Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 912

Washington to do these great things and they would feel patriotic doing them. Then they'd want to win and that would be transferred to their communities. I think he was very alarmed about apathy, and I think with reason myself.

Before Pearl Harbor there was terrific apathy. If Pearl Harbor hadn't been so dramatic and handled insuch a dramatic way in its expression to the people, I think that terrific apathy might have continued. But I think even after that apathy broke out again. Everybody felt terribly after Pearl Harbor, but then we recovered and again there was apathy.

After all, I think people forget the influence of isolationists, who are really much more typical of the American way of thinking than the eastern seaboard international way of thinking is. Read these things that are being said today (1954) in local papers outside of Washington and New York about such matters. Look at this Congressman (B. Carroll Reece) who wants to get hold of the Foundations. He thinks they have been teaching internationalism in our schools and this has been subsidized by the Foundations. He's complaining because people have been brought into the colleges to give lectures on international problems. That's a state of mind that he's reflecting that is quite common. People are saying that all the time. They think we've been thinking too much about this internationalism. Somebody the other day who was being attacked for her views said that all she wanted





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help