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J . M. 3900 DAIGER CATHEDRAL AVENUE WASH I N G T O N . N.W D.C. December 24, 1936 Dear Mr. Eccles: As this is the last Christmas season that I shall be in Washington, I should not want it to pass without putting aside all the engraved and illuminated formality of greeting cards and expressing my sentiments to you in my own plain words. This is my forty-third Christmas and, since I have been "on my own" from the age of 13, my forty-third Christmas means that I have now been at work for 30 years, Of these 30 years, I count the past six or seven, during which I have spent most of my time close to the banking and financial scene in Washington, as more deeply interesting even than the years of my war-time work. I count the past three years, however, as the most useful of all—not for myself only in point of experience gained, of thinking stimulated, and of associations formed, but also in respect of the practical advancement of some of the purposes of the New Deal that I was greatly interested in and that you and Frank Walker and others put me in a position to advance. I should be less than candid if I did not say that my heart has been in all this work, that I have thoroughly enjoyed it, and that I should not have been willing to exchange it for any other that has been available to me since it began. Hence, if the choice were my own, and, what is equally important, if I had only myself to consider, I should seek the opportunity to stay in Washington, and I should particularly ask the opportunity to continue the association with you. That association has not been (though through no fault of yours) as close as I have J . M . DA 1 G E R 3900 CATHEDRAL AVENUE N . W . WASH I N G T O N . D .C. wished it to be. But it has been close enough to make me have a very high regard for the quality of thinking and of unselfish service that you have given to the affairs of government and to make me feel a very loyal attachment to you in carrying out the assignments that you have entrusted to me. When the discriminating histories and biographies of these times come to be written—I wish that I might live to have a hand in the writing— your policies and personality, I have no reason to doubt, will occupy an important place in many a vivid chapter. For the policies that you have stood for have been as bold, as vigorous, and as illuminating as the stress of these times has called for; whereas on the personal side you have fortunately been endowed with the restrained force and calm competence that few men possess, or at any rate retain, in the crucial stages of national affairs. Obviously, this is not the kind of Christmas message I could write to you if it were my intention or expectation to remain in Washington for more than the brief period that will be required to assist you with the matters which you discussed with me last Saturday. However, since the more I have seen of you these past three years the better I have likedyou, I should like to tell you so in all sincerity now that my work in Washington is definitely drawing to a close. Furthermore, I do not want to leave you in any doubt of my appreciation of these three years of association with you, and my appreciation also of your suggestion that it be continued for a while beyond the date last set for its termination. I do want to assure J . M. DAIGER 3900 C A T H E D R A L AVENUE WASHINGTON, N.W. D.C. - 5 - you, too, that when my plans for making the transition from Washington to New York have reached the point of decision, you will be the first person whose advice I shall seek before the decision is taken, and the first whose interest I shall hope to have if my future work is to be what I expect it to be. Now I come to my cordial greetings of the Christmas season, and to my earnest hope that the New Year will be for you and your family all that you would desire it to be. Yours sincerely, Hon. Marriner S. Eccles Shoreham Hotel Washington, D. C.
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