Roosevelt was a man of his times, and what times they were!- chaotic, catastrophic, revolutionary, epochal- he was President during the greatest emer… - John Gunther

Mr. Gandhi, who is an incredible combination of Jesus Christ, Tammany Hall, and your father, is the greatest Indian since Buddha. Like Buddha, he will be worshiped as a god when he dies. Indeed, he is literally worshiped by thousands of his people. I have seen peasants kiss the sand his feet have trod. No more difficult or enigmatic character can easily be conceived. He is a slippery fellow. I mean no disrespect. But consider some of the contradictions, some of the puzzling points of contrast in his career and character. This man who is at once a saint and a politician, a prophet and a superb opportunist, defies ordinary categories. For instance, his great contribution to India was the theory and practice of non-violence or civil disobedience. But at the very time that non-violence was the deepest thing he believed in, he was supporting Britain in the World War. The concept of non-violence is a perfect example of Gandhi's familiar usage of moral weapons to achieve practical results, of his combination of spiritual and temporal powers. India, an unarmed state, could make a revolution only by non-violent means. Non-violence was a spiritual concept, but it made revolution practicable.

American scientists are ceaselessly attacking in every sphere the frontiers of the unknown; American economists and social engineers have at hand techniques that can forestall a new depression; there is no valid reason why the American people cannot work out an evolution in which freedom and security are combined. Creative good will, coherent large-minded planning, clarity of vision, a grasp of the realities of the nation as a whole, spring-mindedness, education and more education, a fixed national purpose to make out of contemporary civilization weapons that will cure, not kill- all this is possible. In a curious way it is earlier, not later, than we think. The fact that a third of the nation is ill-housed and ill-fed is, in simple fact, not so much a dishonor as a challenge. What Americans have to do is enlarge the dimensions of the democratic process. This country is, I once heard it put, "lousy with greatness"- with not only the greatest responsibilities but with the greatest opportunities ever known to man.

Fiorello H. LaGuardia is one of the most original, most useful, and most stimulating men American public life has ever known.