The Path to Power (145 page)

Trying to stand out:
Cox, Gliddon.
Replacing the Ferguson men:
Crider OH, p. 7.
The dance:
Cox, SHJ, RJB, Lady Bird Johnson.
Telling his parents he would go to college:
RJB; SHJ.
Wouldn’t permit:
SHJ.

Books, articles, transcripts:

Nichols,
Rugged Summit;
Terry,
Retired Teacher on Candid Typewriter
.

John M. Smith, “The History and Growth of the Southwest Texas State Teachers College” (unpublished Master’s Thesis), San Marcos, 1930.

Transcript of “John Dailey, Class of 1936, interviewing Professor David F. Votaw about the Early Days of President Lyndon B. Johnson When he Entered SWTSTC,” Feb. 6, 1965, in Exec. PP, 3-5, WHCF (referred to as Votaw Transcript).

“Text of a Discussion Concerning the College Years of Lyndon B. Johnson” (between A. H. Nolle, Oscar W. Strahan, David F. Votaw, and Elizabeth Sterry), Dec., 1963 (referred to as Nolle Transcript).

Tape-recording of an informal discussion between Johnson and several professors who had been faculty members or students during his years at college, held in the office of the President of Southwest Texas State Univ., Billy Mack Jones, April 27, 1970. (The recording was made by E. Phillip Scott, Audiovisual Archivist of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, and will be referred to as Scott Tape.)

“Transcript of an Exclusive Interview Granted by President Lyndon B. Johnson to Robert E. McKay on May 21, 1965” (McKay Interview).

NBC News Television program, “The Hill Country: Lyndon Johnson’s Texas” (May 9, 1966).

The College
Star
, 1926–1931.

The
Pedagog
, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, published by the senior class of SWTSTC, San Marcos.

Oral Histories:

Percy Brigham, Ben Crider, Willard Deason, Thomas J. Dunlap, Fenner Roth.

Interviews:

With College deans and administrators:
Alfred H. Nolle, Leland H. Derrick, Ethel Davis (Registrar), Oscar Strahan (Athletic Director).

Faculty members:
David E. Conrad, William C. Pool.

White Stars:
Willard Deason, Alfred Harzke, Horace Richards, Vernon Whiteside, Wilton Woods.

Black Stars:
Joe Berry, Ardis Hopper, Alfred (Boody) Johnson, Robert (Barney) Knispel, Richard Spinn.

Other students:
Louise Casparis, Elizabeth Clemens, Mabel Webster Cook, Ava Johnson Cox, Carol Davis, Elmer Graham, Helen Hofheinz Moore, Mylton (Babe) Kennedy, Mrs. A. K. Krause, Henry Kyle, Ned Logan, Edward Puis, Ella So Relle (Porter), Ruth Garms Terry,
Emmet Shelton, Clayton Stribling, Yancy Yarborough.

Townspeople:
Walter Buckner, Barton Gill, Hilman Hagemann.

Others:
SHJ, RJB, Fritz Koeniger, Emmette Redford.

History and description of the college:
Nichols,
passim;
Pool,
LBJ
, pp. 67–111; Smith,
passim;
Nolle, Strahan, Derrick, Ethel Davis. Joe Berry, later a faculty member at Bryn Mawr, says that when he got there, “I felt so inadequate—that I had so much to catch up. … I could not go to a dinner party, and participate intelligently in the conversation. … And this is a terrible feeling. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t experienced this can understand how horrible it is. … [At San Marcos] I got cheated out of an education.” Emmette Redford says that there was a considerable gap between academic standards at San Marcos and at the University of Texas in Austin. “The jump from San Marcos to the University of Texas was a pretty big jump,” he says. In the freshman and sophomore years at San Marcos, the course level was only slightly above high-school level. And in most junior- and senior-level courses, there was little or no reading of primary sources. And there wasn’t very much reading even in the textbooks. Berry says that a chapter a week in history was about the rule. The professor would “take it a chapter at a time, like they do in … high school. … There was no outside reading, there was no collateral reading, no biographies.”

Floor caving in:
Nichols, p. 152.
“It should be”:
Announcement of the Southwest Texas State Normal School for the Session Beginning Sept. 9, 1903
, pp. 9, 190, quoted in Smith, pp. 79–80.
“We know very well”:
Evans, to Council of Teachers College Presidents, Sept. 16, 1921, in Nichols, p. 181.
On academic standards; low professors’ salaries:
Redford, Nolle; Nichols, pp. 114–20;
San Marcos Record
, undated clipping. The holder of the lone doctorate was Nolle, who was Dean of the College during Johnson’s years there; Evans would not persuade another doctorate holder to come to San Marcos until 1931.
“The reason I went?”:
Yarborough.
“A poor boy’s school”:
For example, Clyde Nail, quoted in Pool, p. 79. See also Nichols, p. 104.

“Considerable fear”:
Votaw, in Nolle Transcript, p. 12.
“He didn’t have”:
Clemens.
“I am unable”:
Johnson to Biggers, Feb. 21, 1927, Box 72, LBJA SF.
“One scared chicken”:
Cox.
His interview with Votaw:
Votaw Transcript, p. 3; Votaw, in Nolle Transcript, pp. 12, 13; Pool, pp. 90–91. Among the faculty members who remember are Strahan, Nolle, Derrick.

Getting a room:
Boody Johnson, Stribling, Hopper.
“The biggest heart”:
Knispel.

His father calling Evans:
RJB, SHJ.
Evans’ personality and career:
Nichols,
passim;
Pool, pp. 73 ff.
The chink:
Nichols, pp. 347–49.
Opening the Redbooks:
Nichols, p. 347; Derrick.
“An invisible wall”:
Deason OH I, p. 6.
Johnson becoming friendly with Evans; running errands; becoming his assistant:
Johnson, on Scott Tape; Pool, pp. 99–100.
“He was so sure”:
Ethel Davis.

“I remember”:
Johnson, on NBC Broadcast.
“A tired homesick”:
Star
, June 29, 1927.
A “D”; “very upset”:
So Relle.

The egg and the ham:
Mrs. Johnson.
His lack of money; writing Crider and Crider’s reply:
Johnson, on Scott Tape.
Mother writing Crider:
Crider OH, p. 10.
“Eighty-one dollars!”:
Johnson, on Scott Tape.

“Normally”:
Ethel Davis.
“Dearest Mother”:
Johnson to Rebekah Johnson, “Family Correspondence … Dec. 1929–Dec. 1939,” Box 1, LBJL. All the correspondence between Johnson and his mother is here.
Mother asking him:
RJB.
“Damn I wanted to show him!”:
McKay Interview, pp. 10, 11.
“The long confidential talks”:
Rebekah Johnson to Lyndon, Nov. 15, 1934, Box 1, LBJL.

Blanco County Club:
Star
, June 29, July 6, Sept. 29, 1927.
Star
editorship: Crider OH, p. 20.

Brogdon’s personality:
Pool, pp. 82–83; Nichols, pp. 230–34. Not only did she want river swimming in San Marcos segregated by sexes, she didn’t want female students swimming downstream from male students lest sperm from the men be carried downstream on the current and impregnate female students.
“After the meeting”:
Johnson, in
Star
, March 20, 1927.
“Alert, experienced”:
Johnson, in
Star
, July 25, 1928.
“Very interesting”:
Johnson, in
Star
, July 24, 1929.
“Great”:
Johnson, in
Star
, July 25, 1928.

“Not with Lyndon”:
Nolle Transcript, p. 26.
“Lyndon Johnson, editorial writer”:
1928
Pedagog
, p. 150.

“May I thank you”:
Netterville to Johnson, Dec. 19, 1929, “Letters of Recommendation,”
Box 73, LBJA SF.
Flattering Ethel Davis:
Ethel Davis.

Flattering professors:
The description of Lyndon on the quadrangle comes from Whiteside, Berry, Kennedy, among others.
“Sitting at his feet”:
Whiteside. And Nolle also uses that phrase, in describing Johnson and one of his professors, H. M. Greene: “Lyndon literally sat at the feet of Professor Greene” (
Houston Press
, Dec. 12, 1963).
“Just drink up”:
Whiteside.
“Has he gone yet?”:
Derrick. Johnson himself talked about this (Scott Tape).

Miss Brogdon relaxing:
Boody Johnson.
“Very forceful, but”:
Graham.

Flattery of Evans:
Nichols touches on this only gingerly (pp. 436, 439) in his book, but talked to his friends, including Nolle and Derrick, about it at the time.
“Red of face”:
Whiteside.
Dramatizing his diligence:
Nichols, p. 436.
Evans mentioning:
Berry.
“He got next”; painting garage; “smooth as silk”:
Boody Johnson, quoted in
Houston Press
, Dec. 12, 1963; Nichols.
“Opened a swinging gate”:
Mrs. Christine savage to Johnson, Nov. 25, 1966, Exec. PP, 13–5, WHCF.
Acting familiar:
Pool, p. 100.
“They loved it”:
Whiteside.

“Words won’t come”:
Kennedy.
“Lyndon Johnson from Johnson City”:
Davis,
“My heritage”:
Star
, June 29, 1927.
At Mrs. Gates’ bordinghouse:
Whiteside, Richards.

Saying he had 145 IQ: Woods. His marks:
One place in which his “40 courses and 35 A’s” is quoted is
USN&WR
, Sept. 7, 1964. While in residence at San Marcos, Lyndon Johnson took 56 courses, according to a handwritten record of his grades shown to the author by Nolle. He received 8 A’s. He also received A’s for three terms of “Practice Teaching.” While at Cotulla, he took six “extension courses” (which Nolle said were in reality correspondence courses) and received three A’s, but Nolle says these would not have been included at the time in his official overall average. Nolle says that his overall scholastic average was .939, which was “just a trifle under B.” An A was 1.33; a B, 1.00; a C, .66; a D, .33.
“A brilliant”:
Woods.
Letters for debaters:
Star
, June 8, 1927.
Lyndon as a debater:
Graham.
“I just didn’t believe:
Richards.
“He’s the bus inspector”:
Whiteside.

“Jumbo”:
SHJ.
Emphasis on his appearance:
Pool, p. 98; Boody Johnson.
“Hard to shave”:
The barber, Barton Gill.

Unpopularity with women:
Hofheinz, So Relle, Kyle, Richards.
“Boasting and bragging. … ridiculous”:
Richards.

“Once”:
Richards.
Fight:
Whiteside, Richards.
“A coward”:
Whiteside.
A liar:
Richards, Stribling, Whiteside, Puis, Kyle.

Black Stars the “in” crowd:
Pool, p. 103.

Trying to get into the Black Stars:
Knispel, So Relle, Boody Johnson, Spinn, Strahan, Stribling, Derrick.
“Stalwart Boody”:
1927
Pedagog
, p. 237.
Description of Boody:
So Relle, Whiteside.
Boody’s feelings about Lyndon:
Boody.
Black Stars blackballing:
Boody, quoted in Pool, p. 105, says there was only one, but to the author he made clear that the dislike was far more general. Stribling, who was present at the Black Star Meetings, says that the only result of Lyndon’s seeing-the-Constitution strategy was that “he got even more blackballs” on the second vote. Also, Strahan, Knispel, and Derrick. Black Star Frank Arnold told his girlfriend (later wife) Helen Hofheinz at the time, and she says, when asked if there was only one blackball, “Oh, that’s not true. They were
all
against him.”
“We figured”:
Stribling.

“He wanted”:
So Relle.
At Ethel Davis’ lodge:
Ethel Davis.
Jackass, etc.:
1928
Pedagog
, p. 302.
“M.B.”:
Star
, Dec. 17, 1929; Kyle, Richards, Puis, among others.

This chapter is based on interviews with Carol Davis (now Mrs. Harold Smith) and her sisters Ethel and Hallie (now Mrs. Charles Bass), and with a friend Emma Beth Kennard. Unless otherwise noted, the information is from them.

See also Sources for Chapter 8.

“Made a production”:
Richards.
“He’d brag”; “She was”:
Knispel.
“He was hinting”:
Kennedy.

Carol’s father:
Description from his daughters and Walter Buckner;
San Marcos Record
, Oct. 31, 1919.
“A man”:
Buckner.
Dislike of Lyndon:
Boody Johnson, Knispel.

“Hugging and kissing”:
Koeniger.

Other gifts:
Bank president Percy Brig-ham, Mrs. Johnson.
“Real Silk Hose”:
Deason, quoted in Pool, p. 98; Whiteside, Davis.
Borrowing:
Boody Johnson, Buckner, Richards, Whiteside.
Buying car:
Boody Johnson, Whiteside.
Intolerable:
SHJ.
“The bucket”:
Boody Johnson.