Democratic Convention JOHNSON IS CHOSEN

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30531, 28 August 1964, Page 11

Democratic Convention JOHNSON IS CHOSEN

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —CopvrishO ATLANTIC CITY, August 27. The Democratic Party last night nominated President Lyndon Johnson to lead the Democrats in the November elections against Senator Barry Goldwater’s Republican Party. Mr Johnson’s nomination was by acclamation at the Democratic national convention in Atlantic City. His name was the only one put in nomination for the party’s Presidential candidacy.

Later, President Johnson named Senator Hubert Humphrey as his choice for a Vice-Presidential running-mate.

President Johnson came into his own in Atlantic City. From now on, he is the nominated leader of the Democratic Part y—not simply the man who took over from the murdered President Kennedy. His nomination opens up a new period of history for the Democratic Party. Although many of the men who

served President Kennedy still surround Mr Johnson, from now on it will be the Johnson, team and the Johnson ideas which will , dominate. . Already, President Johnson has had shaped a party platform of his own choosing with which he will meet the challenge of Senator Goldwater. He will run on the record of the last four years, almost wholly charted by President Kennedy but largely brought to fruition by himself, with major legislation such as the tax cut and the Civil Rights

Act approved by Congress under his urging. President Johnson has shown no inclination to deviate from the foreign policy programme followed by President Kennedy; and the party platform, . indeed, is largely an affirmation of maintaining the nation’s full strength while seeking new avenues ■ to peace and coexistence with the Communist world.

President Johnson wants to take advantage of what Mr Adlai Stevenson, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, yesterday described to visiting diplomats as “the economy of abundance in which the struggle for food is no longer the preoccupation of man’s life.” The “great society” will be one in which the President sees the United States—and the world—grasping the implications of modern science for the benefit of man: one in which wealth is more evenly distributed, and in which the 20 to 30 per cent of Americans who live on an inadequate standard of living will be brought up. Social Welfare The President will also continue to try to obtain the extended social welfare legislation sought by President Kennedy, such as medical care for the aged and greater education opportunities for a greater number of Americans. He is also expected to continue the planned deficit budgeting of the last three years, and the platform has promised to consider a review of excise taxes in the next fiscal year—as a followup .to this year’s income tax cut X-and to eliminate those that are obsolete.

The war on poverty—the only major part of the Administration’s programme which was not initiated by President Kennedy—will be pressed especially hard by President Johnson as a step towards the goal of creating what he describes as the “great society.”