One of the wise, practical people around the table” urged J… - Robert A. Caro

" "
One of the wise, practical people around the table” urged Johnson not to press for civil rights in his first speech, because there was no chance of passage, and a President shouldn’t waste his power on lost causes — no matter how worthy the cause might be. “The presidency has only a certain amount of coinage to expend, and you oughtn’t to expend it on this,” he said. “Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?” Lyndon Johnson replied.

Robert A. Caro

The Passage of Power · May 1, 2012 Verified in 1 source Sign up to see the complete provenance

English

Collect this quote

All quotes from Robert A. Caro Similar Quotes by other Originators

Originators like Robert A. Caro:

Doris Kearns Goodwin Harry Turtledove William F. Buckley Jr. Thomas E. Ricks James A. Michener

Additional quotes by Robert A. Caro

While Lyndon Johnson was not, as his two assistants knew, a reader of books, he was, they knew, a reader of men — a great reader of men.

The city’s West Side was a gigantic slum, containing perhaps 60,000 residents, who were paid, Gunther says, “probably the lowest wages in the United States” — for pecan shellers (San Antonio was the “Pecan Capital of the World”) an average of $1.75 per week.

But, in the fight of his later career, what is most interesting is that when he realized that, because of the handicap of his religion, his brilliance and idealism would not take him to the top in the world of Yale, he made, within Yale, a world of his own, and a world, moreover, in which, in collegiate terms, he had power and influence.

One of the wise, practical people around the table” urged Johnson not to press for civil rights in his first speech, because there was no chance of p… - Robert A. Caro

Additional quotes by Robert A. Caro