Eleanor Roosevelt dismisses Frank Lloyd Wright's verdict on America (Mike Wallace, 1957) #Shorts

In 1957, Eleanor Roosevelt was 73 years old, twelve years widowed, and still the most recognisable woman in America. Mike Wallace was 39 and had just started a show built on asking uncomfortable questions to people who weren't used to being asked them.

Frank Lloyd Wright had recently told Wallace that America was rotting — tail fins, Westerns, sex-drenched movies, alcoholism rising, mental institutions full. He believed the United States was in grave danger of declining as a civilisation.

Eleanor's answer was instructive. She didn't argue with Wright's list. She argued with his conclusion. The American people, she said, were not the problem. They had proven that already — in the Depression, in the war, in every crisis FDR had asked them to meet. She remembered when her husband said they needed 50,000 airplanes. People thought he was out of his mind. They built them.

The difference, she said, was that the people were told the reason why.

What she didn't argue with was the implication that 1957 lacked that kind of leadership. Wallace asked her directly. She said yes.

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Видео Eleanor Roosevelt dismisses Frank Lloyd Wright's verdict on America (Mike Wallace, 1957) #Shorts канала Dead Wrong History