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meeting. I never saw a better willed set of people. Even Ickes was good willed. Ickes was really a man of good will. He didn't suffer fools gladly, but he was a man of good will. He actually at that time understood and accepted the fact that Johnson had many virtues and that he was doing things that none of the rest of us could possibly have done. Ickes could not have put on the drive and have exercised the leadership over unwilling, doubtful, stick-in-the-mud people that Hugh Johnson was doing. Johnson was making then get out of their mud holes and get going. It was really very extraordinary what he was able to do. It was a kind of an excitement that he evoked. Ickes recognized that and he recognized that for the times that had an enormous, immeasurable value. He knew all of Johnson's weaknesses and thought him a most disorderly person. I don't think he would have trusted him with money, but what Johnson was doing was something that he had particular talent for, and I think that Ickes appreciated it. He did at the beginning certainly.

For that reason we all talked the problem over. I had become regarded as a special guardian of Johnson largely because he liked me and because he proclaimed everywhere how much he liked me. He told everyone what a fine person I was, and all that kind of thing. He gave me great publicity - some of it a little unwelcome, I may say.