The Joy of Being Beloved

"I hope," said President Johnson in New Orleans, "if you do what you think is right, that somehow or other it is the same thing that I think is right. But if it is not, I won't question your patriotism. I won't question your Americanism. I won't question your ancestry. I may--quietly, in the sanctity of our bedroom--whisper to Lady Bird my own personal opinion about your judgment."

Lyndon does not just want to be elected in November. He does not merely want the biggest landslide in history. He wants to feel himself beloved by everybody. Last week, in the course of his barnstorming trip through 15 states, he thought he saw evidence that he is.

"A Nation of Lovers." His crowds were big and enthusiastic. He drew 200,000 in Des Moines, where Democratic Governor Harold Hughes told him: "This is the greatest reception in the history of Iowa." He attracted 70,000 in Peoria, Ill., and Democratic Senator Paul Douglas said that Lyndon's were "the largest crowds I've ever seen in central Illinois." Some 250,000 jammed downtown Louisville for his motorcade, 85,000 shouldered their way into Nashville's War Memorial Square, 40,000 assembled in Indianapolis.

At various times, the President sucked on gumdrops to ease a hoarse throat, threw a high school band off key by marching into its midst to autograph the bass drum and led his own cheers with the help of a bullhorn, crying: "All the way with L.B.J."

On the rostrum, Johnson rhapsodized about U.S. prosperity, world peace and "the great society." Said he in Raleigh: "There are so many more things that unite us than divide us. There are so many more people in the world that love instead of hate--and we ought to be a nation of lovers, not of haters." In the same speech, Lyndon declared: "I hear those who are frantic and who sometimes are hysterical. But every day, as I go abroad in this land, I see, by the hundreds of thousands, men, women and children who love freedom and know they have it and appreciate it and are going to preserve it and protect it."

"Forgive Them, Lord." In Indianapolis, Johnson said: "Only those should lead us who, in the words of the Scripture, are 'swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.' As long as I am President, that will be my policy." He pointed to the cross atop a nearby Episcopal cathedral and implored his followers to "turn the other cheek" when political opponents say "ugly things." "Forgive them, Lord," cried Johnson. "They know not what they do."

In Peoria, Johnson said: "Yes, all day I have seen your smiling faces. All day I have looked into your happy countenances. All day I have seen the family life, the mothers and the children of America here in the heartland of the great State of Illinois, and those voices sound powerful to me. They sound clear. They sound free. And when I return to the White House, and the policemen turn the keys on those locks on those big black gates, and I get to those few acres that are back of our house, it is going to be folks like you that sustain me in my labors and my thoughts."

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