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"Let Us Unite." The President's longest, loudest applause came near the end of his speech when he implored: "Let us put an end to the teaching and preaching of hate and evil and violence. Let us turn away from the fanatics of the far left and the far right, from the apostles of bitterness and bigotry, from those defiant of law, and those who pour venom into our nation's bloodstream." The applause was led by the two aging men behind him — House Speaker John McCormack, 71, and Senate President Pro Tempore Carl Hayden, 86, who are his legal successors.*
In his long political life, Lyndon Johnson has never been remarkably effective as a formal speaker. But this time, when he had to be, he was. And he was at his very best when he concluded with words that John Kennedy, who was given to more classical allusions, would never have used.
"Let us unite," said Johnson softly, "in those familiar and cherished words:
"America, America,
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown Thy good
With brotherhood,
From sea to shining sea."
* Since Andrew Johnson (1865-69), who was born in North Carolina and later lived in Tennessee. Two other Presidents since Johnson were born in Southern states, but neither was considered a Southern President. Woodrow Wilson, a native Virginian, lived in the North after he was 28, was Governor of New Jersey before becoming President. Texas-born Dwight Eisenhower moved to Kansas when he was a year old.
* Though the 1947 Presidential Succession Act specifies that the President Pro Tempore of the Senate is next in line to become President after the House Speaker, in practice Hayden probably would not follow McCormack. If McCormack were to become President upon the death or retirement of Johnson, the House would immediately elect a new Speaker, who—if otherwise qualified under the Constitution—would become first in the line of presidential succession.