July 08, 2011
"Instead of Twirling Our Thumbs We Have Rolled Up Our Sleeves"
Mark Thoma sends us to Ronald Dworkin quoting FDR:
How FDR Did It: For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred. I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.
A personal note: one day just before my eighth birthday in April 1945, my mother showed me the headline of a newspaper. "I want you to remember," she said, "that a great man died today." That great man was FDR. We were living in Greenwood, Mississippi.
Never before or since did she speak to me about another political figure.
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