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he had none of that elbowing technique that most politicians had. He never seemed to be trying to push himself forward. He was modest about his views. Although he had been the Governor of a sovereign state and entitled to say what should be done about this and about that, he had no instinct to air his mind in an authoritative way. He stated what he thought and what he believed, or what his experience had been, but always in a way that didn't appear to be laying down the law that this was the thing to do and nothing else. There was nothing swollen about him. He was a very sober and a very good man. I was greatly impressed with him from the very beginning and never lost my sense of confidence in him.

I have no idea how well he ran the war Department - not the slightest. I haven't the remotest ideas what his relations were with the generals and the general hurly-burly that goes on in the War Department, or went on in the War Department in those days. I knew him very well, cooperated with him in other matters that came up, such as the CCC, for instance. He held my point of view with regard to public works and expressed himself very vigorously about it and very simply. He had had some experience of how you do public works in a time of unemployment. That, of course, came up later. It didn't come up that first night.

We didn't talk about public works that night. We