Sublime

TR’s capacity on some occasions to stand for equality and for openness and in other contexts to argue that it was the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon peoples to rule the world was a particular example of a more universal American inconsistency.

In March 1933 the nation’s financial structure was in chaos and disarray. Roosevelt kept his head, quietly took charge, and gave marching orders to his subordinates. “This Nation asks for action, and action now,” he said, and he was as good as his word.1

The young idealist entered public service in the very year in which there came to crest a movement—Progressivism—that was based, to an extent greater perhaps than any other nationally successful American political movement, on an idealistic belief in man’s capacity to better himself through the democratic process.

Hayek: “Planning leads to dictatorship.” The purpose of government is to secure individual rights, little else. One sip of social welfare and free government dies.

The most remarkable thing, said Johnson afterward, was Roosevelt’s “readiness to assume responsibility and his taking that responsibility with a smile.”

He argued that leadership, even his own, was imperfect. A wise public, Roosevelt believed, would give a well-meaning, forward-leaning president the benefit of the doubt.

As a child Roosevelt collected stamps and developed a passionate interest in ornithology.

President Eisenhower numbered many titans of the oil industry among his friends. He was as indebted to the industry for past campaign contributions as was Johnson—and, as he prepared for his re-election campaign, he was as hopeful of future contributions. He was philosophically committed to reducing, not increasing, government regulation of