The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 92, July 1988 - April, 1989 Page: 388

388 Southwestern Historical Quarterly
portunities cited by Allen J. Matusow. While admitting Johnson's fail-
ures, Divine wants to credit the high aspirations and measure the real
achievements. He thus ends by placing LBJ under the protective image
of tragedy.
The substantive essays are innovative, solidly researched, and full of
insights. I have rarely read an anthology in which all the essays are of
such uniformly high quality. Those who dislike LBJ will lament a fre-
quent defensive tone, but none are apologetic. Instead, the authors
look at the Johnson administration largely from the inside, and thus
reflect the sympathies this perspective usually engenders.
Unfortunately, the assigned brevity of this review prohibits the de-
tailed plaudits, and the few criticisms, that I would like to make con-
cerning the individual essays. The studies encompass a wide range of
issues-a subtle, balanced inquiry into Johnson's response to the anti-
war movement (Charles Debenedetti); an account of Johnson's surpris-
ingly sophisticated use of technical economic advice (Donald F. Kettl); a
thoughtful contrast of Johnson's idealistic hopes for foreign aid with his
growing concerns over a negative balance of payments (Burton I. Kauf-
man); a remarkably thorough summary of environmental initiative in
the Johnson administration (Martin V. Melosi); a very helpful, quite de-
tailed analysis of Johnson's health policies (Clarence G. Lasby); a very
clear story of Johnson's long involvement with the space program (Rob-
ert A. Divine); and even an appreciative essay on Lady Bird Johnson's
beautification activities (Lewis L. Gould). In each case, these essays oc-
cupy a magical position between book-length monographs and inter-
pretive articles.
Vanderbilt University PAUL H. CONKIN
Railroads and Revolutions: The Story of Roy Hoard. ByJ. F. Hulse. (El Paso:
Mangan Books, 1986. Pp. 128. Preface, acknowledgments, map, il-
lustrations, index. $19.95.)
This slender volume serves as J. F. Hulse's personal tribute to an ex-
ceptional southwesterner-Roy Hoard, who rose from a position as a
boy telegrapher on the Cotton Belt Railway to the presidency of the
Nor-Oeste de Mexico Railroad and its subsidiaries, which together con-
trolled more than two and a half million acres of land in northern Mex-
ico during the early decades of the twentieth century. In presenting
this tribute, the author provides an enlightening and detailed descrip-
tion of the type of individual who helped lead the southwestern bor-
derlands into the modern industrial age.
Born in San Augustine, Texas, in 1886, the son of an "impecunious
ne'er-do-well" (p. 15), Hoard managed as a teenager to receive training