Public Image and Cultural Controversies
President John F. Kennedy re-established the Presidential Medal of Freedom on February 22, 1963. Two weeks after Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded it to Meany and 30 others on December 6, 1963. In granting the award, President Johnson said of Meany, "Citizen and national leader, in serving the cause of labor, he has greatly served the cause of his Nation and of freedom throughout the world."
Meany was well known as a cigar smoker, and appeared twice on the cover of TIME magazine with a cigar in his mouth. Meany stated that he had never walked a picket line, explaining that his union never needed to form a picket line, because the employers made no attempt to replace the workers.
Read more about this topic: George Meany
Famous quotes containing the words public, image and/or cultural:
“Nothing is so foolish, they say, as for a man to stand for office and woo the crowd to win its vote, buy its support with presents, court the applause of all those fools and feel self-satisfied when they cry their approval, and then in his hour of triumph to be carried round like an effigy for the public to stare at, and end up cast in bronze to stand in the market place.”
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—In New York City, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)