Conversation 310-031

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Well, the letters I had better see, because I would like to add some personal notes on each one of them, see?

So that the letters can be published during the magazine.

Would you have those letters because they, you know, you said they had them prepared or whatever they were going, go down, you know, it's a funny thing to look at, you know.

Well, that's fine.

Or if you have copies of it.

I'll tell you what, I'll, you go ahead.

I'll update the, some 9% and just some random thoughts on what I particularly regarded on a very, on a personal note that you included in the letter, you see.

And what do you reckon with those notes in it?

Very nice.

I had a little trip home in Africa, and to convince them to go down there, it would be a bigger play than Rockford, but boy, I think it was going to be a great trip.

It was there, but it was going to be so bad.

Preparation for it.

It was decent.

It was going along with it.

It was a good person.

Yes, sir, the African man is very good.

You know, I find that he's... Henry doesn't like him because he's pro-African, but God damn it, he's a decent man.

No, he's a good man, sir.

I mean, I'm just kidding.

Oh, all right, fine.

Did he go in?

He used to go, and... Well, that's fine, that's fine.

Well, if Newsom's gone, she's a good shape.

Okay, well, first of all, I will hold you harder if you've got any reservations.

No, sir.

I wanted to ask you about the discussion about women.

What do you think we ought to do about women to build up our interest in women?

We have an awful lot of women appointed to very good ones.

I'm even considering now a woman economist to be appointed to the Council of Economic Advisors, which would be the first time in history.

That would be terrific.

But getting back to your other question, what should we do with the campaign?

I told you, Taylor, you talked about a talk show about...

The people she was with, she also mentioned that women, in most of the working campaigns, but the work that they do do is, you know, routine work, and they're lifting envelopes, saying God is important, things like that, and they're not really given any leadership.

participation role in campaigns.

So if you just make a woman who's appointed into a leadership role, who is that woman in a leadership role in a campaign?

Not just women, just really like...

have two co-chairmen or something.

Well, they're going to do that in most places, but I don't see that it's done in every state.

And if you put the woman, have a woman that's...

But only somebody qualified.

Articulate.

It can go on TV.

Yes.

I don't think you should do anything.

I don't think you need to do anything else with women, though.

I mean, in the sense that we're getting across the mess around what she's doing.

And I think other than that, and my question is... What I am concerned about is

I really think that the more fundamental point is this country needs to find an outlet for women.

The point, you know, that you make here, we educate women as well as men.

Now, what the hell are they going to do?

Many of them will, of course, of the, most of them, they'll have to be married with homemakers and the rest, but that takes half their time at most.

Now, what are they going to do with the other half of their time?

They'll go to the country club and play great to get drunk, or

They'll learn to play golf, or they'll sit around at home, or they'll mope, or they'll gossip, or so forth.

I think women, there's a tremendous asset here.

That's why the volunteer thing appeals to me.

Go ahead, Julie.

Volunteer jobs are not really meaningful, because they're usually on a part-time basis.

They aren't paid, and they don't take real skills.

No, no, no.

I'm a volunteer, not a campaigner.

But volunteer in terms of helping the retired.

It sounds great and it is great, but the thing you have to understand about people then,

Women as well as men, it's just a basic established now.

What does everyone want in life but recognition for it, right?

Now, women might work, or might have work, just as hard as men, in the home.

You know, a man goes out and has a job away from home, a woman has a job in the home.

Maybe they work an equal amount of hours a day at their job.

But men are going to take a remuneration, a monetary remuneration.

They can't.

But you know what I think?

People don't get respect for work unless they're paid.

Because we live in a society that is basically materialistic.

And what does it take to have material things but money?

So money is the key to respect and recognition.

If you don't have money, you don't have as much respect and recognition.

Even though you're working just as hard, and even what you're doing, at least it's important to what someone else is doing in that room, making money.

That's my point.

It's too bad.

We just want to get away with it.

But what I was going to say, too, is that I think the solution, I really do, is to have more half-day jobs.

We should create these jobs.

And pay people.

Right, what I mean is, we should have a system, there should be more opportunities like that in our country so that women can half the day work and the other half of the day be at home.

You know, another thing, for example, even here in the White House, here in the White House you can have day jobs, take the mail room.

Women can come over and write letters with me.

Yes, but all across the country, you see, and women can rotate, some who work in the afternoon and some who work in the morning, and then the schools for their kids will be worked out that way.

You know what I mean?

In other words, a woman doesn't mind leaving her child in a nursery for half a day, because it means she spends the time she gives her child for the rest of the day is good quality time, because she feels that she's done enough, and so she comes home and she devotes more time and effort to the kid in the time she's gone.

My question is this.

I don't know if it makes any sense or not, but are there enough dogs to go around with an obtained dog?

Yes.

There really are.

We have unemployment, and you can't have an influx of workers.

You have to give them.

You can't have that many.

The only volunteerism could be started in the lives of people who are doing something very, very serious.

Except for the fact that you seem to forget that very few people can afford to do their job.

That's why I had an interview with Fran Littlemore, and I was saying how great I thought the volunteerism was and all that, and she was saying, yes, but do you realize that most people can't afford to volunteer?

They're talking about what are we supposed to do if we can't afford to do that?

The Irish family is sitting there having a way.

What does she mean?

She can't afford it in terms?

No.

Correct.

She's going to give up time.

Money is the key.

But I can't get a job.

Money is the key to a lot of these things.

But all I'm saying is it seems to me that more half-day jobs could be created and the other half could be, and women, you know, on the road, you know, have a working afternoon, have a good morning.

No, I don't believe that.

It is good if they're qualified.

Yeah, right, I think it's good.

It's a hard thing, we just couldn't quite make it this far.

That's very understandable.

Huh?

It's very understandable.

There really wasn't one that was quite ready.

We cried like hell, and we were pointing from the lower levels, and if I say it this constantly, the economic advisors.

You see, that's a powerful group, there are only three men, and they advised President Obama, there's Herb Stein,

and Ezra Solomon now on the crack and through thing, so he did one big, you know, George Shultz was a cool one.

He got one out then, when unfortunately she's been out stacking internationally for a long time.

Who's this?

Our band's friend, Mary Roach?

Mary Roach, and she's really cool.

Cool.

That was too much.

Well, what I mean is, she's 65 and so forth, and this is a tough grind.