Morgenthau, nervous and fussy, bustled in and out of the room. Suddenly Mike Reilly, the President's bodyguard, noticed that Roosevelt had broken into a heavy sweat. Something in the returns had upset him. It was the first time Reilly had ever seen him lose his nerve.

"'Mike,' Roosevelt said suddenly. 'I don't want to see anybody in here.'

"'Including your family, Mr. President?'

"'I said anybody,' Roosevelt answered in a grim tone."

As the news tickers clattered feverishly, Franklin Roosevelt sat before his charts with his jacket off, his tie pulled down, his shirt clinging damply to his big shoulders. "Was this the end of it all?" Burns writes. "Better by far not to have run for office again than to go down to defeat now." Would his enemies beat him at last, "and write his epitaph in history as a power-grasping dictator rebuked by a free people? … In the little black numbers marching out of the ticker, not only Roosevelt but the whole New Deal was on trial. … Still Willkie ran strong. Disappointing first returns were coming in from New York. … The ash dropped from the cigarette; Mike Reilly stood stolidly outside the door. Was this the end …?

"Then there was a stir throughout the house. Slowly but with gathering force, the numbers on the charts started to shift their direction. Reports arrived of a great surge of Roosevelt strength. … By now Roosevelt was smiling again, the door was opened, and in came family and friends. …" And the President made a number of telephone calls—including one to Jim Rowe and Lyndon Johnson.

The twenty-two-year-old Jenkins had been thrilled by other calls he had been taking. "It was the most exciting night of my life," he would recall. "I thought I was in the high cotton. All those big shots, you know," voices on the telephone that had previously been only names in a newspaper. And then the call from the biggest name of all. "Mr. Roosevelt called and asked how many seats we were going to lose, and Mr. Johnson said, 'We're not going to lose. We're going to gain.'" He and Rowe got on extensions and talked to the President. Recalls Rowe: "Johnson got good, early counts and we both got on the telephone … and told him [Roosevelt] how many Congressmen we had elected, and it was impressive—a helluva lot of Congressmen. And it impressed the hell out of Roosevelt. I remember that."

LESSER POLITICIANS were also impressed. Knowledgeable Democrats in Washington had reluctantly reconciled themselves to the loss of a considerable number of seats in the House. Instead, they had gained eight (while losing three in the Senate). "My father expected to lose," Ken Harding recalls. "We were the most surprised people in the world when we didn't lose."

Many of the men most directly affected—the Democratic candidates—gave considerable credit for the surprise to Lyndon Johnson. Despite the frenzy of the last days before the election, several candidates had taken time out from their campaigning to write to express appreciation for the help he had given them. "I want to thank you again from the very depths of my heart for the interest you have taken in me, because of the confidence which you have manifested and the effort you have put forth," Arthur Mitchell wrote. Said Nan Honeyman: "As darling as I think it was of you I still was a bit perturbed over your taking all the trouble to enlist the interest of the state of Texas in my welfare. Really, darling, that was too good of you and of them. How can I thank you? If I am elected I shall really owe the victory to your efforts." After the election, similar letters were received at the Munsey Building from scores of men who remembered the yellow rectangles from Western Union that had arrived with the information, or the money, they needed, and who wanted to thank the man who had sent them. "Before you came to my rescue, I was really getting discouraged," John Kee of West Virginia wrote. Thanking Johnson for the money he sent, John F. Hunter of Ohio wrote, "We were able to put on some thirty short radio programs in the last two days." Lansdale G. Sasscer of Maryland said, "I used it among our colored vote very effectively both for the President and myself." "Certainly I never had such grand cooperation from the Congressional Committee before," wrote Draper Allen of Michigan. "This is … the first time I have ever received any financial assistance from Washington, and I assure you I deeply appreciate it." And some of the gratitude was expressed in a form that must have been particularly pleasing to a man looking down a long road. "Congratulations on your fine and successful work in the campaign," wrote Pat Morrison of South Dakota. "We look forward to the date, not too far distant, when our delegation will be able to be of aid and assistance to you." Says Walter Jenkins: There was a lot of gratitude among his colleagues for what he had done. "I saw it in the phone calls and the letters. And the feeling of respect. It built him up from being just—he was barely a first-term Congressman—to probably the most…" Here Jenkins pauses and searches for the right word; and finally says, "He was the hero." The same feeling was expressed by observers less impressionable than Jenkins. Wrote Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen in their "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column:

To the boys on the Democratic side of the House of Representatives, many of them still nervously mopping their brows over narrow escapes, the hero of the hair-raising campaign was no big-shot party figure.

The big names got all the publicity, but in the House all the praise is for a youngster whose name was scarcely mentioned. But he left his mark on the battle—as GOP campaign managers will ruefully attest.

Their Nemesis and the Democrats' unknown hero was Lyndon Baines Johnson, a rangy, 32-year-old, black-haired, handsome Texan who has been in Congress only three years but who has political magic at his fingertips and a way with him that is irresistible in action.

How Johnson took over the Democratic congressional campaign, when it looked as if the party was sure to lose the House, and without fanfare turned a rout into a cocky triumph, is one of the untold epics of the election.

Gratitude is an emotion as ephemeral in Washington as elsewhere, but Lyndon Johnson obtained from his work with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee a reward more lasting.

During those three weeks in the Munsey Building, his secretaries had compiled lists of Congressmen who had asked for money, and the amounts for which they had asked. And then the lists had been placed before Lyndon Johnson—for decisions. If Sam Rayburn or John McCormack requested a specific amount of money for a specific Congressman, Johnson would honor the request, but these requests were relatively infrequent. And except in those few cases, the decision as to which Congressman got money, and how much he got, would be Lyndon Johnson's decision. His alone. O.K., he wrote next to some requests. None, he wrote next to others. "1,000 would be a lifesaver"—None. "An additional $300 will, I am sure, get results"—None. Out. The words and numbers he wrote on those lists were a symbol of a power he now possessed—over the careers of his colleagues. The power was a limited one—it was the power of the purse, and the purse was not a large one. Small though it might be in comparison to the purse which financed a presidential campaign, however, it was not small to most of the men whose campaigns it was financing; it was substantial in terms both of their needs and of their expectations. They needed its contents, needed it badly. What Lyndon Johnson wrote beside their names had played a role—a small role but a definite role—in determining their fates.

Returning to Washington after the election, Congressmen compared notes on their campaigns, and in these discussions the name of Lyndon Johnson kept coming up; when someone mentioned it to a freshman Congressman, Augustine B. Kelley of Pennsylvania, Kelley said: "Oh, Lyndon Johnson! He really had a lot to do with me getting elected. He sent money up to my campaign. He'd call up from Washington to see how we were getting along, and what we needed. 'Gus, what do you need?' And he sent me money, and kept up with my campaign." Listening to his colleagues talk, a Congressman who had received campaign funds from Johnson—funds on a scale unprecedented for a central Democratic congressional financing source—would realize that Johnson had contributed funds, on a similar scale, to scores of Congressmen. Through cloakrooms and Speaker's Lobby spread a realization that, in some way most of them did not understand, this young, junior, rather unpopular Congressman, a scant three years on the Hill, had become a source—an important source—of campaign funds.

For some of these funds—the money from Texas—he had, moreover, become the sole source. The telegrams candidates had received from Johnson announcing that funds were on the way had said they had been contributed by "my good Democratic friends in Texas." By his friends. The recipients did not know who those friends were—and even were they to find out, they could hardly ask these Texans with whom they were not even acquainted to contribute to their campaigns. Their only access to this new—and, apparently, substantial—source of money was through Lyndon Johnson. He controlled it. The money they needed could be obtained only through him.

They were going to need money again in 1942, of course, in less than two years. In 1942—and in succeeding years. Whether or not they liked Lyndon Johnson, they were going to need him. Not merely gratitude but an emotion perhaps somewhat stronger and more enduring—self-interest—dictated that they be on good terms with him.

This realization—and the reality behind it—abruptly altered Johnson's status on Capitol Hill. When Congress had left Washington in October, he had been just one Congressman among many. Within a short time after Congress returned in January, the word was out that he was a man to see, a man to cultivate. Harold E. Cole of Boston, a friend of John McCormack, had lost a close race, and was planning to run again. He hadn't learned until late in the campaign of Johnson's role in campaign funding, and he didn't want to make the same mistake again. He wrote Johnson asking if he could come to Washington and drop in and see him. Working closely with Johnson, Jim Rowe had understood what he was trying to accomplish with the money from Texas. "He was really trying to build a power base as a new Congressman," he says. And he succeeded. Ray Roberts, a Rayburn aide, says that Johnson had

made lots of enemies [in Congress]. … He was brash, he was eager, … and he wanted people to move out of the way. … The thing that really gave him his power was becoming chairman of the congressional campaign committee. … There were some thirty or forty people [after the 1940 election] that figured they owed their seat in the House to Lyndon Johnson. Whenever he called on them, he could count on this group being for whatever he wanted.

Roberts' remark is an exaggeration. Lyndon Johnson controlled no Congressman that completely. As an analysis of the alteration in Johnson's status, however, Roberts' remark was in some respects an understatement. For it was not only junior Congressmen with no influence whom Johnson had helped.

During the campaign, John McCormack had been asking Lyndon Johnson for funds for his Massachusetts delegation and for old friends from other states—and for credit for himself from those other Congressmen for obtaining them. And Johnson had given the Majority Leader what he asked for. Now the Majority Leader owed him something. The situation was duplicated with other members of the House hierarchy. The William H. Sutphin of New Jersey who had pleaded with him for funds—and who had received in return $1,500—was the Assistant Majority Leader. Andrew J. May of Kentucky ("I hope you can do something for me, and I will owe you an undying debt of gratitude") was chairman of the Military Affairs Committee. Normally, young Congressmen were suppliants to the Majority Leader, or the Assistant Whip, or committee chairmen, for favors. In the case of this young Congressman, the situation had been reversed. The extent of the reversal was dramatized the first time the House Naval Affairs Committee met following the election. Normally, in a committee, seniority was the determining factor. When the Democrats moved into their seats this time, Johnson was still five seats away from the chairmanship. But three of the five men ahead of him in seniority owed him favors because of his contributions to their campaigns. He had been not only dealing with the most senior members of his party in the House, but dealing with them from a position of independent strength. When he asked Sam Rayburn and John McCormack to come to a luncheon meeting, they came.

Nor, during the campaign, had he dealt only with Congressmen. When he had asked labor leaders in New York to intervene in a strike in the State of Washington, he had been playing a national political role. And his work with powerful political figures across the country had not consisted merely of liaison work. There had been a "Chicago line." Precisely what it was, how Johnson operated through it, or how much he gave through it cannot be determined. But it had a connection with Chicago Boss Ed Kelly. By the end of the campaign, he had become acquainted with, had worked with—had funneled money through—some of the most powerful men in America. There was a New York connection, too. At first, the connection had been Tommy Corcoran; it was he who raised cash from New York garment-center leaders such as Hillman or Lubin or Dubinsky. But by the end of the campaign, Johnson was personally acquainted with them; several of them, in fact, were to become strong Johnson allies and generous Johnson financial backers. Men such as Kelly and Lubin were not without influence on Congressmen; after the 1940 campaign, Johnson was in a position to ask them to use that influence; a Congressman who would not respond to a Johnson request might receive a telephone call from his own home town. He even had a potential ally—if a low-level one—on the staff of the Democratic National Committee. Paul Aiken wrote to Johnson, "One of your chief boosters, Swagar Sherley, has been spending a lot of time with me in the last few days," and as a result Aiken would look Johnson up on his next trip to Washington. All these things combined to radically alter Johnson's status.

The alteration was apparent at Georgetown dinner parties, where he dozed off at table less frequently. His need to be the center of attention at parties had been thwarted by the degree to which, in Washington, attention was a function of power, but now, as Dale Miller puts it, "because of his political power," he was more often the center of attention. The alteration was apparent in the House cloakrooms and dining room, where, before the 1940 campaign, some fellow Representatives would snub Johnson, greeting other colleagues while ignoring him because, as one says, "they wouldn't put up with him." He still acted the same way in the House Dining Room, strolling through it nodding to left and right as if he were a visiting celebrity, "head-huddling," talking loudly. But his colleagues "put up with him" now. Symbolically, the shrinking away was much less evident. The fellow Congressman whose lapel he grasped while staring into his eyes and talking nose to nose was often a colleague who had appealed to him for help, and who had received that help—a colleague, moreover, who not only had needed him once, but who would need him again. A Congressman who was thinking about his next campaign didn't resent Lyndon Johnson's arm around his shoulders—he was all too happy to have it there. Before 1940, Johnson had never been shy about asking for favors, "irritating" colleagues by his insistence when he had no favors to do them in return. He was in position now to return favors—in a big way. And if other Representatives still felt irritated, they no longer allowed the irritation to show. Says one: "A lot of guys still didn't like him, but unlike before [the 1940 campaign], you tolerated his idiosyncrasies. Because you knew this guy was going somewhere. You knew—I don't think most of us knew how he had done it, but we knew he had done it—that he had already started going somewhere. A lot of guys still didn't like him, but they knew they might need him someday. Now he was a guy you couldn't deny any more."

THE NEW POWER he possessed did not derive from Roosevelt's friendship, or from Rayburn's. It did not derive from seniority in the House, nor even—despite the relationship that power in a democracy bears to the votes of the electorate—to his seat in it. His power was simply the power of money. To a considerable extent, the money was Herman Brown's. A single corporation, Brown & Root, may have given Democratic congressional candidates more money than they received from the Democratic National Committee. Lyndon Johnson had been attempting to, as Rowe puts it, "build a power base." He had succeeded. His power base wasn't his congressional district, it was Herman Brown's bank account. Although he was young, he had been seeking national power for years. Now the power of money had given him some.

Simultaneously, it had given a new kind of power to Texas—through him.

This was a significant aspect of his work in the 1940 campaign. Texas had had power in Washington for nine years—since Dick Kleberg's victory had given the Democrats control of the House in November, 1931, and John Garner had taken the Speaker's chair. But that power had been somewhat personal, and therefore in constant danger of vanishing. Much of it had been embodied in, and exercised through, Garner, leader of the Lone Star State's delegation and the key protector of the state's interests in Washington, not only because of his position but because of the power of his personality. The ephemeral nature of power based on individuals was vividly demonstrated by the fact that Cactus Jack was, abruptly, no longer even going to be present in Washington. Sam Rayburn's ascension to the Speakership and Texas' continuing hold on key committee chairmanships in both House and Senate meant that Texas still had power in the capital, but great as this power was, it could disappear in a day—Election Day. Because of Texas' predilection for keeping its Congressmen in office indefinitely, there was little fear that they themselves would lose some November, but their power rested on an overall Democratic majority in the House and Senate that depended on less reliable states. A Democratic loss would cost them their chairmanships and their power. And a Republican victory was not the only way in which Texas could lose power: a chairmanship could be lost through death, as Buchanan's death had cost Texas the key Appropriations post, and the key "Texas chairmanships" in the House were held by elderly men. In the world of the pork barrel and the log roll, Texas had a commanding position because of Joseph Jefferson Mansfield; let that elderly wheelchair-bound man die, and Texas' power over public works would vanish in the instant of his death. A chairmanship could be lost through individual ambitions; arrangements had, in fact, already been finalized for the Agriculture Committee's Marvin Jones to resign his House seat for a federal Judgeship immediately after the election. In 1932, Texas had held not only the Speakership but five key House chairmanships; Jones' departure would reduce the number to three.

Moreover, because, in a legislative body, personal relationships are so important, the effects of increased Republican strength would be for some period of years irreparable. A Republican victory would sweep out of office Congressmen with whom Texans had long and close alliances. The Democrats might return to a majority—but they might be different Democrats.

The power of money was less ephemeral than power based on elections or individuals. It could last as long as the money lasted, exerting its effect not only on an incumbent but on his successors. And there was enough oil in Texas so that it would last, in political terms, a long time. Lyndon Johnson had become the conduit for the oilmen's money. To the extent that he could remain the conduit, his power would endure.

And there was a lot more Texas money available than had been apparent in the 1940 campaign. Lyndon Johnson's base had been Herman Brown's money, but he had expanded that base by adding to Herman's cash, Sid Richardson's and Clint Murchison's. The extent of their wealth made his power base infinitely expandable. It could become a factor in campaigns other than those for members of the House of Representatives. It could exert more influence. To the extent that he remained in charge of its distribution, he could exert more influence. In terms of power in Washington, his power was still quite small, but if the amount of money at his command grew larger, his power might grow with it.

If journalists did not generally understand the reason for Johnson's new status, some of them were aware of it. Wrote Alex Louis, a correspondent for a Texas newspaper chain:

When the United States Congress convenes for a new session in January, the familiar face of John Nance Garner will be missing for the first time in more than a third of a century. After a brilliant career as congressman, Speaker of the House, and Vice-President, the bushy-eyebrowed Westerner who rose to higher official position than any other Texan in history will be absent.

Yet one of the eternal charms of politics is that as the old political oaks fall before the axe of retirement or death, sturdy new ones are rising in the forest to take their place. To many a Washington and Austin observer this winter, it seems that one of the sturdiest saplings in the forest—a young one which may grow into a mighty pillar of strength not only for Texas but for the American nation—is 32-year-old Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson of Johnson City.

A member of Congress for the past three years, tall, dark-haired, handsome Lyndon Johnson already has won an enviable position in Democratic circles and national affairs.

A symbolic scene had dramatized Louis' analysis. John Garner's last Cabinet meeting—the end of his active political life in Washington—had been held on October 4, and at its conclusion the grizzled Vice President came up to the President and said, "Well, goodbye, Boss." He clapped the President on the shoulder with one hand and gripped him with the other, appearing, in Ickes' description, "to be a very pleasant fellow indeed, saying farewell to a man to whom he was deeply attached." Then he turned and walked out of the room. Ickes was a witness to the farewell because he had been waiting "after Cabinet" to have a word with the President. The word was on behalf of Lyndon Johnson; at the time, Johnson had not yet been given a role in the national congressional campaign, and he had asked Ickes to urge Roosevelt to give him one. Roosevelt had already decided to do so, and he told Ickes this. In the very moment in which the old Texan was making his exit from the national political scene, therefore, arrangements were being made for the entrance onto the national stage of a younger representative of the great province in the Southwest.

LYNDON JOHNSON'S WORK with Democratic congressional candidates had in effect added a new factor to the equation of American politics. The concept of financing congressional races across the country from a single central source was not new, but the Democrats had seldom if ever implemented the concept on the necessary scale or with the necessary energy. "No one before had ever worked at it," James Rowe says. "Johnson worked at it like hell. People running for Congress in those days never had much money; it had been that way for years, but Lyndon decided to do something about it; he got in it with both feet, the way he did everything, and he raised a hell of a lot of money." In effect, says Robert S. Allen, "he was being a one-man national committee for congressmen"—an apt analogy; although he was ostensibly "assisting" the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, his connection with that body consisted almost entirely of the checks he brought to it; otherwise, working out of his own office and with his own staff, he operated entirely on his own. The scale of money he raised for congressional races was unusually large for his party; his involvement in other aspects of congressional races—liaison with the White House, and, through the White House, with other government departments; furnishing candidates with information—was unprecedentedly active. Almost incredibly—although confirmed by the surviving Congressmen of that era—so was the coordination and financing of speakers' tours that he undertook. As to the liaison between candidates and White House on approval of public works and other governmental projects, this had not been undertaken on a similar scale even by the better-organized Republicans, possibly because under Republican Presidents, in the pre-New Deal era, the federal government had not sponsored public-works projects on the broad-scale basis that existed in 1940. Nor had the liaison-in-reverse that he undertook: the use of Congressmen as sources of information, the rapid collecting of their information, its collating and dispatch to the White House. By the 1980's, when Democratic and Republican congressional committees would be large-scale operations that furnished services and money to candidates, it would be difficult to imagine an era in which most Congressmen were left to fight their campaigns without significant help from their national party, but before Lyndon Johnson, that was, certainly in the case of the Democrats and to some extent in the case of Republicans, largely the practice. Discussing what Lyndon Johnson did in the campaign of 1940, James Rowe says flatly: "Nobody had ever done this before."

A HALLMARK OF JOHNSON'S CAREER had been a lack of any consistent ideology or principle, in fact of any moral foundation whatsoever—a willingness to march with any ally who would help his personal advancement. His work with the congressional campaign committee brought this into sharper focus. Because Democratic congressional candidates in the one-party South had no opposition in the November elections, he was providing money only to Democrats in the North—who were primarily liberals. But the money came from men who were not liberals. Some of them, in fact, were arch-conservatives; among the "Texas friends" who had provided funds for Lyndon Johnson to distribute were men who would be bankrollers in 1944 of the "Texas Regulars," Texans who bolted the party rather than support Roosevelt. He was helping New Dealers with the money of men who hated the New Deal.

In dealing with these men, Johnson did not make the slightest effort to paper over this conflict in his fund-raising efforts, nor was it necessary for him to do so. Political philosophy played not the smallest role in his appeals for money. During the next congressional campaign in 1942, after Ed Flynn had again attempted to freeze him out but had again been thwarted by Johnson's control over Texas money (replied oilman G. L. Rowsey to a Flynn plea for funds: "My delay in replying is due to the fact that I expected to be in contact with our congressman, Honorable Lyndon Johnson … I desire to know his wishes in this matter and to make my contribution to or through him"), Johnson, exasperated by Rayburn's continued failure to understand the new realities, wrote the Speaker that "these $200 driblets will not get the job done." What was needed, Johnson said, was to "select a 'minute man' group of thirty men, each of whom should" raise $5,000, for a total of $150,000. … "This should be done between now and next Wednesday. … There isn't any reason why, with the wealth and consideration that has been extended, we should fall down on this." The logic behind that advice was the logic of Mark Hanna. Mobilizing the business community against the threat of Bryan and the populist philosophy embodied in his candidacy, the Boss of Ohio raised political contributions to a new level in 1896 by transforming campaign financing, in the words of his biographer, "from a matter of political begging… into a matter of systematic assessment according to the means of the individual and institution," an assessment in which each great insurance company, railroad and bank would "pay according to its stake in the general prosperity of the country. …" "Dollar Mark" made campaign financing, in other words, a political levy upon wealth based straightforwardly upon gratitude. For past government help in acquiring that wealth and upon the hope of future government protection of that wealth, and of government assistance in adding to it. Johnson's fund-raising, not being for a presidential race, was on a much smaller scale than Hanna's, but it was based on the same naked philosophy of pure self-interest: "the wealth and consideration that has been extended." And, as had been true in the case of Hanna, who raised millions more for a presidential campaign than had ever been raised before, Johnson's logic was irresistible to those—oilmen and contractors—at whom it was directed. His confidence that the $150,000 could be raised in five days was justified; it was, and it was distributed just as rapidly to those candidates Johnson selected.

IF HERMAN BROWN regarded the campaign contributions he funneled through Lyndon Johnson as an investment, he received a healthy return on it.

Neither Herman nor his brother George had ever seen a ship being built. "We didn't know the stern from the aft—I mean the bow—of the boat," George recalls. Nonetheless, in 1941, at about the time that their Corpus Christi Naval Air Station contract was rising toward $100,000,000, the brothers were awarded a lucrative Navy contract to build four subchasers. (The brothers established a new corporate entity for the purpose: says George, "They needed a name to put on the contract, and I said, 'Brown Shipbuilding.' That was all there was to it.") When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the four subchasers were not yet completed, but a Navy Department official told the brothers, "We'll put you in the destroyer business." During the war, Brown Shipbuilding—under contracts with provisions so favorable that profits were all but guaranteed—would carry out $357,000,000 worth of work for the Navy.

AND WHAT OF THE RETURN reaped by the oilmen on an investment in Lyndon Johnson that, as years passed, was to grow and grow? What did they want from government?

They wanted a lot: not only continuation of the oil depletion allowance and of other tax benefits, and of exemption from federal regulation but new benefits, and new exemptions—and other new, favorable, government policies. As the future will demonstrate, they wanted government favoritism on a scale so immense that it would become a significant factor in the overall political and economic development of the United States.

In 1940, they had not yet achieved what they wanted. But they were asking too early, that was all.

Lyndon Johnson wasn't their Senator yet.