QOTD

'The fact that people are feeling a lack of leadership in him at present and are worried is perfectly natural. These things go in cycles. ... He says to tell you that Congress is accomplishing a great deal in spite of the fact that there is very little publicity on what they have done. ... The relief bill and [social] security bill are bound to go slowly because they are a new type of legislation. If he tried to force them down the committee's throat and did not give them time to argue them out, he would have an even more difficult congress to work with. ...

'Please say to everyone who tells you the President is not giving leadership that he is seeing the men constantly, and that he is working with them, but this is a democracy after all, and if he once started insisting on having his own way immediately, we should shortly find ourselves with a dictatorship and I would hardly think the country would like that any better than they do the delay.

'The ups and downs in peoples’ feelings, particularly on the liberal side, are an old, old story. The liberals always get discouraged when they do not see the measures they are interested in go through immediately. Considering the time we have had to work in the past for almost every slight improvement, I should think they might get over with it, but they never do.'

-- Eleanor Roosevelt to Molly Dawson of the Democratic National Committee in 1935

(Via puakev on Daily Kos, although I hunted down more of the quote via Google.)