America's Second Crusade by William Henry Chamberlin

Author:William Henry Chamberlin
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780865977075
Publisher: Liberty Fund Inc.

Hopkins had been a prominent figure throughout the New Deal. During the war years he rose to a status of unique power as the President's chief confidential adviser. His influence with Roosevelt probably exceeded that of Colonel E. M. House with Wilson, if only because the President's infirmity made him more dependent on a companion who would sit with him in periods of relaxation.

A person familiar with the Roosevelt household believes that the beginning of Hopkins's role as supreme court favorite may be traced to the physical collapse of the President's secretary, Marguerite Le-Hand, who had previously filled the role of companion. Hopkins came to dinner at the White House, became ill (he was afflicted with chronic stomach trouble), and stayed on indefinitely. Mrs. Roosevelt once observed in her column that it had been a great sacrifice for Hopkins to live in the White House.

Anyone who stands on the dizzy pinnacle of power and responsibility occupied by a wartime president is apt to feel the need of relaxed confidential companionship. Hopkins supplied this requirement. His personal devotion to Roosevelt was absolute. He became the President's other self, able to anticipate how Roosevelt's mind would react to a given situation. Working without a definite post, he was able to take a mass of responsibility off the President's shoulders.

Despite his lack of higher education, Hopkins possessed a naturally keen and vigorous mind. Churchill, who could always clothe flattering appreciation in an attractive phrase, humorously proposed to give him a title: Lord Root of the Matter. His services in cutting through red tape and concentrating on essentials at important conferences are attested by such American and British military leaders as General Marshall and Sir John Dill. Hopkins did not spare himself and often took trips and exposed himself to exertions which imposed a severe strain on a feeble constitution.

But his defects in the very high and responsible position which he held far outweighed his merits. He was profoundly ignorant in the field of foreign affairs. The very eulogistic biography of Robert E. Sherwood does not reveal in Hopkins any serious knowledge of such subjects as history, politics, and diplomacy.

Hopkins was not a Communist or a fellow traveler. In fact, he seems to have held no political or economic philosophy of any kind except a belief, at once naive and cynical, that Franklin D. Roosevelt should be kept in office indefinitely by a liberal expenditure of public funds. It has been disputed whether Hopkins made the statement:

“We will tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect."

That this represented his working philosophy can scarcely be doubted. Hopkin's constant advocacy of appeasing the Soviet Union, of giving everything to Stalin and asking nothing in return, was not a result of fanatical devotion to Marxist and Leninist dogmas. It was rather a case of following the line of least resistance. After all, the entire theory on which the Second Crusade was based, especially the insistence on the complete crushing of Germany and Japan, made logical sense only on the assumption that Stalin would turn out to be a peace-loving democrat at heart.

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