Dear
Bill:1 I appreciate your taking the time to write me. Letters from old friends who are qualified by experience to comment critically on public matters are invaluable to one who, like myself, sometimes feels insulated from popular contact.
Let me hasten to say that your observation is, in my view, obviously correct. Anyone who accepts a position of responsibility must, by that very fact, exert the leadership required in that position. He must, of course, determine and employ the methods applicable to his particular situation.2
Clearly, there are different ways to try to be a leader. In my view, a fair, decent, and reasonable dealing with men, a reasonable recognition that views may diverge, a constant seeking for a high and strong ground on which to work together, is the best way to lead our country in the difficult times ahead of us. A living democracy needs diversity to keep it strong. For survival, it also needs to have the diversities brought together in a common purpose, so fair, so reasonable, and so appealing that all can rally to it.
I deplore and deprecate the table-pounding, name-calling methods that columnists so much love. This is not because of any failure to love a good fight; it merely represents my belief that such methods are normally futile.
Speaking from a more distinctly personal point of view, the present situation is, I think, without recent precedent in that the particular legislators who are most often opposing Administration views are of the majority party. People like to think of Mr. Roosevelt as a leader; in the situation where his own party was delighted to hear a daily excoriation of the opposite political party, his methods were adequate to his time and to the situation. As of today, every measure that we deem essential to the progress and welfare of America normally requires Democratic support in varying degrees.3 I think it is fair to say that, in this situation, only a leadership that is based on honesty of purpose, calmness and inexhaustible patience in conference and persuasion, and refusal to be diverted from basic principles can, in the long run, win out. I further believe that we must never lose sight of the ultimate objectives we are trying to attain. Immediate reaction is relatively unimportant--it is particularly unimportant if it affects only my own current standing in the popular polls. These are the principles by which I try to live. I regret that I so often fail.
I repeat--there has been no change in my convictions as to principle or my determination to serve the long-term good of all the people. I simply must be permitted to follow my own methods, because to adopt someone else's would be so unnatural as to create the conviction that I was acting falsely.4
With warm personal regard, and many, many thanks for your letter.5 Sincerely
