Steed, Tom

Tom Steed Remembers Lyndon B. Johnson

Lasalier:         Tom Steed was a employee in P.L. Gassaway’s office in 1935, secretary to Congressman – “Cowboy Congressman” P.L. Gassaway. And at that time you became acquainted with a future president who was also working in Washington, Congressman, who was that?

 Steed:             That was Lyndon Baines Johnson. He was a doorkeeper at the time on a patronage of a Texas congressman and I was secretary to the “Cowboy Congressman.” And we had an organization for employees. See, each congressman then could only have two employees. Their authorized as many as 18 today. That can give you an idea of how the place has changed. And, ah, this was called “Little Congress.” Well, obviously, we weren’t allowed to have a speaker for Little Congress, so we had a president. Well, he decided he wanted to be president of Little Congress. And I didn’t know him, but I became one of his campaign managers because by that time all of us west of the Mississippi River felt like brothers under the skin, so we elected him. And, ah, he had a victory party for his campaign managers and he had just been married a short time, and that’s when I had the pleasure of meeting his bride now known as Lady Bird Johnson.

 Lasalier:        Could you tell he was going to be a politician at that time?

 Steed:             Oh, that was all he talked about. He wasn’t going to be one – he already was one. And, of course, he went on home and ran for office himself and you know the rest of his career. It became a life-time avocation with him. But, ah, he was a pretty good speaker then. And, ah, of course, most of our patronage boys in those days – doorkeepers and policemen and all – were going to law school. And they used Little Congress as a forum in which to practice. And the rest of us went to make up the audience, and we’d boo them and we’d cat-call them, and give them a bad time, to help them learn more how to handle themselves, you see.

 Lasalier:        They got plenty of practice for when they became members of Congress. Now, you went to the House in 1948. He was already in Washington in that time. 

 Steed:             By that time, and the year I got elected to Congress in 1948, he got elected to the United States Senate. And, so, as I was coming into the House of Representatives, he was transferring over to the Senate. Well, we renewed our acquaintance and, ah, then his wife and mine belonged to the Forty-Eight Club. See, the Congressional Wives Club has a club within a club for each elected group. So she was in the Forty-Eight Club by virtue of her husband having been elected to the Senate at the same time my wife had [sic] in that same club. So they became very fast friends. And, oh, a few months ago we had the pleasure of going down to their ranch and spending the weekend with Lady Bird and it was very pleasant occasion for us. But, so, ah, this – you get – if you stay around there long enough, you get to where you cross trails with people over and over again, and, ah. . .

 Lasalier:        Did you have any specific legislative actions with Lyndon Johnson while the both of you were in Congress?

 Steed:             Well, yes. He probably got more bills through the Congress than any president in history. And while he was majority leader of the Senate, he got more bills through that. He was known as an arm-twister. He was the first president that ever caused the members on the House floor to dodge him. Now, it used to be that if a page came to you and said the White House was calling or the president was calling it was a big deal. Everybody was envious. Well, they got to knowing him so well that if they were sitting on the floor and the page came and said the president wants you, you’d say, tell him you couldn’t find me. Because I’m telling you, if he wanted you to do something, he could twist your arm right out of the socket, and his reputation was well known and that’s how he got things done, though, he was so persistent about it. And he could argue you out of your teeth, almost. So the best way that a lot of them had was not to have – not to have to agree to what he wanted was just to not let him find them! 

 Lasalier:        Well, as far as being a politician, then, you would say in terms of domestic legislation that the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson was a very successful program?

 Steed:             Yes, it’s, ah, it’s a historic fact that his ability to create these ideas and get them enacted into law excelled that of any president we ever had. And, ah, even Roosevelt with all his charm and influence couldn’t exceed him. And, ah, he, ah, there’s sort of a summary of his life written for this book that, ah, called The Presidents of the United States. It was written by a professor named Frank Freidel, and he was a professor of history at Howard University. And I – if you’d like, I’ll just read this. It’s a very brief summary. It gives you the whole names, dates, and places of his official life. Of course, it doesn’t give you much about the human being he was, but. . .

                         “A Great Society for the American people and their fellow men elsewhere was the vision of Lyndon B. Johnson. In his first years in office he obtained passage of one of the most extensive legislative programs in the nation’s history. Maintaining collective security, he carried on the rapidly growing struggle to restrain communist encroachment in Vietnam. Johnson was born August 27, 1908, in southwest Texas not far from Johnson City, which his family had helped settle. He felt the pinch of rural poverty as he grew up. Working his way through Southwest Texas Teacher’s College, he learned compassion for the poverty of others when he taught students of Mexican descent. In 1917 [sic] he campaigned successfully for the House of Representatives on a New Deal platform. (garbled) by his wife, the former Claudia “Lady Bird” Taylor, whom he married in 1934. During the war he served briefly in the navy as a lieutenant commander, winning a silver star in the South Pacific.”

                        And it is interesting to know that no where in his own biograph – biographical material or . . . he never wore that. He had it placed away and they found it in his affects after he died. He had some feeling since he didn’t stay throughout the war that the men who helped him win that silver star, ah, ah, out of courtesy to them he wouldn’t go around flouting it and showing off.  

“After a six-year – after a six term or 12 years of service in the House, Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1948.”

The same year I was elected to the House.

“In 1953, he became the youngest minority leader in Senate history, and the following year when the Democrats won control, he became majority leader. With rare skill, he won passage of a number of key Eisenhower measures. In the 1960 campaign, Johnson, as John F. Kennedy’s running mate, was elected vice-president. On November 22, 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson was sworn in as president. In 1964, Johnson won the presidency with 61% of the vote and had the widest margin in American history – more than 15 million votes. At the end of his term in 1967, Johnson announced his retirement. He died suddenly and alone at his Texas ranch on January 22, 1973.”

Now, ah, he was a great believer in the working harmony between the Congress and the Chief Executive. One of his favorite arguments sitting in a room was “we’re all on the same team. We’re all stockholders in the country. What are we fighting about? Why don’t we use our common sense and work out a solution here. . .” And this sort of thing. And he was very good at that.  

Then, ah, to give you some, ah, a little better insight to the kind of things that he was fighting for . . .

“ one of the first was enactment of measures Kennedy had been urging at the time of his death – a new Civil Rights Bill and a tax cut. The Great Society became Johnson’s agenda for Congress in 1965. It included aid to education, attack on disease, urban renewal, Medicare, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime and delinquency, removal of obstacles to the right to vote. Congress at time, augmenting or amending, rapidly enacted Johnson’s recommendations.”

And, ah, the nation at that same time was making, um, spectacular advances in space. And he was one of the original sponsors of the space program. And it’s just too bad he didn’t live long enough to see the success we now know that the space program has achieved. Now. . .

“ there are two overriding crises that gained momentum after he took over in 1965:  unrest and rioting in the black ghettos troubled the nation, and the situation in Vietnam was an unending crisis defying any solution.”

Now, ah, he was trying to bring peace over there and he didn’t live long enough to see that happen either. So, ah, ah, he not only got done all these things that are on record, but he was still full of ideas for more things to be done when his days were up. He, ah, he had a curiosity about his home – the hill country – the had a curiosity about what you were doing – he had a working knowledge of the mechanics of government. And while he was in the White House, he would go through one of the work rooms and some secretary would be typing and he’d go over – look over their shoulder to see what they were writing. And many times he’d say, “There’s a better way to do that than this.” And he’d tell them what it was! And when he got in a conference with you, ah, he could – you better know what you were talking about because he’d correct you if you didn’t. He’d say, “Now, don’t tell me that. You know they don’t do that this way,” and this sort of thing. And he always amazed people at how much of the detail down inside the working levels of the different departments of government that he was aware of. Of course, all the years he spent on the Hill in the House and Senate, you can’t be out there without learning something about how those wheels turn. 

One of the funniest things that happened. We were gung-ho, you know, in those days for building and navigation on the Arkansas River and under the law you’d have just an authorization for a certain amount of money to be appropriated for and the Army engineers would develop the projects. Well, we were running short on the authorization and we had to go down and get the president to sponsor another increase in that amount – like two or three hundred million dollars – and so, we set up a conference. So here comes the great John McClellan, Senator from Arkansas, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Wilbur Mills, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee where all the taxes are written, the great Bob Kerr, who was recognized as the most powerful man in the Senate, and, ah, Carl Albert, you know, who was majority leader of the House, and all the Arkansas delegation and all the Oklahoma delegation, and we’re sitting around that table in there in his conference room at the White House and he makes each one of us tell why we think he ought to do this. And he’d just argue with us and he’d give you a bad time, you know, and it sounded like there was no way you could convince him in ought to be done. He was the devil’s advocate for everyone of us. And he wouldn’t let you pass. He made you talk. He wanted every one of us. But when he got all through he pulled out that draw there at the president’s desk at that conference table, and pulled out the order – he had signed it before we got there. And (garbled) McClellan said, “Well, what on earth did you put us through this for?” And he said, “Well, I had a right to find out if you knew what you was talking about, didn’t I?” (laughter) So this is the sort of thing he would do with people he was very close to. 

And, ah, see, on the night that we had an election after he had retired, he was down at the ranch and I got my election over with early in the evening, and, ah, that’s the year we elected David Hall governor, and Larry Derryberry his attorney general. And so I got in my car and drove over to Oklahoma City to go around the headquarters and help celebrate, you know, that the thing was going good. And about one o’clock in the morning I was sitting in Derryberry’s quarters just visiting, you know, and listening for the returns and getting some from other parts of the country. And here came the Secret Service. And they had nabbed me and they said, “You’re harder to catch than a criminal. We’ve been chasing you since nine o’clock.” And I said, “What do you want me for?” And he said, “That man down at the ranch demands to get you on the phone. And he’d giving us a bad time because we can’t find you!” So I went and talked to him and all he wanted to do was say, “How’s everybody doing?” You know, he knew about as much about Oklahoma politicians as he did Texans, and so he talked for an hour over the phone at one o’clock in the morning. Well, from then on as long as he lived every time we’d have an election, the Secret Service would come to me and say, “Where are you going to be tonight?” Because I had to talk to him. 

Now, he loved to just talk politics. That was one of his favorite pastimes. He came to Washington three or four times. He’d invite Carl Albert and me down to his room. He’d serve us a little bourbon and he’d say, “Tell me what’s going on. What’s old so-and-so up to?” And he’d just like to – well, it’s kind of political gossip, see, and he was just curious about all these things. And, I guess that’s the way he relaxed his mind because it was something he enjoyed doing. 

And, ah, he never did get in good humor with me. He kept wanting me to come down to the ranch to visit him, and, ah, I just never could arrange it, and I kept planning and planning, and, of course, then one day it was too late. And I always regretted that. But, ah, he told a friend of mine something one time that touched me. They were down there trying to get him to go somewhere to, after he’d retired, to a, to a, you know, help raise funds at a dinner. And he said, “I allowed that when I left Texas, that I’d never leave Texas any more to engage in politics.” He said, “The only thing that would get me to do that was if Tom Steed was in trouble, I’d go.” They came back and told me this. And, it sort of got my goat. But. . .ah, he and I did have a very close friendship, and, ah, he never forgot about that first campaign for Little Congress. That probably meant more to him than any election he ever had. But, ah, and it made a good impression on his new wife, you know, and all, and so, and it was easy from that time on when I got up there to enjoy a close workingship [sic]. Then, of course, he and Bob Kerr became close co-workers, and, ah, they, they had one idiosyncrasy that a lot of people didn’t know about: neither one of them ever passed up a Dairy Queen - they ate ice cream! They were just like two kids about it. Bob Kerr said, you know, he suffered and wanted ice cream so bad when he was a kid and he was too poor to get it, and when he finally got enough money, he ate ice cream and pie a la mode every day for lunch. And he’d give up all the food he had to have that.  

Now there was a – there was another run in I had with Johnson. When I – for five years I handled the legislative budget, and then I got moved over to the one that included the executive offices, the Treasury Department, and then the Postal Service, and all that. And in the first year, why, the Secret Service and I got to be – I handled their budget so we got to be pretty close. And they were wanting an armored car and they had made a deal with the automobile companies that they could provide two armored cars that were bullet-proof and bomb-proof and the glass and all, and it was going to cost a little over $100,000 each. But they were the cars that could be used – they had to have two, you know, to keep the president protected. And that was after the Kennedy assassination, and of course, if they’d had that kind of a car the guy couldn’t have hit Kennedy in that car. Well, I put the money in the bill to pay for it, and all the committee was in agreement with me, and it went over to the Senate and some senator began to make cheap headlines, you know, about wasting all that money on a – nobody wouldn’t – that wouldn’t keep anybody from killing the president, and so on and so forth. So he called me up and he said, “I don’t like this.” He said, “I want you to agree to take – to agree to that Senate amendment and take that out of the bill.” Well, I’d been pretty well briefed by Jim Riley who was head of the Secret Service and he’d gone through that trauma of having a president killed right under his nose and his men’s nose. And so I said, “Mr. President, I’ve been trained by an expert. And there’s only one man in the United States who’s advice I don’t want on this amendment, and that’s you.” I said, “It isn’t fair to you to put you on the spot to make any decision on it.” And I said, “They’re not wanting to kill you as a man. They want to kill that office, and it’s my duty to protect that office, and I’m going to buy that car. And if I ever catch you not riding in it, you’re going to get skinned alive.” And so, ah, he said, “I guess that’s another reason I love you, Tom.” And hung up the phone. 

But, ah, it is today a good thing they have this car, and there’s some secret stuff about it that I’m not at liberty to say, but it was worth the money. And always will be. It cost – we figured up how much it cost to bury John Kennedy. We got the General Accounting Office and the Bureau of the Budget experts to help us, and when we got over $400 million, we quit counting. Now people say that’s impossible. . .

Lasalier:         Four hundred million?

 Steed:             Four hundred million. First off, the day they buried him, they shut the whole government down. Well, the payroll for that day was $280 million. That’s for openers. You got no work out of anybody that day. Now the payroll today is bigger than that, one day’s payroll. So, you see, it’s, ah, when you put the whole package together, you’re talking about a whole lot of confusion and expenses. Obviously this means that no matter what the figure is, it’s cheaper to keep them alive than it is to bury them. And the hundred and some-odd thousand dollars for a car that will keep him safe when he travels around in becomes a fairly cheap price, then, doesn’t it? So this is the sort of thing that you get involved with.  

                        And I’d like to say this about Lady Bird. She and my wife are good friends, and she’s a very charming lady and been awful nice to us. She will always be remembered in Washington as no other president’s wife because her hobby was beautifying that city. All these eye sores and things like that now have flower beds in them. And there are places along the bank of the Potomac River and downtown Washington have beautiful trees, forests in them, you know, with shade in places for people to sit in the cool shade and all this. And the cherry blossoms are famous, but they only last a few days. But these flower beds, they have a – the National Park Service that handles all that, they have a series of flowers they plant so that all year long they have beautiful flowers in these beds and when one’s lifespan goes they put in some more. And we even do that on the Capitol building grounds now itself. So she, ah, she brought a very delightful beauty to the town. Mostly by finding places to plant flowers, and, ah, she’ll always be remembered for how she beautified that town. 

Lasalier:         She also had an influence on the Interstate Highway System, didn’t she, Congressman? 

Steed:              Yes, she was – she was, see, I knew that first, because I was on the subcommittee that wrote the superhighway bill. And we got into this beautification. I was more interested in how you built a bridge than a flowerbed, but, ah, they finally made us agree that the states could use a certain amount of their allocation of funds to plant trees and shrubs and flowers along the ways. And, ah, especially around intersections and important places where there would be a lot of public. And, of course, they got the – since she was sponsor of it, it got the label of being her program. And they still have it. And still follow it.

 Lasalier:        Did the president help her with that, or did she to that on her own? 

Steed:              Well, he, ah, of course he backed her, but he didn’t help her. I mean, the only time he ever got mad at me was on a deal like that. You know, we thought we were good enough friends that friends will tell you anything that you ought to know. And, ah, so I told him one day. He asked my advice and I was fool enough to give it! (laughter) And I said, “Mr. President, you know, familiarity breeds contempt. And every time I turn on the radio, you’re on their popping off about something.” And I said, “Did you ever listen to yourself?” I said, “You sound like you’ve got a mouthful of gravel.” (laughter) And I said, “Why don’t you stay off the television?” I said, “What I’d do if I was president? I’d be on that thing so rarely that when I finally did go on, the whole nation would stop and listen.” I said, “Now all they do – they turn you on and they turn you off.” I said, “You even tell people how to raise their babies and everything else.” I said, “They think you’re a publicity hound.” Well he got mad and he – whoohee! And I said, “Well, I’m sorry you got mad, but, ah, you asked me and I told you,” and I said, “I’m the only skilled propaganda agent in Congress. I earned a living during World War II doing that, and you’re just overdoing it and it’s hurting you. And somebody ought to tell you, and so I have. So I made you mad.” You know, he could get mad the quickest and get over it the quickest of any man I was ever around. And he said, “Well, Tom, I owe you an apology.” He said, “It must have taken a whole lot of effort on your part to say that to me,” and he said, “I needed it to be said, and I’m going to take your advice.” And he said, “I think you for it.” He said, “I know now you’re my real friend.” Well, ah, I didn’t run that risk anymore! I was a little more careful what I had to say to him. 

                        But he, ah, he had that experience with many people. They’d get in an argument and he – his temper would fly – and then after you’d give him a few minutes and he’d cool off and then he’d be very apologetic about it. And, ah, the people around the White House told me that he did that with them, too. Something would upset him and he’d ball them out and then he’d go hunt them up later on and apologize to them. But, ah, he had a low boiling point, I guess.  

He, ah, he was, ah, he was a thirsty seeker after knowing about things. He told me that one of the greatest thrills of his life in the campaign when he was running for president, and they was giving him a lot of bad time, he couldn’t – he’d come out of California and he didn’t think that he was doing very good, I guess, and we had a rally for him in the auditorium at Shawnee. And he came down there and Bob Kerr did the honors. We had the place packed to the ceiling and they gave him the biggest reception you ever saw in your life and he went away from there on cloud nine. That was the first time he’d been in an audience that hadn’t been, you know, rather antagonistic. And he told me many times after that, he said, “When I left Shawnee that night, the world couldn’t stop me.” He said, “I made every – ah,  campaign speech after that would be a winner.” And he said, “That’s what triggered me off.” And he said, “I’ll always remember Shawnee.” So, he, he had a great ability to remember the most commonplace little things about you and people and communities that I ever run into. And, ah, I guess he was just enough of a cornball to be that way. Of course, I was sort of that way, and I guess we were kindred souls in that regard.

Lasalier:         In 1960, John F. Kennedy got the Democratic nomination. Why do you suppose Lyndon Johnson took the vice-presidential nomination? 

Steed:              Sam Rayburn made him do it. See, Sam Rayburn was his tutor. Sam Rayburn was one to get him down and he could really make him mad, but he’d read the riot act to him and say, “Now, Johnson, you ain’t going to make that mistake. You sit in here now and you cool off. I’m telling you what to do right.” And he said, “For the sake of the Democratic Party, you have to, ah, ah, play this kind of a game. Now, this Kennedy ticket needs a balance in the North and the South. And the two – all the element.” And he said, “Together you guys would be unbeatable.” And it proved that Rayburn was right. Of course, Rayburn had been there a long time and he was a pretty – he and old John Garner and those kind of guys, they were pretty foxy old politicians. They studied the game, you know, as a science.  

Lasalier:         So it was likely that Sam Rayburn carried Texas for Kennedy in ’60.  

Steed:              Oh, sure.  

Lasalier:         Yea. And the presidency. 

Steed:              Of course, ah, see, you know, why would a state not listen to one of its elected officials who got to the be the speaker of the most powerful law-making body the world’s ever known. You know, if you took all the federal government out of Texas, it would be a desert. Just like California would slide off into the Pacific Ocean if you took all the federal government out it. And that’s because they’ve always had powerful representatives in Washington. Look at Oklahoma today. How – how – superhighways, flood control, dams on rivers, soil conservation, education – what would we have today if we took the federal government out of here? We got all our natural resources in a shape now that they are useable, and Oklahoma is one of the most prosperous states in the union. But it all had to start in Washington. None of – how could you build a superhighway in a state? You build a superhighway to a state line – if you don’t go anywhere what good is it? So, these – rivers don’t just run in a state, they run across several states. So to control that. And so this is why all this Washington scene is – they call it spending and debt. Well a corporation would call it investing, see. We never separate our budget from – capital investment from outgoing costs. We call it all the same thing. We don’t set it up like a business. Sure it looks bad. I imagine some of the biggest corporations in America have a great debt thing, but they don’t put that in their operation budget, see, they don’t say it’s a deficit. Even when the Daily Oklahoman buys a million dollar press they have to float a loan. They don’t pay for it all in a day, and so neither does the government. But, ah, a city votes bonds for a water system. Well, they can’t do that in a day, can they? They have to have credit. And so, it’s easy then, for people with axes to grind to mislead people about the federal budget and deficits and all that sort of thing.  

                        We had it figured up one time if you replaced all the federal government’s assets at the cost – not at what they are valued today, but at the actual dollar cost when they were obtained or built, you’d have a profit for every man, women, child in America if you liquidated them. But you never read that sort of part of the federal government. 

Lasalier:         Well, Lyndon Johnson was not hesitant about spending money for federal programs, but on the other hand, historians look back and say that he had a problem there in which he was trying to build domestic programs and at the same time having an active foreign policy. Did he ever. . . 

Steed:              Well, of course, he inherited the Vietnam thing and it got nastier and nastier and nastier and costlier and costlier and costlier. And he kept abiding it because he had a strong conviction that if we didn’t do something to stop communism the whole world would be under their domination and we’d be sitting alone. And so, he felt strongly about that, and he’s not the only man that did. Many other people felt the same way. And I think – I think they did stop communism. You haven’t seen Russia gobbling up countries anymore like they were before that happened. And so, ah, ah, I give Regan credit. I think he’s followed a lot in that same line, and, ah, that the communists today find themselves up against some difficulties they haven’t been used to. And I hope it keeps up, myself.  

Lasalier:         OK. Lyndon Johnson often came off as being, oh, sort of a good-old-boy – hold his pup up by the ears or pull his shirttail up and show his gall bladder scar to the cameras. What about him. . . 

Steed:              He was a very affable fellow. And he liked you and he assumed you liked him. And if he liked you and trusted you, that, that was, he’d be very personal with you. It never dawned on him that this would be something that would be frowned on maybe by the public generally, but he just – he – I guess he trusted people who weren’t really good friends. But if he liked you, he trusted you. And he had a great capacity for liking people and not liking people, and, ah, I guess that was the old Texas way, but, ah, growing up in those hill countries down there – I went down there and they showed me all over the place and I can see where a lot of that, ah, well, diamond in the rough sort of thing became a way of life with him. And, ah, he – he did a little of everything. He used to – run an NYA program and he – he – and to be a doorkeeper, you know, on somebody else’s patronage, and all that inner internal ambition burning in him all the time. And all he was using – everything was a stair step for him. And, ah, he’d have been trying to go live on the moon if he’d have lived long enough the way his mind worked. But, ah, he, ah, he had a lot of courage and he had a very fertile mind, and he talked to lots of people. And he had a way of making you feel at home around him. And so forth. And I guess that, ah, a man that can get the United States Senate to turn a flip-flop and stand on its head like he could has to have some kind of a genius in him. Don’t we wish we had somebody there in that Senate today that could make those guys get with something or other, instead of going off in all directions like they’re doing today?  

Don’t we wish we had another Sam Rayburn calling the shots in the House? Even presidents called him up and got his permission before they made certain announcements because if you antagonized Sam Rayburn – and he had a very strict idea of what was good for America – and if you got on his list, why, you were in deep trouble because the House would follow that man. Too many times he had put the pressure on to do something and it turned out he knew what he was doing. And, see, he never, he was only married for a very short time and that – the reason that he never did marry again – everybody said that Congress – the House became his bride. He lived it morning, noon, and night. I had an experience with him one time I’ll tell you about one day that’s very personal. But, ah, he had – you couldn’t be around him unless you began to feel that you were into something that was pretty important and special. That you just had to kind of straighten up and fly right. And, ah, I’m sorry today that we have members of the House that come in poorly dressed and not behaving very gently and, ah, I always figured that you owed some respect to the institution – perpetual institution – a great asset of the people’s, and if you’re going to be a member of it, you ought to at least not be a disgrace, personal disgrace. And Rayburn wasn’t – there was guys come on the floor today dressed in blue jeans and things that if Rayburn was there – I bet he’s turned over in his grave – if he was there, he’d throw them off the floor. He wouldn’t let them stay in there. But, ah, those values, I guess, have changed, too, and you, you – to go from two employees for a member of Congress to 18 in 35 years – now that’s a good yardstick on how this country has grown and changed and what the problems are. Ah, why they are so late getting their work done. 

Lasalier:         Let me ask you a question about Lyndon Johnson. One more question. Why was it that Sam Rayburn happened to pick Lyndon Johnson as his, ah, heir apparent? 

Steed:              The same way he picked Carl Albert. He talks to these fellows and he checks their reactions. And after you’ve talked to as many as he has, he’s got a pretty good evaluation know-how in him. And then they would not just react in the conversation with him, then they’d go out and carry-on. They’d get the job done. He could depend on them. And after awhile he found out that they were more, they were more anxious to help the program move as he wanted it to move than they were to go out and aggrandize themselves. He’d convince them, “If you’ll stay in here and work as a team, we’ll get enough done, we’ll all have glory. If you run on a – you want to walk alone, you walk alone. And if you get your name in the paper it will be an accident.” (laughter) And so, these people believed that and would do that and that’s why he surrounded himself with – everybody he brought into his circle had to be people he trusted and knew if they agreed they’d do something, they’d – and he could depend on them. Now, if you told him you’d vote a certain way on a bill and then something came up in your district that made that a very difficult thing for you to keep, if you’d go to him and sit down and say – and he’d say, “Look, your own welfare comes first. I release you from you promise.” He’d do that every time. He’d say, “I don’t want you to hurt yourself. You’re free to make whatever decision you need to.” If you told him and didn’t tell him and then you violated it, he was through with you. See, he’d let you off the hook if you went and told him you had a problem, but if you didn’t go and clear that with him in advance, you just better not go back around because he’d say, “You’ve had it and that’s it.” You know, he had, ah, ah, I think Carl Albert must have taught him this. But he had an expression he attributed to the Indians. He said, “The Indians’ philosophy is best.” He said, “The Indians’ said you cheat me once, that’s your fault. If you cheat me twice, it’d be my fault.” (laughter) So you didn’t get but one chance with him.  

Lasalier:         Well, over the period of this discussion, Congressman, some final concluding thoughts about Lyndon Johnson, a politician and a friend? 

Steed:              Lyndon Johnson – when you do things – when you lead the charge on new ideas, you make enemies as well as friends. And he wasn’t afraid of that. He, he, was – kept his eye on the goal that he was seeking. Obviously there are people that think he’s a rascal because he stepped on those toes, and he had to to get done what he thought was in the nation’s best interest. I probably had an opportunity to know him in a more personal and intimate way than most of them, and while I had my disagreements with him, Carl Albert and I – the closest friend I ever had in the world – we disagreed once in a while. So I never held that against him. I think he made some basic and fundamental contributions to the welfare of our country and I think he paid a terrible personal price for it. He – his health was bad and he knew it. But he – he overdid himself and shortened his life.  

And his wife today is one of the finest ladies in America and she’s a great credit to that group of fine ladies we called first ladies over the years. And, ah, he has donated his ranch and his home and all that whole thing he gathered down there to the state of Texas so that it will be perpetuated for the benefit of students and the public for all time to come. He had a tremendous sense of history and wanting to be properly remembered. For instance, when he was signing a bill that I’d passed. He’d have me and the staff and the subcommittee down to have our pictures made while he was signing the bill. He’d sign just part of his name with one pen, and if there was five of you, he’d use five pens and he’d give you the pen that he signed the bill with. He’d also send you a photograph, and he’d write – he’d write wonderful things on it, like – I have some pictures where he’d say, “Tom, I love you and I trust you and I’m for you always.” And stuff like that. He was very sentimental about expressing his feeling toward you.  

And also, ah, trying to furnish you with – if you were involved in something at the White House, he wanted you to have a picture of it, and things like that. And, ah, when Gordon Cooper, the astronaut from Shawnee, when he made his first flight, you know, and he had he and his wife down to the White House for a ceremony and award the badge. He insisted all Oklahomans be there, too. He thought about all these little things. And he wasn’t partisan about that. He wanted all the Oklahomans, including our Republicans. See the state thing came bigger than the partisan politics to him and that sort of thing. And he was, of course, proud to be a Texan. And when he found out I was born in Texas, why that didn’t hurt my standing with him. But I told him, I said, “I’m trying to keep that a secret!”  

Anyhow, he – I think his place in history is secure. He was very careful to make sure that those things that history would need to know about him and what he did were preserved and made available. And, ah, he was too outgoing to be very much for hiding things, you know, he was on the other side of that coin. I, ah, I, ah, knew him better and was closer to him than any president – all the presidents that had a very cordial relationship – but his went beyond that. It was truly a personal relationship.