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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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If somehow or other Woodrow Wilson could have managed to consult him, even though it was the kind of pretentious consultation that Franklin Roosevelt sometimes did with the opposition—not really meaning it, but saving their faces— things would have been all right. Henry Cabot Lodge has implied that if his grandfather's face could have been saved and his talents evoked on the right side, his career might have been different. Also, even after the die appeared to be cast, he could still have been brought around if Woodrow Wilson hadn't taken that occasion to make war on him. I don't know if that's so, but that's what Cabot Lodge has said.

At any rate, I had a certain sympathy for young Lodge when Lend Lease came up. He had to struggle with himself intellectually, emotionally and politically. I suppose he must have known for days that in the end he was going to come around, but he certainly didn't let anybody know. I'm not at all sure that perhaps he didn't decide himself until very close to the very end. He continued to talk, fight it off, postpone it and offer amendments. Then on the floor that day he made his complete turnabout. He got up and explained his vote. Silence fell upon the Senate. His fellow Republicans were astonished. Those who had been opposing it along with him were just speechless. Of course, the Democrats were equally astonished. It





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