In the future, she arranged her life accordingly.
*When asked if SDR had been treated too harshly by history, ER II said she was always cold to EK and her family, mean and cold. They never became kin.
*FDR’s 6 December, 1933 speech to the Federated Council of Churches, historic for its reference to lynching as a crime, was broadcast nationally: “From the bottom of my heart I believe that this beloved country of ours is entering upon a time of great gain. That gain can well include a greater material prosperity if we take care that it is a prosperity for a hundred and twenty million human beings and not a prosperity for the top of the pyramid alone…. It can be a prosperity built on spiritual and social values rather than on special privilege and special power….”
* An even greater measure of her commitment to making this a perfect holiday was her stoical disregard of a painful physical ordeal: On 3 August, The New York Times reported that ER “underwent a surgical operation on an eye” while visiting her daughter at Pyramid Lake. Dr. Larue Robinson, an eye specialist, “removed an abscess.” Called to see her on 17 July, he “performed the operation” on 21 July: “She took it like a Girl Scout, without a whimper, although it was very painful….”
* According to Ickes, ER had been with him at Hetch Hetchy (the dammed, once beautiful valley John Muir tried so hard to save, which ER never referred to) and invited Ickes to join them at dinner. “Later she went on a moonlight trip through the valley,” and Ickes “went to bed early.”
* In June, a longshoremen’s strike, led by Australian-born Harry Bridges, became a general strike that paralyzed San Francisco and moved up the West Coast. Some industrialists and politicians forecast civil war, revolution. In California, the press attacked Bridges as an alien subversive Red and condemned unionists as communists. But public opinion was on their side.
Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Attorney General Homer Cummings had wanted to send the Army to crush the strike and restore “order.” Others, including Frances Perkins and Harold Ickes, counseled calm. FDR appointed an Industrial Emergency Committee to investigate labor unrest and industrial violence. As FDR hoped, the strike ended peacefully, but with an intensified effort to crush the union and deport Bridges.
12: Negotiating the Political Rapids
During the summer of 1934 ER began to acknowledge, to herself at least, that she did not actually want an exclusive relationship. Once she realized she could not satisfy Hick’s demands for exclusive time and their mutual expectation of private moments, ER understood that she had contributed to their problem by making promises she could not keep.
For years ER embraced a fantasy of her future retirement, in which she would be content to live a nonpublic existence. She encouraged Hick to join that romantic fantasy and consider where they might live, what remote country space they might build together. She spoke earnestly of a future life of privacy, shared work and travel. For now, public issues were her priority. Hick understood that, but still believed they had a right to exclusive time together. As their differences grew, ER sought to protect their changed relationship, convinced it would all work out, somehow.
After ER joined FDR, Hick returned to Bill and Ella Dana’s ranch and Bill became Hick’s boon companion. They enjoyed many of the same things—the peace of the countryside, roaring laughter, a good stiff drink, political conversation—and they enjoyed each other’s company. Above all, Bill offered Hick a delightful cottage on the Dana estate on Long Island’s South Shore. Hick was to live in the “little house” in Mastic for over twenty years.
Doris Dana, Bill’s daughter, recalled that they went fishing in the morning, drove around much of the day, talked for hours. Around the place, they dressed alike, in corduroy knickerbockers or work pants, big hunting boots, checkered Western shirts, and great floppy hats in the rain; and they laughed alike—loudly, deeply, with gusto. But in August 1934, Hick seemed surprised that the Danas enjoyed her company—even without ER’s presence. ER replied impatiently: “For heaven sake why shouldn’t they like you for yourself? They are genuine people.”
Hick was resourceful, and never wanted to be a burden or a bore. But there were days when she hated her life, days when she knew that she had made some seriously wrong choices.
After the summer of 1934, she tried to pull away from ER, to create a new life, restore aspects of her old life and professional successes. But ER always pulled her back.
On the road for FERA and alone in strange towns, Hick sent letters detailing her gourmand pleasures, accompanied by martinis and bourbon, wine and cigarettes. She knew she was wrecking her health. Her feet were swollen and sore; she had trouble breathing, disliked exercise, lacked stamina. She was stressed and depressed, and she ground her teeth in her sleep. Her gums bled, her teeth loosened. She needed dental care.
Hick was in fact unhappy in a romance she could neither control nor walk away from. It would be better, she occasionally assured ER, if they just did not see each other. But that was not Hick’s first choice, and ER dismissed it as ridiculous. When Hick seemed most aloof or disappeared for a week, ER drew her back with renewed promises for the future; and her magic was compelling. The chemistry was forceful. And so their relationship continued, each trying to minimize the unpleasant moments, each trying to accommodate the other. Although they each made a generous effort, they moved from vastly unequal spaces, with very different expectations.
ER did not want to be free. But she wanted mobility, and spontaneity. She wanted to be able to move quickly and casually from the intimacy of a private conversation to the intensity of politics. She wanted, above all, to be unconfined.
Although she always denied it, her life was now driven by one simple fact: Her public life was her chosen life. She would always long for quiet moments with intimate friends, and she needed to be needed. Hick needed her; Earl Miller needed her; the people of America needed her. Increasingly, she embraced an ever-widening field of public activity, and an ever-growing community of new and cherished friends.
As ER scheduled her public life, routinely full eighteen-hour days—she also reserved some part of each day for joy.
Her morning rides through Rock Creek Park, afternoon swims in the pool with Franklin or alone, and long contemplative walks enabled her to concentrate and work effectively, often until three in the morning. But “joy” for ER depended upon her private friendships—especially when they advanced causes she cared about. As one considers the people ER toured around Arthurdale, for example, one appreciates her expanding network—and her ability to weave into each day work and pleasure.
Gertrude Ely, who became one of ER’s closest friends, went to Arthurdale with her in 1934. “We drove there, just the two of us, [she] at the wheel of her open convertible. She was so happy, yet so busy. That’s a good combination.”
It was a good combination, for which she relied on women like Gertrude Ely, a public-spirited philanthropist and activist. Like ER an organizer of the Junior League and League of Women Voters, she was an old friend who shared many of ER’s interests, including birth control, world peace, racial justice, affordable housing, and social security. Fun-loving and adventurous, in 1931 Gertrude Ely was part of a merry but curious trio to tour the Soviet Union. Her companions were Nancy Astor and George Bernard Shaw.
ER spent significant time over the decades at Ely’s home, especially when she sought privacy. Ely would casually tell other guests, often her young musical protégées, “I have a friend here for the weekend,” and they would be astonished when ER came down to join them for dinner.
There was yet another side to ER that enjoyed spontaneous adventure, carefree companionship. She spent two weeks hidden in the Adirondack Mountains with Earl Miller, Nancy Cook, Marion Dickerman, and dancers Tiny Chaney and Eddie Fox.
ER’s time at Miller’s Camp Dannemora at Chazy Lake had been restful in 1933, and was even more fun in 1934. It was “absolutely quiet and peaceful and lovely,” when ER wrote Hick that she hoped that she too
was getting into “the right frame of mind to enjoy life.”
Their turbulent vacation had marked their friendship: “I’m afraid you and I are always going to have times when we ache for each other and yet we are not always going to be happy when we are together….” In contrast to their tensions, ER wrote effusively about her frolics at camp. Her day began at 7:30, when “we all, except Nan, did calisthenics in our bathing suits on the porch.” They hiked mountain trails, played wild games, and somehow nobody intruded on her quest for quiet time, when she read, wrote letters, and contemplated the upcoming political campaign. ER proudly noted their various skills: As a straight shooter, Tiny was “about as good as Earl. She has the steadiest hand I ever saw.” She wrote nothing of her own prowess with a pistol, although, when asked, she acknowledged she mostly hit the bull’s-eye.
ER’s hands were rarely still. When she did not read, she knitted, especially during long philosophical conversations on the porch in the evening. She wrote Hick that “your sweater is getting on, as I can knit without being rude.”
One day ER sat unrecognized “with three elderly ladies and listened to their gossip: ‘Uh! She is a dancer? I suppose that’s her husband.’ On my part blank indifference and apparent deafness! Three years ago I would have hated yesterday. I was amazed what a long way I have come in indifference to what people think!”
When Hick asked if she were really happy, in that place with those people, ER answered: “Yes I am happy here and … I was analyzing [the reasons] today. Perhaps the real one is that I think I am needed and wanted … I suppose that is why I enjoy being with Anna and John, so often with the boys I feel tolerated! What curious creatures we are.”
In 1934 Earl needed ER more than usual. On 24 June ER wrote Hick: “It is hard for me ever to believe in anyone having a nervous breakdown but I can see Earl has had one and is working hard to pull out.” Evidently, Earl’s unhappy marriage, which ER had encouraged, and his abiding sense of loneliness wore him down.
On 14 August, the anniversary of her father’s death, ER visited Elinor Morgenthau, whose mother was failing, and who felt hurt and neglected by ER that summer. ER wrote Morgenthau:
I can’t think what I did to make you feel I didn’t want to hear from you this summer. In fact, I did very much and missed having no letters and thought of you often….
I’m so sorry about your Mother and I know how you are feeling for it is much worse to watch someone you love suffer than suffer yourself. Poor darling, you have so many troubles and never seem to get a real rest. I’m going to try to plan in early Nov. to take you away for a long week end!
Friendships are always important to me and please don’t ever think the opposite no matter what stupid things I do which hurt your feelings. It is never intentional.
Hick evidently analyzed the reason ER’s friends seemed disgruntled, and ER agreed:
Yes, dear, you are right, I give everyone the feeling that you have that I’ve “taken them on” and don’t need anything from them and then when they naturally resent it and don’t like to accept from me, I wonder why! It is funny I know and I can’t help it something locked me up and I can’t unlock!
ER’s reference to her inability to “unlock” has been used to “prove” an amazing variety of emotional and physical limitations. The wonder of her life is that despite all limitations, all childhood hurt and adult complexity, ER protected herself from further pain as best she could, while indulging her habit of emotional curiosity and commitment. The barriers she created to protect herself were not barriers to loving. She cherished Hick, and also Earl, because they had determinedly crashed through her protective barriers. Her aloof, seemingly cold demeanor, so forbidding to some, had represented a challenge to them. ER, in turn, responded to their persistence, trusted and felt secure with them. She felt needed by them, depended on their love, and intended to preserve it.
Actually many of ER’s old friends were dismayed by how much of her heart she chose to unlock. They considered some of her new friendships, and activities, fraught with abandon. ER tended to ignore the tensions and endless jealousies that marked her many circles. When her friends were unavoidably thrown together, she trusted in everyone’s good manners, and spent her time precisely with whom she pleased.
With her merry band at Chazy Lake, ER was mostly anonymous—until they made headlines: Their little motorboat grounded on a rock in the middle of the lake and ran out of gas. Neighbors saw their plight, rowed over with gas, and pulled them back into the water.
FDR sent a telegram glad that all were safe; but it was too embarrassing for a Roosevelt to run aground in a rowboat. Would his wife henceforth please remember to tank up, or manage to stay out of the papers. ER’s summer frolic continued when her party joined FDR’s at Hyde Park. By month’s end, Hick felt ER was at peace with herself and her life. But ER assured her:
F was amused by your comment. No dear, I am not at peace with God and man, not even at all times with myself so you need not be afraid of me….
Oh, dear one, what wouldn’t I give to have you here with me tonight and … be able to take care of you. I always feel that you and Earl need me more than anyone when things go wrong for neither of you have anyone nearer to whom to turn and whom I must remember not to offend.
Harry Hopkins and his wife arrived at Hyde Park for Labor Day weekend, to discuss his European tour of relief work and housing. Although in Germany during Hitler’s Nuremberg rally, which announced his “thousand-year Reich,” he said nothing about it. Nor did he publicly refer to any of the fascist activities that made headlines and coincided with his tour through Germany, Italy, and England. But his visit reinvigorated the president’s goals for the New Deal.
Hopkins’s study of Europe’s social insurance reconfirmed his commitment to public works programs and job security. Above all, Hopkins believed, a government program of economic or social security depended upon the creation of work: full employment.
Hopkins’s weekend visit launched America’s first national and permanent Social security program. Current New Deal laws were limited state by state, needed to be refunded by Congress annually, and were regarded as emergency measures. New Dealers now believed the economy faced permanent conditions of unemployment and distress, and FDR appointed an Advisory Committee on Economic Security to begin work after the November elections.
As the 1934 campaign heated up at summer’s end, fascist rumbles out of Europe and violent industrial reprisals against union activities within the United States encouraged New Dealers to be bold. ER argued repeatedly that the New Deal had so far “only bought time,” that so much more needed to be done. Now, she wrote Hick with delight that FDR was in a “militant” mood. “He is very angry with [Budget Director] Lewis Douglas for choosing this moment to resign though he is glad to have him out.” ER was interested that FDR was able to work “his rage out by having a good time” at the Morgenthaus’ annual clambake.
Lew Douglas had opposed all public relief and public works measures. A conservative representative of the business community who wanted a balanced budget, he timed his resignation to the midterm elections without warning—which seemed to FDR a personal betrayal. Shortly thereafter, Douglas joined the Liberty League to attack the New Deal, and FDR personally. FDR called Morgenthau over to Hyde Park the morning of the clambake to announce: “Henry, in the words of John Paul Jones, we have just begun to fight!”
At the party that evening, FDR sang with vigor, and had the happiest time in recent memory. Since he became president, he had not seemed to his closest family and friends “so jolly as he was that night.”
During this time of action within the Roosevelt household, a tone of tenderness toward Hick, rather missing in August, returned to ER’s letters. She sent Hick a photograph that Tiny had taken of her—”I thought you might like to have it”—along with long letters that “take you worlds of love and I wish I could lie down beside you tonight and take you in my arms.”
Hick worried t
hat Lew Douglas’s departure would hurt FDR, and the conservative press was bitter against alleged New Deal excesses. But ER was unbothered; “the papers don’t worry me as much as they do you.”
In the long minuet of their relationship, Hick now pulled back, and ER was mystified that Hick had failed to send her schedule. She went to Hopkins to learn Hick would return on the 15th. “I would die if you were that near and I didn’t see you till the 23d.”
In September, ER spent time with Earl, whose marriage was about to end in divorce—which evidently pleased him; and consoled Tommy, whose marriage was also about to end in divorce.
While at Val-Kill with Nan and Earl, ER awaited news of her son James, who had disappeared during a sailing regatta in a terrible storm. All the boats were in except his. ER and James’s wife, Betsey, spent seven hours on the phone, “getting Coast Guard & naval boats out & we didn’t want to tell Mama & at midnight he was reported in Portland & we just talked to him, 180 miles away from the place he was supposed to be! It’s funny—how calm you are when … something serious is hanging over you. I felt queer in the pit of my tummy but perfectly fatalistic and numb.”
On the 12th, ER wrote Hick from Newport, where she spent her obligatory annual weekend with Cousin Susie: “Well your photograph is on my desk and I will try to behave tonight.” Dinners at Newport, surrounded by Republicans and her most social relatives, were always difficult. But this time much of Rhode Island was on strike, and “with Myron Taylor [president of U.S. Steel] on one side of me and [Rhode Island Governor Theodore Green] on the other,” ER feared she would be indiscreet, or explode.
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