The World the Beautiful

THE PRESIDENCY

As the legislation he had sought rolled in a steady stream from Capitol Hill last week, an ebullient Lyndon Johnson invited just about everyone in Washington to "come on down to the signin'." In all, he signed five new bills and dispensed no less than 600 souvenir pens worth $1.80 each. At one ceremony a sweating aide lugged the pens around in a market basket. For the throngs of Congressmen, Governors, mayors, foreign ambassadors and civil servants who turned out for the various ceremonies, the President also had a thesaurus of superlatives for each new law and ever more dazzling visions of the Great Society. The Best. At the National Institutes of Health in suburban Bethesda, Md., where he signed a bill authorizing a $280 million program of medical research, Johnson quoted from the Bible (Acts 8: 5-7) on curing the palsied and the lame, promised that "this bill will accomplish the miracles of which today we only dream." His Administration's goal, he said, is nothing less than "complete eradication" of children's deaths from rheumatic fever, substantial reduction of the rate of death from heart disease, and elimination of malaria and cholera "from the entire world." His aim, declared Johnson, is not just "America the Beautiful, but the World the Beautiful." Announcing that his quietly efficient surgeon general, Luther Terry, was resigning after four years, Johnson promised that his successor, yet to be found, would be "the best, most adventurous, imaginative, best-equipped doctor with vision in this country." The President even made a production of signing a minor bill giving postmasters a five-day week. Summoning 76 postmasters to the Rose Garden, L.B.J. allowed: "It is glorious that we can be here in this peaceful attitude and be making so much progress with, I think, the best Congress that was ever assembled." The Biggest. On signing the $7.5 billion housing bill, Johnson recalled, for an audience in the Rose Garden, that he grew up in a house without lights, water, or floor covering. "This legislation," he said, "represents the single most important breakthrough in the last 40 years," and "will take us many long strides" toward Franklin Roosevelt's dream of "a decent and dignified home" for every family. Johnson capped the week with a bipartisan signin' and speakin', this time approving a bill to create a national historical site in memory of Herbert Hoover at West Branch, Iowa, where Hoover was born and now lies buried. Johnson invited every big G.O.P. name he could think of, but the notice was short and most sent regrets. Unfazed, Johnson paid eloquent tribute to Hoover as a "big man," a "good man," and "above all a devoted and honest and compassionate man." And, speaking of national monuments, Johnson announced one of his own. The University of Texas will build a library in Austin to house his papers, in addition will establish a Lyndon Baines Johnson Institute of Public Serv ice. The library will sprawl over at least 150,000 sq. ft., and thus will be by far the biggest presidential library of them all.

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