I just came in from a long talk with the chairman of the county relief committee. He put them up to me—and I pass them on to you, not expecting or asking you for anything except ideas.
But what can be done about these, please?
No. 1 consists of an old carpenter and his wife, both about 70. They’d starve—and almost did—rather than be on relief. Furthermore, they’re not strictly eligible, since they own their home, unencumbered save for $25 or $30 in back taxes. I think they’d probably rather starve in that home than give it up, too. The relief chairman told me the county would probably be willing to take a deed to the home & give them $20 a month to live on the rest of their lives. But that, to them, would mean “being on the county.” It’s probably stubborn of them, and all that, but—dammit, I think it’s outrageous that an old couple, who have worked hard all their lives, should be obliged to have their pride, their self-respect, broken down that way. The relief chairman said he’d known this old man for years, and he has always been a hard-working, respected citizen.
Today the old man, much too frail to work outdoors in winter weather, came in and begged for a job with a shovel or wheelbarrow in a stone quarry, on the roads—anywhere there was a CWA25 job for him. There isn’t any job for him. He couldn’t stand the work. It’s too heavy.
The old man wanted the job to earn the money to pay up his back taxes—about $25 or $30—on his home. He’s had an extension, but that runs out March 1, and theoretically at least, if they aren’t paid by then, he’ll lose his home. He was really frantic.
The relief chairman asked him how he’d managed to live these last few years. He knew the old man had been working in a small grocery store up until nearly two years ago, when the proprietors died, and he lost his job.
The old man told him that when he lost his job he had $126 saved up.
“We’ve been living on that ever since,” he said.
Two old people—living nearly two years on $126! And he refused to make an application for relief.
Now what are you going to do with a couple like that? I say it’s a crime to force them to take charity. But what can be done?
Number 2 consists of an elderly man and his wife and an only son, a freshman at Ames [where Iowa State University is located].
The old lady does baking, which the old man peddles around. He also carries the paper route that his boy used to carry. They manage to get by somehow that way, but the relief chairman says she expects to see the old man drop in the street some day.
However, he’s chiefly worried about the boy. He’s a really fine youngster, the relief chairman said, and the hopes of his parents are all wrapped up in him. The youngster—a rather frail chap—and his parents, too, have always had one consuming ambition. That he should go to college.
“Nobody knows how hard that kid has worked,” the relief chairman said. “In Iowa these last few years there’s been darned little chance for a boy, no matter how ambitious he was, to earn money doing odd jobs here and there.
“But somehow that kid managed to earn a little—and he’s saved every cent.
“And now he’s down there at Ames, and I hear he’s got himself a room and does all his own cooking and lives on a dollar a week. Now what’s going to happen to that boy? He’ll break himself down!”
Oh, Lord! Well, it’s the first old couple that worries me more. I’m going out to see them tomorrow, and the relief chairman and I are going to try to figure out something. But it doesn’t look very promising.
Tomorrow night—Minneapolis. And letters from you. Oh, my dear, I do get so hungry for letters! Some days—it seems that I can hardly bear it, I want some direct word from you so much. It’s particularly bad in the morning, to wake up—with the realization that there’ll be no letter today.
I must get ready for dinner. And after dinner—expense accounts and bed early. I had breakfast at 6:30 this morning and left Iowa city at 7! And tomorrow will be another long day.
I suppose you arrived in Warm Springs today. Well—I’d probably not be very happy there, anyway. Oh, I guess I’m probably a little jealous. Forgive me. I know I shouldn’t be—and it’s only because it’s been so long since I’ve seen you. I’ll be good—
Dear one—you are ever in my heart—
H
Eleanor became a close friend to several of the women reporters who attended her weekly press conferences. This letter refers to Ruby Black, a reporter for the United Press news service. Because Black had been feeling ill for several weeks, Eleanor invited her to join the Roosevelts on their annual vacation to Warms Springs for Thanksgiving.
On train getting into Atlanta
November 29th
Dear, We got off last night after a full day & we’ve had an easy day. Ruby is suffering from what we both fear might be pleurisy but we hope is only muscular.
Well dear all I can think of to-day is that when I get home from here I will soon be expecting you back.26 I wish you were going to spend Thanksgiving here, it surely would be Thanksgiving, wouldn’t it?
I hope you & Tom Dillon27 don’t let that feeling [of] estrangement grow, there are so many other things beside politics you can talk about!28
We are coming in & I must mail this, so goodbye dearest one, all my love to you.
Devotedly,
E.R.
December 1st
Georgia Warm Springs Foundation
Hick dearest, It was so good just to hear your voice yesterday, so good that I didn’t much care what you said as long as you were well. At last it is Dec. 1st, fifteen more days & I’ll be meeting you!
How would you like to go to Charlottesville & see Monticello29 & then to Washington & Lee [University] at Lexington & home by way of Luray?30 We can do it in two days but if you’ve had too much motoring, we could go to the Farmington Country Club at Charlottesville & stay, those days are yours & if you prefer we can stay in Washington & go out with books, lunch somewhere & walk in the country each day. Darling, I know they [news reporters asking Lorena about the first lady] bother you to death because you are my friend, but we’ll forget it & think only that someday I’ll be back in obscurity again & no one will care except ourselves!
We all arrived [in Warm Springs] rather weary in time for supper & after it I took Ruby [Black] to the hotel. I was to be so sleepy all day yesterday! I went swimming & lay in the sun & after calling you we came back for lunch & I slept a half hour & then had a walk.
Dear one, I wish you could be here the weather is glorious & you would enjoy it. I had a little longing (secretly) that F.D.R. might think I’d like you to be here & insist on your coming to report to him! You know how one dreams? I knew it wouldn’t be true but it was nice to think about!
E.R.
In the early 1930s, Nan Cook and Marion Dickerman joined the Roosevelts for their Thanksgiving holiday trip to Warm Springs.
December 3d
Georgia Warm Springs Foundation
Hick dearest, Yesterday was grey but no rain, however we didn’t swim—Marion, Ruby, & I took a walk after Marion & I rode & we all listened in on the press conference which was not very exciting yesterday.31
We’ve had a chance to talk these few days & I am relieved to find that F.D.R. is thinking in terms of the next five years.32
Last night we waited to hear [William Randolph] Hearst on money at 1033 & I was entirely asleep long before I went to bed! Ruby looks better too & even these few days seem to have done her good.
Darling, I feel very happy because every day brings you nearer. I love you deeply & tenderly & oh! I want you to have a happy life. To be sure I’m selfish enough to want it to be near me but then we wouldn’t either of us be happy otherwise, would we?
Devotedly,
E.R.
December 5th
THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington
Hick dearest, No letter to-day, but I was spoiled yesterday so I will just read over all those I had yesterday! This has been a busy day. Stuck at my des
k till I went to a Thrift Shop doll sale at 12:30. Then lunch, desk again till 5, at 6 went up & unpacked X-mas things & distributed them in the various drawers all ready to fill stockings! Fannie Hurst34 & her husband arrived at 6:15 but I didn’t see them till we greeted our dinner party. Forty-four & the Sedalia Choir (colored) sang. It was lovely & I thought of you & wished you were there with me. You would have liked them I know.35
I had a funny letter to-day. A woman said she read all I wrote on child labor & she had had 13 [children] & wouldn’t I please tell her how to stop it!
One week from to-morrow you will start for home. Oh! dear me that last day will be bad but seeing you & feeling you doesn’t seem entirely possible even now!
Ruby [Black] & Bess [Furman of the Associated Press] are both sad that you won’t be here for the Gridiron party on Sat. night & so am I.36
A world of love & goodnight & sleep sweetly dear one—
E.R.
The first and last paragraphs in this letter contain what may be the most erotic passages in the entire collection of letters. When Lorena wrote them, she had been away from Eleanor for more than two months and was eagerly anticipating their reunion. The fact that Lorena was so intimately familiar with the contours of Eleanor’s face that she knew exactly which “soft spot” she wanted to feel against her lips leaves little doubt that their relationship was more than platonic.
December 5th
Lyran Hotels
New Hotel Markham and Annex
Bemidji, Minnesota
Dear:
Tonight it’s Bemidji, away up in the timber country, not a bad hotel, and one day nearer you. Only eight more days. Twenty-four hours from now it will be only seven more—just a week! I’ve been trying today to bring back your face—to remember just how you look. Funny how even the dearest face will fade away in time. Most clearly I remember your eyes, with a kind of teasing smile in them, and the feeling of that soft spot just northeast of the corner of your mouth against my lips. I wonder what we’ll do when we meet—what we’ll say. Well—I’m rather proud of us, aren’t you? I think we’ve done rather well.
A beautiful drive today—although slippery. I think the president would have got a kick out of it. We drove for miles and miles, it seemed to me, through second growth pines, a part of the state’s reforestation program. Itasca State park, part of it, at the headwaters of the Mississippi. Lord, they were lovely! But the mere still among them when it got dark, and the road—where the sun hadn’t had a chance to melt the ice—was terrible. Almost as bad as the time you and I drove down to New York from Hyde Park the Sunday before March 4th. Remember? This is beautiful country, though. I’d forgotten how beautiful it is. We were in one big county today that has within its borders a thousand lakes!
I just got a big kick out of something I overheard. I’m writing this down in the lobby—since I want to hear the president’s speech and don’t want to climb the two flights to my room twice in one evening—and half a dozen men sitting nearby have been talking politics.
One of them said he’d be willing to bet on the president’s reelection in 1936.
“Well, I don’t know,” another said, “a lot of things can happen in three years.”
“Oh, Hell,” another put in, “he’s got more friends now than he had when he went in.”
And they all agreed on that.
This has been a funny day. They’re so damned slow up here. The cold seems to get into their very muscles and brains and make it impossible for them to do anything rapidly.
(The gang next to me are talking now about recovery.
“I think things will hold just about as they are for awhile,” one of them said. “They’re just getting organized.”
“Yeah—we can’t expect things to get going in a big way for a few months,” another said.
And they all nodded in agreement and seemed perfectly satisfied!)
I was in one village today where not a single man had been put to work under CWA. They just can’t seem to get started. I gravely suspect my old friend [Governor] Floyd Olson37 of playing politics with relief in Minnesota. I gather that Floyd runs the show himself and is too busy to do a decent job of it. The two states out here where they are doing the best jobs on relief and CWA—South Dakota and Iowa—have the least interference from their governors. North Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota—all bad. I tell you—Floyd is for Floyd. And that’s that. And if I were Harry Hopkins or Henry Morgenthau or any of the rest of the boys down in Washington, I’d never forget it—not for a moment. Floyd is for Floyd, and, I suspect, a not too scrupulous fighter. He’s got brains, too, and that makes him all the more dangerous. There’s no point in all this, except that I have a feeling that both Mr. Hopkins and Henry Morgenthau are quite impressed by him. I believe that Floyd would see all the Swedes in Minnesota—except himself—drawn and quartered if it would be to his advantage. He’s an ambitious young man, Floyd is.
Darling, I’ve been thinking about you so much today. What a swell person you are to back me up the way you do on this job! We do do things together, don’t we? And it’s fun, even though the fact that we both have work to do keeps us apart.
Good night, dear one. I want to put my arms around you and kiss you at the corner of your mouth. And in a little more than a week now—I shall!
H
Eleanor’s reference in this letter to Lorena’s job being “more interesting than mine” speaks both to ER’s admiration for Hick and her frustrations with the limits of the role of the president’s wife.
On train to Washington
December 7th
Hick darling, I’m writing now because [I had] little time in Washington!
We went to hear F. speak & it really was a good speech.38 I wonder if by chance you were listening too. Funny everything I do my thoughts fly to you. Never are you out of my heart & just one week from to-morrow I’ll be holding you. Of course the long separation has been hardest on you because so much of the time you’ve been with strangers but on the other hand your job is more interesting than mine. Both jobs are somewhat tiring & we’ll both enjoy days to rest, won’t we? A world of love.
Just going down to stand up & receive for an hour & a half!
Good night & a kiss to you,
E.R.
Just before the train starts
[December 8]
Hick darling, Two grand letters of the 5th & 6th this morning & your reports. The last one most chilling!
Dear, nothing is important except that my last trip will be over tomorrow morning before you come & then I hope the next will be with you. Less than a week now. Take care of yourself. I know I won’t be able to talk when we first meet but though I can remember just how you look I shall want to look long & very lovingly at you.
A world of love & good night dear one—
E.R.
This letter gives a sense of the roller coaster of mood shifts—from anger to excitement to frustration to pleasure to anxiety—that Lorena often experienced in a short period of time.
December 8th
The Androy
Hibbing, Minnesota
My dear:
I’m feeling confused and indignant. An elevator boy just said to me:
“Are you a Girl Scout leader?”
“Good God, no!” I replied, consternation depriving me of all discretion. “Whatever put any such idea in your head?”
“Your uniform,” he replied.
I’m wearing that old dark grey skirt—the one you never liked—with a grey sweater. And to soften the neckline a little, I wear that dark red liberty scarf of mine knotted about the throat. That costume, topped off by a brimmed black felt slouch hat and supported by low-heeled golf shoes—Oh, lord, I wonder how many people in the farm belt these last few weeks have thought I was a Girl Scout leader! My very soul writhes in anguish.
Well, here we are at the end of another day, and only six more to go. Darling, I am getting so excited! You’re going to be shocked when you see me
. I should be returning to you wan and thin from having lived on a diabetic diet, but I’m afraid I’ve gained, instead of losing, weight. Just you or Doctor [Ross] McIntire39 try to live on green vegetables and fruit, without starch or sugar, in country hotels, where they have nothing but meat, bread, potatoes, pie and cake, and see how far you’d go without breaking over. Besides, I feel so perfectly well, and I’m living such an active life, and yet so hungry. Up here in this clear, cold, Northern Minnesota air, I have an appetite that would do justice to Paul Bunyan himself. Ever hear of Paul Bunyan? He’s the legendary hero of the lumberjacks. He used to bite off the tops of Jack pines with his teeth! Up and out early every morning. Good cold mornings. It was five below in Brainerd this morning, and ten below here. In and out of the car. Tramping around over CWA projects. Long, busy days. Lady, I get hungry! And I can’t think there’s anything so very much wrong with me when I feel so perfectly healthy—Well, I’ve been pretty good about sweets. No candy, of course. And very few desserts. (Did you ever eat cracked wheat bread, by the way? Delicious!) And I’m very much afraid I’ve gained weight. I’ve just resolved—again—to be good until I get back to Washington. But—I probably shan’t.
Oh, by the way, I had a funny experience the other night, in Bemidji. At the table next to me in the dining room were two men, and I overheard one of them say to the other:
“Do you remember that Lorena Hickok who used to be a writer on the Minneapolis Tribune? You know, she used to write all those feature stories. Well, she’s in town. Her name’s out on the register. She went to New York, and sometimes the Tribune still published her articles. She’s registered from Washington, D.C. Wonder what she’s doing now.”
It made me feel sort of self-conscious and embarrassed, although I did get something of a kick out of it.
There is, to be sure, an unemployment problem here that will never be cured probably. In the last three years the open pit mines—the largest open pit mine in the world is at Hibbing—have gone in for modern machinery. They’ve bought electric shovels, for instance, and one man, with an electric shovel, can do the work of eight men on a steam shovel. Well—among other things we really have an industrial revolution on our hands, haven’t we?
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