Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3
Page 79
Women’s Committee for Mercy: Mercy Ship Bill and Yorkshire mothers letter, New York Times, 9 August 1940.
“We want American ships”: Foster Parent Plan for 32,250 children at the Children’s Sanctuary, New York Times, 22 September 1940. Long Committee meetings, My Day, 16 August 1940; ER to Eric Biddle, 21 September 1940; “Child Refugee Aid to Continue,” New York Times, 10 October 1940; Ruth Gage-Colby to author. In addition to rescue efforts, ER organized relief efforts for the 30,000 Belgian refugees in Britain, as well as Bundles for Britain. See New York Times, 18 August 1940.
“I used to pray”: My Day, 23 September 1940.
Reverend Martin Niemöller: Berenbaum, World Must Know, 40–41; Gilbert, Second World War, 685–86; and Gilbert, History of Twentieth Century, 17, 39–40, 174, 719–20. In 1941 Thomas Mann published Niemöller’s sermons, which Reinhold Niebuhr praised for their “thrilling note . . . of urgency,” despite their “grave differences” on key issues, according to Niebuhr’s daughter. Elizabeth Sifton, Serenity Prayer, 244–45.
The fictionalized version: “JR Gets British Film,” New York Times, 16 July 1940; “ER Filmed for Anti-Nazi Picture,” New York Times, 18 July 1940.
“achieves a moment”: Bosley Crowther, review of Pastor Hall, New York Times.
“I am glad to introduce”: Virtually lost to history, I was unable to find ER’s prologue, written in part by Robert Sherwood—until my friend WNYC archivist Andy Lancet put out an international call. We learned that for Toller’s centennial in Berlin in 1993, Jeanpaul Goergen had presented Pastor Hall and published a pamphlet, “Ernst Toller: Schallplatte, Rundfunk, Film,” which included ER’s words; and the producer Roy Boulting’s essay, 21–25. I am grateful to Jeanpaul Goergen; to Leo Enticknap, University of Leeds; and to David Pierce, Association of Moving Image Archivists.
“Not even the oldest”: New York Sunday Mirror, 22 September 1940, with gratitude to Peter Smith for this reference; Lash Diary, 21 September 1940, Lash Papers.
“It seemed strange”: My Day, 23 September 1940.
“applauded vigorously”: “President’s Mother Backs Anti–Nazi film,” New York Times, 3 October 1940.
Chapter Fourteen: “Defense Is Not a Matter of What You Get, But of What You Give”
“so many things”: ER, review of Lillian Wald: Neighbor and Crusader, in Survey Graphic (December 1938).
“I always fall”: My Day, 19 August 1940.
“spray of white dahlias”: “Thousands Mourn Lillian Wald,” New York Times, 5 September 1940.
“the most alarming situation”: Gertrude Baer’s WILPF circular letter and bulletins, from Geneva’s WILPF Archive, 1940–45. I am grateful to Felicity Hill for these extraordinary documents. See also Gertrude Bussey and Margaret Tims, WILPF, 1915–1965.
“American Women: Listen”: Lida Gustava Heymann, “From Europe to Women in America,” WILPF Archive.
Some objected to: My Day, 16 August 1940. On Burke-Wadsworth, see Smith, FDR, 464–66.
“conscientious objectors should”: My Day, 7 August 1940.
“No one hearing him”: My Day, 6 September 1940.
“may prove to be wrong”: My Day, 7 August 1940.
“business and government”: My Day, 31 July 1940.
“it is one thing”: My Day, 6 August 1940.
“national defense is a matter”: My Day, 28 August 1940.
and “morale” as: Lash, Friend’s Memoir, 154–56.
“youth occupation trips”: My Day, 12 August 1940. See also My Day, 2 August 1940.
“I have yet to see anywhere”: My Day, 28 August 1940. See also My Day, 20 August 1940.
Children’s Crusade for: My Day, 31 August 1940.
“Everyone who believes”: My Day, 30 August 1940. See also Smith, FDR, 466.
“a particularly happy time”: Diana R. Jaicks and Janet R. Katten remembered their time with Aunt Eleanor as entirely enchanting, to author.
“We could hardly be blamed”: My Day, 10 August 1940.
“When bombing begins”: Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 3 and 12 July 1940, 98–101.
“the nation has changed”: My Day, 3 September 1940.
“There were too many”: My Day, 2 September 1940.
“every non-citizen”: Alien Registration Act, Public Law 76-680.
“Why, they are”: “Three Making Negro Film Held as Fifth Columnists,” New York Herald Tribune, 18 June 1940.
“At a time when”: Jane Sommerich to ER, 18 June 1940, with Herald Tribune clip. See also Tommy to Sommerich, 24 June 1940; Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes, 92–98.
“It is estimated”: Marcantonio, I Vote My Conscience, 129–30. See also Congressional Record, 9 February 1940, 1345–46, and broadcast on 30 July, opposing Smith Act. I am grateful to Annette Rubinstein for these sources and many suggestions over time.
“Several people have”: My Day, 22 August 1940.
“If eight million”: Gilbert, Second World War, 125.
“mixed up together”: Gilbert, Finest Hour, 671 and 832. The president made this extraordinary swap on his own authority as commander in chief, bypassing Congress since opposition there was so great. See Smith, FDR, 470–72.
“It is hard even”: My Day, 24 July 1940.
“Our course is clear”: Gilbert, Second World War, 131.
“know it is not”: ER and Walter White’s speeches to 16 September 1940 banquet are in Proceedings of the First Biennial Convention of the Ladies’ Auxiliary, 40–45. I am grateful to Mindy Chateauvert for this document. On Harriet Pickens, Lash, Friend’s Memoir, 61, 122–24; Bill Pickens on his aunt’s Smith College honors, to BWC; ER and Bethune at Pullman confab, Chicago Defender, 28 September 1940.
“Here in our own country”: Ibid.
“forced him to reveal”: Sullivan, Lift Every Voice, 237–42.
“If Elbert Williams”: Pittsburgh Courier, 10 August 1940.
“mum as the Sphinx”: “Willkie Promises Everything,” Chicago Defender, 21 September 1940.
if there were more Nazis: Baltimore Afro-American, 17 February 1940.
“there is a growing”: ER to FDR, 16 September 1940 in Buckley, American Patriots, 263.
“an ally of the NAACP”: Ibid., 292.
“This is for”: White to ER, 17 September 1940; ER to FDR, 21 September 1940; ER serves 100, box 1584.
“The policy of the War”: FDR, press release, 9 October 1940.
“been proven satisfactory”: White, Randolph, and Hill to FDR, 10 October 1940.
“it is the policy of the”: “White House Blesses Jim Crow,” Crisis, November 1940, 350–57.
“one could not have”: Lash Diary, 11 August 1940, Lash Papers.
“statement on Negroes”: Harriet Pickens, 20 October 1940, Baltimore African-American; White to ER, 4, 7, and 12 October 1940. ER sent all to FDR. FDR to ER with Steve Early’s apology, 29 October 1940.
“I regret that”: General Davis, 375; FDR to White, Randolph, and Hill, 25 October 1940, in Crisis, November 1940, 350–57; Buckley, American Patriots, 63–65.
were “mainly Republicans”: Lash, Love, Eleanor, 316. See also Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 531.
“Friday afternoon, at”: My Day, 28 October 1940.
“constantly around headquarters”: Lash Diary, end of August–early September 1940, Lash Papers.
the “indefatigable women”: Democratic Digest, January 1941, 18, 21.
“someday we will reach”: My Day, 16 October 1940.
“will be intelligently”: FDR, press release on Selective Service Act, 16 September 1940, Grace Tully Papers.
“on her old friends”: Time, 30 September 1940.
she was “unruffled”: “Eleanor Buttons,” New York Times, 26 October 1940. See also My Day, 21 and 22 October
1940.
“he will not discuss”: Willkie, speech, 16 October 1940, Neal, Dark Horse, 154–60.
“The people have a right”: Lash, Roosevelt and Churchill, 236. See also Neal, ibid.
“loved a good fight”: FDR, speech in Philadelphia, 23 October 1940; My Day, 24 and 25 October 1940.
“I hope that everyone”: My Day, 25 October 1940.
“Martin, Barton and Fish!”: FDR, “Campaign Address at Madison Square Garden, New York,” 28 October 1940, in Zevin, Nothing to Fear, 233-42.
“It seemed to us”: My Day, 30 October 1940. See also Smith, FDR, 476.
“If anybody thinks”: Buckley, American Patriots, 265. See also Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 531–32.
“I have said this”: FDR, in Boston, 30 October 1940.
“The President really”: Kathleen Kennedy to Joseph Kennedy, 30 October 1940, in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 489.
“put 25 million”: Joseph Kennedy to Clare Boothe Luce. Luce asked what changed Joe’s mind, Life noted, which had saved FDR’s election. He told her FDR promised to support Joe Jr. for governor. See Neal, Dark Horse, 169.
was “very gracious”: Joseph Kennedy Diary, 27 October 1940, in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 481.
“It is true”: Joseph Kennedy, radio address, 29 October 1940, ibid., 482–89.
“We have all”: FDR to Joseph Kennedy, 29 October 1940, ibid., 489.
she wondered what: My Day, 1 November 1940.
“Today no one”: My Day, 2 November 1940.
Irita Van Doren: Neal, Dark Horse, 37–44.
These “guru letters”: Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, Wallace of Iowa, 273–75. See also Ruth Drayer. Nicholas and Helena Roerich.
“Both sides agreed”: Neal, Dark Horse, 144–45.
“soothsayers” that no: Lash, Love, Eleanor, 308.
“Let us show”: Democratic Digest, January 1914.
“It is the destiny”: FDR, Campaign Address at Cleveland, Ohio, 2 November 1940, in FDR, The American Way, 16–18, 24. See also www.presidency.ucsb .edu/ws/?pid=15893. He closed by saying, “Always the heart and soul of our country will be the heart and soul of the common man—the men and women who never have ceased to believe in democracy.”
speech, saying it “was grand”: ER to Anna, 3 November 1940, Asbell, 127; My Day, 4 November 1940.
“We in this nation”: FDR, Cleveland speech. See also Smith, FDR, 478–79.
“I would be grateful”: Walter White to ER, 4 November 1940; White, Man Called White, 198–99.
seemed “particularly bright”: My Day, 5 and 6 November 1940.
“comical silver donkey”: New York Times, 6 November 1940.
“confident of victory”: Lash, Friend’s Memoir, 187.
“We are facing”: Ibid., 192–94; ER to Anna, 15 November 1940, Asbell, 127. See also My Day, 7 November 1940.
Chapter Fifteen: “Heroism Is Always a Thrilling Thing”: The Politics of Race
“one of the clearest”: Charles Poore’s “Books of the Times,” New York Times, 2 November 1940; ER to Anna, 3 November 1940.
reading the “interesting”: My Day, 23 October 1940.
“She walks as”: Black, ER: Biography.
“the President stopped”: Ruby Black to ER, 1 November 1940.
“I felt you had done”: ER to RB, 13 November 1940.
“1. Her personality”: Ruby Black, “Can Eleanor Roosevelt Stop Wendell Willkie,” Look, 8 October 1940. I am grateful to Black’s daughter Cornelia Jane Strawser for this article and for many insights over the years, esp. “ER, Ruby Black and Me,” to author, 8 August 1999. See also Anne Cottrell Free, “Ruby Black,” ER Encyclopedia, 62–66.
“Anybody will tell”: Ruby Black, “How and Why ER Does It,” Democratic Digest, October–November 1940, 16, 51.
ever-expanding Black Cabinet: This group of Washington insiders and New Deal officials changed over time. It initially included Robert Vann (attorney, editor, and publisher of the Pittsburgh Courier, and special assistant to the attorney general, who supported Willkie but died shortly before the election), Judge William Hastie, Dr. Robert Weaver (housing administrator and the first black Harvard PhD in economics), Lawrence Oxley (social worker who became chief of Division of Negro Labor), and Dr. Frank Horne (physician and college president, Lena Horne’s uncle, who worked for several New Deal agencies, most notably the Federal Housing Administration).
“they appeared so often”: Peare, Bethune, 165.
“always went running”: West, Upstairs, 31–32.
“Together, as war needs”: In the coming years Bethune, with the support and assistance of ER, would expand Bethune-Cookman College. In 1941 she opened a new library, and in 1942 she added a Trades Building for National Defense, financed by NYA with new programs in mechanics, masonry, electricity, and engineering. Also in 1942 Bethune-Cookman became a four-year senior college. Eventually it would have 32 buildings on 52 acres to serve scores of thousands of U.S. and international students with 25 major degree programs for women and men, in teaching, nursing, business, engineering, and law, among others. See Gerda Lerner, ed., Black Women in America, on Mary McLeod Bethune, Bethune-Cookman College, and National Council of Negro Women. I am grateful to Harry Gurney for the current works of Bethune-Cookman College.
“I’m willing to spend”: “Kennedy Says Democracy All Done in Britain, Maybe Here,” Boston Globe, 9 November 1940. For Kennedy’s 6 November interview with FDR, see Amanda Smith, ed., 491–92. Asked specifically about ER, Kennedy called her a “wonderful woman. And marvelously helpful and full of sympathy.” In Washington and London she was always after him “to take care of the poor little nobodies who hadn’t any influence. . . . She’s always sending me a note to have some little Susie Glotz to tea at the embassy.”
“threw the fear of God”: Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt, 226. Douglas Fairbanks to FDR, in Will Swift, The Roosevelts and the Royals, 227; Frankfurter to FDR on Kennedy’s words, 11 November 1940, in Max Freedman, Roosevelt and Frankfurter, 559–60. See also Smith, FDR, 491–92.
“bidding to ask”: MacAdams, Ben Hecht, 225.
“we thought were”: John Boettiger to FDR, in Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt, 228.
“is out to do”: Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt, 229, 302. FDR and Kennedy met again at the White House on 1 December, when the ambassador’s resignation was officially and cordially accepted and then announced. Over the years, reports of a bitter break, misremembered by ER as reported by Gore Vidal, have been repeated in many books. Until a new ambassador could be appointed, FDR dispatched his two trusted emissaries, Wendell Willkie and Harry Hopkins, to London. By February, at Esther Lape’s suggestion, John Gilbert Winant was named the new ambassador. See Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 495–97.
“there was not a sign”: Ickes, Secret Diary, December 1940, 3:386–87.
“has always been”: ER to Alice Huntington, 12 December 1940, ER box 1555/100.
“we have been on this”: Tommy to Anna, 18 November 1940.
“She fought with everyone”: Tommy to Anna, 18 November 1940.
the largest turnout by women: In some states women voters had “actually outnumbered the men”: Illinois, 56 percent; California, 54 percent; Montana, 53 percent; Missouri, 51 percent. ER’s team was particularly satisfied that in New York City over 300,000 more women voted than in 1936. Democratic Digest, December 1940–January 1941.
“just the way the president”: ER to FDR, 11 November 1940.
“make a magnificent job”: Molly Dewson to ER, 10 November 1940; ER to Dewson, 15 November 1940.
“with unusual and wide”: “Lorena Hickok, Executive Secretary; Gladys Tillett, The Future Program for Democratic Women,” Democratic Digest, January 1941, 5, 9.
“Party politics had always”: ER, “Women Must Lear
n to Play the Game As Men Do,” Redbook, 1928. See also Dewson to Hick, 14 January 1941.
to “gently urge”: Tommy to Anna, 18 November 1940.
“My trouble, I suspect”: Hick to ER, 7 November 1940; ER to Hick, 8 November 1940; Hick to ER, 11 November 1940.
“You are wrong”: Lash, Love, Eleanor, 278.
Earl continued regularly: Lash Diary, 4 August 1940, Lash Papers.
“Now we’ve stopped”: ER to FDR, 12 November 1940; FDR to ER, 13 November 1940, with Sumner Welles’s memo to FDR, l November 1940, in answer to ER’s “request for facts on the subject of scrap iron exports to Japan . . . and Sino-Japanese trade.” See also FDR: Personal Letters, 4:1077.
Maternally she sought: Lash Diary, 2, 17, and 28 March 1940, Lash Papers.
“two of the pleasantest”: My Day, 14 November 1940. See also ER to Florence Kerr, 16 December 1940; Kerr to ER, 20 December 1940. Kerr sent the information to George Foster, national director of the WPA music program about Florence Rush’s new symphony, “rendered beautifully” by his splendid orchestra, to make final arrangements with Tommy.
“You will do”: ER to Lash, in Lash, Love, Eleanor, 321–22.
“Heroism is always”: My Day, 16 November 1940. See also My Day, 18 and 20 November 1940.
“The family is so scattered”: My Day, 22 November 1940.
“Today as a nation”: My Day, 21 November 1940.
“We are free to register”: Ibid.
On Saturday ER: My Day, 26 and 27 November 1940; Lash, Love, Eleanor, 322.
“compelling” because the: My Day, 26 November 1940. See also My Day, 23 and 25 November 1940.
“little bronze boy”: Lash, Love, Eleanor, 327.
“the first birthday letter”: ER to Lash, 2 December 1940, in Lash, Love, Eleanor, 323.
“a wonderful birthday week”: Ibid., 323–24; Lash Diary, 8 December 1940, Lash Papers.
“Ever since our talk”: ER to Trude Pratt, n.d., in Lash, Love, Eleanor, 66.
“sense of being driven”: Ibid.; Lash Diary, 4 January 1941, Lash Papers.
“Of course I knew”: Trude Pratt to author, 15 July 2000.
Chapter Sixteen: “Isolationism Is Impossible”: The Politics of Rescue