SOCIETY

By Charles Apple | THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW

When Lyndon B. Johnson became president following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, he committed himself to pushing through an ambitious slate of anti-poverty and civil rights legislation.

After succeeding with these eorts in 1964 and then being re-elected in November 1964, Johnson redoubled his eorts starting with his State of the Union address on Jan. 4, 1965 — 60 years ago.

In his State of the Union address on Jan. 8, 1964, Johnson declared “an unconditional war on poverty in America.” As his plans for conducting that war took shape, he began to speak in larger terms. “We will build a Great Society,” he told a gathering at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, on May 7. “It is a society where no child will go unfed, and no youngster will go unschooled.”

Emboldened by his sizable 15 million popular vote win in the 1964 election, Johnson told Congress in his next State of the Union address on Jan. 4, 1965: “We are only at the beginning of the road to the Great Society. Ahead now is a summit where freedom from the wants of the body can help fulfill the needs of the spirit. “We built this Nation to serve its people. We want to grow and build and create, but we want progress to be the servant and not the master of man. We do not intend to live in the midst of abundance, isolated from neighbors and nature, confined by blighted cities and bleak suburbs, stunted by a poverty of learning and an emptiness of leisure.

“The Great Society asks not how much, but how good; not only how to create wealth but how to use it; not only how fast we are going, but where we are headed.”