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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 915

He always used to laugh about himself as a lender of money. He'd say, “I'm just a natural born gambler, Mr. President. That's I suppose why I got this job and I suppose that's why you keep me in this job. I'm one of the people in American who never has been afraid to take a risk. How are you going to do anything if you don't take a risk. Take enough of them and you won't lose money. Take two bad risks and you're lost, but take 500 risks, a fifth of them are bad, and you make money. That's the way you do it. You spread it out into enough areas so that you'll be all right.”

He was also very much in favor of the legislation which was known as the Home Owners Loan Corporation. At first he wanted to take that himself. He was in favor of the idea, but he thought it could be done better through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which is all right. That's the natural feeling of the bureaucrat - “I've got the machinery, men and idea. We could do it.” He certainly made no fuss and made no rumpus about its going somewhere else, and I think probably eventually would agree that that was a perfectly good idea for it to go to an independent agency. He predicted then that there would be no losses. I remember his saying, “Mr. President, there won't be any losses





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