“sheer lunacy”: Merle Miller, Lyndon, p. 52.
“I’m ambitious . . . never will”: Caro, The Path to Power, pp. 300–301.
“Texas yip”: LBJ, quoted in ibid.
“I don’t think . . . set eyes on her”: Latimer Interview, Aug. 17, 1971, LBJOH.
“balancing wheel”: Jones Interview, June 13, 1969, LBJOH.
NYA . . . “a lost generation”: “Saving a ‘Lost Generation’ through the National Youth Administration,” Roosevelt Institute, May 19, 1911, http://rooseveltinstitute.org/saving-lost-generation-through-national-youth-administration/.
“He wanted me . . . a mistake had been made”: Tom Connally, quoted in ibid., p. 340.
“I’m not the assistant type . . . I’m the executive type”: Dallek, Lone Star Rising, p. 120.
“We gathered . . . and go to work”: W. Sherman Birdwell Jr. Interview, April 1, 1965, LBJOH.
“start the ball rolling”: Jones Interview, June 13, 1969, LBJOH.
roadside parks: Willard Deason Interview, April 11, 1969, LBJOH.
“beside himself with happiness”: Luther Jones, quoted in Caro, The Path to Power, p. 348.
“a model for the nation”: Suggested by Joe B. Frantz, interviewer, in Deason Interview, April 11, 1969, LBJOH.
Eleanor Roosevelt: Dallek, Lone Star Rising, p. 143.
“Everything had to be done . . . be done immediately”: Ibid., p. 130.
“couldn’t wait” . . . midstream from the typewriter: Mary Henderson, quoted in Caro, The Path to Power, p. 351.
“The hours were long and hard”: Deason Interview, May 7, 1965, LBJOH.
The lights: Jesse Kellam Interview, April 1965, LBJOH.
“clockwatchers”. . .“never heard of a clock”: Willard Deason, in NYA Group, “Discussion Days in NYA: William Deason, J. J. Pickle, Ray Roberts, Fenner Roth, Albert Brisbin, C. P. Little,” taped in 1968 at William S. White’s house, LBJL.
“He would pair . . . was always behind”: Ray Roberts, in ibid.
“God, he could rip a man up and down”: Ernest Morgan, quoted in Caro, The Path to Power, p. 352.
pitting workers against one another: Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead Books, 2011), p. 174.
“Now, fellows . . . wheel and pitch in”: Brisbin, “Discussion Days in NYA,” LBJL.
“We weren’t like boarders . . . member of the family”: Jones Interview, June 13, 1969, LBJOH.
“paragraph . . . cake for us”: Birdwell Interview, April 1, 1965, LBJOH.
“to work harder . . . be more effective”: Brisbin, “Discussion Days in NYA,” LBJL.
“the greatest organizer”: Roberts, in ibid.
“to put first things . . . one at a time”: Deason, in ibid.
“see around corners”: White, in ibid.
“we made no bones . . . going somewhere”: Roberts, in ibid.
“I just couldn’t keep . . . bottled up inside”: DKG/LBJ Conversations.
“She’s an old woman . . . she won’t run”: Caro, The Path to Power, p. 399.
“Wirtz had a wife . . . as a son”: Ibid., p. 393.
he would need at least $10,000: DKG/LBJ Conversations.
“the die was cast . . . got to his car”: Jones Interview, June 13, 1969, LBJOH.
“My father became . . . the Johnson family”: DKG/LBJ Conversations.
“total Roosevelt man”: Jones Interview, June 13, 1969, LBJOH.
“I don’t have . . . way to duck”: Steinberg, Sam Johnson’s Boy, p. 110.
“he could get . . . anybody else”: Birdwell Interview, April 1965, LBJOH.
“in every store . . . look them in the eye”: Ibid.
campaigning: Sam Fore, in Merle Miller, Lyndon, p. 61.
“A five minute speech . . . minutes for handshaking”: DKG/LBJ Conversations.
“a phenomenal memory . . . names and faces”: Joe B. Frantz, interviewer, in Willard Deason Interview, April 11, 1969, LBJOH.
“It was like he . . . relatives were”: Carroll Keach in Caro, The Path to Power, p. 426.
“a mental imprint . . . of his mind”: Deason Interview, April 11, 1969, LBJOH.
“discussions with himself . . . ‘have to do better, that’s all’ ”: Carroll Keach, quoted in Caro, The Path to Power, p. 426.
“I’ve just met . . . anything you can”: Tommy Corcoran, quoted in ibid., p. 448.
“He was very much . . . depended on”: Elizabeth Wickendham Goldschmidt Interview, Nov. 6, 1974, LBJOH.
“The lack of electric . . . the country folk”: William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940 (New York: Harper Perennial, 2009), p. 157.
“Did you ever see . . . all over again”: LBJ, quoted in Merle Miller, Lyndon, p. 70.
“the bigger the better . . . show him”: Tommy Corcoran, quoted in Dallek, Lone Star Rising, p. 180.
“city big shots”: LBJ, quoted in Merle Miller, Lyndon, p. 70.
“I have never . . . these rural rivers!”: Ronnie Dugger, The Politician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), p. 212.
“a mental picture . . . milking machines”: Michael Gillette, Lady Bird: An Oral History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 101–2.
“John, I have a young . . . of my life”: LBJ, quoted in Merle Miller, Lyndon, pp. 70–71.
“home to that little . . . I carried him home”: DKG/LBJ Conversations.
“Because . . . and so overwhelming”: Merle Miller, Lyndon, p. 72.
“Now, look, I want us . . . Negroes and the Mexicans”: Dugger, The Politician, pp. 209–10.
“one dreary room . . . ill-nourished and sordid”: Ibid., p. 210.
“the government is competing . . . That’s how”: Merle Miller, Lyndon, p. 72.
“a consensus about the boy”: Tommy Corcoran, in Dallek, Lone Star Rising, p. 162.
“marvelous stories”: Elizabeth Rowe Interview, June 6, 1975, LBJOH.
“greatest stories”: Elizabeth Rowe, quoted in Caro, The Path to Power, p. 453.
“If Lyndon Johnson . . . would take fire”: Ibid., p. 454.
“special interest”: Elizabeth Wickendham Goldschmidt Interview, Nov. 6, 1974, LBJOH.
“if he . . . first Southern president”: Elliot Janeway, quoted in Caro, The Path to Power, p. 449.
CHAPTER FIVE
Abraham Lincoln: “I must die or be better”
“Why some people . . . are not”: Warren Bennis and Robert J. Thomas, “Crucibles of Leadership,” Harvard Business Review, Sept. 2002, https://hbr.org/2002/09/crucibles-of-leadership.
Some people lose . . . greater resolve and purpose: Jim Collins, Good to Great (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), p. 82.
“Lincoln’s roseate hopes . . . no financier”: Whitney, Lincoln, The Citizen, p. 142.
“unladylike”: Mary Lincoln to Mercy Levering, Dec. [15?], 1940, quoted in Justin G. Turner and Linda Levitt Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), p. 516.
“in the winter of 40 & 41 . . . so well as myself”: Speed, in HI, p. 430.
“his ability . . . support a wife”: Douglas L. Wilson, Lincoln before Washington: New Perspectives on the Illinois Years (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), p. 105.
“I am so poor . . . in a year’s rowing”: AL to Speed, July 4, 1842, CW, 1:289.
“breach of honor”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 1, p. 174.
“kills my soul”: AL to Joshua Speed, July 4, 1842, CW, 1:282.
“resolves when . . . much importance”: Ibid., 1:289.
“more than any one dead or living”: Wilson, Lincoln before Washington, p. 101.
“I shall be verry [sic] lonesome . . . pained by the loss”: AL to Joshua Speed, Feb. 25, 1842, CW, 1:281.
“indifferent . . . desert her throne”: Shenk, Lincoln’s Melancholy, p. 19.
“I am now the most . . . write no more”: AL to John T. Stuart,
Jan. 23, 1841, CW, 1:229–30.
“Lincoln went Crazy . . . it was terrible”: Speed, in HI, p. 474.
“delirious to the extent . . . to talk incoherently”: Michael Burlingame, ed., An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), p. 2.
“like the same person”: Wilson, Lincoln before Washington, p. 110.
“He is reduced . . . is truly deplorable”: Carl Sandburg, Mary Lincoln: Wife and Mother (Bedford, Mass.: Applewood Books, 1995), p. 39.
“within an inch . . . lunatic for life”: Wilson, Lincoln before Washington, p. 110.
“done nothing . . . his fellow man”: Speed, in HI, p. 197.
“a friendless . . . working on a flatboat”: AL to Martin S. Morris, March 26, 1843, CW, 1:320.
“one of the finest . . . legal mind”: Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln, a Life, 2 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), Vol. 1, p. 185.
“would work hard . . . almost a father to me”: Ibid., p. 186.
“how to prepare . . . until middle life”: Burlingame, ed., An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln, p. 38.
“dreams of Elysium . . . can realize”: AL to Joshua F. Speed, Feb. 25, 1842, CW, 1:280.
“resolves . . . the chief gem”: AL to Joshua F. Speed, July 4, 1842, CW, 1:289.
“It is my pleasure . . . child to its parent”: Mary Todd Lincoln, in HI, p. 357.
“Now if you should . . . to go very much”: AL to Richard S. Thomas, Feb. 14, 1843, CW, 1:307.
“as ambitious . . . man in the world”: Burlingame, The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln, p. 236.
“trusting to escape . . . burning surface”: AL, “Speech in United States House of Representatives: The War with Mexico,” Jan. 12, 1848, CW, 1:438–41.
“a very able . . . upright young man”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, p. 11.
“the crack speech . . . talking, gesticulating”: Ibid.
“Abe Lincoln . . . in the House”: Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln, a Life, Vol. 1, p. 279.
“I had been chosen . . . lessons in deportment”: Chris DeRose, Congressman Lincoln: The Making of America’s Greatest President (New York: Threshold, 2013), p. 203.
“replete with good sense . . . the western orators”: Ibid., p. 206.
“neither slavery . . . of said territory”: David Potter, The Impending Crisis, America before the Civil War, 1848–1861 (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), p. 21.
“at least forty times”: AL to Joshua Speed, Aug. 24, 1855, CW, 2:323.
“the time had come . . . we have been doing”: DeRose, Congressman Lincoln, pp. 206–7.
address slavery within the District of Columbia: AL, “Remarks and Resolution Introduced in United States House of Representatives Concerning Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia,” January 10, 1849, CW, 2:20.
“that slave hound from Illinois”: Wendell Phillips, quoted in Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1809–1858, 2 vols. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1928), Vol. 2, p. 185.
“despaired of . . . had never lived”: Burlingame, The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln, pp. 4–5.
“I hardly ever felt . . . failure in my life”: Francis Fisher Browne, The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln: A Narrative and Descriptive Biography (Chicago: Browne & Howell, 1914), p. 107.
“was losing interest in politics . . . than ever before”: AL, “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” Dec. 20, 1859, CW, 3: 511–12.
“I am not an accomplished lawyer”: AL, “Fragment: Notes for a Law Lecture” [July 1, 1850?], CW, 2:81.
“a broad knowledge of the principles”: Herndon and Weik, Herndon’s Life of Lincoln, p. 248.
“a certain lack of discipline . . . or disturb him”: Ibid., pp. 247–48.
“the circuit”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, pp. 36–38.
“almost to the point of exhaustion”: Jesse W. Weik, The Real Lincoln: A Portrait (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1922), p. 240.
“nearly mastered the Six Books of Euclid”: AL, “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” CW, 4:62.
“would read . . . could ever solve”: Herndon and Weik, Herndon’s Life of Lincoln, p. 248.
“he was in the habit . . . ponder, and soliloquize”: Lawrence Weldon, quoted in Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, p. 6.
“muttering to himself”: Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 120.
“he had suddenly . . . listened and laughed”: Sandburg, The Prairie Years, Vol. 1, p. 474.
“the largest trial . . . central Illinois”: Charles B. Strozier, Lincoln’s Quest for Union: Public and Private Meanings (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1987), pp. 172–73.
“into its simplest elements”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, p. 43.
“on his well-trained memory”: Ibid., p. 45.
“logical and profound . . . without adornment”: Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, p. 114.
“He had the happy . . . trying the case”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, p. 49.
“His power of mimicry . . . heartier than his”: Herndon and Weik, Herndon’s Life of Lincoln, pp. 249–50.
“No lawyer . . . member of the bar”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, pp. 40–41.
“You’re in the wrong place . . . I’ll stay here”: Ibid., p. 38.
“He was remarkably . . . young lawyers”: Ibid., p. 41.
“kindly and cordially”: Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, p. 30.
“Lincoln was the . . . on his election”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, p. 40.
“is the lawyer’s . . . done to-day”: AL, “Fragment: Notes for a Law Lecture,” [July 1, 1850?], CW, 2:81.
“work, work, work”: AL to John M. Brockman, Sept. 25, 1860, CW, 4: 121.
“workshop . . . self introspection”: Henry Whitney, in Sandburg, The Prairie Years, Vol. 1, p. 475.
“brilliant military manoeuvers . . . not be scared”: AL, “Eulogy of Zachary Taylor,” CW, 2:83–90.
“enduring spell . . . the whole country”: AL, “Eulogy of Henry Clay,” July 6, 1852, CW, 2:125–26.
“knocked at the door”: AL, “Eulogy of Henry Clay,” July 6, 1852, CW, 2:127.
“If by your legislation . . . I am for disunion”: Debate in the House of Representatives, Dec. 13, 1849, Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., p. 28.
“The Great Pacificator”: Robert Vincent Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman of the Union (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), p. 192.
“Devotion to the Union . . . so inclined them”: AL, “Speech at Peoria, Ill.,” CW, 2: 253.
“apparent conservatism . . . were so great”: Herndon and Weik, Herndon’s Life of Lincoln, p. 292.
“The time is coming . . . Abolitionists or Democrats”: Ibid.
“Popular sovereignty”: Herndon and Weik, Herndon’s Life of Lincoln, p. 294.
“fixed, and hopeless of change for the better”: John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History (New York: Century, 1890), Vol. 1, p. 392.
“inside . . . and downside”: Herndon and Weik, Herndon’s Life of Lincoln, p. 478.
“such a hunt . . . caught it”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 1, p. 43.
“If A. can prove . . . superior to your own”: AL, “Fragment on Slavery,” [April 1, 1854?], CW, 2: 222.
“We were both . . . fills the nation”: AL, “Fragment on Stephen A. Douglas,” [Dec. 1856?], CW, 2:382–83.
“at the head . . . band of music”: Lewis E. Lehrman, Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point (Mechanicsburg, Penn: Stackpole Books, 2008), p. 53.
“I wish you . . . him skin me”: AL, “Speech at Peoria, Ill.,” Oct. 16, 1854, CW, 2:247–48.
“What do you say . . . demonstrations of approval”: James M. Rice, quoted in Lehrman, Lincoln at Peoria, p. 59.
“the plain, unmistakable . . . end of a given time”: AL, “Speech at Peoria, Ill
.,” Oct. 16, 1854, CW, 2:275, 274.
“But now . . . ‘God speed you’ ”: Ibid., p. 275.
“You rascal . . . their own way”: AL, “Editorial on the Kansas-Nebraska Act,” Sept. 11, 1854, CW, 2:230.
“they—and not he—were trying the case”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, p. 49.
“The doctrine of self government . . . our fathers gave it”: AL, “Speech at Peoria, Ill.,” Oct. 16, 1854, CW, 2:265, 272, 276.
“no prejudice . . . give it up”: Ibid., p. 255.
“we shall not only . . . worthy of the saving”: Ibid., p. 276.
“The whole . . . continued huzzas”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, p. 75.
“The inspiration . . . his hearers also”: Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln, a Life, Vol. 1, p. 387.
“His speaking went . . . speaker himself”: White, Abraham Lincoln in 1854, p. 10.
“When . . . completely?”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, p. 75.
“Nothing so much marks . . . reputation of a man”: The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Vol. 11, 1848–1851 (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 341.
“A great storyteller . . . life is wisdom”: Walter Benjamin, “The Storyteller,” in Dorothy J. Hale, ed., The Novel: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory, 1900–2000 (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 364, 378.
“first choice”: Gillespie, in HI, p. 182.
“the 47 men . . . agony is over at last”: AL to Elihu B. Washburne, Feb. 9, 1855, CW, 2:304.
“gives me more pleasure . . . gives me pain”: Ibid., 2:306.
“If we could first know . . . against itself cannot stand”: AL, “Speech at Springfield, Illinois,” June 16, 1858, CW, 2:461.
“Who is this man . . . his style inimitable?”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, p. 116.
“the emotions of defeat . . . fresh”: Sandburg, The Prairie Years, Vol. 2, p. 167.
“I am glad I made . . . other way”: AL to Anson G. Henry, Nov. 4, 1858, CW, 3:335–36.
“You will soon feel better . . . shall have fun again”: AL to Charles H. Ray, Nov. 20, 1858, CW, 3:342.
“No man of this . . . in this canvass”: Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, p. 116.
“were so much better . . . its present status”: AL, quoted by Jesse W. Fell, in Osborn H. Oldroyd, comp., The Lincoln Memorial: Album-Immortelles (New York: G. W. Carleton & Co., 1882), p. 474.
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