January 23, 1973
Page 1846
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, with all my colleagues I am deeply saddened by the sudden death of Lyndon Johnson. We have lost a statesman and a friend. Lyndon Johnson served with extraordinary ability in this body for 12 years, as a representative of his beloved State of Texas, and as majority leader.
He proved here that he was a master in the art of the possible, but he also demonstrated that he had dreams, and had the courage and talent to make many of those dreams reality.
After the tragedy in Dallas, Lyndon Johnson was thrust without warning into the Nation's highest office. He met the challenge with characteristic energy, vision, and remarkable strength of leadership. And, he presided with great personal dignity over the most tumultuous and troubling period in recent American history.
Lyndon Johnson was a man of great feeling for his fellow human beings. He saw Americans ringed into ghettos of difference, of prejudice, of ignorance, and he demanded a better quality of life for every American. Lyndon Johnson's dreams were large – we were to have not just a new society, but a great society. And, as the most politically experienced President and party leader in this Nation's history, Lyndon Johnson was able to produce the most far-reaching social legislative program since the New Deal. He initiated manpower training for the unemployed, medicare for the elderly, and low-cost, fair housing for minorities. Declaring war on poverty, he mobilized forces of young and old to improve the lives of millions of Americans. With special determination, Lyndon Johnson announced, "We shall overcome" – and obtained the strongest civil rights bill in our Nation's history.
His tragedy, and ours, was the war which seems only now hopefully to be ending. But the war can never eclipse his solid achievements in strengthening the fabric of American life. I join America in mourning the loss of a statesman and a friend who was in so many ways larger than life, and will remain so in our memories.