Master of the Senate (220 page)

“It has not”:
Meg Greenfield, “The Man Who Leads the Southern Senators,”
The Reporter
, May 21, 1964.

“Of their own”:
CR
, 80/2, pp. 7355–64.
“I could not”:
CR
, 80/2, p. 5666.
Not one got through:
Mann, p. 43.
“As such”:
CR
, 77/2, pp. 8904–05.

“Thin gray line”:
NYT
, March 2, 1960.
“Words of war”:
Meg Greenfield, “The Man Who Leads the Southern Senators,”
The Reporter
, May 21, 1964. Don Oberdorfer, “Richard Russell, Senator of Influence,”
WP
, Jan. 22, 1971.
“The last ditch”:
Ervin OH.
“Our position”:
Russell to Ervin, July 29, 1948, Dictation Series, Civil Rights, RBRL.

“That persuasive”; “The greatest”:
Fite,
Russell
, pp. 43, 203.
“That’s a”:
Russell, replying to a question by Harry Reasoner on “Portraits,” CBS News, July 17, 1963.

Collins relationship:
Fite, pp. 171–72, 201.

“About as close”:
Fite, p. 326.
Puttering around:
Richard Russell III interview (the
Senator’s nephew).
Could think best:
Griggs to Williamson, Aug. 1, 1957, SP.
“We could run”:
Rev. Henry E. Russell OH.

“He just”:
Harry O. Smith, quoted in
WP
, May 11, 1952. He often walked around the town barefoot.
“Warm feelings”; “A host”; “somewhat”:
Fite, p. 208.
“I had always”; six months:
McConaughy to Williamson, July 31, 1957, SP.
Stopped; “frankly”:
Fite, pp. 201–02.

With his staff, and the pattern of his life:
Fite,
passim;
interviews with BeLieu, Braswell, Darden, Gwen Jordan, William H. Jordan, Moore, Reedy; and the OHs of BeLieu, John T. Carlton, Darden, Robert M. Dunahoo, Felton M. (Skeeter) Johnston, Gwen Jordan, William Jordan, Barboura Raesly, Dorothye Scott.
“‘Miss’”:
Fite, p. 207.

Going to Opening Day:
Felton Johnston OH.
Eating at O’Donnell’s:
Jordan, BeLieu interviews. BeLieu saw him there; Fite, p. 468.
“My life and work”:
Cecil Holland,
WS
, March 15, 1964.

“I knew”:
Goodwin,
Lyndon Johnson
, p. 103. Actually, Johnson had included Armed Services—as his third choice—on his list of desired committee assignments in some of his earlier letters requesting a seat on Appropriations. John Connally and Walter Jenkins say this was done as what Connally calls a “sop” to Tom Connally, to make the senior senator feel Johnson was following the suggestion Connally had made to him in Marlin. The Bobby Baker discussion apparently took place during the week after Christmas, 1948.
Dropping by:
Busby, Connally, Jordan interviews.
Invitations to dinner:
Lady Bird Johnson OH.
“An entirely”:
Oltorf interview.

“The best of
us”:
Caro,
Path
, p. 759. And see also
Path
, pp. 762–63.

“I early knew”:
Lady Bird Johnson OH.
Were encouraged:
Baker,
Wheeling and Dealing
, p. 42; Dugger,
The Politician
, p. 344.

“We both like”:
“Georgia Giant,” unedited transcript, Reel 19, p. 30, Atlanta, WSB-TV, Cox Enterprises, 1970.
“Hot dogs”:
Lady Bird Johnson OH.
“I doubt”:
Connally with Herskowitz,
In History’s Shadow
, p. 122.
Now began:
Busby, Connally, Jenkins interviews.

“With no one”:
Goodwin,
Lyndon Johnson
, p. 105.
“You never”:
Oltorf interview.

“I shall take you”:
Caro,
Path
, Chapter 17.

“My mentor”:
Goodwin, p. 105.
“Snickered”:
Baker,
Wheeling and Dealing
, p. 42.
“He flattered”:
Baker, quoted in Miller,
Lyndon
, p. 142.
“Had he”:
Baker, on
The American Experience: LBJ
, PBS Home Video, 1997.
“Well, I suppose”:
“Georgia Giant,” unedited transcript, Reel 21, p. 30.

“Bosom friend”:
Stennis interview, April 21, 1971, quoted in Stephen B. Farrow, “Richard Russell and Lyndon Johnson: Principle and Pragmatism in Senatorial Politics, 1949–52,” unpublished senior thesis, University of Tennessee, 1979, p. 34. Stennis also said, “Personal things didn’t mean anything to Russell where constitutional principles were concerned” (Stennis OH, RBRL).

Maiden speech:
CR
, 81/1, pp. 2042–49.

A “nove l”:
CCC-T
, March 9, 1949.
“No quarrel”:
Dallek,
Lone Star
, p. 367.

Russell telling reporters:
Dugger, p. 344; Steinberg,
Sam Johnson’s Boy
, p. 291.
“Worth a story”:
“Sense and Sensitivity,”
Time
, March 17, 1948.
“Long line”:
Lubbock Journal
, March 10, 1949.
Russell the first:
San Angelo Standard-Times
, March 10, 1949.
“One of the ablest”:
Goodwin,
Lyndon Johnson
, p. 106. And the conservative columnist Holmes Alexander reported that “Russell pronounced it to be the best speech on the subject ever made before this body” (
Berkeley
[Calif.]
Gazette
, April 28, 1956).

“The President”:
Stokes, quoted in Donovan,
Tumultuous Years
, p. 22.
“It seems”:
Krock,
NYT
, Jan. 30, 1949.

“Gird our loins”:
NYT
, Feb. 1, 1949.
“Know if”:
Russell to Anderson, Dec. 13, 1949, Civil Rights, FEPC, Correspondence, Box 127, folder FEPC Dictation, 1944–49, RBRL.
“Made it”; Russell told:
Fite, p. 246;
NYT
, Feb. 27, 28, 1949.
“A number”; “Will forecast”; “Taft’s help”:
Thomas Sancton,
The Nation
, April 9, 1949.
Vandenberg’s ruling:
NYT
, March 11, 12;
WP
, March 12, 1949. “In the final analysis,” Vandenberg also said, “the Senate has no effective cloture rule at all…. The existing rules … still leave the Senate, rightly or wrongly, at the mercy of unlimited debate
ad infinitum
” (
NYT
, Jan. 30, 1949).
Strategy worked:
For example, Krock,
NYT
, Feb. 22, 1949.
“Working”:
New Republic
, March 14, 1949.
“Has virtually”:
NAACP, Box 61, “Press Releases, 1949,” LC.
Lucas confessing:
NYT
, March 15, 1949.
Barkley’s ruling; Russell’s appeal:
Newsweek
, March 21, 1949;
NYT, WP
, March 11, 12, 1949. See also
NYT
, March 5, 11, 1949.
“Not simply”:
Newsweek
, March 21, 1949.
“Sinking heart”:
Time
, March 21, 1949.
“Mr. Vandenberg has”:
The Nation
, March 19, 1949.
“An aura”:
NYT
, March 12, 1949.
The vote:
NYT, WP
, March 15, 1949. Agreeing after the vote to drop attempts at cloture, Lucas said, in a definitive statement on the southerners’ strength: “We realize that the filibuster can go on for weeks. They [the southerners] have the manpower to do it. Meanwhile, rent control would go out the window.” The
Times
said: “Senator Lucas noted also that other major bills … were lagging in the legislative process. There was thus, he declared, a log jam
that could not be allowed to continue.”
“With less”:
Byrd to Chapman, March 16, 1949, Box 118, Personal Miscellaneous, RBRL. A sample of the feeling of other members of the Southern Caucus toward their general is in Stennis to Russell, and Johnston to Russell, March 18, 1949 (same file as Byrd letter).

“To his cohorts”:
Stephen B. Farrow, “Richard Russell and Lyndon Johnson: Principle and Pragmatism in Senatorial Politics, 1949–52,” unpublished senior thesis, University of Tennessee, 1979, p. 44.
“compromise”:
NYT, WP
, March 18, 1949.

An accepted part:
Goodwin, p. 106; Evans and Novak,
LBJ: Exercise
, p. 32; Mann,
Walls of Jericho
, p. 82. Dallek, who seems to feel that the Caucus was formed in 1949 (it had actually been a major fact of Senate life for at least a decade before that), writes (p. 367): “To defeat Truman’s cloture proposal and his whole civil rights program, senators from the former eleven Confederate states organized themselves into a southern caucus and met to map strategy…. Johnson stayed away from the southern strategy meeting.”
“Senator Johnson”:
Darden OH.
“I was”:
Darden interview.

“No, no”:
Busby, Connally, Young interviews. When the author interviewed Busby in 1985, Busby related this incident, and said he wasn’t sure whether Johnson had or had not been at the Caucus (he also said he didn’t know which Caucus it was), but in 1988, when he was interviewed by an oral history interviewer for the Lyndon Johnson Library, he said Johnson had not been at the Caucus, and related an elaborate explanation that Johnson had given him to explain he had been elsewhere. When, also in 1985, the author asked John Connally about the incident, Connally at first didn’t recall it, but after the author told him about Busby’s account, did remember it, and said, smilingly, “We didn’t know whether he didn’t want to comment because he wasn’t there, or because he
was
there.” Mary-Louise Young was not in the office at the time of the incident but was told about it later by other members of the staff. She says that Johnson didn’t want to comment because he had been at the Caucus. In his book,
The Walls of Jericho
, Mann, relying on Dallek’s account, says that Johnson was holding the door closed to keep the Associated Press reporter from asking “why he was not at the meeting” (Mann, p. 82). More importantly, both Mann and Dallek write as if there was only one meeting of the Southern Caucus or bloc in 1949; in fact, there were many.

“Yes, he did”:
“Georgia Giant,” unedited transcript, Reel 19, pp. 34, 35; Reel 24, pp. 11–12.

“At another”:
NYT
, Jan. 13, 1949.

“Twenty-one met”:
NYT
, Feb. 15, 1949. Coverage of this Caucus shows the discrepancies between newspapers on the total number of attendees. The
New York Herald Tribune
put the number of attendees at fifteen, the
Washington Post
at eighteen. (The
Post
also said that that number included some “Border State senators” but longtime observers of the Caucus say that only senators from the eleven southern states were invited to the Caucuses.)
“The caucus counted”:
NYT, WP
, Feb. 25, 1949.
Rather entries:
Johnson’s “Desk Diary” for the appropriate dates, Desk Diary, Box 1, LBJL; Rather interview.
“During his first”:
“Sense and Sensitivity,”
Time
, March 17, 1958.
“Russell knew little”:
McConaughy to Beshoar, June 10, 1953, SP.
“At the first”:
Atlanta Journal and Constitution
, Nov. 24, 1963.
“Senator Lyndon”:
Stennis to Ina Smith, March 7, 1949, Box 55, LBJA CF.

“In view”:
Russell to Byrd, June 7, 1949. (At the bottom is a note: “This letter sent to attached list of 19 southern senators.” The two senators to whom the letter was not sent were Pepper and Kefauver. Johnson is one of the nineteen.)
“Relative to”:
Johnson to Russell, June 9, 1949. Both from Dictation, Civil Rights, March-Sept. 1949, RBRL.
Vote for Eastland bill:
The bill, “District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1949 (S.1527), would have required a referendum of qualified voters on any change in segregation policy in the District of Columbia. (“Entire Senate Voting Record of Senator Lyndon Johnson, by Subject, from January 3, 1949, to October 13, 1962,” Senate Democratic Policy Committee, p. 147.)

“Stood right with us”:
“Georgia Giant,” unedited transcript, Reel 22, p. 3.
“Our political”; “In a way”:
“Georgia Giant,” unedited transcript, Reel 19, p. 30.

“Impressed”; “well-organized”:
Darden OH.

“Can-do”:
“Georgia Giant,” unedited transcript, Reel 4, p. 2.
“Made more”:
Meg Greenfield, “The Man Who Leads the Southern Senators,”
The Reporter
, May 21, 1964.

“Turkey hash”:
Mayer interview.
“Makes me feel”:
Quoted in
W P
, Dec. 17, 1950.
“By God”:
Bartley interview.

Lady Bird’s life:
See the “Lady Bird” chapters in Caro,
Path
and
Means
. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes are from those chapters.

Glass affair:
See “Longlea” chapter in Caro,
Path
, and, in
Means
, pp. 25–27, 34,
58–60, 70, 237; Connally,
In History’s Shadow
, pp. 69–71.
“I can write”:
Glass to Oltorf, Sept. 16, 1967 (in author’s possession).
“Disgusted”; “sexual side”:
Young interview.

“Changed”:
Caro,
Means
, p. 69.

“Nigger maid”:
Caro,
Means
, p. 70.

KTBC:
See “Buying and Selling” chapter in Caro,
Means
.

“Who’s in town”; “Goddammit”:
Rather, Jenkins interviews.
“Look”:
Young interview.
“Contempt”:
Fisher interview.
“Beaten-down”:
Lucas interview.
“‘Bird!’”:
Mahon interview.
“The women”:
Nellie Connally interview.

Scenes with Symington:
Symington interview.
“Heavens, no”:
Lady Bird, quoted in Russell,
Lady Bird
, p. 116.

“Every inch”:
Elizabeth Rowe interview.
“Texas friends”:
Time
, June 22, 1953.
Signing at home:
Steinberg,
Sam Johnson’s Boy
, p. 405.

“You may be”:
Johnson to Jones, Nov. 22, 1943, Box 21, LBJA SN.
“I do assure”:
Rowe to Johnson, March 4, 1944, Box 32, LBJA SN.
“Here’s hoping”; “I hope”:
Jones to Johnson, March 13, 1944, Box 21, LBJA SN; Johnson to Jones, March 17, 1944, Box 21, LBJA SN.

Doctors advised:
Miller,
Lyndon
, p. 113.
Miscarriage:
Virginia Wile English OH.
“We’re waiting”:
Stehling interview.
“Never thought”:
Russell,
Lady Bird
, p. 153. And see Steinberg,
Sam Johnson’s Boy
, pp. 209–10, 229.
“You know”:
Gonella interview.
“I’ve always wished”:
LBJ, quoted in Alsop, “Lyndon Johnson: How Does He Do It?”
SEP
, Jan. 24, 1959.

“Daddy was”:
W P
, July 9, 1989.
“I never”:
Mayer, quoted in Russell,
Lady Bird
, p. 155.
“A second mother”:
Lady Bird, quoted in Steinberg,
Sam Johnson’s Boy
, p. 283.
“Raised by”:
Steinberg, p. 283.
“I felt deprived”:
Lucy, quoted in Russell,
Lady Bird
, p. 155.
“Why”:
Lynda Bird, quoted in Mooney,
LBJ
, p. 250.
“Cut the pattern”:
Lady Bird, quoted in
Washington Sunday Star
, Aug. 15, 1954.
“So subservient”:
Quoted in Harrington, “A Woman Between Two Worlds,”
WP
, July 9, 1989.
“Just so sad”:
Bentsen, quoted in Harrington, “A Woman Between Two Worlds,”
WP
, July 9, 1989.

All dates are 1949 unless otherwise indicated.

Leland Olds’ life:
From interviews with members of his family—his daughter Zara (now Mrs. Wallace Chapin); his son John; his grandson, Brady Chapin; and his daughter-in-law Marianne Egier Olds. With the Oldses’ neighbors on McKinley Street—Philip Davis, Caryl Marsh, Jerome and Natalie Springarn. With members of his staff at the FPC—Reuben Goldberg and Melwood Van Scoyoc. With Alex Radin, general manager of the American Public Power Association. With members of Washington’s liberal community: Alan Barth, Benjamin V. Cohen, Thomas G. Corcoran, John Gunther (then a lobbyist for the ADA), Joseph L. Rauh, James H. Rowe, Jr. With Paul Douglas’ administrative assistant Frank McCulloch. From the oral histories of Rauh and Rowe.

From Delos W. Lovelace, “What’s News Today,”
NY Sun
, May 23, 1944; Oliver Pilat, “Head Man in the Nation’s Powerhouse,”
NYP
, Sept. 23, 1944; Sherrill,
Accidental President
, pp. 155–66; Douglas,
Fullness of Time
, pp. 463–65.

From the transcript of Olds’ own testimony at the hearings on his renomination: “Reappointment of Leland Olds to Federal Power Commission,”
Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, United States Senate, Eighty-first Congress, First Session, Sept. 27, 28, 29, and Oct. 3, 1949
, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1949 (hereafter identified as
Hearings
). And from material in the Leland Olds Papers (LOP) at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Boxes 73–161.

“The central”:
“The Enemies of Leland Olds,”
New Republic
, Oct. 17.

“Jolly”:
Van Scoyoc interview.
Olds at work:
Goldberg, Van Scoyoc interviews.

“Liked fun”:
Delos W. Lovelace,
NY Sun
, May 23, 1944.
Beloved:
Sherrill, p. 156.

“I learned”:
Olds,
Hearings
, p. 108.
“I searched”; “a great deal”; “people really”:
Hearings
, p. 109.
“Were not”:
Hearings
, p. 115.
“That the church”:
Douglas R. Chapin, “The Persecution and Assassination of Federal Power Commissioner Leland Olds, as Performed by the Honorable Lyndon B. Johnson Under the Direction of the National Gas and Oil Industries of these United States” (unpublished paper, Jan. 16, 1973, p. 1).
“My experience”:
Hearings
, p. 109.

Shock:
Hearings
, p. 116.
“Inspiring”:
Hearings
, p. 114.
“Railroad workers”:
Hearings
, p. 120.

“Labor angle”; Federated Press:
Hearings
, pp. 131–32.
Baldwin persuaded:
Hearings
, p. 132.

“A genuine”; “along socialistic”:
Schlesinger,
Crisis of the Old Order
, pp. 40, 41.

“Hardships”:
Olds,
Industrial Solidarity
, July 1, 1925, quoted in
Hearings
, p. 50.

Saw the power:
Olds,
The Daily Worker
, July 26, 1925, quoted in
Hearings
, p. 37.
Bishop:
Olds,
Federated Press Labor’s News
, July 20, 1929, quoted in
Hearings
, p. 340.
“Give”:
The Daily Worker
, July 16, 1925, quoted in
Hearings
, p. 36.

“Hollow”; “a political”:
Federated Press Labor Letter
(hereafter abbreviated as
FPLL
), June 14, 1928, quoted in
Hearings
, p. 45.

“The complete”:
Olds,
The Daily Worker
, July 5, 1928, quoted in
Hearings
, p. 43.

Transformation had:
Olds,
FPLL
, April 27, July 28, 1927, quoted in
Hearings
, pp. 61, 65.

“In my opinion”:
“Supplemental Statement of Leland Olds,”
Hearings
, p. 291.
“I rejected”:
Olds,
Hearings
, p. 108.
New party:
“Statement of Leland Olds—Resumed,”
Hearings
, p. 136.
“Leads the world”:
Olds,
FPLL
, April 27, 1927, quoted in
Hearings
, p. 344.
“The attempt”:
Olds,
FPLL
, Nov. 11, 1925, quoted in
Hearings
, p. 343.
“Theories developed”:
Olds,
Hearings
, p. 136.

“Two alternatives”:
FPLL
, April 6, 1927, quoted in
Hearings
, p. 40.
“Socialistic, if you like”:
Franklin D. Roosevelt, quoted in Schlesinger,
Crisis of the Old Order
, p. 124.
“Giant”:
FPLL
, May 4, 1927, quoted in
Hearings
, p. 41.

“Even men”:
Oliver Pilat, “Head Man in the Nation’s Powerhouse,”
NYP
, Sept. 23, 1944.

At Crerar Library:
Oliver Pilat, “Head Man in the Nation’s Powerhouse,”
NYP
, Sept. 23, 1944;
Hearings
, p. 140.
“Who and what”:
Gunther,
Inside U.S.A
., p. 183.
When:
Schlesinger,
Crisis of the Old Order
, p. 120.
“All his life”:
James M. Kiley,
Leland Olds Manual
, p. v.

“I haven’t; Walsh call:
Olds to Jerome Walsh, Sept. 16, 1949, Box 74, LOP, FDRL; Oliver Pilat, “Head Man in the Nation’s Powerhouse,”
NYP
, Sept. 23, 1944.
Executive Mansion discussion:
Samuel I. Rosenman,
Working with Roosevelt
, pp. 34–35; Burns,
Lion and the Fox
, p. 113.

Camping:
Zara Chapin interview.

Olds at NYS Power Authority:
Adolf Berle,
Hearings
, pp. 18–21; Julius H. Barnes to Ed Johnson, Sept. 26, 1949, in
Hearings
, p. 336.
“Just one day”:
Hearings
, pp. 148, 9.

Views changed:
Hearings
, p. 134; Douglas,
Fullness of Time
, p. 463; McCulloch, Rauh, Van Scoyoc interviews;
NYT
, April 12, 1944.
“Great reforms”:
Hearings
, p. 134.
“The greatest”:
NYT
, Aug. 16, 1942.
Impassioned attack:
NYT
, March 2, 1937.
Formation of ALP:
Burns,
Lion and the Fox
, pp. 287, 377–78; Schlesinger,
Crisis of the Old Order
, p. 593.
Joined because; “invites all”:
NYT
, Oct. 4, 1938.
He resigned:
See Chapter 11.

Olds at the FPC:
C. Herman Pritchett, “Staff Report on the Federal Power Commission,” Committee on Independent Regulatory Commissions, Sept. 1, 1948, pp. II, 5–6; Goldberg, Radin, Van Scoyoc interviews.
“In Butte”:
Goldberg interview.
“Like Einstein”:
Kiley, p. 5. The Einstein comparison was made by others, including William C. Wise, then deputy administrator of the Rural Electrification Agency, who said: “There was only
one
Lee Olds…. Just as there has only been one Albert Einstein in mathematics—only one George Norris in the United States Senate—there has been only one who, having been blessed … with a fertile and imaginative brain, force[d] himself to work as much as fourteen and sixteen hours, six and seven days, week in and week out, in an attempt to bring to fruition … dreams” of low-cost electric energy (Wise, quoted in Kiley, p. iv).
“Many of you”:
NYT
, April 12, 1944.

Moore quoted:
Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate Commerce, United States Senate, Seventy-eighth Congress, Second Session, on Leland Olds’ Reappointment as Commissioner to the Federal Power Commission, July 6, 7 and 8, 1944
. Washington: Government Printing Office: 1944 (hereafter referred to as
1944 Hearings)
, pp. 176–77.
Without a job:
NYHT
, June 20, July 9, 1944;
NYT
, July 9, 1944.
“I think”:
1944 Hearings
, pp. 166–67.
“I do not”:
Tunnell,
CR
, 78/2, pp. 7692, 7693.
Not a single:
NYT
, Sept. 14, 1944; McCulloch interview.

Brown & Root purchasing:
Dugger,
The Politician
, pp. 282–83;
Time
Feb. 24, 1947;
Newsweek
, Nov. 24, 1947; “Natural Gas—Whoosh!”
Fortune
, Dec. 1949;
Time
, July 1, 1957.
Johnson’s intervention:
Clark, Connally, Corcoran, Harold Young interviews.
Natural gas and FPC:
The New Leader
, Oct. 15;
NYP
, Oct. 30.
Phillips:
Stokes,
WS
, June 18, 1955; Joseph P. Harris, “The Senatorial Rejection of Leland Olds: A Case Study,”
American Political Science Review
, Sept. 1951, p. 680.
“Courageously”:
Joseph P. Harris, “The Senatorial Rejection of Leland Olds: A Case Study,”
APSR
, Sept. 1951, p. 679.
Truman’s veto:
Box 156, LOP, FDRL;
Newsweek
, April 29, 1950;
NYHT
, April 16, 1950.
A single figure:
Among many statements on this point is one by one of the country’s most respected experts in the public utility field, Professor James C. Bonbright of Columbia University, who said in 1949, “In my opinion, millions of people in this country
today are presently paying lower utility rates than they would be paying but for the presence of Leland Olds on the Federal Power Commission” (Joseph P. Harris, “The Senatorial Rejection of Leland Olds: A Case Study,”
APSR
, Sept. 1951, p. 676).
“Would establish”:
Dugger, p. 351.
“Nothing”:
Francis to Johnson, June 28, 1949, attached to Francis to Tom Connally, June 28, Box 18, LBJA SN.

“Olds was”:
Oltorf interview.
“Transcended”:
Connally interview.