Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

In our house we repeated the pattern of thousands of other homes. There were a few books and a lot of music. Our food and our furniture were no different from our neighbors'.

My grandfather, in 1848, had fled from Germany to find political freedom in the United States.

The study of music was a family interest.

I had advocated the establishment of a Negro industrial commission. I had gestured against the growth of monopoly power. I had introduced a few civil rights bills.

On the one hand we publicly pronounce the equality of all peoples; on the other hand, in our immigration laws, we embrace in practice these very theories we abhor and verbally condemn.

In March of 1933 we witnessed a revolution in manner, in mores, in the definition of government. What before had been black or white sprang alive with color.