“even sadder” than: Anne O’Hare McCormick, New York Times, 25 September and 30 September 1939.
“go down fighting”: Joseph Kennedy to FDR, 30 September 1939; Kennedy to Cordell Hull, 2 October 1939.
his friend Nancy Astor: Joseph Kennedy to Rose Kennedy, 2 October 1939, in Amanda Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 391. See also Kennedy Diary, 5 October 1939, ibid., 382–393.
“I agree with you in theory”: ER to Mrs. Barmore, 3 October 1939, in Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 584.
“We passed first”: My Day, 20 September 1939.
“two very kind”: My Day, 23 September 1939.
learn “various handicrafts”: My Day, 26 September 1939.
“The pool is one”: Ibid.
“voice on its natural pitch”: My Day, 29 September 1939.
“the most encouraging thing”: My Day, 2 October 1939.
“People ask me”: ER to Anna, 23 September 1939, Asbell, 112.
“It certainly is fun”: My Day, 4 October 1939.
“1. What are the goals of our schools?”: My Day, 4 October 1939.
Her son James: James Roosevelt filed for divorce from Betsey on 16 February 1940. On 7 October 1939, Betsey’s father, Dr. Harvey Cushing, died suddenly. See esp. Michael Bliss, Harvey Cusing: A Life in Surgery, and David Gratton, The Sisters: The Lives and Times of the Fabulous Cushing Sisters [Babe Mortimer Paley, Betsey R. Whitney, Minnie Astor Fosburgh].
“It seems to me that the unexpected”: My Day, 10 October 1939.
“in a great music center”: My Day, 10 October 1939.
“May you be spared”: Bernard Baruch to ER, 11 October 1939.
“very jittery about”: ER to Anna, 20 October 1939, in Asbell, 113; My Day, 13 October 1939.
“Committee has been running”: Ickes, Secret Diary, 3:33.
“under the pretense”: Ibid.
“an actual menace”: Ibid., 3:35.
relief to Chinese and Spanish: My Day, 12 October 1939.
“E.R. Many Happy Returns”: FDR to ER, 11 October 1939, in FDR: Personal Letters, 4:937.
“In the course of the last four months”: Einstein to FDR. See Robert Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns; Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima in America.
Poland’s “General-Government”: Gilbert, Second World War, 18–24.
“Extraordinary Pacification Program”: Hans Frank in Manchester, Last Lion, 2:591.
“so poor the Poles”: Astor Drayton Phillips Diary.
The “methods employed”: Ibid.
“captured in Hamburg”: Ibid.
Many Jews: Gilbert, Second World War, 22–24.
“I go, not without fear”: Caroline D. Phillips Diary, October–November 1939, esp. 17, 24–26, with gratitude to Kathleen Dalton.
“Dreadful reprisals by the Germans”: Ibid. Over 100,000 Polish soldiers and pilots escaped to Romania, and then to England—where they subsequently fought alongside British and Allied troops in Free Polish battalions; and a significant number of Polish destroyers and submarines “reached the Orkneys and joined the Royal Navy.” Manchester, Last Lion, 2:591.
“peasants working in the fields”: Caroline D. Phillips Diary, 17, 24–26, great gratitude to Kathleen Dalton.
his “original” observation: FDR to Hull, 2 October 1939, in FDR: Personal Letters, 4:930–31.
“the whole refugee problem”: Feingold, Politics of Rescue, 83.
“before the European war was over”: FDR to Sumner Welles, 4 December 1939, in FDR: Personal Letters, 4:963.
“to speak of small settlements”: FDR, statement on political refugees, 17 October 1939.
“lift a lamp”: Ibid.
“within a very few days”: Ickes, Secret Diary, 2:720.
“espionage and subversive propaganda”: Democratic Digest, October 1939, 19. Three other executive orders followed the outbreak of war. FDR increased troop strength among enlisted personnel—army, navy, Marine Corps, and National Guard; he created a three-hundred-mile offshore patrol perimeter and recommissioned 110 destroyers for “sea-going intelligence service”; and he created a State Department fund to help Americans “endangered in foreign countries” return to the United States.
knew “as individuals”: ER insisted that Bill Hinckley, Abbott Simon, and especially Joseph Cadden were not Communists.
was nothing “reprehensible”: ER, press conference, 10 October 1939, in Beasley, ER Press Conferences, 130–39.
“purge the Federal payroll”: “No Red Purge Order Yet,” New York Times, 28 September 1939.
“no evidence of un-American activities”: Democratic Digest, October 1939, New York Times, 14 September 1939.
Chapter Seven: Red Scare, Refugees, and Racism
“first allegiance”: On Browder, see ER to Clarence Gurewitz, 30 November 1939. For ER’s criticism of Browder, with Robert Minor’s lament that she was being “victimized by sinister reactionaries” who sought to drag the United States into war, see “Young Reds Defy . . . ,” New York Times, 25 November 1939.
“impossible to remain neutral”: ER to Jerome Davis, 27 September 1939, cf. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 594; ER to Irene Nelson, 12 September 1939.
“I told them that since”: TIR, 200.
“These attacks never hurt me”: Baruch, My Own Story, 1:48–52.
its most generous supporter: Clarence Pickett to Tommy, 12 January 1939, regarding contributions ER collected from Josephine Morgenthau ($150) and Mrs. George Backer [Dorothy Schiff] ($1,000) for the AYC, and ER’s check for $500. Tommy to Pickett, 24 June 1939, with ER’s check for $812, “earned on the last broadcast with Kate Smith.” ER to Pickett, 25 June 1939: “Mr. Baruch is ill . . . and I am wondering how my account stands? I think Mr. B would be much happier to give me for next year whatever we needed for the Arthurdale school.” ER to Pickett, 5 July 1939: “Will you please send $3000 at once to the AYC. . . . I do not want the balance . . . they need sent until I get a check from Mr. B for the school.” Pickett to ER, 8 September 1939: “We have just received $5,096.19 from Mr. Baruch. Do you still wish us to send the balance to the AYC?” ER to Pickett, 11 September 1939: “Yes.” 25 September 1939, Pickett to ER: “The additional $3500 was sent to Cadden, for the AYC.”
published their names, positions: “High Government Employees Linked to Reds,” New York Times, October 26, 1939.
“we fall far short”: “Liberty Plea Made by Mrs. Roosevelt,” New York Times, 25 October 1939.
“Pa agrees wholeheartedly”: ER to Anna, 20 and 29 October 1939, in Absell, 113.
“a little chapel”: My Day, 3 November 1939.
“A Typical Day”: ER “was every inch a queen herself,” and “completely captivated her audience.” Lasso, Texas State College for Women at Denton’s college paper, 3 November 1939. I am grateful to the faculty and administration for photos and information about ER’s visit and their splendid hospitality during my visit in 1999.
“congenial home”: My Day, 11 November 1939.
“Delighted all went well”: ER to FDR, 28 October 1939.
“would suck the war”: See esp. Hank Meijer, “Arthur Vandenberg and the Fight for Neutrality, 1939,” Michigan Historical Review (Fall 1990).
“war refugees in different”: My Day, 8 November 1939.
“It is of these Poles”: Ann Cardwell, aka (Mrs. Paul) Margaret L. Super, to ER, 26 October 1939.
“I was very glad to see”: My Day, 14 November 1939.
“would be glad to receive”: FDR to Hull, 19 October 1939, in FDR: Personal Letters, 4:941–42.
“In view of the fact”: FDR to Hull, 11 November 1939, in FDR: Personal Letters, 4:952.
“Mrs. Roosevelt and I would gladly”: FDR to King Leopold and FDR to Queen Wilhelmina, drafts, 11 November 1939, in FD
R: Personal Letters, 4:953.
“We were very glad”: Offie to LeHand, 15 November 1939, 9 December 1939, Glenn Horowitz Collection. William Shirer was told that Hitler planned for a five-year war, and was ready to release “a mass air attack on England,” or drive through Holland and Belgium, or through Switzerland. No small country was safe. Berlin Diary, 248.
“we will ever return”: My Day, 15 November 1939.
“the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw”: Shirer, Berlin Diary, 250.
“unchecked Nazism”: Morse, While Six Million Died, 242.
“Margaret has been [wonderful]”: Offie to LeHand, 9 December 1939.
“on the outside”: My Day, 16 and 17 October 1939.
“poise and patience”: William Mulvey, Jr., to ER, 15 November 1938.
“I think we are in grave danger”: ER to Mulvey, 26 November 1938.
“the brawls of busy little men”: Mulvey to ER, 19 September 1939.
“Most of the educated ones”: ER to Mulvey, 26 September 1939.
“to make the labor unions”: ER to Admiral Land, 27 August 1939.
“It is our conviction that”: Walter White to ER, 21 September 1939; ER to White, 26 September 1939.
their private grievances: For FDR and ER’s cuisine battles, see Henrietta Nesbitt, White House Diary, chapter II.
The cornerstone was laid: “Placed in Cornerstone,” New York Times, 20 November 1939.
the “very simple”: My Day, 21 November 1939.
“We had a funny time”: Tommy to Anna, ca. 22 November 1939, Anna Roosevelt Halsted Papers.
“I am thankful”: My Day, 23 November 1939.
“where the patients needing”: My Day, 25 November 1939. Racial divides did not disappear quickly in Warm Springs. When Clare Coss and I visited in 1996, we interviewed a retired teacher who had worked for decades in the school FDR built. She disparaged ER, “who cared so much more about Tuskegee and was always running off there when she was scheduled to be here. And then she built the Eleanor Roosevelt School for black children. . . . And it was built in brick too.”
“to introduce practical steps”: My Day, 25 November 1939. See also My Day, 23, 24, and 27 November 1939. On Rachel Davis DuBois, see David Levering Lewis, Du Bois 1919–1963, 189–90, 270–72; and Rachel Davis DuBois, All This and Something More: Pioneering in Intercultural Education; New York Times, “Educator Who Promoted Diversity,” 2 April 1993.
“the refugee problem from”: My Day, 30 November 1939.
“disgrace to their calling”: All quotes from the Churchman dinner are from New York Times.
“courage to keep on trying”: My Day, 1 December 1939.
“Franklin and I got particular”: TIR, 203.
“denounced the committee’s methods”: FDR, Elliott Roosevelt, “Lauds Two Years of Dies,” New York Times, 25 October 1939.
Starnes announced a lunch break: Charles Hurd, “ER Visits Dies Committee,” New York Times, 1 December 1939; Lash, Friend’s Memoir, 8–10.
He “chuckled, roared”: Lash, Friend’s Memoir, 11.
“One girl, Dolores”: On the Soviet invasion of Finland, see Gilbert, Second World War, 31; Werth, Russia at War; and Gellhorn’s Collier’s articles and correspondence with ER.
“a terrible thing”: My Day, 2 December 1939.
“down to earth”: Lash, Friend’s Memoir, 12.
“Don’t let her down”: Ibid., 15.
“piled high with mail”: Ibid., 10–12.
“All of us on the left”: Lash, Friend’s Memoir, 12–14.
“with a divided soul”: Ibid.
“Well, they can’t predict”: Lash, Love, Eleanor, 285.
“I took a pencil”: TIR, 202; My Day, 2 December 1939.
the “profit system”: New York Times, 2 December 1939.
“your great kindness”: Lash to ER, 6 December 1939.
“I appreciate your note”: ER to Lash, 11 December 1939.
“free speech for Reds”: New York Times, 4 December 1939.
Loyalty oaths for: New York Times, 26 October 1939.
“Please always be frank”: Baruch to ER, 14 December 1939; ER to Baruch, 2 December 1939, box 1485.
AFSC Humanitarian Award: New York Times, 5 December 1939; “Humanitarian Award Announced,” New York Times, 21 October 1939; 4 December 1939 in Philadelphia, presented by Curtis Bok, for ER’s “devoted and self-sharing efforts in the cause of humanity”; My Day, 6 December 1939.
“says that he does not”: ER to Lape, 2 and 6 December 1939, BWC, Arizona Collection.
“whoopee 1940 roundup”: Margaret Hart, Washington Sun, 10 December 1939; “Is He or Ain’t He? Gridiron Club Asks,” New York Times, 10 December 1939.
“we have developed a little”: My Day, 12 December 1939.
“I hope that every citizen”: My Day, 13 December 1939.
“joined the President today”: “Dies Report Scored by Mrs. R,” New York Times, 14 December 1939. ER had not mentioned Mathews’s report in her Bill of Rights column.
“We have before us”: “Warning Sounded,” New York Times, 14 December 1939.
“the domination of un-Americanism”: New York Times, 11 December 1939; New York Times, 15 December 1939.
the loss of “personal pride”: ER on WPA and Hollywood, My Day, 14, 15, 17, 18 December 1939.
“On the Problems of American Youth”: “Hollywood, ER at Town Hall,” New York Times, 17 December 1939; My Day, 18 December 1939.
“not the only one having troubles”: Lash, Friend’s Memoir, 19.
“I think my daughter”: My Day, 18 December 1939.
four generations of family: “I think this old house likes the sound of children’s voices. It is certainly an ideal place for children of every age to play in.” Besides eighty-five-year-old SDR, who enjoyed every event, four grandchildren and little Diana Hopkins romped and played: Anna Eleanor (Sistie); Curtis; baby John; and FDR III. Time was set aside for telephone visits with the other cousins, the children of James and Betsey Cushing, Sara and Kate (who were to be with their maternal grandmother, in New Haven); Ruth Chandler and Elliott Jr. at home in Fort Worth, and William Donner Roosevelt, in Philadelphia.
“I needed reassurance”: Hick to ER, l November 1939.
“It’s sweet of you”: ER to Hick, 30 November and 1 December 1939.
“funny not to have”: Lash, Love, Eleanor, 285.
“It has done more”: “Lauds Two Years of Dies,” New York Times, 25 October 1939.
her growing disappointment: My Day, 11 December 1939.
“deep respect and genuine”: My Day, 20 December 1939.
“Drink ye all of it”: My Day, 25 December 1939.
“Peace on earth”: “A Vision for Today,” New York Times, 24 December 1939.
“right in the middle”: My Day, 26 December 1939; “Four Generations Gather,” New York Times, 24 December 1939.
“Absolutely impossible for”: “First Lady Declines,” New York Times, 31 December 1939; New York Times, 20 December 1939.
“meet the needs”: “ER’s 1940 Wish, and School Tolerance Program,” New York Times, 31 December 1939.
Chapter Eight: The Politician and the Agitator: New Beginnings
“The New Year is a time”: My Day, 1 January 1940.
“The old year is foul”: Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 31 December 1939, 2:52.
“to destroy a free”: Caroline D. Phillips Diary, December 1939, courtesy Kathleen Dalton.
“Praise be, and”: Edna Gellhorn to ER, 2, 3, and 21 December 1939; ER to Edna Gellhorn, 12 December 1939, Martha Gellhorn Collection, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.
“dropped propaganda leaflets”: Gellhorn to Ernest Hemingway, 30 November 1939, in Caroline Moorehead, Letters of
Gellhorn, 77. See also Gellhorn, Face of War, 52ff. The Collier’s article is “Bombs from a Low Sky: Why the Finns Are Getting Angry,” Collier’s, January 27, 1940, 12–13ff.
“War in the arctic”: Gellhorn to Ernest Hemingway, 4 December 1939, in Moorehead, Letters of Gellhorn, 76–80. For Finland, see also Carl Marzani, We Can Be Friends, 136–40, and Martha Gellhorn, The Face of War.
In fact, the Russians: Werth, Russia at War, 66–70; Manchester, Last Lion, 2:598–99.
“to be anti-German”: Caroline D. Phillips Diary, December 1939, courtesy of Kathleen Dalton.
“efforts have saved”: Ibid.
“restore and ennoble”: Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, new advent.org/library. According to John Cornwell, the encyclical was a powerful propaganda effort. It was published in Italy, scattered by the French air force over Germany, and read widely. The Nazis reproduced it, substituting the word Germany for Poland, and air-dropped copies over Poland; see Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope, 233–34.
“Your Holiness: Because”: FDR to Pope Pius XII, 14 February, 1940, P1000.
“very fine letter”: Caroline D. Phillips Diary, courtesy of Kathleen Dalton.
“freedom of religion”: FDR to Taylor, 22 December 1939, in Taylor, Wartime Correspondence.
letter of gratitude: Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope, 230.
“to jam them all”: O. G. Villard, “The Latest Anti-Jewish Horror,” Nation, 30 December 1939, reprinted in Anthony Gronowicz, ed., Oswald Garrison Villard: The Dilemma of an Absolute Pacifist in Two World Wars, 572.
“Just in case you missed”: I am grateful to Cornelia Jane Strawser, for her mother’s letter with W. L. White’s 16 December article. Ruby Black to ER, 27 December 1939; Strawser to author, 6 April 2005.
“to spend the night”: FDR to William A. White, 14 December 1939, in FDR: Personal Letters, 4:967–68, cf. 1106.
“is indeed in peril”: Ibid.
a “breathtaking affair”: Lash, Friend’s Memoir, 25.
“Mrs. Roosevelt wondered”: Kathrine Kressmann Taylor’s Address Unknown (1938) was banned in Germany but became a film released by Columbia Pictures in 1944. The discussion is recounted in Lash, Friend’s Memoir, 25–26, 29–30.
Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3 Page 76
