Bedridden LBJ wins his first election

As voters in ten Texas counties went to the polls on April 10, 1937 to pick a new congressman, the youngest candidate on the ballot spent the day in a hospital bed.

After working his way through college at San Marcos and teaching school in Houston, Lyndon Baines Johnson joined the staff of Rep. Richard Kleberg. Three years later, he returned to the Lone Star State as administrator of the National Youth Administration, a New Deal Program.

Although eager to launch his own elective career, Johnson refused to start at the bottom with a local or state office. The ambitious bureaucrat would settle for nothing less than a seat in the United States House of Representatives, which invincible incumbents in one-party Texas usually held for life.