Quotes

Three more great quotes from Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932-1940 by William Leuchtenburg, which I finished reading yesterday. First, Justice Louis Brandeis, on Scandinavia's "middle way" (emulated by the New Deal) which accomodated both public and private institutions, and also a backhanded refutation of Communism:

"Why should anyone want to go to Russia when one can go to Denmark?"

Next, Harry Hopkins (FDR's WPA director and later Commerce Secretary) on the New Deal's spirit of innovation and non-ideological pragmatism:

"I am for experimenting...in various parts of the country, trying out schemes which are supported by reasonable people and see if they work. If they do not work, the world will not come to an end."

Lastly, Republican Senator Jim Watson of Indiana, expressing, to Wendell Willkie (the GOP presidential nominee) at the 1940 nominating convention, the conservatives' concern over the political ideology of Willkie, who had only recently left the Democratic Party:

"I don't mind the church converting a whore, but I don't want her to lead the choir the first night!"