Quotes by William A. Rusher - Page 1

Do you realize that at the moment we have Barry Goldwater fighting the Moral Majority, with The New York Times rooting for Goldwater? Times have changed.
William A. Rusher /
New York
Fighting
Majority
Times Have Changed
Copy Quote
You know, you can't always criticize without somebody being at the end of the stick. And she perhaps did not always grant credit to her opponents for their motives, any more than they granted credit to her for hers.
William A. Rusher /
Credit
Opponents
Sticks
Copy Quote
One of the most influential women of the 20th century? Well, that may be overdoing it. When one thinks of really influential women, my mind turns to Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, ... some of the true political leaders in their own right.
William A. Rusher /
Leader
Political
Thinking
Copy Quote
And if something came along that didn't sound so good, it perhaps didn't always get out there as it should have. But given the fact that she [Eleanor Roosevelt] had the help, nonetheless she knew how to use it. And she used it very effectively.
William A. Rusher /
Should Have
Sound
Use
Copy Quote
Eleanor Roosevelt had both her admirers and her detractors. And they admired her and detracted from her for many of the same reasons. People who liked her social activism, who thought that she was calling attention to problems that needed solving, were all for her.
William A. Rusher /
Attention
People
Social Activism
Copy Quote
And at the UN she took the advice - she had to take the advice - of the State Department and the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations. They keep our UN representatives on a very short leash. She did as she was told, and voted as she was told.
William A. Rusher /
Advice
Assistants
Organization
Copy Quote
This was another subject of criticism. She was being paid, as I recall, during the 1940's, what was then a princely sum, something like a dollar a word. I don't say that for the column, but for articles that she would write and things like that. And she made lots of speeches.
William A. Rusher /
Criticism
Dollars
Writing
Copy Quote
They seemed like a team. And I think it is fair to say that Roosevelt was the consummate politician and that Eleanor was the socially conscious activist. It gave them a nice combination of yang and yin, which they took advantage of. And I think it worked very well for them politically.
William A. Rusher /
Nice
Team
Thinking
Copy Quote
Well, at the time, we certainly regarded them [Elianor and Franklin Roosevelt] as partners. We did not know what has since come out about the difficulties of their marital life, or the problems that Franklin gave Eleanor and his mother gave Eleanor, in many respects. We didn't know much about that.
William A. Rusher /
Franklin
Mother
Problem
Copy Quote
I think the important thing to remember about the Japanese internment is the situation. We had been attacked. Maybe Roosevelt expected it - I rather think he did. I don't think he expected an attack on Pearl Harbor. I think he expected an attack on Southeast Asia. But we were attacked at Pearl Harbor
William A. Rusher /
Important
Pearls
Thinking
Copy Quote
Our Navy was very largely sunk. And we were at war in no time at all. I share, in retrospect, the distress we all share at the internment of the Japanese American citizens of the United States. It was not our finest hour. But the Supreme Court had it before it at the time, and justified it and upheld it.
William A. Rusher /
War
Navy
United States
Copy Quote
I have no idea why she quieted down on the subject. Maybe she was told to. I can imagine that it wasn't a very popular position in the Administration, with her own husband having ordered by executive order the internment. Maybe she was just told: "Look, we're in a war now. Turn off your social conscience."
William A. Rusher /
War
Husband
Order
Copy Quote
And he [Franklin Roosevelt] got the votes of every southern white voting state in the country and wouldn't have been elected president once, let alone four times, if he hadn't. Now, at the same time he acquired over the years a reputation for being sympathetic to blacks, and he got their votes, heaven knows.
William A. Rusher /
Country
White
Years
Copy Quote
These were in the days before anybody thought to criticize Congressmen, let alone first ladies, for making money on speeches. So Eleanor raked in quite a bit of cash that she may have put, for all I know, to good uses, or maybe not. I just don't know. But I don't think she was any great literary breakthrough.
William A. Rusher /
Cash
Thinking
Use
Copy Quote
I think she [Eleanor Roosevelt] never was called because she probably didn't know an awful lot. The whole burden of the criticism of her on the subject of Communism is naiveté, not participation. And again, being a public figure and our representative at the UN, there was nothing Communist about her, certainly.
William A. Rusher /
Awful
Criticism
Thinking
Copy Quote
Most of her participation in the United Nations, which [??] history, as I say, I don't take too seriously, because I know how that UN operation works, and it is essentially a facade in which the work is done back in Washington and in the capitals involved, and the people up front are just going through the motions.
William A. Rusher /
Done
Operations
People
Copy Quote
And Eleanor's husband was the man who did the interning. And I think they - Governor Warren, who was later to become such an impassioned Chief Justice on all sorts of human rights issues, was very big in the internment process. And I think that we simply sometimes tend not to understand or remember how people felt.
William A. Rusher /
Men
Husband
Thinking
Copy Quote
Well, I didn't read My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt very carefully. I was away during a lot of that, in the war and so on. She was not all that good a writer. She was a little bit on the banal side, and you know, what happened, and then this happened, and then that happened... But I will say this. She got very well paid for it.
William A. Rusher /
War
Littles
Sides
Copy Quote
In terms of legacy, I'm not sure that I see some great historic deposit there, as a result of her passing our way. She heightened the sense of social conscience in the New Deal generally. To her great credit, she was early on the side of the blacks in their fight for civil rights. She had a tendency to participate, which easily oozed over into meddlesomeness.
William A. Rusher /
Fighting
Legacy
Rights
Copy Quote
One has to say that they [Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt] were pioneering to some extent. They didn't know that some of the housing projects that they were putting up for the poor were going to turn into crack dens and rapists' bowers and things of that sort, which they have since become. But you can't always foresee the future. I'm sure their intentions were the best.
William A. Rusher /
Cracks
Franklin
Intention
Copy Quote
I think she [Eleanor Roosevelt] was a shrewd politician, and very good in public relations, although she had the usual media help in this. As a Republican and a conservative, I can say ruefully that the Democrats and the liberals tend to get it; that when she said something, it was put in a nice way and highlighted properly by the appropriate media, so that it sounded good.
William A. Rusher /
Media
Nice
Thinking
Copy Quote
These people looked Japanese, were originally Japanese, were numerous. We had no way of knowing to what extent they had been infiltrated. To their great credit, it seems not to have been very much at all. But I can understand why. And I rather respect Eleanor for standing out against the tide at that point. But it certainly was a tide. And I'm not going to say it was unjustified.
William A. Rusher /
Credit
Knowing
People
Copy Quote
Well, you have to remember that until 1948, when Hubert Humphrey and others forced the Democratic Party to adopt a new policy on civil rights, the Democratic Party was the party of the old solid South. All of the racists, all of the Cottonhead Smith types and so on were Democrats, allies of Franklin Roosevelt - because of their seniority - of all the major committees of the Congress.
William A. Rusher /
Allies
Party
Rights
Copy Quote
She was obviously useful at the UN because she had a public persona before she ever got there. She was well known. She was a spokeswoman for many important things. When she got there, what she said was paid attention to, undoubtedly much more than would have been if just Joe Blow had been made our representative to the United Nations. In that sense, I think it was useful to have her there.
William A. Rusher /
Blow
Important
Thinking
Copy Quote
I think the fact that she [Eleanor Roosevelt] was a woman probably in those days would have been an additional criticism, although first ladies by definition in those days were women. There's always been a problem and still is, about the role the first lady should play, of course. Everybody's seen it in Jackie Kennedy and Nancy Reagan and, heaven knows, Hillary Clinton. So the problem has not been solved.
William A. Rusher /
Heaven
Play
Thinking
Copy Quote
Westbrook Pegler suggested that in the period, I think the late 40s, when the investigations of Communism were opening up during the Cold War, that she ought to be called and required to testify about what she knew. I remember he said, "Would the world vanish in a blast of flame if this old woman were subpoenaed and compelled to tell what she knows about the Communist Party's activities in the United States?"
William A. Rusher /
War
Party
Thinking
Copy Quote
People who thought that she was busy going around trying to stir up difficulty where there was none or less than she imagined, were quite critical of her. She was, we must never forget, a public figure. And in democracies, public figures tend to attract criticism as well as praise. The most dangerous thing would be if anybody were regarded as above criticism. And Eleanor Roosevelt is, in recent years, getting there.
William A. Rusher /
Democracy
People
Years
Copy Quote
I don't think she ever had a single initiative at the United Nations that was not previously [vetted] by the people at the State Department, approved of, and authorized. She did manage to get around the world an awful lot, and find other parts of her vast slum project that needed repair. But I don't think that that was the main point. The main point was that she, after all, connoted Franklin Roosevelt, who by then was long dead, and had a certain prestige and power on that account.
William A. Rusher /
Long
People
Thinking
Copy Quote
That was a general impression that one got, that she [Eleanor Roosevelt] was always flitting around the country and descending on some place in the Ozarks that she decided was disadvantaged, and announcing that something had to be done. And she had a very active social conscience, which I think in general is to her credit, although it tended, as many people thought, to just be overdone to the point where it gave rise to this crack that she regarded the whole world as one vast slum project
William A. Rusher /
Country
Ozarks
Thinking
Copy Quote
I think that it is true that Eleanor Roosevelt, by being so active on that front, contributed to that impression very substantially. And it's to her credit that she was interested in this, let me say. But once again, I'm not sure the extent to which Roosevelt - I guess he did use her really, particularly on the civil rights front. No question about it, because she was well identified out there, and brought a good many blacks into the Administration, into the White House, into his presence and so on.
William A. Rusher /
Rights
Thinking
White
Copy Quote

Related Authors

Kim Kardashian
Television Personality
Tuesday, Oct 21, 1980
Thomas Aquinas
Priest
Tuesday, Jan 28, 1225
Wednesday, Mar 07, 1274
George Bernard Shaw
Playwright
Saturday, Jul 26, 1856
Thursday, Nov 02, 1950
Helen Keller
Author
Sunday, Jun 27, 1880
Saturday, Jun 01, 1968
Aldous Huxley
Writer
Thursday, Jul 26, 1894
Friday, Nov 22, 1963
Muhammad Ali
Professional Boxer
Saturday, Jan 17, 1942
Friday, Jun 03, 2016
Tyler, The Creator
Rapper
Wednesday, Mar 06, 1991
Groucho Marx
Comedian
Thursday, Oct 02, 1890
Friday, Aug 19, 1977
Martin Luther
Monk
Saturday, Nov 10, 1483
Monday, Feb 18, 1546
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Poet
Saturday, Aug 05, 1809
Thursday, Oct 06, 1892
Lucy Larcom
Poet
Friday, Mar 05, 1824
Monday, Apr 17, 1893
Niccolo Machiavelli
Historian
Monday, May 03, 1469
Tuesday, Jun 21, 1527
Carl Jung
Psychiatrist
Monday, Jul 26, 1875
Tuesday, Jun 06, 1961
Kobe Bryant
Basketball Player
Wednesday, Aug 23, 1978
Paulo Coelho
Lyricist
Sunday, Aug 24, 1947

View All Quotes

Top Authors

Niccolo Machiavelli
Historian
Monday, May 03, 1469
Tuesday, Jun 21, 1527
Robin Williams
Actor
Saturday, Jul 21, 1951
Monday, Aug 11, 2014
Vince Lombardi
Football Player
Wednesday, Jun 11, 1913
Thursday, Sep 03, 1970
Dolly Parton
Singer-Songwriter
Saturday, Jan 19, 1946
Henry David Thoreau
Author
Saturday, Jul 12, 1817
Tuesday, May 06, 1862
Napoleon Hill
Author
Friday, Oct 26, 1883
Sunday, Nov 08, 1970
Walt Disney
Animator
Thursday, Dec 05, 1901
Thursday, Dec 15, 1966
Muhammad Ali
Professional Boxer
Saturday, Jan 17, 1942
Friday, Jun 03, 2016
Stephen Hawking
Physicist
Thursday, Jan 08, 1942
Dr. Seuss
Writer
Wednesday, Mar 02, 1904
Tuesday, Sep 24, 1991
Edgar Allan Poe
Author
Thursday, Jan 19, 1809
Sunday, Oct 07, 1849
Jordan Peterson
Psychologist
Les Brown
Author
Saturday, Feb 17, 1945
John Muir
Author
Saturday, Apr 21, 1838
Thursday, Dec 24, 1914
George Carlin
Comedian
Wednesday, May 12, 1937
Sunday, Jun 22, 2008

View All Authors

William A. Rusher Quotes - Page 1

Picture Quotes Maker

Related Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page

Stay Connected

Picture Quotes Maker

Related Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page