Hissing Cousins

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Hissing Cousins Page 12

by Marc Peyser


  Chapter 4

  OTHER WOMEN

  Over the years, Eleanor would land in countless nerve-racking situations courtesy of Franklin’s career: speaking in front of large crowds, staring down threats to drop her civil rights activism, even shimmying through the occasional coal shaft to chat with miners. But few assignments made her as physically ill as the time she found herself perched atop the hundred-foot-high skeleton mast of the battleship Rhode Island. It was a crisp fall day in 1913, only a few months into Franklin’s new job as assistant secretary of the navy. The Roosevelts were tagging along with his boss, Josephus Daniels, who had invited the cabinet secretaries and their wives to observe target practice off the coast of the naval base in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The men boarded one of four dreadnoughts doing the firing; the wives were all left on the Rhode Island, which would sail about a mile behind the target ships. “My husband,” Eleanor said, “was delighted.” And she was almost instantly miserable. “To the others I imagine the day seemed calm; to me it seemed extremely rough. As the morning advanced I grew greener,” she said. “I dreaded disgracing my husband by being ill.”1

  FDR was born with sea legs. He drew a sailboat on the first letter he wrote (at age five) and got his own boat, the New Moon, when he was sixteen. By the time he was named assistant secretary, Franklin had collected nearly ten thousand books and pamphlets on naval matters and claimed to have read every volume except one (which, fortunately for its author, he never named).2 He adored being assistant secretary, and scampering around ships was one of his favorite parts of the job. The fact that his cousin Theodore Roosevelt held the office sixteen years before only made the job sweeter.

  To Eleanor the sea might just as well have been one giant shark tank. She’d been terrified of the water in general and ships in particular since she was two, when she and her parents had to be rescued from the ocean liner Britannic after it collided with another ship off the coast of New Jersey. Add to that the death-defying dives and assorted leaps into the Long Island Sound that she endured each summer with Uncle Ted’s fearless family and you get the makings of a white-knuckled landlubber.

  There was, however, one thing Eleanor hated more than being on the water: not completing a task, “disgracing” someone because of her own fears or perceived failures. She climbed aboard the Rhode Island because she felt she had to; a navy wife couldn’t succumb to seasickness, least of all in front of the wives of the most powerful men in the Wilson administration. But Eleanor was never content to just slide by doing the minimum.

  Shortly after the Rhode Island set out to sea, Mary Bryan, the wife of Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, announced she wasn’t interested in naval maneuvers—a reasonable assertion given that she was married to the country’s foremost pacifist. So she deposited herself in a chair and stayed there for the duration of the trip. Queasy ER could have easily followed Mrs. Bryan’s lead. Instead, she said she wanted to see every nook and cranny of the fifteen-thousand-ton Rhode Island. And when the navy chaperones asked if anyone would like to venture up the mast—which was the best place to observe the target practice—she was the only woman to raise her hand. She gamely changed into navy dungarees (blue work shirt, white T-shirt, and jeans), gritted her teeth, and ascended the scaffold. “None of the other women seemed willing to risk climbing the mast,” said Yates Stirling, the executive officer of the Rhode Island. “I saw Mrs. Roosevelt after the practice, covered with soot but radiantly enthusiastic over the experience.”3

  That grin-and-bear-it tour of the Rhode Island proved to be an apt introduction to her life in Washington. Still painfully shy and socially awkward, Eleanor was forced to quietly confront her demons nearly every day as the wife of an ambitious, high-profile official with a high-profile name. Her time in Albany had helped her grow more comfortable as a hostess, a good thing given that Franklin often came home for lunch with various Navy Department cohorts in tow. (Home being the four-story town house on N Street that belonged to Aunt Bye and happened to be Uncle Ted’s residence when he first landed in Washington.) Yet making small talk over sandwiches was nothing compared with surviving the genteel Washington torture known as calling.

  Calling was a decades-old ritual where women of a certain station made the rounds of the homes of women of similar standing, to introduce themselves via their calling cards. For a politician on the rise, there was no limit to the number of powerful men who might come in handy in his career, so there was no limit to the number of women his wife would attempt to meet and greet. Right after Franklin was appointed assistant secretary, Auntie Bye, an expert in Capitol comportment and the wife of an admiral to boot, told Eleanor that she must start calling as soon as possible. “I think my heart sank somewhat as she gave me careful instructions on my calls,” Eleanor wrote in 1937, “but I doubt if I registered as much dismay as did my little daughter-in-law Betsey the other day when I gave her the list of people she was supposed to call on. Her face dropped and she said, ‘I’m feeling very ill, Mama. I know I shall have to go to bed.’ ”4

  Eleanor herself had a good excuse to lie down; she was newly pregnant when she began her calls toward the end of 1913. But Eleanor Roosevelt never made excuses. Instead, she dutifully made her rounds, paying as many as thirty calls a day on the spouses of Washington’s elite and on a schedule as precise as a Swiss watch: Tuesdays were for members of the House, Thursdays for senators, and Fridays for the diplomatic corps. Women who didn’t fit into any category were simply squeezed in wherever there was room on the calendar.

  None of this guaranteed a meeting with the intended recipient, however. The caller sometimes sat in her car while her driver delivered his mistress’s card. The lady of the house might agree to a ten-minute chat, or she could arrange to meet in the future, via her own card returned at a later date. On the other hand, if she wanted to acknowledge the visitor but wouldn’t deign to meet her, she sent her own card back sealed in an envelope, the epistolary version of a corpse in a coffin. That was the sign to stay away, and it was one of many semaphore-like ways a card could convey an unspoken message. (For instance, folding down the upper right-hand corner meant that the eager caller had delivered the card to the door herself; folding down the lower left-hand corner meant she was paying a condolence call.)5 The system was as byzantine as it was unforgiving. “Nearly all the women at that time were the slaves of the Washington social system,” Eleanor said. “There were only two who broke loose.”6 One was the wife of a Massachusetts congressman. “The other woman,” Eleanor said, “was Alice Roosevelt.”7

  Alice did go calling—twice, at least. The first time came when the Tafts handed over the White House to the Wilsons in March 1913. Curiosity got the better of Alice, and she drove to her dearly departed former home to leave cards for Mrs. Wilson and her three daughters. “It was almost impossible to believe that those odd beings called Democrats were actually there in the offing about to take things over,” she said.8 A few days later, Mrs. Wilson cordially invited Alice over, though Alice was peeved by the First Lady’s “perfunctory and formal tea.”9

  The second documented call came a decade later, when Alice decided it was time to pay off some “social debts” and teamed up with Mary Borah, the wife of the Idaho senator William Borah. They drove around for the better part of an afternoon, calling on some thirty wives. But every time they stopped and Mrs. Borah readied one of her cards, Alice froze, telling her intrepid companion, “Oh I don’t think I’ll go in here. I’ll wait for you.” Though officially only the wife of an Ohio congressman, Alice knew that all of the thirty wives she avoided that day would have fallen all over themselves to get her into their parlors. By the end of the day, she hadn’t delivered a single card. “I hate calling,” Alice explained. “I just can’t do it.”10

  She didn’t need to. A woman made calls to blow hot air into her ballooning social circle, but Alice was already the most famous and sought-after woman in the city, if not the country. “Her house was the center of gaiety and of
interesting gatherings,” Eleanor wrote. “Everyone who came to Washington coveted an introduction to her.”11 Eleanor knew she could never compete, either with Alice’s star power or with her willingness to smash social convention like a bottle of champagne against the kaiser’s ship. “I was appalled by the independence and courage” of Alice, Eleanor said. “I was perfectly certain that I had nothing to offer of an individual nature and that my only chance of doing my duty as the wife of a public official was to do exactly as the majority of women were doing, perhaps to be a little more meticulous about it than some of the others were. Whatever I was asked to do must be done.”12

  —

  Fortunately for Eleanor, she didn’t have to worry much about Alice, at least right away. Her cousin was relegated to Cincinnati after Nick’s narrow loss in the 1912 election, plotting his comeback and dueling with her mother-in-law. Neither proved to be much of a challenge. Alice had learned to deal with Susan Longworth by now, and when she couldn’t, she simply left town, for either Sagamore Hill or somewhere farther afield. She and Nick went to the Panama Canal in 1913 (where Alice managed to scandalize the locals by smoking in public) and California in 1914. She also accompanied her father to Madrid in 1914 for her brother Kermit’s wedding to Belle Willard, the daughter of the American ambassador in Spain. Father and daughter then toured Paris and London together, but Alice stayed and traveled by herself for a few more weeks. She wanted to pal around with the kinds of people Theodore detested: rich ones. On June 28, 1914, she was visiting the Rothschilds as part of a “weekend jaunt to Paris, to take in the Grand Prix,” when news broke that Archduke Ferdinand had been assassinated in Sarajevo. “None of the people there who talked about it gave any sign of realizing that it was the match that touched off the fuse,” Alice said.13

  The war was still a distant European dustup come November, when Nick got his rematch against Representative Stanley Bowdle, the Democrat who had defeated him in the Wilson landslide of 1912. Ohioans were much more concerned about the threat of Prohibition and the economy, and Nick was swept into office, along with a wave of Republicans nationwide. “We were back once more in Washington, and great fun it was to be there again, to have our exile behind us,” Alice said.14

  Only this time, the Longworths carried some extra baggage. Alice might have ducked out from mother-in-law-plagued Cincinnati at every opportunity, but her absences were like termites gnawing at the foundation of her marriage. She and Nick papered over the holes with sweet letters filled with pet names and un-Alice-like sentimental goo. “Darling Bubby. I love you so very much. You are so much nicer and more attractive and more everything than anyone else in the world,” Alice wrote to him in September 1913 from Sagamore Hill, where she spent a week celebrating her brother Ted’s birthday.15 “I want my Bubbie back badly,” Nick replied. Maybe he did; he wrote that same line in two different letters. But one reason Nick stayed in Ohio that fall was because he was on crutches. He’d broken his foot while doing the turkey trot—with another woman. Nick didn’t exactly work hard to dispel his lover-boy image. Folks in Cincinnati were also dishing about the time Alice went for a walk in a local park and stumbled on Nick canoodling in the grass with yet another woman. “Hello, Mrs. Longworth,” the woman was rumored to have looked up and said, as if she’d just bumped into her next-door neighbor at the grocery store.16 Alice had always feared Nick’s wandering eye. On their return to Washington, she had to worry about his wandering hands, too.

  But by and large, Capitol Hill was as delighted to have the Longworths back as they were to be there. Even Nellie Taft’s sister, Lucy Laughlin, threw a formal tea for Alice. “Washington society gave a royal welcome to Mrs. Nicholas Longworth, formerly the popular Alice Roosevelt of the former regime. Mrs. Longworth arrived here with her husband, Representativeelect Longworth of Ohio,” reported the Washington Post. Almost always, Alice got top billing. At least the Post mentioned Nick before noting the return of Alice’s other companion, “her famous chow dog Manchu.”17

  Among the Washingtonians on hand to greet Alice was a new neighbor: her cousin Eleanor. For the first time since they were children, the cousins found themselves living in the same city—only one block apart, in fact (1733 N Street versus 1736 M Street). They ran in different social circles, separated by their party affiliations and family obligations, so they mostly saw each other at home. Dinner at the Longworths’ invariably featured fine wine, lively conversation, and the occasional violin recital from the host. “I wish I could tell you about Alice & Nick—having them here is so funny!” Eleanor wrote to Isabella Greenway. “I went to dine when F. was away the other night & one of the lady guests had a cocktail, 2 glasses of whiskey & soda & liqueurs & 15 cigarettes before I left at 10:15! It was a funny party but I’m glad I’m not quite so fashionable! Alice looks fairly well though & is very nice.”18 By comparison, the food and entertainment served up by Franklin and Eleanor seemed fairly wilted. “They would have rather fine and solemn little Sunday evenings where one was usually regaled with crown roast, very indifferent wine, and a good deal of knitting,” Alice remembered.19 Alice turned out to be far nicer in her own home than she was at Eleanor’s. “I remember going there once with my stepmother, who maintained that she could always tell when I was bored because I appeared to swell up. My eyes recede and my face becomes fat,” Alice said. “My stepmother said she thought I was going to lose my eyes that evening.”20

  Yet the women continued to see each other, if not daily, then at least far more than they had in years, at family get-togethers and the occasional society soiree. Despite their different temperaments, politics, and dinner menus, the cousins were knit together by a bond that wasn’t easily broken. A good deal of that came from Theodore, who managed to smother the family’s differences in an everlasting bear hug. “I am very anxious to see you and Franklin, whenever the chance offers, but I do not want to compromise Franklin by being with him just at this time,” Uncle Ted wrote to Eleanor in 1915, as debate about the war, and the partisan passions it fed, grew more intense. “I wish you would tell him that from all quarters I hear praise of the admirable work he has done for the Navy, under very difficult conditions. With love, Your affectionate Uncle.”21

  That affection played a role in quieting one of the family’s biggest, and strangest, crises to date. Though he’d apparently sworn off running for office, Teddy couldn’t help but throw his weight around when he saw an opportunity. On July 24, 1914, he published a long and angry op-ed piece endorsing the Republican Harvey Hinman for governor of New York. Roosevelt argued that, as a progressive, Hinman wouldn’t be under the thumb of political bosses “of the most obnoxious type.” Then he named the bosses: the Democrat Charles Murphy and the Republican William Barnes. The next day, Barnes sued Roosevelt for libel. (Murphy did not; he was apparently just happy to sit on the sidelines and watch the Republicans duke it out.)

  When the case finally came to trial in mid-1915, the ex-president’s supporters weren’t at all confident he would win. After all, he had to prove that Barnes controlled enough of the state’s political machinery to be considered a “boss” (the “obnoxious” part would presumably then go without saying). At first the former president appeared unsteady and occasionally confused on the stand, his once famously prodigious memory frequently failing him. He found his footing over time, but he knew he needed to pull out every stop. So two weeks into the trial he telegrammed for help from a friend who’d crossed swords with Barnes himself: FDR. Franklin had made his name in NewYork as an insurgent politician squabbling with the party machines, including Republicans such as Barnes. Perhaps even more important, FDR was a Democrat. It was one thing for a pugilistic Progressive Republican such as the former president to go after Barnes. Testimony from both sides of the aisle helped make Theodore’s comments seem less motivated by intra-party politics. “Just to prove that blood is thicker than politics,” reported the Baltimore Sun, “Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democratic Assistant Secretary of the Navy and ex-Democrat
ic State Senator, came all the way from Washington this morning to help Theodore Roosevelt, ex-President of the United States, in the $50,000 libel suit brought by William Barnes Jr.”22 A little more than two weeks after the testimony of TR’s “fifth cousin by blood, nephew by law” (as FDR proudly called himself on the stand), the Colonel won his case. Franklin cabled his congratulations, and Uncle Ted was quick to reply: “You have a right to congratulate me on the verdict, because you were a part of it. I shall never forget the capital way in which you gave your testimony and the impression upon the jury.” And then he scrawled a handwritten note: “Love to dearest Eleanor.”23

  —

  As happy as FDR was to connect himself to his cousin’s triumph, the world at large didn’t pay much attention. On May 7, 1915, two days after Franklin testified, a German U-boat trolling off the coast of Ireland torpedoed the British ocean liner Lusitania, killing 1,198 passengers, among them 123 Americans. It would take two more years before the United States joined the war and sent troops to Europe, but for FDR the changes came quickly. He had long championed the need to modernize the navy, and the Lusitania gave him the political muscle to gun the engines. Along with Louis Howe, the faithful consigliere he imported with him from Albany, Franklin scoured the world for battleship supplies, from tin, teak, and shellac to high-grade Chilean nitrate, for use in explosives.24 He also lobbied tirelessly to boost the navy’s budget to prepare for what he was sure was the gathering storm. It was a somewhat unorthodox, even presumptuous, mission for a mere assistant secretary—and exactly what cousin Theodore did anticipating the Spanish-American War some two decades earlier. After all, in 1916 Wilson campaigned on the slogan “He kept us out of war.” Secretary Josephus Daniels, who generally supported rebuilding the navy, was an avowed pacifist.* More than once, FDR tried to rattle the cages behind his bosses’ backs in hopes of expediting the military buildup, including one time when he waited until Daniels was on vacation to write a memo—one of Theodore’s favorite ploys when he was assistant secretary. The peeved secretary should probably have expected that kind of insubordination from his upstart protégé. Before Franklin was appointed, Daniels consulted with Elihu Root, who had served as President Roosevelt’s secretary of state, about the young man. “You know the Roosevelts, don’t you?” Root said. “Whenever a Roosevelt rides, he wishes to ride in front.”25

 

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