Sublime

Impatient with abstract ideas, he adroitly translated contentious concepts into phrases his audience could relate to—a preview of the mature Franklin D. Roosevelt. No one was better than FDR at simplifying a complex issue and translating it into words the average American could understand.

The General Electric job was offered in May or June of 1935. On June 26, 1935, with Johnson about to accept the offer, President Roosevelt announced the creation of a new governmental agency. It would be called the National Youth Administration, its annual budget would be $50 million—and it would be administered in each state by a state director. T

Her husband was a ‘practical politician,’ she later said. If other arguments failed, he was always sensitive to the ‘purely political’ argument.” Then some of his advisors—even Harry Hopkins and Aubrey Williams—warned him that the establishment of a youth agency in the government might boomerang politically by raising the cry that he was trying to

friends, enjoyed shirtsleeve poker sessions with journalists, and insisted on calling people by their first names as soon as he met them.* As president he made a point of addressing royalty by their given names: the king and queen of England were “George” and “Elizabeth”; the crown princess of the Netherlands was “Juliana.” Yet they always called h