The Mood of the Land

Chilling winds swept in off the Great Lakes, and an early snowfall muffled Midwestern cities. Rain fell from leaden skies over Atlanta and Anchorage, and Denver shivered in sub-zero cold. Across the nation, flags still stood at half-staff in reminder of Nov. 22.

But the U.S. has always been able to look beyond winter to spring, beyond death to continuing life. There is in the nation a resiliency and a sense of renewal, the sort of thing that Poet Vachel Lindsay meant when he wrote:

Man is a torch, then ashes soon,

May and June, then dead December,

Dead December, then again June.

Not to Be Forgotten. The U.S.'s resiliency, its sense of renewal, was felt everywhere in mid-December 1963. Referring to President Kennedy's assassination, Chairman Robert Bell of Los Angeles' Packard-Bell Corp. said: "This is not to be forgotten. But you can't stop the living from living. I don't know of anyone who has called off his Christmas tree."

Last week, in fact, thousands of hardy Americans drove to national forests in the Rocky Mountain States to cut down their own trees, for a nominal $1 fee, and haul them home for their families. In retail stores, shoppers were in an all-out buying mood, sending nationwide sales in the first week of December 20% above the previous week's figure and 7% above last year's at the same time.

Most of the crape-draped photographs of Kennedy had been removed from the store windows, but the spate of Kennedy renamings went on, although not without some cautionary comments. "If we continue," warned Maryland Republican Representative Rogers Morton, "all he will be remembered for was that he was assassinated."

The Catharsis. He would not be forgotten, but last week many Americans were still trying to sort out in their own minds what he would be remembered for. There was his youth--which seemed to have kindled in young people all over the world an almost personal sense of loss. There was his style--which now shone with an ever-increasing glow, and made many of his countrymen feel a sudden deprivation of grace and beauty. And there was, in retrospect, a realization that he would have led a gallant and slashing campaign and almost certainly won re-election--and now those Kennedy years were not to be. There was, too, his image--or better yet, his person. Few could now articulate all the qualities that they would ascribe to either image or person, but the college students, the housewives, the intellectuals, and many of the people who were critical of him while he lived, were now transforming that image into legend.

The legend, however, was in little danger of being sentimentalized. And perhaps one of the reasons for that was the overwhelmingly detailed coverage of the assassination and burial. That in itself had been a kind of catharsis.

Now, after such intense and almost single-minded concentration, many Americans seemed to want a respite from national and world affairs. Last week neither Cuba nor a somewhat shaky Common Market, neither the laggard 88th Congress nor the problems of the Atlantic Alliance, sparked much interest. Said former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow: "Like most people, I haven't fully comprehended that the President is gone. I think the general mood is very mixed--one of sorrow and of comfort. Luckily, there is no international crisis at the moment." But there was some talk about the health of the economy, the prospects for a tax cut and a civil rights bill--and there was a great deal of speculation about the new President.

Everybody has different ideas about Lyndon. Southerners delight in having a Southerner in the White House--for the first time in 100 years. They figure that he will press no harder than he has to for civil rights. "It's good to be a Democrat again," said Charlotte, N.C., Restaurant Owner James W. Claiborne. Yet Negroes believe that he will go all-out for a strong bill. "Johnson is a man who can talk to those Southerners in their language, but I don't think he'll sell us out," said Chicago Secretary Marian Gaide.

As a Chicago publicity man put it: "Everyone in the country thinks he has a winner in Johnson, the Southerners, the Negroes, the liberals and the budget cutters." And TIME'S Denver correspondent reported: "As you talk with people, you get the feeling that they are all waiting for someone to say, 'Will the real Lyndon Johnson please stand up?' "

Season's Spirit. In Washington, the real Lyndon Johnson seemed to be all over the place, but his boundless energy has failed to dispel the pall that still hangs over Government offices. "Many people are ready to say Johnson may make a fine President," wrote Columnist Mary McGrory, "but almost inevitably they add, 'except it won't be fun any more.' "

At the Mayflower Hotel, addressing a liberal group called the National Committee on Pockets of Poverty, Economist-Author John Kenneth Galbraith (The Affluent Society) raked his fellow New Frontiersmen over the coals for opting to stay on with Johnson, whom he considers something less than forward-looking. Said Galbraith, a former ambassador to India who returned to Harvard before Kennedy's death: "To those who feel that they best serve by endowing the scene with their presence rather than by pursuing their convictions, let me simply say that I agree it is a good life. But also a bit like being one of the warriors in the Washington parks. The posture is heroic; the sword is being waved; but, alas, the movement is nil."

Outside Washington, the movement was back to normal. There were parties: in Chicago, the Anti-Superstition Society held its customary Friday the 13th blast. There were crimes: young Sinatra's kidnaping got the biggest headlines, but more in the spirit of the season were the two gunmen who came into the Alpine State Bank in Rockford, III., in Santa Claus costumes, locked the employees in a vault and made off with $36,000. Finally, there was Christmas acoming; in Boston, live reindeer pranced on the Common, not far from a creche with a sign that was a symbol of the times. In Manhattan's Rockefeller Center, a regal, 60-ft. Norway spruce blazed with thousands of lights and shiny aluminum spangles.

With such spectacles to dazzle the eye, it was hardly surprising that thousands of citizens bustled through the revolving doors of Detroit's City-County Building without so much as a glance at the simple wreath hanging over the entrance. Most thought it was a modest Christmas decoration. Few noticed that it was black.

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