It's easy to understand Lyndon Johnson's choice of phrasing. Presidents throughout history have known that nothing turns heads like a three-letter word: War. Want to push up poll numbers? Find a war. Want to quash dissent? One word: War.
So how would a president stir self-centered Americans into thinking it's right - yay, patriotic - to help the helpless? LBJ meant well. He declared war on poverty.Three decades later, it turns out to have been a miserable choice of words. War means conquest. War means either being the victor or the vanquished.
By the definition of either "war" or "poverty," the only war LBJ ever declared could not be won.
Because of the terms he used, opponents of antipoverty programs now can say the war was "lost," to the Great Society's utter discredit. Because of the war terms, all that America has done to help poor people can be dismissed.
For, you see, we declared war on poverty and, look, it's still there!
Take the word "war" away and Lyndon Johnson's programs did not fail. They made lives better for millions. They ameliorated the ravages of poverty. Ah, but just try urging a nation to "ameliorate the effects of poverty."
The indisputable fact is that the Great Society years meant steadily fewer poor people. That trend was reversed in the early '70s as some of Johnson's programs started taking hits. Nonetheless, during the Great Society years, America cut its poverty rate by nearly half, from 20 percent to 12 percent. By the 1990s, the rate was 15 percent - a net improvement still, but climbing again.
There is widespread misunderstanding of what comprised the Great Society. Paychecks for single moms? That dates back to the Depression. Franklin Roosevelt signed Aid to Dependent Children into law with the Social Security Act of 1935.
The Great Society antipoverty programs were holistic efforts to help poor people with their plight. Head Start, Medicaid, Medicare, Legal aid, vocational training, rehabilitation for the disabled and infant nutrition were not Band-Aids.
Of course some of LBJ's programs would be abused. Food stamps undoubtedly lead in the category. But was Johnson's effort worth the cost in sum? Unquestionably. Did we wipe out poverty? Hardly. The poor will always be with us.
A discussion of the war on poverty necessarily must contain reference to another war. In the summer of 1964, three weeks after Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act containing the framework for most of his anti-poverty efforts, reaction to events in the Gulf of Tonkin plunged the nation into an active combat role in Vietnam.
Vietnam rapidly became Johnson's fixation and Congress' excuse to be less bold in following through with the "war" on poverty. The undeclared war overseas sapped the declared war at home of funds.
It would be that way for much of the next quarter century, a shift from social ends to military ends. Conservatives railed against spending we couldn't afford for welfare moms, whose share of the federal pie started leveling off in 1970. Yet we could afford a military budget last year, a post-Cold War year, of $255 billion - more than half the discretionary pie.
The Great Society, Johnson told the country, is "where every man and woman has a chance for fulfillment annd prosperity and hope. This can be done."
It can be done - but not on war's terms.