The Man Who Most Believed in Himself

19 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by jrbenjamin in Biography, Politics

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Clinton Rossiter, FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Fred I. Greenstein, Grover Cleveland, Richard Neustadt, Theodore Roosevelt, William E. Leuchtenburg, Woodrow Wilson

“[Franklin] Roosevelt faced formidable challenges as president, but he never doubted that he would cope with them, for he believed that he belonged in the White House. He had sat on Grover Cleveland’s knee, cast his first vote for Uncle Teddy, and seen Woodrow Wilson at close range; but the office seemed peculiarly his almost as a birthright. As Richard Neustadt has observed: ‘Roosevelt, almost alone among our Presidents, had no conception of the office to live up to; he was it. His image of the office was himself-in-office.’ He loved the majesty of the position, relished its powers, and rejoiced in the opportunity it offered for achievement. ‘The essence of Roosevelt’s Presidency,’ Clinton Rossiter has written, ‘was his airy eagerness to meet the age head on. Thanks to his flair for drama, he acted as if never in all history had there been times like our own.’

A Washington reporter noted in 1933: ‘No signs of care are visible to his main visitors or at the press conferences. He is amiable, urbane and apparently untroubled. He appears to have a singularly fortunate faculty for not becoming flustered. Those who talk with him informally in the evenings report that he busies himself with his stamp collection, discussing in an illuminating fashion the affairs of state while he waves his shears in the air.’ Even after Roosevelt had gone through the trials of two terms of office, Time reported: ‘He has one priceless attribute: a knack of locking up his and the world’s worries in some secret mental compartment, and then enjoying himself to the top of his bent. This quality of survival, of physical toughness, of champagne ebullience is one key to the big man. Another key is this: no one has ever heard him admit that he cannot walk.”

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Pulled from William E. Leuchtenburg’s essay “The First Modern President,” which you’ll find in The American President or Fred I. Greenstein’s great collection Leadership in the Modern Presidency.

In context, that last sentence really does it. (Neustadt’s quote above is pulled from Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents, for my money one of the most entertaining reads on the art of Presidential leadership.)

Image: ScienceSource

Let Us Plant Our Trees This Afternoon

14 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by jrbenjamin in Politics, Speeches

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Daniel Webster, education, Hubert Lyautey, international relations, John F. Kennedy, Woodrow Wilson

“‘Every man,’ said Professor Woodrow Wilson, ‘sent out from a university should be a man of his nation as well as a man of his time.’

…Every great age is marked by innovation and daring–by the ability to meet unprecedented problems with intelligent solutions. In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power; for only by true understanding and steadfast judgment are we able to master the challenge of history.

If this is so, we must strive to acquire knowledge–and to apply it with wisdom. We must reject over-simplified theories of international life–the theory that American power is unlimited, or that the American mission is to remake the world in the American image. We must seize the vision of a free and diverse world–and shape our policies to speed progress toward a more flexible world order.

As we press forward on every front to realize a flexible world order, the role of the university becomes ever more important, both as a reservoir of ideas and as a repository of the long view of the shore dimly seen.

‘Knowledge is the great sun of the firmament,’ said Senator Daniel Webster. ‘Life and power are scattered with all its beams.’

In its light, we must think and act not only for the moment but for our time. I am reminded of the story of the great French Marshal Lyautey, who once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow-growing and would not reach maturity for a hundred years. The Marshal replied, ‘In that case, there is no time to lose, plant it this afternoon.’

Today a world of knowledge–a world of cooperation, a just and lasting peace–may be years away. But we have no time to lose. Let us plant our trees this afternoon.”

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From John F. Kennedy’s address at the University of California Berkley on March 23, 1962, which can be found in Ted Sorenson’s excellent collection Let the Word Go Forth: The Speeches, Statements, and Writings of John F. Kennedy 1947 to 1963.