Ballot box 13, sealed forever
Nobody Likes Cheaters.
Once again, all of Johnson’s early character traits he exhibited early on. The stealing of the 1948 Senate election from Coke Stephenson wasn’t the first time he did that. In college, his group the White Stars (the Black Stars didn’t like him and wouldn’t let him join) so he rigged the student council elections to get his people into the choice spots. The Black Stars never knew what hit them as Johnson got himself and his people in charge of student government. Later, as a Congressional aide, he took the Little Congress, a social club of aides and turned it into a political organization to benefit himself. Stuffing the ballot boxes worked till he was called on it.
Means of Accent, the second book of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Caro documents in great detail the corrupting of the voting process that allowed the stealing of the 1948 election. For Johnson, it was his last chance to advance his political career towards his final goal as President, and it was hang fire or nothing. As Caro points out, Johnson’s crookedness shocked even the old-timers in how brazen and blatant it was, as if he had no higher authority to answer to.
It’s my favorite of the three books. It's a great contrast between the personalities. Coke, former Texas Governor and a man of honor and ethics from the old school, where a man’s word was his bond. And Lyndon, a man with no scruples about anything, whose word was whatever it meant to whomever he was talking to at the time. Robert Caro does a great job in chronicling the event, probably the best ever, in rich detail. One remarkable scene is when he places the reader in the dusty streets of Alice, Texas just after the election as Coke and former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer go to investigate the ballot boxes. Hamer, whose legendary career included gunfights killing 53 men and sported the 17 scars of those gun battles. (His most famous case was the ambush on Bonny and Clyde after a 102 day hunt.) A dangerous scene ensued with armed goons blocking the way to the bank where the election records were being kept. Marching straight ahead, Frank Hamer never broke his stride and they fell away in his wake. The goons attempted to enter after Coke, but big Frank stood in the doorway eyeing them down with his hand resting on his holstered gun, keeping them at bay, while Coke and his attorneys viewed the voter’s tally sheet and poll list. They found evidence of fraud but were never able to deliver on it in court. Johnson’s attorneys delayed the release of the aforementioned voter records and contents of ballot box 13, just long enough for Supreme Court Justice Black to pull the plug, fearing a violation of state’s rights issues. (Those records have since long disappeared as has ballot box 13; but not the photograph of it.) Johnson walks away with a steal.
A tragic story as the bad guys win. But there is a happy ending. Coke Stephenson retires to a quiet life of a Texas rancher, marries a lovely woman he loves dearly, and she gives him the delight of his life, a daughter. Lyndon Johnson gets his comeuppance in the 1960s as his Presidency is bogged down in an unpopular war, sapping the life out of his blood. He gets to the mountain top and finds it a lonely destination. The lapel grabbing, chest pointing, space invader can’t do a damn thing. Meanwhile, the 1948 theft is never far behind and follows him wherever he goes, adding to the public’s distrust of the man. It stares him in the face on the mountain top. He dies a crazy loon, the respect he so craved departed far from him.
Source
BOOK REVIEW: The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Accent to Power, Means of Assent, and The Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro
http://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2010/08/book-review-years-of-lyndon-johnson.html
