But ER lobbied for them wherever she went, especially with those involved in the defense effort, including Dr. Harriet Elliott, the only woman on the National Defense Advisory Commission. She met with Aubrey Williams and other NYA officials on the ongoing problem of unemployment and the impact of “idle young people” on national defense. She approved the NYA’s “youth occupation trips” in which young people met with industrial and professional advisers and learned about opportunities in “electricity, baking, nursing and public health, printing, business machines, art and design, automobile mechanics, farming, aviation and needle trades.” She also argued for expanded youth training. U.S. defense, she insisted, must involve everybody.
But after her last summer meeting with Williams and NYA officials, she concluded, “I have yet to see anywhere a program or a statement which fully satisfies my own sense of what national defense really means.”
• • •
As the refugee tragedies mounted, ER’s work with the U.S. Committee for the Care of European Children expanded. In August she met with a delegation led by novelist and activist Dorothy Canfield Fisher, whose Children’s Crusade for Children had raised money for refugees through the work of U.S. schoolchildren. They raised “a considerable sum,” and in a deeply moving ceremony, “each American child handed a foreign child a check for the work which will be done either in their own country or for their nationals who are refugees in other countries.”
Hyde Park itself became a sanctuary for several families of royal refugees. On 20 August, Norway’s Princess Martha and her family arrived. The princess gave a brave speech predicting Hitler’s ultimate defeat. “Everyone who believes that our own philosophy is right,” ER noted, “will echo her words.”
Along with ER’s “Norwegian guests,” her cousin W. Forbes Morgan and three young nieces from Michigan arrived—Amy, Diana, and Janet Roosevelt; they were Hall’s daughters from his second marriage, to educator and pianist Dorothy Kemp Roosevelt. “A particularly happy time” at Hyde Park “included seven children and twelve grown-ups.” They hiked, rode horses, swam, went to a county fair and an amusement park.
ER’s ability to combine work with contemplation and relaxation was extraordinary. In mid-August Val-Kill hosted a gathering for New York’s upstate Democratic women. ER, Tommy, and Elinor Morgenthau expected four hundred, but twice as many arrived: “We could hardly be blamed for being a little appalled.” However, they collected “everything from everywhere,” and nobody went hungry. FDR and Henry Wallace turned up too, and ER concluded the countryside was “the proper setting” for them as well. They were both “more natural” and happier than she had seen them recently. “They went off with a party to picnic in a distant spot,” while she took another party to picnic “at my old home,” in Tivoli:
The house looks very much neglected. . . . Still, as we sat and ate our picnic supper, watching the sun go down behind the Catskill Mountains, I could not help feeling a sense of beauty and peace. It may be sad to return to the scene of one’s childhood and realize all the things that have happened in the intervening years to the people one loves; yet there is also something very sweet in remembering the good things which no sadness can wipe out.
For instance, into this house of adolescent life, with young aunts and uncles enjoying to the full a gay and fairly undisciplined existence I came with my brother after my mother’s death. It was natural for my grandmother . . . to take in her eldest daughter’s children. As I grow older, however, I appreciate more and more the spirit which made those young aunts and uncles make us, as children feel that our home was with them; that we had as much right to be there as they. There never was a question of what was thine or mine among us. That is something which makes for a deeper belief in the good of human nature and helps one through the rough spots all the rest of one’s life.
ER had been hurt in her life, but she had been saved by love—and the generosity of love. Now she identified with everyone who was hurt and endangered and sought to protect and comfort every suffering citizen of the world. A new spirit appeared to be rising to expand security, community, and democracy—a curious gift generated by the need to unite during tragic times. Several British leaders advocated more positive war aims. “When bombing begins on a large scale” and suffering mounts, Harold Nicolson wrote, “people will ask, ‘What are we fighting for?’” The answer was evident: Britain was fighting to avoid Hitler’s slavery, and in the end “we must have Free Trade and pooled resources” internationally; “Socialism [and] equality of opportunity” domestically. Nicolson was certain that “the old order has collapsed” and that Britain must “put forward a positive and revolutionary aim.” He even drafted a cabinet statement that called for the end of the empire, “a Federal structure for postwar Europe and increasingly Socialist measures at home.”
Subsequently, Bishop Atwood sent ER a note “by a young Englishman” affirming that “the nation has changed permanently and . . . return to our old grooves of thought is no longer possible.” There will be no “swing back to ‘business as usual’ . . . at the end of this war.” Historically, the young man continued, “apathy is man’s besetting sin and it was apathy—reluctance to change, etc.—which caused us to stray so far from the purposes of life” in recent years. He now believed we were approaching another “point in our evolution” where we can reconstruct the social order. ER agreed completely: new democratic steps were required everywhere.
One early September day the French journalist Geneviève Tabouis arrived for lunch and explained the fall of France to Americans. ER, impressed, conveyed her message:
There were too many people who had either a little money or a great deal, who cared more about what they had than about France, and who believed the Hitler propaganda that communism was something imminent and threatening because of demands being made by the workers. They were therefore almost willing to invite Mr. Hitler to control their country, in the hope . . . they would continue to retain all that they had without making any concessions to the workers. They never realized that these workers . . . had a right to share some of the things controlled by the little and big employer in shop or factory, mine or field.
Tabouis dazzled everyone around the table with a story of a man who owned a relatively big business. His daughter “slept with her jewels under her pillow [in fear] the workers would come and burn the factory when they heard of the French army’s collapse. The workers did nothing of the kind, but Mr. Hitler has taken over the factory.” Now the factory was gone, “and her country is gone too,” ER concluded:
There is a lesson for us in this tragedy. Our people must be one. On Labor Day we must remember that this nation is founded to do away with classes and special privilege; that employer and worker have the same interest, which is to see that everyone in this nation has a life worth living. Only thus can we be sure that Labor Day [and all other holidays] will continue to be celebrated.
• • •
Since the passage of the Smith Act in June 1940, the Red Scare had escalated, and anti-immigrant sentiment was on the rise. The act, which ER considered a dangerous threat to democracy, ordered “every non-citizen who is 14 years of age or older, and who has not been registered and finger-printed prior to his entry into the U.S., [to] report to the nearest post office or [other places] designated by the Commissioner of Immigration, to be fingerprinted and registered. The parents of noncitizen children under the age of 14 shall apply for . . . said children.” By mid-August, thousands of immigrants were in a panic, fearing deportation, criminal charges, or a return to the land of their origins—many of which no longer existed, having been swallowed up by the Nazi Reich.
The Smith Act legitimated the kinds of once-discredited “anti-sedition” activities that had so blighted America’s civil liberties record in previous eras. Although FDR said there was nothing new about tyranny, ER was horrified by the return of the Red Scare, and by the way its new incarnation had
quickly become race-based. Even as divided France fell to the Nazis, white supremacists were committing outrages under the cloak of anti-Communism.
Three New York journalists, for example, had been touring the South to film a documentary on “Negro education,” sponsored by “the Rockefeller-financed General Education Board.”* Although they had done nothing more than interview several people, they were arrested and jailed in Memphis “on suspicion of ‘fifth column’ activities.” The police chief, Will Lee, was certain they were subversives: “Why, they are a Communist set-up. One of them told me himself a Negro was as good as a white man. They’re down here stirring up the Negroes.” A fourth member of the group wired friends and relatives in New York and Washington for help, and they were freed after three days.
On 18 June 1940 Jane Sommerich, a New York neighbor, sent ER a newspaper clipping about the incident along with an irate letter:
At a time when the tragic fate of most of Continental Europe has shown the dangers that eat at democracy from within, we are being overtaken by thoughtless hysteria and bigotry in our own country. . . .
Under the guise of prosecuting ‘fifth columnists’ . . . American racists, Fascist in their psychology as the movements they ostensibly condemn, will take away the fundamental liberties of those of us most truly bound to democratic ideals. Such attacks on the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment must be pointed out and condemned with unceasing vigor!
Would you find space in your column and time on your broadcast to inveigh against the undemocratic and intolerant attitude expressed so bluntly by Chief Will Lee of the Memphis Police Department?
On 30 July New York congressman Vito Marcantonio denounced the Smith Act and its harassment of the foreign-born:
It is estimated that 3,500,000 noncitizens will have to submit to fingerprinting and registration. . . . Over 3,000,000 of these have lived in the United States 10 years or more. Thus in free America we will witness the Hitler-imitating spectacle of 3,500,000 men, women, and children . . . loyal, hardworking people in all walks of life—priests, nuns, rabbis, ministers, bricklayers, carpenters, and clerks—all of whom have been making a contribution to the greatness of America, being subjected to the criminal-like treatment of registration and fingerprinting.
ER’s mailbox was soon flooded by letters from longtime residents who were now “alien” noncitizens. She sought to calm their anguish and find help for those who asked for it, and she wrote many letters of advice. Although she deplored the narrowing of democracy, she trusted Robert Jackson’s Justice Department and had faith that her husband’s intent in signing the bill had not been to torment innocent people.
She advised her correspondents to follow the Smith Act rules. In a column marked by an unusually condescending tone, she sought to calm nervous correspondents “who are panicky about things they do not understand.” She had received an anonymous letter from a woman “who wanted some information, and who is evidently a badly frightened human being.” ER had no way to answer her directly, so she used her column to ask this woman and others in her situation to register under the Smith Act.
Several people have written me who have been here for a long time, have led good lives, and have become respected citizens in their communities. But, when they originally entered this country, they perhaps slipped up on some necessary observances for legal entry. Instead of being terrified now, it is better to go to the officials and tell the whole story. They are sure to have fair and understanding treatment. Their standing in the community will be in their favor, and they will certainly receive sympathetic assistance in straightening out their difficulties, whatever they may be.
The column was an anomaly. One can only conclude that her faith in FDR’s Justice Department was absolute.
Nevertheless, as the renewed Red Scare intensified in September, she was increasingly attacked for supporting her friends in the AYC. She resolved not to waver, even though most of the critics were allies who feared that she was endangering her husband’s reelection.
• • •
The fall of 1940 saw more dreadful bombing raids on London. From 7 September to 3 November, massive German bombardments blitzed the city. Bombs crashed relentlessly for 57 days and nights. The raids of 7 September dropped more than 335 tons, which blasted the docks and dockside communities. More than 448 Londoners died. The next day 200 bombers targeted London’s electric power stations and railway lines. The East End was devastated. The air war intensified; more German planes were shot down than British assault planes. As the Blitz continued, docks in Liverpool, Swansea, and Bristol were smashed; the dead and wounded multiplied. While homes burned and the city was reduced to rubble, Hitler gloated, “If eight million [residents] go crazy . . . catastrophe” would be certain.
On 15 September, 230 bombers and 700 fighters blitzed London as well as Southampton, Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool, and Manchester. Fifty-six German planes were shot down; Britain lost 23. “Through all the mayhem, suffering, and tragedy, Britons were steadfast.”
Churchill desperately needed destroyers for the Royal Navy and asked the United States to supply them. In early September, on an inspection tour of a war plant in Charleston, West Virginia, FDR announced that he had agreed to provide Britain with fifty obsolete, rusty World War I–era destroyers. In exchange, Britain would grant the United States ninety-nine-year leases to eight of its bases in North America, mostly in the Caribbean. Churchill was delighted with this Destroyers for Bases agreement, seeing it as a turning point in Anglo-American relations. The two countries were now “mixed up together . . . for mutual and general advantage.” It was an ongoing process, he exulted: “No one can stop it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on . . . inexorable, irresistible . . . to broader lands and better days.”
On 27 September, Germany, Italy, and Japan concluded a tripartite pact, extending the Axis to Asia. A week later Britain announced that it would reopen the Burma Road to China. Britain had previously closed this overland route from its Burmese colony in order to avoid war with Japan. The United States also came to the aid of China, with a new loan to support the government of Chiang Kai-shek.
ER might have considered that news a particularly welcome birthday present. In the summer, she had devoted a column to the grievous situation China faced as a result of the closing of the Burma Road, its major conduit for matériel and other supplies since Japan had cut off its ports. Japan had done to China, she feared, what might someday be done to the United States. “It is hard even to imagine such a thing, but the Continent of Europe under one dictator” has enormous economic and military power, and his alliance with Japan might well give us “some concern . . . for we might find ourselves between two fairly strong pincers.”
Prime Minister Churchill urged FDR to send a naval squadron to Singapore, thinking it might have a “deterrent effect upon a Japanese declaration of war upon us over the Burma Road opening.” Meanwhile members of FDR’s cabinet urged him to include oil and steel in the embargo against Japan, but the State Department opposed it.
The will of the American people was shifting rapidly. In July, 69 percent of the public had agreed that a military draft would ensure the nation’s defense. On 17 August presidential candidate Wendell Willkie endorsed the Burke-Wadsworth conscription bill. As the German bombings of Britain accelerated, Congress passed the bill, and FDR signed the Selective Training and Service Act into law on 16 September 1940.
On 12 October, in Dayton, Ohio, the president announced, “Our course is clear. Our decision is made. We will continue to pile up our defense and our armaments. We will continue to help those who resist aggression, and who now hold the aggressors far from our shores.” He hailed the bravery of British people, who “have shown how free people defend what they know to be right.” Democracy, when tested, was made of stern, commendable stuff. For one example, one night the dressing rooms of a London theater company were bom
bed. It had just opened a repertoire production of Shakespeare scenes. The next day it opened for its second performance. Headlines announced “Shakespeare beats Hitler.”
From eight o’clock on the evening of 15 October to five the next morning, German bombs pounded the city, starting 900 fires and killing more than 400 Londoners. The next week these air raids were compounded when Nazi submarines in “wolf packs” destroyed supply ships from Canada. One wolf pack attacked a convoy of 35 ships from Nova Scotia, sinking 20. The next day the same six submarines attacked a convoy of 49 ships from Halifax, sinking 12.
On 28 October Mussolini’s army invaded Greece from Italian bases in Albania. On 30 October FDR repeated his campaign promise that even though draft registration was now compulsory, American “boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” He did not mention a secret Anglo-American agreement signed on 24 October to equip and maintain ten British divisions with combat-ready U.S.-manufactured weapons. This agreement, Churchill believed, would enable Britain to resist and fight to victory.
Worried about her British friends, ER spent endless nights, generally until three a.m., working on her columns and her other writings and campaigning for her husband’s reelection.
• • •
Convinced that democracy’s survival depended on it, she was determined to move forward on the racial divide. She refused to let Willkie keep the lead on race matters. While she understood the need for FDR’s southern strategy, she believed he could do more to effect change. She routinely sent him bitter details of white supremacy, state by state, as NAACP president Walter White revealed them to her.
Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3 Page 41
