Very early ALS from 20-year-old Lyndon B. Johnson, two pages, 8.5 x 11, Cotulla Public Schools letterhead (listing Johnson as director of debate), postmarked October 26, 1928. A handwritten letter of condolences sent to Mr. and Mrs. John Gipson, whose son, Roy, 25, had died in a car crash earlier that month. In full: “I was greatly shocked and saddened to learn of the death of your son, Roy. Each day I have wished to write you to express to you the deep regret I feel and the great sympathy I have for you in this crushing loss. I have been very busy in school and have not had time to write you before this. Roy was a fine, manly, young man, and he will be greatly missed by all who knew him. I have often thought how pleasant, kind, thoughtful and loyal we, boys, always found him to be. I extend to you the deepest sympathy in this sad hour.” In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope hand-addressed by Johnson, who crosses out “Office of Superintendent” and writes “Welhausen Principal.”
In 1928, after completing his freshman year in college, Lyndon Johnson took a teaching assignment in Cotulla, Texas, instructing 5th, 6th, and 7th graders at the Welhausen School, which largely provided education for the city’s impoverished Mexican-American population. Johnson held deep sympathy for his Hispanic students and the socioeconomic problems they faced, and he brought strict discipline into his classroom, organizing his young students to participate in debate, declamation, spelling bees, and physical education—opportunities they had never had before. His care and efforts were not unnoticed, and soon after arriving in Cotulla, Johnson was appointed school principal. LBJ’s experiences in Cotulla had a significant impact on his understanding of poverty, discrimination, and inequality, and shaped his later policies and efforts as President during the Civil Rights movement.
Autograph letters and notes by Lyndon B. Johnson are extremely rare, presidential or otherwise. According to the reference book From the President's Pen by Larry Vrzalik and Michael Minor, Johnson, whom they refer to as ‘The Surprising Modern Presidential Button Gwinnett,’ is very likely the rarest of all American Presidents across all holographic formats, in particular with handwritten letters. Case in point, this is only the fifth example of an LBJ ALS that RR Auction has ever offered.
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