THE LAND
For 18 months, Lady Bird Johnson has been dashing about planting a tree here, dedicating a park or playground there, and cheering conservation-minded citizens everywhere. Of all the Great Society programs, beautification is the one closest to her heart, and future generations are likely to remember her for her campaign to beautify America, much the way Eleanor Roosevelt is recalled as the first First Lady to show up in a coal mine or Jacqueline Kennedy as the hostess who brought chic to the White House.
Lady Bird's fervor and her whole program may seem a little corny, but they have touched a genuine national concern. Into the small White House office that she has set up to handle the beautification drive come up to 400 letters a week and countless phone calls. Last week Lady Bird was off again, this time on a threeday, 4,300-mi. swing through the West, accompanied by Interior Secretary Stewart Udall. In California, she dedicated Point Reyes National Seashore and almost got trapped by a wave. She switched from natural to artificial beauty long enough to help open the San Francisco opera season. Next day she planted a horse-chestnut seedling at Monterey, then hurried along to unveil a plaque along the Big Sur Scenic Highway near Carmel.
Love of the Land. It was appropriate enough for Governor Pat Brown to accompany her every step of the way. Lady Bird endorsed him pointedly: "No one knows better than the grass-roots conservationists the value of having a believer in the Governor's chair." One quip had it that the real reason for her trip was "to beautify Pat Brown"—who needs all the help he can get in his race with Republican Ronald Reagan.
If politics comes naturally to Lady
Bird, so does her love of the land. Though she is generally credited with inspiring the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 ("the Billboard Bill"), she has no official authority. The proper measure of her success is the grassroots response she evokes. From businessmen and mayors to garden-clubbers and oldtime conservationists, she is receiving a rousing chorus of "America the Beautiful"—or, more precisely, "America Must Be More Beautiful."
Roses & Honeysuckle. At least 30 state conferences on beautification have been held since the-White House Conference on Natural Beauty in the spring of 1965. Countless mayors and city councils have appointed local beautification committees. On the national level, Laurance Rockefeller is heading a twelve-member Citizens' Committee on Beautification that will make specific recommendations to the President on coordinating the work of some 20 federal agencies dealing with recreation and natural beauty. Executives of all the major oil companies have met with Mrs. Johnson in the White House to discuss their wayside service stations; CITGO has issued a landscaping manual to its 488 station operators, will underwrite $700,000 of new planting.