A few thoughts on happenings from 1965

The following info comes from:  www.newspaperarchive.com/1965

President Johnson proclaims his vision of a "Great Society" in his first State of the Union Message January 4 but U.S. bombers pound North Vietnamese targets February 7 and 8, retaliating against a National Liberation Front (NLF) attack on U.S. ground forces in South Vietnam (see 1964). Washington announces a general policy of bombing North Vietnam February 11 and President Johnson says, "The people of South Vietnam have chosen to resist [North Vietnamese aggression]. At their request the United States has taken its place beside them in this struggle."

Malcolm X is shot dead at age 39 February 21 at Harlem's Audubon Ballroom as he prepares to address a Sunday afternoon audience on the need for blacks and whites to coexist peacefully (see 1952). Three alleged assassins will be convicted next year of shooting the leader of the Organization of Afro-American Unity with a sawed-off shotgun, but it will never be established whether or not they were members of the Black Muslim sect with which Malcolm X broke last year.

A new Voting Rights Act signed into law by President Johnson August 10 abolishes literacy tests and other barriers used by many jurisdictions in the South to evade the provisions of last year's Civil Rights Act, authorizing federal intervention against discrimination at the polls; Sen. Everett M. Dirksen (R. Ill.) has played a key role in gaining congressional passage of the measure, and federal examiners begin registering black voters in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi despite violent demonstrations by Ku Klux Klan members and others who mount resistance to the new civil-rights laws.

President Johnson proclaims a "war on poverty" in his January 4 State of the Union message outlining his plans for a "Great Society;" he signs a $1.4 billion program of federal-state economic aid to Appalachia into law March 9, but U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia escalates, draining the U.S. economy.

New York City's welfare roll grows to 480,000. The number of welfare recipients will be 1.2 million by 1975, and the city's welfare agency will account for more than a quarter of the city's budget with half the welfare aid reimbursed by the federal government.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act signed into law by President Johnson April 11 initiates the most sweeping program of federal aid to education. Title 1 of the program authorizes $1.3 billion to school districts to hire remedial teachers for needy students. The Head Start program to prepare preschool children from low-income families begins May 18. Community Action Program director Jack T. Conway, 48, has arranged financing for an effort based on a concept that will be credited in part to Vanderbilt University psychologist Susan W. Gray, now 51, who worked with poor children in Murfreesboro, Tenn., to develop an Early Training Project, and to New York educator Martin Deutsch, now 40, and his wife, Cynthia, who started a pilot program 3 years ago for pre-schoolers from disadvantaged neighborhoods. Critics from both sides of the political spectrum will attack Head Start from the outset, charging either that it promotes political patronage or has little actual benefit for the poor, and although President Johnson will claim that it raises the IQs of disadvantaged children by 10 percent and will push an escalation of spending on the program in its first year from $18 million to $50 million to $150 million, a 1995 Department of Health and Human Services study will conclude that "in the long run, cognitive and socio-emotional test scores of former Head Start students do not remain superior to those of disadvantaged students who did not attend Head Start."

The Higher Education Act signed into law by President Johnson November 8 provides financial assistance to college students in the form of Basic Educational Opportunity Grants (they will be renamed Pell Grants in 1980 to honor education subcommittee chairman Sen. Claiborne Pell [R. R.I.]). The measure also establishes Guaranteed Student Loans (they will be renamed Stafford Loans in 1988 to honor Sen. Robert Stafford).

A U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is inaugurated September 9 pursuant to terms of a 1961 Omnibus Housing Act. President Johnson will name Washington, D.C.-born economist Robert C. (Clifton) Weaver, 57, to head the new department next year, and Weaver (who has headed the federal Housing and Home Finance Agency) will become the nation's first black cabinet member.

How are all these things working for America?  Looking at this list of actions helps give a bit of clarity to the failures of liberal policies.  The slow decline in so many areas of life becomes so very apparent.  Where are we now as a nation?  Have these programs helped us or hurt us?   In the short term, these ideas all seemed to be the “right” thing to do at the time.  In retrospect, how deep is the hole these ideas have created for America?

Return to conservative ideals.  Vote for conservative candidates.  Work for conservative causes.  Do these things now for the children.  The children are the future, they deserve to have at least something to work with.