HARRY HOPKINS
(Harry Lloyd Hopkins)
When asked to explain why the U. S. had supplied $11 billion to the Soviet Union in lend-lease aid during World War II:
Reacting negatively to a relief plan that would be slow in getting started but that would be "very successful in the long run:"
Reacting to criticism of the Federal Arts Project:
Referring to his early Washington administrative experiences:
This early commitment to an audit trail was actually written by presidential assistant Louis McHenry Howe in making suggestions for the speech.
He had an old used desk, with an old worn rug on the floor. Harry Hopkins was the special assistant to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt through the two great American crises, the Great Depression and World War II. Although he was a social worker with not a shred of political experience, Hopkins was originally selected by the President to operate the national relief program in the midst of the Great Depression. Soon he had spent more money than any human being in history without a taint of scandal. He had never been elected nor was he even ratified by the Senate. He also paid virtually no attention to members of Congress as he became the most successful manager in American Government history. Soon he became FDR’s most important aid. Then he and his wife actually moved into the White House and lived there with the Roosevelts and was a favorite of not only FDR but Eleanor Roosevelt as well.
This was very consistent with the programmatic philosophy of his boss, FDR, who campaigned on no specific solutions to the Great Depression but promised to try things and of the did not work, try others. His predecessor, Hoover, would try nothing as most ideas contradicted his philosophy or was not favored by the wealthy business interests of the day.
Harry Lloyd Hopkins was the 8th Secretary of Commerce, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's closest advisor on foreign policy during World War II. He was one of the architects of the New Deal, especially the relief programs of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which he directed and built into the largest employer in the country. In World War II, he was Roosevelt's chief diplomatic troubleshooter and liaison with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. He supervised the $50 billion Lend-Lease program of military aid to the Allies.
