A ROOM OF OUR OWN

...Not only native Wisconsin sons and daughters, but the men and women w-ho come to work in the capitol or the university and who especially seek out work here because of the Progressive reputation of Wisconsin...

...seeting people through crises and long suffering in their personal lives...

...while others re-lire Into their shells, or leave...

...I don't see how we can escape the conclusion that ideas are attached to personalities, that the real leader is the instrument of their promotion or taking on of reality...

...This creates a common bond which reaches into the personal life as well...

...In my own work I am happy to accept the responsibility which comes to one married into a family of political leaders...

...But that is only part of the task...

...The leader becomes a symbol of his "cause" the two go hand in hand in the popular mind...

...The most amusing, irritating and yet pathetic, type of person who comes here is like the young man fresh from Harvard who perfectly seriously told us that he had been "brought up from childhood to be a leader...

...The responsibility for carrying out that ideal lies with each of us, and I feel it particularly in a period like this...

...Many feel that they have worked out the "answers" on paper, and their very excellence should be enough to gain support...

...Rather than thinking on oneself as a "leader" he simply sees a job to be done and goes ahead and accepts the day to day responsibilities en route...

...I am confident it can be done, in the spirit of the old words, "ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free...

...Then I say to myself, "Come on, old girl—get on top of all this...

...It is splendid to want to contribute, but why assume that he should begin at the top...

...My only feeling is of frightful inadequacy when I can't call by name men and women who feel close to "any LaFollette...

...It is going to take a lot of leaders, not only in the nation, the state or community, but in the home...

...From the outside, they had thought that Wisconsin was the greatest Progressive state in the union, and never realized that it is always "nip and tuck" between Progressive-ism and the forces of reaction which reach in and clutch power about half the time...

...So naturally when emergencies come, people turn to what they consider a source of strength...

...Often as not it is fatigue, and I feel like my childhood dream of carrying my baby sister over crags and jungles Just barely head of the lions who often got close enough to almost nip my heel...

...of course, is that the people who helped the old Senator in his long public life had given his cause real effort, often at considerable discomfort and even pain to themselves...

...This takes time and energy, often at the expense of other important matters...

...I am talking about working with people directly, what Mr...

...Having obse r v e d from close range many interesting personalities as they come up against the tougn proDiems ol politics...

...Earl Marx, Henry George, Edward Bellamy, and countless others...

...Just as vital Is the Job of translating these complicated ideas Into terms that the average voter can understand so that he (or she...

...I am not so "snooty" about it...

...I remember one of the staff at the executive office complaining, "can't anyone in Wisconsin go to the hospital without wanting Phil at the bed-aide...

...The basis for it...

...I love the front row of every rural meeting, old men who applaud at all the right places and come up afterward to tell me, "I never missed a LaFollette in 40 years...

...If they see these two you's...

...Gloom grows by what It feeds on...

...Doesn't leadership really mean the quality which makes people turn to you in all sorts of emergencies, public and private...

...Leadership in a democracy has a terrlffic Job today...

...Our economic life has become so complicated that it takes the best brains, training and hard work to understand and work out a solution for our problems...

...I always «atch them go through a painful period of readjustment...

...I have gathered for myself certain conclusions on the qualifications for leadership...

...Cynics love to laugh at the politician who kisses the babies and slaps the backs...

...This youth sincerely wanted to serve the state, to contribute to the general welfare of his country...

...Although there are many individuals who doubtless assume this technique for their own personal power...

...It may fool some people but not the mass...

...sitting up with the anxious or bereaved at all hours of the night and trying to be of some help and comfort...

...Some of these people can "take it...

...can make a decision thereon...

...How often I kick myself for not rising to a home problem as I should like to rise...

...I voted for Old Bob the first time he ran...

...I always come to hear Bob and Phil...

...You are trying to be two people, one you arc hiding within your brain, and the other one you show outside...

...It Is a fundamental human trait to want to have friends, to be understood, to feel significant...

...From my observation, the first qualification of real leadership is the ability to carry an endless mass of small details and yet be able to push through toward the goal...

...As I said to Phil, "All he lacks is a following...

...Pure brain power is not enough, nor years of "•education...

...I recall how amazed I was in my early years in the LaFollette family to find that political leadership Is so closely tied with personal service...

...This Is an aspect of leadership which too many ¦would-be leaders overlook or dismiss...

...You «ill come to have a great respect, yes, a veneration for our human possibilities...

...As I said to a young would-be leader recently, "Do you mind If I'm frank...

...That is the hard task of the political leader...

...Then with a chuckle and a twinkle of gallantry, "You tell Phil if he don't look out his Missus will make as good a speech as he does...

...They have the ability to look through to the essential YOU...

...I am not talking about the realm ot ideas where one can write a book which will influence thinking widely and long...

...You have splendid potentialities, and when you get to my advanced years you will appreciate more and more that so have others They may be different qualities, lesser or greater mixtures of talents, but the real job of a leader is lo give others an opportunity to make use of their own gifts...

...they will write you off as insincere...

...You feel you are a lot smarter than the people you want to work with...

...and his answer "No man can draw » free breath who does not share with other men a common and disinterested Ideal...

...Now of all times we must take a deep breath to carry us buoyantly along the path...

...It means getting doctors for people...

...and time and again the fates in the shape of a good friend will put into my hand a book such as the great French aviator's Exupery, >"ith his challenge to us all when he asks "What •makes a free man...

...It's not nearly so easy and romantic as it seems, and I .'.'.ways feel sorry for the people who have come here ;o "enjoy" a Progressive .umosphere but soon find themselves involved in contact...

...The unconscious arrogance of that attitude is the first obstacle between him and his "public...

...Life-Begins-At-Fbrty calls getting other people to do things...

...and also, of course, celebrating, be it birthdays or golden weddings...