In Robert Caro’s third and most popular volume The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate he titles a particular chapter “No Choice,” discussing at great length the history of the iconic role of the modern body today: Majority Leader. The catch however, such a position was never to be taken seriously, after all, the Constitution never provided the post in the first place.
If members of the ever-slow deliberative body were designed to have no chosen leaders, why would these state ambassadors want to take their chances to be led by someone anyway? After all, it is a group of senators of a political party who decide who would fulfill that role, becoming the top person in the ranks of their party, and would most likely represent them on the Senate floor.
The term Senate “leaders” was not coined until 1913 in print when it focused on one’s individual ability to show leadership by using their political, intellectual, or oratory skills. The true power of the Senate was not looked upon by these “leaders,” but by the chairmen of the Senate’s standing committees. These men were the ones who ran legislative business as to what was to be considered in their own committee. Whereas the legislative scheduling matters were coordinated by the party’s “policy committees.”1
As the 20th Century turned away from the Gilded Age and into the early Progressive Era, America not only would rise on the world’s stage for power, but its domestic fortune as well, especially in the executive wing. The American presidency had to be in the loop about the ongoing activities happening in the Senate. Soon both political parties met to find out who would be their party’s leader.
In 1913 once more, the party leader of the Senate Democrats was John W. Kern of Indiana, who had a reputation amongst his colleagues as being a “Majority Leader.” The title unofficial at the time, was criticized by long-time Senate parliamentarian Floyd M. Riddick, claiming that Kern lacked, “any official party designation other than caucus chairman.”2
Around the same time, Democrats established the creation of the position called Assistant Leader, also known as the position of the Whip. The “whip” was coined after the British fox hunt terminology referring to someone in the group assigned to whipping the hounds to keep them in line if necessary so they didn’t go astray.
It would take a few years later in 1920 for a senator to officially be designated as “Democratic Leader,” towards Oscar Underwood of Alabama. Not only was he given a new title, but he was able to sit at the first row center desk as the newly established Leader to do so. Yet despite such new changes, the role had no formal powers, because the Senate designed to give it none.
In an attempt to expand the Senate rules, Riddick’s 1974 publication of a 1,076-page volume, Senate Procedure, referenced “leaders” just once, to establish the priority of recognition: Should two or more senators seek the floor, the Majority Leader should be granted recognition first.3
The reason why Senate Democrats in 1913 wanted to create the leader position in the first place was because progressive senators felt in order to pass the President’s program, unification under one senator was just enough. Over time, the position was seen to be as a legislative agent to the executive, merely to become a function of presidential backing.
One of the most controversial Democratic leaders was none other than Joseph T Robinson of Arkansas. Elected by his party to serve as Minority Leader in 1925, not only would he be running the Democrats of the Senate on the President’s behalf to support Republican presidential policies from both Coolidge and Hoover, but he would be known for developing, as Caro noted, “one of the most distressing periods of Senate impotence.”4
In 1931, a year before the election of 1932 gave Franklin Roosevelt and other new faces in the Democratic party a steam rolling attempt at claiming the majority, three Democratic senators: Wagner, La Follette, and Norris, introduced policy measures to help many American farmers stuck facing hardships in the early years of the Great Depression. These measures did have the backing of most in the party, yet when Hoover wanted a useless “more modest program,” Robinson jumped to the president’s side, abandoning the men within his party. New York governor Al Smith made a remark on Robinson claiming, “He has given more aid to Herbert Hoover than any other Democrat.”5
As the new congressional session of 1933 began, Robinson became the Senate Majority Leader of his party, only to be met with the cold shoulder of the new president. When Robinson tried to express his doubts to the new president, FDR insisted that Robinson follow orders, and was not interested in his views on policy matters anyway. As a result, this made the position of Senate Majority Leader obedient to the executive, otherwise becoming a legislative agent for the White House. To paraphrase writers Alsop and Catledge of this time, it was anything to keep the Senate obedient to the commands of the master.6
Reminiscing Robinson’s senatorial position, Caro indicated, “he was forceful and effective only when he was doing the President’s bidding and was backed by a Presidential power.” Furthermore, “Robinson’s performance in many ways confirmed that a Leader possessed power largely to the extent that he was an agent of the White House; if the vividness of his performance covered up that bleak reality, reality it was nonetheless.”7
Heading into the next decade, by 1949, the Senate allowed the Majority Leader to make motions to call bills eligible for consideration, off the Calendar, so they could be debated and voted on the Senate floor. While the so-called “Call of the Calendar” was made by the leader at his desk front and center, this too was limited in scope, for the control over the Calendar was made possible only by the party's policy committee. It was them who told the leader which bills to call off, and such a person in the role of leader was only a straw man, never to be part of a particular committee.
While he may call legislation off the calendar, he would not be able to call legislation onto the calendar. The Leader had no authority over members of the standing committees [fifteen in all] because a bill could only go on the calendar once a committee voted to report it out, nor was he able to set their agenda, intervene with the business conducted by that committee, or control what legislation arrived to the floor. “The so-called Senate Leader was an official not of the Senate but only of his party, and even within that party he had little power to lead,” expressed Caro.8
If Democrats were the majority in the Senate from Roosevelt through Truman, with the exception of four years, wouldn’t the public expect liberal legislation to pass through? After all, some senators considered themselves as liberal [a small group for that matter - less than twenty] who were incredibly vocal and pristine orators. Plus the Democratic Leader was nudged by the general public and the press to achieve the passage of liberal legislation. Despite the strong history of democratic gains year after year in elections, the progress of liberal legislation was for the most part dead on arrival, because it was the Southern bloc that held the stronghold of the Senate.
For legislation to be considered on the floor it must go through a committee. But before its even introduced in that committee, it would be up to the chairman to make that decision. Since Senate committee chairs were from the South, it was the men in these positions that held the most power of all, therefore liberal legislation, even legislation proposed by the executive was very dim to pass. Both Republicans and Democrats had to recognize that it was not their Majority or Minority Leader who held the gears of the Senate, it was the domination by their party’s elders who had the grease to keep the gears in motion.
Altogether the position of leader held no power to make such a position meaningful, and any attempt to lead such a historic legislative body of elders, was met with failure in almost every possible direction.
While it is common that most of the general public could care less about the inner workings of the Senate, more or less who was chosen to be their party’s leader, this leans towards misconceptions about the men who held such posts. For instance, the press and the public viewed the position of the Senate Leader as the leader and would be quick to blame them if the Senate was slow or other misgivings of legislative failures. Most likely the cause of this friction was because many journalists in Washington deemed themselves to be liberal, and pushed for the advocacy of liberal legislation. As Caro indicted such legislation, “seemed so clearly desired not only by the President but by the bulk of the American people and impatient with the Majority Leaders who, despite the fact they were leading a majority, somehow couldn’t get the legislation passed. Not understanding the institutional realities, the journalists lead the Leaders’ failure to personal inadequacies: incompetence, perhaps, or timidity.”9
The position of leader carried no power, yet it was met with mockery and humiliation by many journalists in newspapers and political magazines, developing an increased weight on one’s shoulders, the embarrassment of public humiliation on a national scale to come.
Lyndon Johnson arrived in Congress in 1937 to represent the 10th district in the House, and had seen Senate Majority Leaders come and go: Alben Barkley (D-KY), Scott Lucas (D-IL), and Wallace H White (R-ME).
During Barkley's term under the Roosevelt administration, he felt the need to be the talking head for the White House legislative policy in the Senate. Despite becoming the leader of the body’s largest majority, he was unable to convince his colleagues to pass a single piece of administrative policy from 1937 to 1941. During one instance in an attempt to secure Democratic votes to support an administrative tax bill, he only managed to pick up a total of four votes in favor, “A public humiliation for Senator Barkley,” one newspaper reported.10
At the end of the day, many Senate observers noticed that the man who held the title of Leader was not the Senate’s leader after all.
In a Life magazine publication that ran in 1939 asking reporters to name ten of the most prominent senators, the Majority Leader was not made out to suit that list. 11
No matter how hard one would try to embrace policy by the president inside the Senate, the leader was only seen as a tool due to his powerlessness.
By 1944, Barkley resigned from his leadership post, only to be elected back in again on the premise by one senator, “Now he speaks for us to the President,” eventually circling back to his old ways becoming the messenger for the president. It was at this time Barkley understood that he would no longer force members of the Senate to vote on presidential proposals because he had no power to do so.12
Wallace White held the Republican’s post as the Senate’s Minority Leader from 1943-1946, and attained Majority Leader status from 1947-1948, despite the title he was given, it was not he who held the power of the Senate. Power was controlled by his more conservative and senior statesmen: Vandenberg, Bridges, Eugene Millikin, and Robert Taft. Those in such high roles did not want to be in the leadership position because not only were there additional responsibilities such as eyeing the schedule, miscellaneous office tasks, and pleading for votes wasn’t what they wanted to do.13
Caro goes on to explain, “When Lyndon Johnson arrived in the Senate in 1949, it had been for some years a well-known fact that any of these men — particularly Russell and Taft — could have had the leadership job for the asking, but that they had all refused to accept it. And if Johnson needed any proof of the wisdom of that decision, all he had to do was to watch, during his first two years in the Senate, the fate of the man who had accepted it.”14
Scott Lucas, the newly elected Majority Leader for the Democrats in 1949, was popular amongst his colleagues. A politician who craved the spotlight, he sought out the position of Majority Leader in hopes of national attention. Russell likened him not only because of his southern roots but as Rowland Evans and Robert Novak describe that of Lucas, for “his postures were liberal, his visceral instincts often tended to be conservative - particularly on matters concerning civil rights.”15
However Lucas’ ability to hold firm confidence dwindled. Given proposed legislative goals from Truman by arriving at the White House every Monday morning in a limo, with Assistant Leader Francis Myers by his side, the car would return to the Capitol. There, Lucas was met with the uneasiness of southern elected officials who chaired the committees in which that legislation was handled over, only to be told there would be no possibility of passage.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, Caro lays down the tension Lucas had to face, “the Democratic leader tried to at least bring this legislation to the floor — and found himself caught between the southern senators, who had begun viewing him with anger, and liberal senators, who assailed him on the floor for not pushing the bills with sufficient enthusiasm.” By years end, Lucas acclaimed national fame, but it was not what he had hoped for. In the Collier publication at the time, it stated that while “it now seems certain history is going to remember his name, what history is going to say about him is” up for debate.16
Into his second year, a new year brought very little optimism, for Lucas was to be played and later defeated. Being pulled by both the president and the press to bring up the Fair Employment Practices (FEPC) bill, Lucas was trying to go up and argue for its passage in confrontation with the southern bloc which held the body’s power. Instead of filibustering the bill outright, the southern members of the Senate killed the bill altogether when it came time for the roll call vote.
Caro details about an event that seemed to show the true useless power the Majority Leader had, “Once, when he stepped off the floor for a few minutes, the arch-conservative William Langer of North Dakota made a motion to adjourn, and the Senate did so — without the Majority Leader even being aware of the fact. Rushing back to the floor in a rage, Lucas called Langer a ‘snake.’ Chaos erupted, with liberals and conservatives shouting epithets at each other, and for the rest of the year, a year in which Lucas was often in pain from his ulcer, the floor was the scene of repeated angry outbursts.”17
Separated from his home state to be in the loop with the business of the Senate, congressman Everett Dirksen had campaigned for Lucas’ Senate seat back in Illinois. To prove a point on his absence, Dirksen set up an empty chair with a place card label that read “Reserved for Scott Lucas” and would go on to debate with the chair across from him.18
Many had warned Lucas to get back to Illinois and campaign, but he felt trapped by the responsibilities due to the position he held. “He felt — correctly — that he would be criticized if he left Washington before the Senate had completed this minimum business necessary to keep the government in operation, but he could not persuade the Senate to complete that business. The Senate did not adjourn until September, two months before the election.” Dirksen would later win the election against Lucas in November.19
Upon reflection on his time as Majority Leader, Lucas stated that the two years serving in that position were the unhappiest years of his life.
Lyndon Johnson, who had seen the cost of failure time and time again, dreaded such a thing, only to be a witness to seeing the failure and humiliation attributed to the men who held the leadership position. As someone who would lean on the advice that to win, you must do everything, he sought out the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress to help him understand what the role of party floor leader entailed. When the list given to him explained the powers, it only contained one item on the list: “priority in recognition” by the chair. Requiring assistance from his aide George Reedy to see if there may have been anything else that could be attached to the role outside of the list given, Reedy reached the same conclusion as the list, that a party leader possessed no authority in the Senate body at all.20
“Senatorial power was held by the same forces — the Southern Caucus, the conservative coalition, most of all by the committee chairmen — that had held the power for so long,” writes Caro, “And there seemed no realistic possibility that the situation would change. The leadership was weak because the committee chairmen wanted it weak — and the chairmen had the power to keep it weak.”21
Johnson’s capability to secure a chairman position on a Senate standing committee was too long of a road for him. If he continued to serve on the two committees that he began in 1950: Armed Services, and Interstate and Foreign Commerce, he would have had to wait until 1969 to secure his committee chairman position. Whereas the opportunity to be in the position of a Senate leadership role meant that tenure “was not an inflexible requirement.”22
Johnson also knew that most of life meant taking risks, and he wasn’t going to let an opportunity be wasted. Gambling a great risk to be part of the Democratic floor leadership, he just had to place his chips on the board, because if he made the move to halt his bet full stop, that meant it was back to being part of a crowd, taking orders from the higher ups of his party leadership, and playing the waiting game. A man who risked his entire political career in the Senate election against the popular Texas Governor Coke Stevenson in 1948, and feared the sense of defeat and humiliation that life entailed, he understood well enough that he had to take his chances and make another bet in life. Described by writer Doris Kearns Goodwin, Johnson went up to Russell in the late Fall months of 1950 telling him, “a leadership position was one of the most urgently desired goals of his life.”23
Russell was the ultimate powerhouse of the Senate Democrats who over the years was a mentor to Johnson, just as Rayburn was. Russell could have risen to the occasion to serve as the party’s floor leader, but he didn't want to pursue it because he didn’t have time to be bothered by the clutter of outside comments such as a senator pleading that a vote not be taken up, nor were there policies he supported from the Truman administration. He felt it was necessary that whoever would be the new senator to serve that leadership post would not be a southerner per se, but rather a friend of the South, abiding by its southern course without stirring a rocky relationship.
To give additional context, Senator John Sparkman of Alabama suggested in a letter to Russell that he should give the role a go because he could bring new power and prestige to that position. In response, Caro entails what Russell wrote back to Sparkman, “‘You and I both know that as a general rule the South is blamed for everything which does not meet with the approval of our critics.’ and to have a southerner as Majority Leader ‘would cause criticism of his acts to fall upon the South as a whole.’”24
Ernest W. McFarland (D-AZ), also known as Bob McFarland, fit the prior description of what Russell was looking for. As a shy but friendly-mannered gentleman at the age of fifty-six, he had checked a box upon which Russell mattered most in a new leader who would be a friend to the South: his record against cloture and civil rights. Although McFarland accepted his new role, his Senate term was set to expire in two years. Of course, Russell’s choice was met with backlash by the liberals of the party, so they opted for Joseph O’Mahoney of Wyoming, but liberals knew they wouldn’t have the votes in their party to defeat Russell’s choice due to the strong southern bloc.25
When it came to the position of Assistant Majority Leader, [also known as the position of Whip which held even less significance compared to that of the senior post] it would be out of the ordinary if that position was not backed by Russell as well. In the meantime, while Johnson and Russell had their conversations, Johnson’s request for a position in the Senate Democratic leadership, the Whip was his for the taking if he wanted it. Russell’s backing was all Johnson needed.
According to Caro’s description by Evan’s and Novak, Neil MacNeil who covered the Senate for Time magazine remarked that Johnson called Senator William Fullbright, who was startled hearing, hearing that Johnson wanted the stated assistant leader position. Fullbright mentioned to him that the post was not a role that someone campaigns for. You were to be drafted, in other words, chosen. Fullbright spoke plainly that he would go along with whoever Russell wanted.26
When Johnson made the next call to John Stennis of Mississippi, Stennis urged Johnson that he and Russell were very close and that he would have to consult with Russell if he were to give a final answer. To which Johnson responded, “You must think that I am foolish. I wouldn’t have been calling you or anyone else about… this position unless I already had a firm position from Dick Russell that I am the man.”27
The Washington Star covered the leadership elections for the Senate Democratic caucus on January 2, 1951, generally noting that the Whip position must be filled, but there was little interest in the post. According to Evans and Novak, much of the general public outside the world of Washington cared little about the ritual in which Democrats had to select senators to fill leadership positions, accounting for “The official Senate leadership was an unwanted burden, stripped of power and devoid of honor.”28
As members of the Democratic caucus made their way into the conference room of the Senate Office Building, Room 201, Russell spoke to Johnson claiming that after McFarland had been elected to be the next leader, he would nominate him [Johnson] for the assistant leader. Once McFarland secured his post by a vote of 30-19, Russell nominated Johnson to serve as assistant leader. Other nominees included John Sparkman of Alabama, voiced by the liberal Paul Douglas, but Sparkman withdrew his nomination as quickly as possible. Hearing no other names mentioned for the nomination of assistant leader, Russell indicated that Lyndon Johnson was to be the Whip, which was followed by no dissent.29
While no detailed analysis is necessary according to Caro’s explanation about Johnson’s selection towards the new role as Assistant Democratic Leader, he was able to secure that position for the same reason he was able to attain the chairmanship of the Preparedness Subcommittee in which no one batted an eye for either. As one of many stepping stones in Johnson’s political rise, the support from the Georgian Senator Dick Russell was all he ever needed.
At the age of 42 years old, just two years into his role as a US Senator from the Lone Star State, the insignificant assistant leadership position was just enough to help Johnson’s ambitions. His all-in bet to Russell had paid off, because the master of counting votes in his post as Whip, was only a foreshadowing event to later become the Senate’s Democratic Leader. Ultimately “Landslide Lyndon” a phrase used in his years as a freshman senator, evolved into the legendary “Master of the Senate.”
Robert Caro, “No Choice,” in The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate, (New York, Vintage Books, 2002), 353.
Caro, “No Choice,” in The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate, 354.
Caro, 354.
Ibid., 355.
Ibid., 355.
Ibid., 356.
Ibid., 356.
Ibid., 357.
Ibid., 358-359.
Ibid., 359.
Ibid., 360.
Ibid., 360.
Ibid., 360-361.
Ibid., 361.
Ibid., 361.
Ibid., 362.
Ibid., 362.
Ibid., 362.
Ibid., 363.
Ibid., 363.
Ibid., 363.
Ibid., 363.
Ibid., 364.
Ibid., 364.
Ibid., 364-365.
Ibid., 365.
Ibid., 365.
Ibid., 366.
Ibid., 366.