Sublime

Willie Brown, the longest-serving speaker in the history of the California Assembly, two-time mayor of San Francisco, and one of the most powerful and effective figures in American politics, lost his first election for the Assembly and also lost the contest the first time he tried to become speaker.

the Republican is foe to Black people; the Democrats possess Black loyalty notwithstanding their neglect of those most loyal constituents.

Hobson’s choice.

But free and open debate had not made his dreams come true. Instead, politicians had crushed them. And now he was going to make sure that, with the exception of Al Smith and Belle Moskowitz, no one—not citizenry, not press, not Legislature—was going to know what was in the bills dealing with parks that the Legislature was going to pass. The best bi

Proprietary Technology

George Brown had been working closely with Johnson for three years; Johnson’s initial nomination to Congress, in 1937, had, in fact, been brought about to ensure an immensely complicated transaction with a very simple central point: the firm in which George and his brother Herman were the principals—Brown & Root, Inc.—was building a dam near Au

He began to make it his business, when Johnson came to call on the Governor to solicit his advice on an NYA program, to spend quite a bit of time with Johnson, to be friendly with him, to let Johnson know he could, whenever he might need help, call upon Clark for it. He did so, he recalls—and Ed Clark can always recall exactly why he did things—bec

LYNDON JOHNSON had worn another wide, brightly colored necktie to court that day, but by the time the judge had finished speaking, the face above the gay floral pattern was the face of a man confronted by the imminent death of his hopes and dreams. Beside him, Lady Bird seemed stunned. For weeks now, in court and convention, he had been fighting to