Book: The Path to Power
Quotes of Book: The Path to Power
In 1918, anti-German hysteria was sweeping Texas. Germans who showed insufficient enthusiasm in purchasing Liberty Bonds were publicly horsewhipped; bands of armed men broke into the homes of German families who were rumored to have pictures of the Kaiser on the walls; a State Council of Defense, appointed by the Governor, recommended that German {and all other foreign languages} be barred from the state forever. Hardly had Sam Johnson arrived in Austin in February, 1918, when debate began on House Bill 15, which would make all criticism, even a remark made in casual conversation, of America's entry into the war, of America's continuation in the war, of America's government in general, of America's Army, Navy or Marine Corps, of their uniforms, or of the American flag, a criminal offense punishable by terms of two to twenty-five years-and would give any citizen in Texas the power of arrest under the statute. With fist-waving crowds shouting in the House galleries above, legislators raged at the Kaiser and at Germans in Texas whom they called his "spies" {one legislator declared that the American flag had been hauled down in Fredericksburg Square and the German double eagle raised in its place} in an atmosphere that an observer called a "maelstrom of fanatical propaganda." But Sam Johnson, standing tall, skinny and big-eared on the floor of the House, made a speech-remembered with admiration fifty years later by fellow members-urging defeat of Bill 15; book-quoteNeither, it turned out, was politics. His views on government were strong, if a trifle simplistic. The cause of the Depression, he felt, was Al Capone. "The trouble with the nation's economy," he declared, was simply Prohibition, which "makes it possible for large-scale dealers in illicit liquor to amass tremendous amounts of currency"; the "present economic crisis," he explained, was due to the "withdrawal of billions of dollars from the channels of legitimate trade" by these bootleggers. book-quoteBut then one evening in November, 1939, the Smiths were returning from Johnson City, where they had been attending a declamation contest, and as they neared their farmhouse, something was different. "Oh my God," her mother said. "The house is on fire!" But as they got closer, they saw the light wasn't fire. "No, Mama," Evelyn said. "The lights are on." They were on all over the Hill Country. "And all over the Hill Country," Stella Gliddon says, "people began to name their kids for Lyndon Johnson. book-quote
