Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 915

of a friend looking at a friend, I can say that he ought not to have done it, that he ought to have known better, that he ought to have stopped and asked, that he ought to have insisted upon a completer knowledge, mastered it himself, and then asked independent advice. But as a friend looking at him I know that he was always vulnerable because he was so easy. Anybody who wanted to deceive Roosevelt could do it. I think I have already said that I regarded it as the highest duty to tell him always when I was urging something on him, all the opposition and all the arguments against it, as well as all the political opposition - all the honorable arguments against it, as well as all the dishonorable and make-believe arguments against it, and the quality of the opposition to it. If you've decided in your own mind that something is a good thing to do, you're bound to paint it in its best colors. You can't help that. Your enthusiasm enters in. I always checked myself and never permitted myself not to fully inform him and underscore what the opposition was, what the arguments against it were. I know that's the reason he trusted me in matters that he needn't have trusted me in. That's why he asked me to find out certain things for him when he was





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help