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Ic ! i 3 i ¥ { 3 4 4 i a. 1em i aC Tee. : and i tion , j ake. 1 ble, 7. em- 4 new...” vet °° “T Zor- for i pa r un- vers ved ° utie = amt cit the xtrat. dao m- only inst ‘om- uble “f@~ reen APRIL 14,1947 | O light and off we went. When Jesse Jones objected to an interest rate as low as four percent, Roosevelt said to me, “Tell Jesse not to be a chiseler.” All ideas were grist for Roosevelt's mind—reciprocal-trade pacts, youth pro- jects, conservation camps, labor-relations boards, agricultural-assistance schemes. As the Supreme Court would invalidate them or as they became outmoded by the passage of a crisis, Franklin Roose- velt would pass on to more dynamic concepts. His enthusiasm for ideas con- tinued to the very end. He delighted in the term “United Nations,” which he coined. He zestfully discussed with Win- ston Charchill the creation of a new world currency the unit of which was to be a “dimo.” The human being HERE was a radiant warmth about Roosevelt's personality. It touched all who worked with him ‘directly, and reached further to touch the millions who voted for him term after term. He conducted his cabinet meetings with 2 spirit of joy and irreverence; sometimes I wonder . would have ‘been Gut Madame Secretary. . The Roosevelt charm was 2 tool of which he was fully aware; he used it consciously. He believed he could talk any man into loyalty, into continuing to work for him despite the bitterness of outside attacks. Sometimes he failed; more often he succeeded. In January, 1945, Madame Perkins was ready to re- sign her post as Secretary of Labor; she had cleaned out hee desk and wound up her affairs. But on inauguration day Franklin Roosevelt turned the full charm of his pezsonality on her and she stayed. He absorbed his ideas usually in con- versation, for he loved good talk. At the end of a day he delighted to sit down with a drink, surroundcd by sparkling talkers, and let conversation ripple around him. He loved to ramble himself—about his boyhood, about his travels abroad in his youth, about per- sonal adventures and speculations. From the tall of others Roosevelt would pick choice nuggets of information, well tured phrases, novel suggestions that © he would incorporate into his own speeches and thinking. His mind, like a curiosity shop, stored 1 up odd items—of fact, history and fo.<- lore. Its diversity astonished some of the more plodding and pedestrian politi- cians, who would stand wrapped in won- | der while Roosevelt aired his enormous fund of accumulated knowledge. His geniality and warmth knew no self-consciousness. I remember accom- panying him on a trip to the drought area in 1936. His entourage would stop its inspections from time to time to. talk to the stricken farmers and Roose- velt would speak to them in his polished and the Austrian “crisis TMat~Roose : Never for a moment ‘did he seem to suspect that this was not Harvard accent. the authentic idiom of the plains, nor was there ever a hint of patronizing or a trace of self-consciousness. And the farmers loved him for it. Perhaps the most startling of all the intimate qualities of his mind was his spectacular spatial memory. He could remember strange streets, bays, oceans, harbors, countrysides with almost total visual recall. During the war his knowl- edge of maps, distances and physical barriers was invaluable. (Usually, he was. right, but sometimes he was wrong.) He remembered the depths of waters on marine charts, the heights of mountains, the quality of roads and highways. He loved ‘to draw plans of buildings; he drew rough ones for the construction and placing of many a new building in Washington. Some he loved; others, like the Pentagon, he loathed. This quality he extended to his vision of America, as a country. No man saw the nation more clearly as a geographic whole than Roosevelt did. He thougat of it in terms of watersheds and rivers rather than in terms of states. He could catch great geophysical ideas quicker than any other man with whom I worked in the government. I remember bringing to him the original program of the soil- conservation districts. He grasped the idea instantly and the next day we had his letter, setting forth our ideas as to a state law, on its way to each of the 48 Governors. His conviction of destiny Reet always had with him, too, the special conviction of des- tiny—that his was a great age of history, and that he was born to act in and dominate these times. The world beyond America dosed ' 3 Pak Roosevelt gradually. For years he toy. a, 3 with the idea that Italy was frienc: ; that the fascists in Europe did not me: | te fight for kceps. It was only by - grees that the conviction grew on I °. that this was a struggle which m* eventually strike at American secu. and American destiny. And as. the c viction entered his thinking, it gradu: _ stole from him his lightheartedness. It was not until the spring of 1". realized that this was a time of war fF. might sweep America with it. LET. then on, with the conviction of strug’: to come, Roosevelt maneuvered deft! make ready his people. Hitler and solini were mad dogs susceptible to f¢} alone, but the American people v. unaware of it, It was true that Ro. velt did not force through appror: tions heavy cnough to meet the dan.4 that were clearly developing, that he * not stockpile sufficient materials to n inescapable demands. But Roosevelt 2 the politician's master sense of what = possible. He stcod between the rex’. of the outside world, whose danger." understood, and a people who lives: blithe ignorance of all these dang’ His great consideration was to cr- public opinion that would tolerate ¢: a minimum of preparedness. Free men in a free society Te war itself oppressed him. disliked the easy bandying abot. the word “victory” in government dr - At times he seemed moved by a fee that America might possibly fail in goals. “This is going to take everyt- we've got, and even then we may —' win,” he said soon after war broke Perhaps not even during the wat: Roosevelt evolve a complete philosc - He played by ear, conscious of al * conflicting elements he led, seckic’ reconcile them in each new crisis by ~| ideas and fresh thinking. I helieve any other approach to the problen his times would probably have fi His unending search for an ever *' equilibrium in men and affairs be the confines of a doctrinaire philos. | may, I think, in itself have beer.” approach toa philosophy for free * in a free society. - , 4 ball nina tal saci statement nor a . aS cstetage cates “ - ‘e - ' . . eee’ PN ee Oe OND Fes oe be on) ee Re, Bee eR RED Nt ea, be Steg . mee . . ees SET yt Babe rey MEE te Te yah a REG Te, 1 OE Soy : &