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"I Had a Man." "The first time he opened his mouth. I knew I had a man," says Greene, 78, who now lives in the Ozarks near Brixey, Mo. "He was the most anxious to get information of any student I ever saw, especially on political subjects. I think you could trace Lyndon's philosophy back to that time, those classes. That poor boy had to root. It was back there when they had smoked that poor fellow Wilson out. Stupidity was rampant in Washington. We had to have some young blood. Call Lyndon's philosophy what you want, but I call it rational progressivism—adapting our institutions to changing conditions to attain the ideals of our democracy."
While Lyndon scored A's in Greene's political-science classes, other grades were less impressive. "He never ranked in the upper tenth of his class because he had too many irons in the fire," recalls his college dean, Dr. Alfred H. Nolle, who pegs Lyndon's overall average at a B. He once got an F — in a physical-education course. He became known as "Bull" Johnson, recalls classmate Gladys Snavely Bowman, because "he was always promoting something and had such drive."
Bull Johnson was the only freshman on the college debate team — and he was so good at debating that he teamed up with Senior Elmer Graham, now a retired Baptist minister, to win the state championship by whipping Sam Houston State Teachers, which had won 68 out of its past 75 debates. Greene, who coached the team, recalls: "We arranged so that Lyndon would have the final word. Well, when he got through they didn't have a cockeyed point standing, he just drew that string around their necks so slick." One of the big debate topics that year ('27-'28), was: "Should the U.S. use marines in Nicaragua?" Lyndon, recalls teammate Graham, delighted in arguing the affirmative.
As a sophomore, Lyndon won the coveted elective job of editor in chief of the campus newspaper, The College Star, and took his role seriously. In his editorial columns, he lectured the students on such topics as the meaning of personality: "A combination of altruistic feelings, novel purposes, talents and individuality. Let your brow touch the sky. Force others to look up." The aims of education: "Developing the highest and best in one. It puts zest and life into existence. It gives purpose and ambition." The evils of cynicism: "Which will you be — a builder or a destroyer? A constructor or a smasher of ideas? A blessing to the world or a curse upon it? It all rests with you."
How Are You? Tired of the financial squeeze after his sophomore year, Lyndon brashly applied for a teaching job in the obscure town of Cotulla, between San Antonio and Laredo. He was named principal of a new red brick Mexican-American school, charged at the age of 20 with directing five teachers, and paid what he now terms "the magnificent, munificent salary of $125 a month." Yet those nine months in a county where the Mexican kids lived in waterless, crumbling shacks and the median education of Mexican adults is still a mere 1.4 years proved the most rewarding of Lyndon's school years.