The Power of Elbow

In 1940, Johnson is still a junior congressman. He's trying to boss them around and they're not going to stand for it. But part of his genius was seeing the way to power than no one else saw. The oil people in Texas, the new wildcatters, had recently, very recently, struck it big in the East Texas pool. Brown and Root had a lot of money because of federal contracts, and wanted more. They needed the federal government. In October 1, 1940, he's still an unpopular junior congressman. Five weeks later, on election day, November 4, he was a man with real power on Capitol Hill.