Becoming Madam Secretary

by Stephanie Dray

many people in America believe poverty is a moral problem having to do with sloth or some other sin we can blame on individuals. But I believe poverty in America is an economic problem that can be solved…and

the job is to investigate, agitate, and legislate

Investigate, agitate, legislate.

“Despise not the day of small things,”

“My dear girl, making a few enemies is how you know you’re doing things right.”

apathy was an actual danger to a nation that boasted of being a government both for the people and by the people.

people want to feel heard. Everybody wants to have that sense of belonging, of being on the inside. No one wants to be left out.

if Americans wanted to keep their freedom, they ought to don liberty caps like the Founding Fathers and resist the concentration of wealth into too few hands.

President Hoover wasn’t simply misinformed; he was lying.

This kind of dishonesty in such a dire crisis seemed to be an immoral abuse of power,

“The president of the United States has deceived people about employment. It is worse, not better. It’s a cruel deceit because people will believe it. When Father comes home and says he can’t get a job, Mother will be mad because the president is saying there are so many jobs to be had.” One of those stunned reporters said, “Miss Perkins, you have some nerve to call the president of the United States a liar.”

What had begun as a recession followed by a stock market crash was now a severe economic depression. Hoover said it would all be over in sixty days.

Some economists advised that we should simply let the system hit bottom no matter how long it took, “even if it means an entire generation dies out

These veterans fought for their country, and now they’re out of work with nowhere else to go, and they’re being shot at by their own government.

solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.” It

agents behaving like gangsters, roughing people up and raiding private homes and dance halls looking for immigrants to blackmail with threats of deportation if they didn’t pay protection money.

They’d even rounded up thousands of US citizens of Mexican descent and “repatriated” them across the border to “save jobs for white men.”

what difference does it make? Before anyone can get these cases to the Supreme Court, we will have won the victory.

I thought it laughable that he could convince the German people to vote away their own rights and let him do as he pleased. I’m not laughing now.”

the American experiment has repeatedly proved that people fleeing tyranny make grateful citizens—decent, hardworking, and productive. We’ve reaped tangible benefits by taking in scientists, artists, inventors, and entrepreneurs.

As my grandmother always said, When in doubt, do what’s right.

“That man talks like a natural-born dictator, and the president is enabling him.”

We’ve got to give our people a reason to believe in our democratic system so they’ll stand up for it. If we want to keep our American way of life

Social Security—which was expanded again and again to cover more Americans of every race and creed—is now so much a part of American psychology that I truly believe no politician, political party, or political group can possibly destroy it and maintain a democratic system.

this gives us hope that some of the things which may be suggested today, which may be regarded as controversial, will be accepted as part of the ordinary life of Americans in ten or twenty years. That’s what progress is.

the battle for democracy is never done. And ours is worth fighting for.