THOMAS GARDINER CORCORAN

WASHINGTON, D. C.

1016 Investment Bldg.
1511 K St., N. W.

December 2, 1947

Mr. Matthew Josephson
Gaylordsville, Conn.

Dear Mr. Josephson:

I have been full of apologies to myself for the hurry in which I had to meet you the other day and what I missed by way of a leisurely talk with you.

My old friend in Switzerland is still hovering between life and death and I may have to jump over there myself before Christmas.

But I do hope to be able to be up in New York without being pressed beyond time to think during the week of December 8th.

Since it is so close to the holiday it may be that you are planning to come to New York during that week.

Would you let me know what your schedule is in the hope that we may get together.

Gaylordsville, Conn.

Dec. 25, 1947

Dear Mr. Corcoran:

I enjoyed our last meeting very much--but was
dashed to learn of your efforts to reach me and perhaps
rearrange our appointment. I regret you were put to so
much trouble.

Meanwhile talk with you caused me to do a heap of
thinking. I had an idea for a piece of writing that would
be rather general in its discussion of political ideas,
and perhaps "creative". But it won't involve you or anyone
in the least (except in my private knowledge as one of
several sources of inspiration.) Maybe a soft of Imaginary
Dialogue, without names or addresses.

After leaving you I went on talking or shadow-boxing
for some time before falling asleep. I found myself arguing
with you about the proposition "no ideology was a blessing."
It might be said that ideology was always under the surface;
actually in the tradition of a mild statism that began as far
back as the I.C.C., then the Pure Food Law under T.B., then the
various reform measures under Wilson. All this magnified under
F.D.B. in view of greater emergencies.

But my real question concerns the attempted purge
in the election campaign of 1938. To many it has appeared as
one of F.D.'s great blunders; to me one of his greatest concepts
and a noble enterprise. The Dem. Party was amorphous,
regionally divided by the Mason & Dixon line. Roosevelt must
have suffered from the inconvenience of this in carrying forward
a positive program, and so attempted to unify the party as
a liberal alignment against a loyal conservative opposition.
It would become what I used to call a "belief party" instead
of a professional-mistrage-seeking outfit. Others saw only
an imittigable will to greater power and dominance. This element
may certainly have been there also, but in this effort at Purge
there is also a grand design that might have had great effect
in clearing the atmosphere.

The problem of Tweedle-dum and Tweedledee in our
politics would have been met. That of two parties really cont-
tending only over who gets the property--the long complaint of
critics of our capitalist democracy--would have been faced squarely

Do you have any thoughts on the actual sources, impetus,
inner significance of the purge? If your work allows you a
little time perhaps you can jot down your own recollection or
theory and send it. Merely suggesting your attitude.

If I don't come to Washington in the next few weeks,
it will be in the early Spring, and then I hope for the pleasure
of seeing you again.

Sincerely yours,

THOMAS GARDINER CORCORAN

WASHINGTON, D. C.

February 2, 1948

Dear Mr. Josephson:

This is to acknowledge your letter of December 25th. I
had hoped that as you had suggested you might be in Washington in
the two or three weeks thereafter and waited to reply to your letter
with a conversation.

I'll be up in New York myself during the next ten days and
then I'm likely to be off to Europe and to Latin America for most of
the rest of the Spring.

The purge was a very complicated affair as all realistic
political pushes are - It had all gradations of motivation, local
from state campaign to state campaign, and on the national level
running the gamut from a real attempt to liberalize the Democratic
Party to Harry's ambitions to be candidate for President. In its
grander concept - which was to retrieve the court defeat to make a
third term possible - it had magnificent results but it is something
I can't put on paper short of ten pages. I'll have to talk it out
with you.

My Philistine observation that a lack of ideology may be
a blessing in American politics is a result of concentration of ex-
perience on having to get political results in concrete proposals
that implement and are the foundation of ideological success. My
function in the New Deal was to be its "operator": I emerged an
obsession with an ad hoc approach to the attainment of specific noble
results that has possibly ruined me as a philosopher.

My evening with you was delightful even though I was very
tired: I'm glad events did not permit rearranging the appointment.
I hope we'll have another one soon.