Perks Quotes
Describing his congressional colleagues use of the free mail privilege:
What makes this quotation so noteworthy is that it not only demonstrates good leadership in a poor country, but it is one of the very few examples of poor countries where the leaders have given up their own creature comforts, conveniences, perks and status symbols.
The Prime Minister of Turkey was visiting the White House and the two leaders were giving an outdoor press conference when a hard rain began. The Turkish Prime Minister had other meetings at the White House but had only one suit with him. The President noted that and asked the Marine Guard to provide an umbrella which they did and also brought one for the President. The Marines held the umbrellas while the press conference continued. Ms. Palin in one of her many attacks on the President in this quote chastised him for not holding his own umbrella—in her view the American way. Palin, known for her poor memory and disregard for facts, apparently forgotten that when she was a vice presidential candidate, she was photographed emerging from a plane in the rain while an assistant held the umbrella over her head.
There was rationing during World War II, and California Senator Sheridan Downey introduced a resolution calling on Senators to accept rationing restrictions and not use their position to evade the restrictions:
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.
Stickney was a maverick among Railroad executives of the time. He favored some regulation by the Federal Government and was opposed to the most flagrant abuses of the railroads.
Rush ran the hospitals for the Revolutionary Army and talked to many officers and enlisted men, and also observed much of the British military practices. This is a fascinating quotation because it discusses a problem of the early American Military which has been a constant throughout history: Generals and Admirals using soldiers and sailors as personal servants and retinue. While there have been Generals like Horatio Gates, Omar Bradley and Dwight D, Eisenhower and others of every era who did not take advantage of their power to obtain this personal aggrandizement, many have and continue to use their position to obtain personal perks.
A foreign company presented him with a red Ferrari:
