William Tyler
The American Dream

William Tyler - The American Dream

• Thanks very much indeed. And hello everyone. Before I begin today, an apology from me to those of my American friends who were upset by my comments last week about President Biden, and wrote into lockdown to say that they were upset by my comments. Of course, I never wish as a educator, to upset anyone, and therefore I’m more than pleased and happy to apologise for any hurt that I unintentionally caused some of you. I guess they’re probably not listening today, but if you are listening, then my sincere apologies. Now, I thought I better break the ice after that, before I actually start the lecture. And this appeared in a, a sort of comments column in the “Times of London” this morning. And it goes like this: “My wife and…” People were sending in stories about how they and their wives met. And this American gentleman sent in this story. “My wife and I met at a ‘Make a Jelly in the Shape of a US President’ class. And I knew she was the one from the moment that my jelly set as Eisenhower.”

Don’t ask me to explain that. I can’t. I just thought it was a lovely story. I’ve never come across a adult education class in making jellies in the shapes of things. It sounds like a pottery class rather than a jelly class. So, my topic today, is “The American Dream,” and in particular, Lyndon Johnson’s redefining it in his concept of “The Great Society.” Such phrases as “The American Dream,” and “The Great Society,” take us back to those intrepid God driven men and women who sailed from Old England in the 17th century across the Atlantic, to an unknown land, dreaming of starting a new life, a new society in the new world. In short, a society that they believed should be founded on freedom of thought and godly living. Now, the classical definition of American Dream, is given in the Oxford English dictionary. It’s the same definition you’ll find in American dictionaries, I’m sure Canadian and so on.

The definition goes like this, “The American dream, the idea that every citizen of the United States should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.” Now, those three words are core beliefs of the Puritans who arrived in the 17th century from England. Hard work, determination, and initiative. They are at the root of English Protestantism, and I would suggest to all of you, at the root and core of Jewish thought as well. Hard work, determination, initiative. And they certainly had to have it, those that arrived in New England in the 17th century, facing all the hazards that they did face. But it created part of, if I can put it like that, it created part of an American DNA, or an American psyche, that we have seen during this course, has come all the way through to the 21st century.

In modern times, I think it’s right to say that… And I’m sure lots of my American listeners this evening would’ve read this book, and I’d be interested to know if you read it at school or subsequently. It was a man called James Truslow Adams, who in 1931, he was a writer, and a historian of some note in his day. He wrote a book in 1931 called “The Epic of America.” And in this book, he said this, this is a direct quote of Adams from his 1931 book, “The Epic of America,” in which he brought to popular view this phrase, “The American Dream.” And Adams wrote, “But there has been the American dream, the dream of a land in which life should be better, and richer, and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.”

That’s pure English, 17th century Puritanism. “It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it.” That’s a really important point, because this philosophy was a philosophy of the working or middling people who came across the Atlantic, and remain that to the working am middling people. The aristocracy of Europe really didn’t take to this idea. Why would they? Because in the heart of it lies democracy. And that is, was not a problem for America in the 18th century, or indeed most of the nineties, but it became a problem when riches and money began to separate American society in a very decisive way. One might say, in a European way. Let me read on from what Adam said; “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages, but a dream social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognised by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

In other words, a belief that anybody could become president of the United States, for example, and that we know is not actually true in the 21st century, even if it ever was. And the same, well the same can be said of Britain, but with some, some reserves on that. Even in my lifetime, we have had John Major as prime minister from a very humble background. His father was, was an entertainer. Let me go, another successful one. Let me go on and read a little more of what Adam said. “The American dream. This is near tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century.” He’s referring to the 19th century, and the great exodus from Europe in particular, to America, where there was a chance, a chance because everyone was treated equally, a chance that through hard work and your own initiative, you could achieve maybe not the presidency, but you could achieve a great deal for your family that you could not achieve, shall we say in southern Italy for example.

Let me finish this quotation. “The American dream, this is your tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of merely material plenty, though that has doubtlessly counted heavily. It has been much more than that. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in the older civilizations, i.e., in Europe, unrepressed by social orders, which had developed for the benefit of classes.” In other words, the aristocratic class rather than for the simple human being of any and every class. That’s the American dream. And that’s the American dream written and clarified in 1931. It’s, it’s a, it’s a magnificent dream. Adams saw poverty as the worst enemy of the dream. If people fall into poverty, they have great difficulty in climbing out of poverty. Poverty was the enemy of the American dream.

Of course, writing in 1931, Adam was writing after the crash of Wall Street in 1929, which sent many middling people into poverty. So poverty was a big issue across the world in the 1930s. indeed in Britain, much the same thinking arose in the Beveridge Report, which was commissioned during the Second World War, to see if we could create in Britain, a better post-war society than the pre-war one. And it’s interesting because Beveridge set out what he called the five enemies of, five enemies of prosperity in a sense, but of proper living, of an acceptable standard of living. In America, you would say, “the enemies of the American dream.” There isn’t a, there isn’t a single phrase that incorporates in British English, the concept of the American dream, but Beveridge said there were five giants that had to be defeated, idleness, ignorance, disease, squalor, and want.

And that’s exactly what those who were concerned about the American dream were arguing like adults in the 1930s, idleness, ignorance, disease, squalor, and want. It’s not a bad list. Adams himself wrote this. If I can find it, I’ll read it to you. Adams, Adams said later in his book, “So long also as we are ourselves content with a mere extension of the material basis of existence, with the multiplying of our material possessions, it is absurd to think that the men who can utilise that public attitude for the gaining of infinite wealth and power for themselves, will abandon both to become spiritual leaders of a democracy that despises spiritual things.” This is very 17th century from Adam’s writing in 1931. He’s saying now people have got rich in our society, and they, they accumulated money almost for the purpose of accumulating money.

And we shouldn’t expect them, we should not expect them to use that power to become spiritual. We’re back to the Puritanical Christians. To become the spiritual leaders of a democracy when that democracy despises spiritual things. It’s, it’s a very evangelical Puritan call. If you don’t get the spiritual side of things right, then you are done for. Now of course the reality in America was, and to some extent in Britain, but greater in America, is that a lot of people that made a lot of money put it into good causes, put it into dealing with the five things that Beveridge and Britain had identified. So it’s not a clear cut case of, it certainly is a long way from the sort of picture that Marxists would be producing in the 1930s. And even somebody like Adams recognises that. Of course he does.

What is interesting to us today, wherever we live in the western world, is that the question of greater wealth, and greater poverty, is again, a big issue in our societies, or if you prefer, the gap between the rich and the poor is lengthening again in Britain, in the States, everywhere pretty well in western societies. It is the challenge that capitalism must face, and a number of people are not only writing about how capitalism as a means of running a society should operate, but some people actually put it into operation. Sometimes this is called compassionate, compassionate, compassionate capitalism. This is a piece that I wanted to share with you. “In recent years there’s been much talk about capitalism evolving into a model of economy where incorporations ensure that communitarian and people oriented business models are embraced, so that profit is not the only criterion or reason why they’re in business.

In other words, many prominent business leaders, as well as experts, are calling for capitalism to move beyond the profits at all cost paradigm, and into a kinder, gentler variety that can place communities and individuals above the mindless pursuit of profit. Indeed, this form of capitalism, which is sometimes called compassionate capitalism, or capitalism with a human face is finding many takers, both in the developed western world, and in the developing and emerging world in Asia and Latin America. Compassionate capitalism means that corporations have to account for the costs that they impose on the environment.” And that certainly is a very contemporary and modern issue. Concern about the environment. I’m fighting a letter campaign against the producers of my, my porridge every morning who provide a plastic scoop in every tin of this porridge. And it doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that if you have one tin of this porridge per 10 days, how many of these red measuring spoons you have per year when you only need one. And then if you multiply me, who has this porridge with all the thousands of other people have this porridge, it’s ridiculous that we’re producing plastic serving. Why are they doing that? Do they have no environmental policy?

Well, I’m trying to persuade them that there are lots of alternatives to what they’re doing. A tiny example of a business that isn’t properly connected to the environment. Those of you who’ve been in education for example, know that all colleges, universities have environmental policies, and heaven help you if you don’t, because the students in a university will turn on you. You have to take all of this into account. Compassionate capitalism does. Let me finish. “This form of capitalism, which is sometimes called "compassionate capitalism,” means that corporations have to account for the costs they impose on the environment, the communities that lie in the vicinity of their factories and plants. In other words, you can’t cover a town in the smoke from your factory, or in the smells from your factory. I lived in a town in Essex, in Britain, which had enormous problems, because there was brewing there, and the smell just lingered. And they have to do something about that, “As well as offices, their employees whom they have to treat with more kindness.”

And we know about this in terms of legislation, in terms of paternity leave as well as maternity leave. “And the consumers and other stakeholders to whom they must be accountable.” Like me and my porridge service. So this is an issue of the American dream as dreamt by the Puritans in the 17th century, as interpreted by the fathers of the nation, by the founding fathers in the very documents of the American constitution, reignited by James Truslow Adams in 1931. And all it goes to us, or to you who are American in 2024, but the arguments are the same arguments, particularly if we look at things like compassionate capitalism, the way that we organise society for the benefit of all. That’s what those who landed in the new world had intended. They didn’t know about all these theories and concepts, and the world that we live in. but they did know the important things, the important things about freedom, freedom of thought, freedom to worship. They understood that.

They also understood of the need for community as well as the individual. And I’ll come to that in a moment. And of course, we’ve already met a version of this dream when Martin Luther King spoke of the dream. In 1963, in a letter from Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King said, “We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God, are embodied in our echoing demands. When these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality, standing up for what is best in the American dream, and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy, which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”

I love that phrase, “the great wells of democracy.” The American dream is at the very heart of American democracy. It’s clearer to talk about all of these things within an American context than within a British, because the history of how we reached in Britain, democracy is different from how you in America reached it. And you reached it in different ways, and it, therefore impacts in different ways. But it’s a strong message from the 17th, 18th century, through to 1963, and Martin Luther King via Adams in 1931. So that, in the way of these things, is nearly halfway through the talk, is my introduction. It’s a very important introduction. For those of us who aren’t American, it reinforces many of the things I’ve already said in terms of it’s in terms of, in terms of the core of American democracy. But now I want to turn to practical implications of this. In Britain, the Beveridge Report was put into effect by the 1945 labour government under Clement Attlee, which introduced into Britain the welfare state.

Now, many would argue in Britain today, that that heritage has been, if not lost, certainly heavily diluted. In America, it becomes real when Lyndon Johnson became president on the 22nd of November, 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Lyndon Johnson, you remember, was his vice president, and took the oath of office on the aircraft leaving Dallas, a horrendous moment to take over the presidency. Now, L.B.J., as he’s commonly called, it was meant to be a polite nod back to FDR, to Roosevelt. Johnson was to launch his practical take on the American dream. Now, this may well have been launched if he had lived by Kennedy, but it was launched by Johnson. And Johnson was, above all, a politicians politician. He manoeuvred in Congress. He managed to get quite significantly, reformist legislation through, that well, maybe Kennedy would’ve done, but it’s Johnson who did.

And to Johnson must go to credit. He launched what was a practical implementation of the American dream under the title that we’ve already used of “The Great Society.” “The Great Society.” Again, mirroring Roosevelt’s new deal, if you like. Sometimes political phrases grab a nation’s attention. The “New Deal” did, and we’ve looked at that, and we wonder whether it was as successful as people thought. Sometimes it doesn’t matter. Sometimes what matters is how it’s perceived. So Johnson launches “The Great Society.” Here is the Harvard lawyer, Charles H-A-R. Sorry. H-A-A-R, Charles Haar. And he wrote this book called, “Striving for the Great Society:” subtitled, “Lyndon Johnson’s Reshaping of,” well, you know of what, “The American Dream,” said Haar. And this is how he begins in his first chapter. He writes thi; “In January of 1964,” so shortly after he became president. “In January of 1964, to an overflowing auditorium, L.B.J. launched his Great Society, eloquently articulating its objectives.

He told the graduating students of the University of Michigan, ‘In your time,’” these are L.B.J.‘s words. “'In your time, we have the opportunity to move not only towards the rich society, and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we build a richer life of mind and spirit.’” And again, that goes back to the English settlers, the Puritans, mind and spirit. They would’ve given three cheers for that speech. But Johnson was clever. He had linked the prosperity of the nation, the prosperity of individuals, which he does not condemn, in a way that Adam seemed to condemn. L.B.J. says, “No, no, no, this is the very foundation upon which we can build the American dream. We can build this better society.” Haar goes on to say this; “In his autobiography, the vanishing…” Sorry. “In his autobiography, "The Vantage Point,” President Johnson called the Great Society a ‘crystallisation of American society’s best ideas, hopes, and practises.’

His supporters argued vigorously on its behalf, pointing out that it provided a crucial spirit of reform necessary for advancing progress in American political society than and now.“ Political society, that’s of great interest. "As support for their claim, the Great Society’s proponents cited F.D.R.‘s new Deal as a prime example of how to achieve change in the fast moving restless society of the United States.” And Haar defines what we mean by the “Great Society.” “The label of Johnson’s legislative agenda of reform is the Great Society, an agenda of reform which he envisioned for the country. With more than 200 pieces of major legislation passed within the first two years of his presidency, Johnson would reform every facet of American society. He would emerge as both the civil rights president, and the urban president. He sought to advance the public good, by providing better housing, safer streets, greater opportunity for minorities, thereby healing the divisions in American life, for the sake of freedom and unity.”

Haar goes on to point out that this comes from Johnson’s interpretation of the great dream. From its inception in 1964, the Great Society was the subject, however, of controversy, underscoring a deep partisan divide in American political life. Great Society supporters claim that the federal government and public policy play an important and necessary role in driving the progress of America. Detractors, on the other hand, claim that the growth of the federal government was anathema to American progress, and that less government involvement would impose, would improve life for the average America. And so we meet again something at the core of American political life, that in the federal state, which is America, there is a tension between the actions of central government and the actions of state governments, but also a tension between actions which are community-based, and the role of the individual.

How do you reconcile a government telling you what to do, in a society that is founded upon the freedom of the individual? And how can you have freedom of the individual where people fall off the cliff without the central government intervening? And of course, you, you don’t get, again, a clear cut division between the two. How far do you go in federal government? How far do you go in state government? How far do you go towards community? How far towards individuality? Now these are not questions only in America. They are particularly difficult in America, because of the nature of the federal structure. But they exist here in Britain as well between central government and local government, and between the concept of what here, we call, we call the big society, that is to say big government as against a little government. Those on the right in Britain argue for little government, less government interference, more individual responsibility, and those on the left in British politics for more government in interference to support those who are falling off.

Now those are basic debates in any democracy. And I would argue, that they strengthen rather than weaken our democracy. And each of us living in a democracy has to choose at election time, between those arguing for greater central government intervention, and those arguing for less government intervention. Big government against small government. Those are big, big questions, and they’re always going to be with us. It’s no good. We won’t resolve it. If we resolve it, we will change the very nature of our democracies. It is, it is something to be embraced, rather than, rather than jettisoned. And in most of our societies and democracy, we veer between voting for party A or party B. If party A is for big government, party B is for small government, and we have a dose of one, and then we try the other.

And that’s, that’s the sort of rock and roll, if you like, of our democracies in 2024. It can go too far of course. And in America it led to the Civil War in the 1860s, the aftermath of which who we live with today. Remember that those storming Congress carried with them, or some of them did, carried with them confederate flags. But that again, is not something that is purely American. You can find groups here in Britain who will eagerly wave confederate flags with little understanding of what they mean except it’s anti the government. The L.B.J. was sure in his own mind, that he needed to do something, that central government needed to do something, and that, I don’t think that is what he learned from Kennedy, but what he had inside him all along. Remember, that before he entered Congress at the age of 29, he was born in 1908, before he entered Congress in 1929 and then later into the Senate, he had been a teacher. There were very few leaders in the western world who began life as teachers.

If any other teachers are listening to me tonight, let’s have a round of applause for getting teachers into politics, and teachers, why? Because they believe, all of us in education believe that education is a means of change in an individual and in society. If we do not believe education changes, then we’re lost. And Johnson realised the impact of education. He also recognised the impact, as indeed a Beveridge in Britain, of the horror of ill health. We didn’t get our national health service until after the Beveridge Report, and the labour government post World War II. And Johnson begins the argument in the States about healthcare. Its poverty, that was greatest enemy as seen by Beveridge, and as seen by Adams, and as seen by Johnson. L.B.J., on the statistical evidence helped 13 million Americans out of a total population of 200 millions out of poverty. Now, I’ve got to be careful, I cannot give you a definition of poverty, which is solid. What you have to do is to take poverty in terms of the context of the moment.

The Victorians always used to say, “Poverty, the poor will always be with us.” The poor will always be with us, because there’s always been, going to be people that miss out. Johnson’s view is that you must do something about those. It’s very much what Churchill was saying as a liberal cabinet minister before the first World War in Britain, even if you know you’re going to fail, and we know that poverty will always be there, you have to at least make a, an attempt to reduce it, an attempt to deal with it. Just simply letting it run wild, is not good for the individual, but it’s also not good for society. So how did L.B.J. get on in politics? Extremely well, one has to say. He’s a wheeler dealer, a politician’s politician, I said before. Incidentally, any of you who wish to look at the, in depth at L.B.J.’s life and career, can have the fortune of reading Robert Caro’s multi-volume biography. Many, many historians believe that Caro’s biography of Johnson, is one of the greatest, if not the greatest biography of a political leader that’s been written in modern times.

And I’m certainly not going to disagree with that. It’s, it’s massive, it’s monumental. Its, its attention to detail is wonderful, and it enables you to understand not only what Johnson did or was, but why he was and why he did. I said before that he entered Congress at the age of 29 in 1937, and he became a senator in 1949, and was a senator until he was invited to become vice president, by Kennedy in 1961. Kennedy, Kennedy was a shrewd politician as well. Look, Kennedy appealed in America to north and east of the states. He did not appeal to the traditional south or west. And Johnson, born in Texas was that rare thing, a white civil rights Democrat. And so he goes on the ticket with Kennedy so that they together can appeal right across the United States, which of course they did. I think if Kennedy had continued, and not been assassinated, Johnson would’ve been the fixer. If Kennedy had survived, would he have won a second election? These questions are almost impossible. I think he would, but many think he wouldn’t. What we do know, is that when Kennedy’s first term had expired, finished by Johnson, Johnson won an overwhelming victory in the forthcoming in the next presidential election.

And, and I think yes, there was a sense of undoubtedly we must do this for Kennedy’s memory, but there was also a view that Johnson actually had policies that he was prepared like Roosevelt to stand by and pursue. And I think that is an important part of it. If you wish to look more, as I’ve said, look at Caro’s biography, it’s on my blog, but Caro is C-A-R-O. It’s available, it’s available in any country you’re listening to me. It’s multi-volume, it’s great. So let me move on. I said that he was a southern white Democrat, a supporter of civil rights. Now we know Kennedy was going to introduce the legislation, but it was Johnson that pushed it through. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act, in 1965, the Voting Rights Act, and in 1968, a second Civil Rights Act. And Alan, Alan Axelrod, he writes this in his “History of America,” if I may quote him, he says this; “Of all the creations of Johnson’s Great Society, none has had more lasting and profound impact than the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act banned segregation and discrimination in public accommodations such as restaurants, yettas, and hotels.

And it barred employers from discriminatory hiring practises based on race.” Now we all know that you can pass legislation and people will duck and dive to get out of it, but nevertheless, this was fundamentalist legislation. Axelrod goes on; “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was followed the next year by a Voting Rights Act, which destroyed the last vestiges of local legislation intended to prevent or discourage African Americans from voting. In 1968, at the end of the Johnson years, another Civil Rights Act rendered discrimination by landlords, and in English, estate agents in American English, I don’t know how to pronounce this, I’m not sure how to pronounce it. Realtors, is it? R-E-L-T-O-R-S? You’ll tell me. But, he’s dealing with a housing problem. And we know about that in Britain. No blacks, gipsies or Irish was something that appeared in windows in my youth. These countries may be very different, but in many ways were still following a similar path. Not an exact path, not the same path, but a similar path. American history relates to British history.

I don’t mean the past, I mean in the present. We are on parallel tracks. And legislation in one country, it has. It’s difficult to say, it has pushed, but it certainly has helped public opinion to push legislation in another. Johnson wanted to provide this Great Society. Another phrase he used was a "fairer society” to tackle poverty and make America a fairer society. In 1964, 19% of Americans, nearly 20% of the population lived in poverty. At the end, he had reduced that to something like 11%. Poverty is still there in America as it is in Britain. We know that. But we see in Britain that poverty has risen in recent years. Much political debate on the reasons for that. But deep down we know that the question of poverty has to be dealt with. It cannot be pushed under the carpet. Why not? Because then if it grows, and you have this subset of society, which feels it’s nothing to lose, you are in danger of a rabble rousing politician taking such a group and threatening democracy. We have to deal with this. And whether you vote Democrat or Republican in the States labour or conservative in Britain, this is not, that can be, well, there may be different approaches to the problem. That’s one thing.

But the problem itself has to be resolved. The Johnson administration passed in 1964, the Economic Opportunities Act. It formed a job corps to train young people so that they were able to get jobs. Now, one of the big issues at the moment in Britain, which I think we’ll figure in our general election, is the lack of support for technical colleges, for what we call further education colleges, when the money goes elsewhere in the education system, to universities rather than to further education, big arguments, particularly within the education profession itself. So there is a recognition by Johnson that those who are failing to claw out of poverty can do so, if they’re given training, and if they can therefore get a job that enables them to support their family. It’s a pretty straightforward thing. But remember that Johnson had begun as a teacher, as an educator. He understands. I must say, I wish when I was principal of the City Lit, I had somebody like Johnson in politics to talk to, that would’ve spoken the same language, and understood what was being said.

He provided grants for adult education, and not so much the adult education we’re doing at the moment, but opportunities for adults to retrain. And that’s something that’s been with us now, and right into the 21st century. And one that exercises all governments in all democracies. And he wanted to give assistance to children living in poverty. And again, that’s an issue here in our general election. What do you do? Do you provide them with breakfast, for example, because they mustn’t come to school hungry? No child’s going to learn if it’s hungry. And, and the story goes on across all our democracies in similar ways, nailed by Johnson in the 1964 Economic Opportunities Act, economic opportunities. That was the key. This benefits the individual, but it also benefits a wider society. That’s Johnson’s argument. He had further educational reform in 1965. And I’ll just short circuit what I’m going to say by reading this. “The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act gave funds to schools with poorer children.

And the 1965 Higher Education Act gave student loans to people who would struggle to afford university.” Well, all of that is a live question across all democracies in the 21st century. “By the end of 1967, about 9 million American children had extra funding. In 1970, the number of people who joined an American university had increased by over 4 million compared to 10 years before. And as similar figures are reached here in Britain under Tony Blair’s government. It raises all sorts of questions. None of these answers are ever perfect. There are universities offering courses which are substandard across the western world. They’re offering courses in odd subjects. They’re also offering courses in universities for graduates in Britain, for example, in nursing, where it really is something that can be done through technical, as it used to be, technical and further education. So the arguments are all swirling about. The main issue is that one doesn’t ignore the fact, that these are arguments that must be had.

Not to put them, as I said earlier, to brush them under the carpet. These are real issues for real people. And as Johnson would say, real society. America can only benefit if the individuals themselves benefit. Let me finish this, there were no measures, however, to make schools spend the funds they were given wisely. They were just given money and spent it as they wished. Ah, probably. Can you trust educators to spend the money wisely? Well, of course I’d say yes, but when I was an advisor for further education, and adult education in the county of Warwickshire in the 1970’s, before I went to visit the, my first College of further education as an inspector, I was called in by my boss. And he said, "William, there’s one thing you should know before you go.” “Yes?” I said, wondering what it was. I’d worked in two further education colleges already. He said, “You cannot trust further education principles.”

Nor could you. In fact, he found out to his own chagrin, exactly that. He had a very hard lesson to learn. We had a College of agriculture in Warwickshire, and the principal had asked permission, because it was over a certain amount of money to buy a horse. And my boss, who was very northern, very, from an industrial background in Northern Britain, thought buy a horse for a farming college. He meant a cart horse, and signed. To his horror, it turned out not to be a cart horse, but a race horse. And they were going to, no, we won’t go there. There was a hell of a round, right? This ruddy race horse had been bought, when the office thought that the principal had bought a cart horse. Well, there you are. Nothing is easy in this world. Nothing is particularly easy with putting in a great idea the American dream, the Great Society in practise, because it doesn’t always work. You may believe if I give you money, you will spend it wisely. Or just think about when you get, had children, you gave them money, did they always spend it wisely? No.

Think of yourselves when you were given money, did you always spend it wisely? I know I didn’t. Johnson also tackled health, The third of Beveridge’s five enemies. And this is, this is Johnson tackling health. And I read this; “The 1965 Social Security Act introduced Medicare, which provided basic healthcare for those over 65, and Medicaid, which provided basic healthcare for those two poor to afford it. Around 19 million people had signed up for Medicare by the end of 1966. Medicare payments were made only to hospitals that kept black and white patients together.” So it managed to desegregate hospitals. “There was an improvement for civil rights.” This was an improvement for civil rights as well as for healthcare. Success? Yes, there was success. The percentage of Americans in poverty fell, as I said before, from 19% in 1964, to 11%, 10 years later. But also poverty was not eliminated. This is a piece written, it’s an, it’s an extract from an article written in 1976 in the States. “Under the Great Society, there was a dramatic acceleration of governmental efforts to ensure the wellbeing of all citizens, to equalise opportunity for the minorities and the disadvantaged, to eliminate or at least mitigate the social, economic, and legal foundations of inequality and deprivation.

Congress moved ahead on a vast range of long debated social welfare measures, and pushed on into uncharted seeds.” That’s true. But you are all bright people. Forget about politics. There were plenty of people objecting to what Johnson was doing politically, and I’ll come to that with Nixon. But, there’s something more fundamental. Nothing to do with party politics, nothing, well, not really anything to do with party politics or politics at all. That damaged the Great Society policies below the waterline. Answer, the rising growing cost of the war in Vietnam. Johnson was adamant that he would not go down in history as the first American president to lose a war. And thus funds which would’ve gone into the Great Society, were syphoned off to support the war in Vietnam. We see that today over the issue of resources to Ukraine and to Israel. And we see that as something that is divisive in Western society. There’s a further political claim, that because he did not deliver The Great Society in full, or the fairer society in full… My comment is, I don’t think that was ever possible. It wasn’t possible to eliminate poverty.

But as a result of that, many historians say that it was one of the sparks that led to the inner city riots in the States in the late 1960s, early 1970s. In other words, you raise people’s hopes only to dash them down. Now that’s a very dangerous thing for politicians to do, to raise people’s hopes, and then to dash them. We’ve got a budget this week, and some people expect there to be big cuts in taxation. And the government have been trying to play that down because they clearly aren’t going to be big cuts in taxation because we don’t have the funds to pay for it. You have to manage people’s expectations. And I think if you were to be critical of Johnson, then that’s one of the criticisms you can make. You may want to be critical of Johnson over spending money in Vietnam. I’m not entirely with you on that. If you’re in a war, you have to fight the war. But nevertheless, those two issues were important ones. And this idea of the Great Society, actually divided America when it wasn’t an overnight success, with its emphasis on federal government intervention. And it opened up the divide between community and individual responsibility, between the state and the individual, as I said before.

And it’s interesting that Nixon in his mem… I’m talking about Nixon next week. Nixon, whatever you think about Nixon’s morality, he’s not a, he certainly is not a stupid man. And this is what he wrote in his, this is what he wrote in 1978. “The Great Society programmes, the Great Society programmes had poured billions of dollars,” said Nixon, “into supplying a formidable range of social services for the poor. If you could prove that your income was below a certain level, you could qualify for any number of free or subsidised goods or services. "I felt…” And of course, he wasn’t alone. “I felt that this kind of approach encouraged a feeling of dependence and discouraged the kind of self-reliance that is needed to get people on their feet. I thought that people should have the responsibility for spending carefully and taking care of themselves.” That is the classic argument on behalf of a small government, and of the rights of the individual to make mistakes. There is a wonderful story, a true story, that when the bill setting up the first police forces in Britain went through the House of Lords.

One member of the House of Lords said, “I should vote against it because I have the right as a freeborn Englishman to break the law if I want to without being arrested.” Well, that’s an extreme view, but it nevertheless today played out right across the western world between the individual and the community. I’ve written here on my notes, “Such is the nature of the core politics in the United States, and in the UK, and elsewhere.” Now I’ve got to come towards an end. And the book, another book, which I put on my, on my book list is Jim Collins, “The American Dream.” It, it’s slightly odd because it doesn’t really deal with the Great Society, but be that as it may, it’s a very interesting book to read. And I looked at his conclusions, and this is what he writes right at the end, “What happens to a dream deferred, asked the great American Poet, Langton Hughes in his off sighted 1951 poem, "Harlem?” The problem he suggests is that when dreams deferred are perceived as dreams denied, and an explosion may erupt, one that will blow away living as well as dead aspirations.“ That’s what I was trying to say just now.

He’s saying it in rather better language. "In an age when the American dream still seems alive, even well, this trumping question remains as insistent as ever. The survival of our society,” he’s writing about America, “the survival of our society depends on addressing it seriously, and addressing it seriously requires a willingness to work with the energy,” with the energy “of a Puritan.” I started with those Puritans, and I’ve ended with those Puritans, but I’ve got a postscript. I always have multiple endings, as those of you know me well, know. This is in a article published by the George Bush Institute, and it was written by an English woman, Sarah Churchwell, who’s professor of American history at the University of London. And the articles headed, “A Brief History of the American Dream.”

And I wanted to share this paragraph that she wrote. No comment, I just share it. You must judge. In 1900, she wrote, “The New York Post warned its readers at the greatest risk that every republic was not from the so-called realm, but discontented multimillionaires. All previous republics it noted, had been overthrown by rich men. And this could happen too in America, where monopoly capitalists were deriding the Constitution unrebuked by the executive, or by public opinion. If they had their way, it would be the end of the American dream.” 1900. “It’ll be the end of the American dream because the American dream was of democracy of equality, of opportunity, of justice for all. Again, today, most Americans will clearly say that becoming a multimillionaire defines the American dream. But the fact is that the expression emerged to criticise, not endorse the amassing of great personal wealth.” Big, big questions at the basis of all Western societies. And America’s history, and approaches to this, throws all of this question into a real clear light of day. Big government, small government, community, individual, the defeat of poverty, and all of it underlines what we all understand by liberal democracy.

Thanks very much for listening. I may have some questions. Let me see. Where is my questions? No, have I got no questions? Can’t find any. I must have. Oh no. Yes, it didn’t come up with a number. John, thank you, Lynn. Jonathan.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: “If hard work was a core value of the early settlers, one certainly can’t see it in the USA today, particularly since people have been working from home, except among the Latinos and other immigrant communities on whom the US economy is dependent.”

A: Well, I don’t know that I’m in a position to argue against that. I’m not sure. I mean, working from home is a big issue, obviously post Covid. I’m not convinced that working from home necessarily, well, let’s put it another way. In all our societies, we have been concerned about work-life balance as we move beyond the industrial to a post-industrial world. And I’m not sure that we aren’t readjusting ourselves.

Q: Jonathan, “As the joke goes, Trump has proved that anyone can become president of the USA.”

A: Jonathan, I can’t comment on things like that having got myself into such hot water last week with any comment about Biden. But I note it, and I shall laugh when this is over.

Q: Rita, Jonathan Goldberg. “Does this joke apply to the Supreme Court, rule that Trump should appear on the ballot in California, in a decision that follows months of debate over whether the front runner for the GOP nomination, violated the insurrection scores included in the 14th Amendment?”

A: Well, again, having had my fingers well and truly burnt last week, it’s very difficult to comment. It is important, however, for all of you who are American, to recognise in your society, as we have to recognise in ours. And we are having a debate at the moment about Islamophobia, and anti, and Palestinian anti-Semitic marches and so on. But we also have a problem with the, which many of us who are lawyers feel with our present government, which has acted unconstitutionally, we would say illegally, there are real questions about how we, we make our democracies function in the 21st century. If you want a view, which I hope will not upset you all, I think we have to redefine what we mean by democracy in this new century. Because in one way or another, our democracies are not, well, they’re human constructs, so they’re going to be, they, they can’t be perfect, but they’re becoming less suitable, less fit for purpose.

And Lily reminds us of that wonderful phrase from Log cabin into the White House. “Yes. If only.” One might say.

Q: Max. “Last week a presidential candidate astutely arrived in the US of individuals who spoke disparate languages that other citizens, even teachers could not understand. Is that posture in conflict with the goal of achievement of the American dream?”

A: You must answer that. That certainly is an issue here. And so I will answer in a British context, but it’s the same in America. There is great concern that we went too far down the road, sorry, down the road of toleration leading to things like adult education in London, being produced in something like 15 different languages or more. And we should have insisted on English. We are not good there. America used to be. We have got to work out what toleration means in a modern democratic society, and how we deal with that. And can we have, to use a nasty, nasty word, can we allow ghettos to be established in our countries? This is a big issue here. It’s a big issue in America. It’s a big issue everywhere in the western world. In France, for example.

Shelly. “From the 17th century on, there’s always been a clash between freedom and godliness, also between compassion and enabling.” Oh, Shelly, that’s a very deep question. I’m not, I’d have to think about it. Compassion and enabling. I’ve never heard those two put in juxtaposition. I’d have to think long and hard, Shelly. I’m sorry not to say, “Oh, you’re wonderful. That’s absolutely right.” I’m sure you may well be absolutely right. I just am not in a position to comment about that.

Stan. “I appreciate your thoroughness.” Oh that, well, thank you, Stan. Rita. It’s not from Jonathan, it’s from Rita. I love this. I don’t have to play a part, I can just, this is like trying to arbitrate in a family dispute. Rita. “It’s not for me to comment here on the comments of others. And anyhow, I take that as a statement, not a question. I respect your opinion.” Oh, well that’s great. We need, we need civilised debate.

Jill. “L.B.J. on Vietnam. 'The bitch of war killed the Lady I really loved, 'The Great Society.’” Oh, that’s a wonderful quotation. I could have used that, Jill. I didn’t. You are absolutely right. That’s a brilliant quotation. “That bitch of a war killed the lady I really love, ‘The Great Society.’”

Q: Michael. “In the long run, can America’s debt ridden economy continue to fund the cost of providing for the ideals of democracy in ‘The Great Society?’”

A: Well, that’s an issue right across the western world, is the debts won’t happen until the rich stop receiving the tax cuts they’ve so far enjoyed, says Judy. These are big, big questions. And again, these are questions right across the western world. And all of us who’ve got a vote this year in Britain and in the States. We’ll have to think long and hard about how we cast our votes. Perhaps, I dare not say anymore about the American choices, but here we think we’re going to have multiple choices, but we need governments that actually focus on things. Yeah.

Monty. “Johnson was once advised to appeal to the hearts and minds of some group. His response first grabbed them by the B something, and their hearts, their hearts will follow.” Ha! Yeah. Johnson could be, what we would say in Britain, agricultural in his expressions.

Judith. “L.B.J….” “LBG was a…” L.B.J.. Sorry. You’ve written, “L.B.G.” I think, well, that’s a typing error. “L.B.J. was a strong and sincere supporter of the Jewish community in Israel.” Yes.

Dennis. “Great educators and leaders, they word educators from the Latin to lead out.” It is indeed, Dennis. And we could do with more, more, more educators in, in particular, we could do with educators in Britain, in the Office of Secretary of State for Education. That may well be also the case in the States. The ignorance of some politicians about education leaves me a gog.

Betty. “Please spell the name of the author, the one by Lyndon Bay Johnson by Robert. Robert Caro, says Joe Murray.” Absolutely right. And in three thick volumes, emphasis on thick. And it’s on my blog. If you look at my blog, William Tyler, sorry, talkhistorian.com, talkhistorian.com, then you will find the books I’ve referred to. Four volumes.

Q: It says, Anita. Yeah, Carrie. “You might mention this by the time I finished typing, but I think Caro wrote about the Kennedy’s snobbery towards bullying, of sneering at L.B.J., and how he L.B.J. threw up with, threw up with nerves as he walked to be announced as JFK’s running mate might be apocryphal.”

A: I’m not sure that it is apocryphal. There was, there was a big difference between the two men, but they did agree on what they were aiming to do. It was a very, very shrewd appointment by Kennedy of Johnson. You don’t really want, I would say to you, you don’t really want, as your deputy, someone who’s going to say, “yes sir,” “three,” “yes sir,” “no sir,” “three bags full, sir.” Or “yes sir,” or “yes madam,” “no madam,” “three bags full madam.” You don’t want somebody like that. You want somebody to say, “Hang on a minute. Think.” I have had, in my education career as a principal, I’ve had one, two, three, four, five, I’ve had five vice principals. Of those five, I had three of the five who would challenge me. And those three were three, well, two of those three were I had appointed. And I didn’t appoint the ones that didn’t. If you appoint people who disagree, you, you don’t have to draw blood. You just need someone to say, “Have you thought about this?” In the end, it’s the principal in any organisation, it’s the person at the top, the CEO as I was at the end, who has to make the decision. But you need someone to question it, and you need to listen. And that’s something politicians, I think find difficult to do.

Q: Who is this? Oh, Shelly, again. “Besides the positive sentiment that L.B.J. got from JFK’s assassination, how would you figure that in the extreme right wing sport, government position of Goldwater affecting the landslide?”

A: Yes, I remember Goldwater. I was at school. And Goldwater was something we had never experienced. And it was interesting to us in the sequel form to look at Goldwater, and sort of look at how he presented himself. And I think you are right. I think Goldwater in that context, in that era was, was a liability to the opposition.

Q: Oh, “Please repeat the qualities you cited for success.” Determination, and initiative, and what was the third one I mentioned?

A: Hang on, hang on, I’m surrounded with bits of paper, but it will be here somewhere lost amongst the junk of my papers. Why can’t I find it quickly? Because it will be on the very last sheet I pick up. No. Oh, here we are. Hard work, determination, and initiative. I didn’t want to get it wrong. Hard work, determination, and initiative. Sue, hope that answers your question.

Stuart. “Have I heard you correct? You asked how to pronounce the American form?” Yes, it is pronounced Realtor. And it is a trademark term for licenced real estate agents. Thank you very much. I didn’t know how to pronounce it. It’s one of those rare occasions where the English and American words are entirely different, and I don’t know the reason for, for why they’re different.

Julius Schweig’s book, “Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Site,” gave me a wonderful understanding of L.B.J. as seen through his wife’s eyes. Jean. It’s often extremely useful to read books by the wives of important politicians, but as it would be to read the works of male partners of female politicians, or male partners of male politicians or female, or whatever, but to look at the person that’s closest to them, is, I think fascinating. So I haven’t read that book. And I’m going to put it on my list. I’ve got such a long list, I’m going to have to live to about 120 to get through any of them, but that sounds really interesting.

Where am I? Abigail. That’s my mum’s name. Well, it’s a nice name. “How does Arthur Miller’s "Death of a salesman fit into the paradigm?” I’m not sure I’m in a position to answer that. I think I’ll lead that to some literary experts to answer.

Q: John replying: “Alfred, your comment regarding the gradual ongoing improvement of democratic society brings up the talmud’s understanding. Rabbi Taren from says "it is not,” in quotes, “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”

A: Absolutely spot on. That’s exactly what I was trying to say, and what I deeply believe. I think I’ve answered that one. Yeah. I think I’m going backwards. Some things are coming up wrong.

Q: “I’d read that almost all the American presidents all testament Christians up until Barack Obama, as they built the American dream. When did that dream cease?”

A: Oh goodness, David. Most of the Amer, that’s not true. It’s, it’s not true, for example of Kennedy. It’s true of those who were Protestant, because that’s the Protestantism they came from. Kennedy is Catholic, but Kennedy’s odd. Well, I think he’s odd as I tried to explain that he’s odd in as much as he presents himself as a sort of new Englander Puritan in the strong traditions. But he isn’t with, his concern comes from Catholicism. But yes, but now you have to ask how much real religion do politicians in any Western democracy have? You also say, “When did the dream cease?” I don’t think the dream has ceased. The people, American academics writing about it, write of it in the present.

Who’s this? Thank you for the nice comments. I don’t read them out. Sandy. I like having them.

Sandy. “I’m reading a book, "Ours was a Shining Future, which argues that so much of the loss of the American dream is the loss of power of unions. It is heartening to see their emergence.

Q: Naremy me says, "Really as antisemitic as they are, I have to leave to you who are American, to decide if this concept of the American Dream is dead.”

A: I think it’s very difficult to say it’s dead. It may arise in new and different forms. I don’t think it’s dead, but I’m not an American. So that’s another view. Sometimes from outside, the view can be enlightening, but sometimes your view from outside can be totally off the point. So you must decide. But I would say that in Britain, something we don’t have words for, aspirational. We talk about an aspirational society, and I think we do. And if we don’t, then I think we’re in trouble.

Carrie, thank you for that. I’m not getting involved in, in that.

Carol says, “Does not have dementia.” Yeah, I understand the argument about a stutter. I’m actually collecting stuff now, which, about all the things that are written in America and here. I wasn’t commenting about his stutter. Yeah, I know about his stiff gait down to arthritis. It’s all problematic. Let me quote a British, a former British foreign secretary, David Owen, who says that we should be more careful about the medical, physical, and mental conditions of our leaderships in the western world. And I remind you that Trump had a cognitive test, which showed according to Trump that he was a hundred percent or 110% okay. Well, a lot of Americans don’t accept that, and a lot of Americans are in disagreement. It’s really difficult. We will know eventually what, what is or isn’t happening. But I don’t really want to say anymore. I really did get my fingers burned. And I’m, and I never really wanted to upset people, and didn’t expect to, because I want people like Carol to say, “No, you are wrong.” Because that’s, that’s what adult education’s about. That’s what democracy is about. I don’t ever pretend to be right. Some of you have corrected my pronunciation. You’ve corrected dates. You’ve corrected views. Of course you have. And that’s, that’s part of life’s rich pattern. If I was teaching children, I would not teach them as I teach you, I would not lecture to them in the same way. You’re all capable of saying “You’re wrong, and I know you are wrong.” And we can disagree. I can’t do that if I’m teaching children, I haven’t really taught children, but if I was teaching children, or even in a university, I would attempt to be much more than I feel I can be. I mean, I think in adult education you need life. And I try and provide life. You do not have to agree. You do not have to agree. I don’t like it when everyone finishes and said, “Oh, we all agree what you said.” Well, don’t. Challenge it. Stick by what you believe. And Carol, you’ve done just that. So thanks for that. And I mean that sincerely.

Q: Esther. “By ghettos you mean ones with walls around them, unlimited egress and entrances?”

A: No, no, no. I mean, I mean simply an area where particular subgroups of society live. So for example, the word is used in Britain to describe some inner cities in the north of England, which are entirely Islamic. That’s what I mean. And it may differ. The modern British use may differ from an American use. This is always another problem I face.

“William, another delightful…” Oh, thanks very much indeed. Oh, thank you, Rita. Bless you. You are always, you’re really my amanuensis. I don’t get a chance to say that word very often, but that’s what you are. Rita’s given my blog.

Q: “What has caused the recent huge increase in the disparity between the poor and middle class, and the ultra rich?”

A: Wow, Judith, I’m not an economist. I’m not sure how I can answer that. One of the issues is celebrity pays. So sports people are now pay sums of money beyond most of us understanding. I cannot believe what some, in Britain soccer players are paid, footballers are paid. And I guess you can’t in other countries, believe what baseball players are paid. And some of us can’t believe what people who appear on television as celebrities, I don’t know what the word means anymore, are paid. We find it all quite tricky. It isn’t the old disparity between land, land, land owning, and land owners, and the poor, but there is huge, part of this is taxation. That’s true. I can’t answer it, Judith. I think that’s something we should ask, if lockdown could provide us with an economist to speak on it, that would be great for all of us.

Erica. “My husband has read all four volumes of carol’s work on L.B.J., some of them twice, and is now awaiting with bated breath of the publication of volume five.” Only hopes Caro lives long enough to finish it. I know that is a problem. Yeah, it is a problem. It is an amazing effort. The only comparable effort is out of Sir Martin Gilbert with his biography of Churchill, that just devoting yourself to one person seems, or almost devoting your whole life to one person, seems to me an extraordinary thing to do.

Q: Monique and Danny. “The American dream may very well have been placed in deep freeze by the grown number of woke progressive ideology, and the ideas having flowed into the American body politic.”

A: Well, that’s interesting. Why? Because you use the word “deep freeze.” I buy that word that, that phrase deep freeze because I do not think it’s dead. But deep freeze is to…

Q: Abigail. “Jewish ideas of poverty without flower. There is no Torah. Freedom of want precedes spiritual and creative endeavours. Laws are providing for the poor that are always with us, allowing the corners to be, of fields, to be unharvested for the sake of the poor, and the ideals of all debts in every seventh year.”

A: Much of that Jewish philosophy entered Christianity through Protestantism, particularly evangelical Protestantism. And in my evangelical public school, you know, private school in Britain, we were always taught to take care of others poorer than ourselves in whatever way before we took care of ourselves. And I’ve always lived by that. But that is a, that’s is borrowed entirely from Jewish theology. It’s borrowed from what is the Christian Old Testament, the Torah. This is really important to evangelical Christians.

Q: Ah, Max, “You mentioned a decrease in the Johnson administration in poverty from 20 to 11%. Some of that was the result of the definition poverty, ah, by a Mollie Orshansky later awarded with the name of the poverty queen. She redefined the effect of children in the household, for example.

A: Max, that act is really important. In fact, the percentage has remained much the same afterwards. And one of the questions we face is the redefining of terms like poverty. We have faced that here in Britain too. And that is really an important point. That is such an important point. If I had a red pencil here, I would underline and score that you mentioned a decrease in the Johnson administration in poverty says Max, from 20% to 11%. Some of that was the result of definition of poverty by a Mollie Orshansky later awarded the name of "The Poverty Queen.” She redefined the effect of children in the household, for example. So yeah, if you study poverty as such as a social scientist, you have these problems of changing definitions.

Brexit says Ed plays a part in poverty and riches. Yes it has. That’s true in Britain, withdrawal from the EU. That’s true. I can’t argue against that. Esther. I think this, I think I’ve got down to the end.

“My son worked for a company that determined the salaries of business executives. They always wanted to have generous salaries. Plus they elect one another to the trustees of one of another’s firms where they are paid stipend for voting for perks for other members. They see nothing wrong with earning 150 times more than their employees. Yes, and I’m, when my college was privatised, I’m not setting myself up as a saint, but we agreed, the management team, that we will take the same percentage rise as everybody else. Now, of course, over a period of time, that would mean our salaries did increase, and we would have to do something about it. But the very first year, we gave everyone the same percentage increase when we were privatised, except for the cleaners and the caretakers whom we gave a considerable increase, because the management team felt that they had been very poorly treated by the local authority in London. So you can do something about these things.

When I left my job at the City Lit, in my last governor’s meeting, the question was asked, "How much are we going to offer to pay the, the incoming principal?” And the chair of governor said, “Well, this is what William earned, and we’re going to have to offer more than that, because no one but William would work for as low a figure as that.” I felt humiliated by that. No one had suggested I should have more, and I didn’t really, I didn’t really feel it was right anyhow. And the situation we were in, I don’t know. I’m not in business. I can’t answer. And I come from a certain background, even though I’m not evangelical Christian now. I come from that background. I understand those Puritan arguments.

So, I think that, well that sounds a bit serious to end on. I’ve got no second joke to end on. I’ll stop there. And thank you for listening. Thank you very much for your nice comments. And I shall be here next week talking about tricky Dicky, Richard Nixon. See you all there. Bye.