Eleanor Roosevelt

by Blanche Wiesen Cook

  Ultimately, ER discounted the stereotypic myths attributed to women: “My own experience leads me to believe that men are as temperamental as women and as apt to be personal and lose the objective point of view as most women.” Still, in 1935 men were unready for a woman president, and ER concluded that the women’s movement, in disarray, was also unready.

  ER wanted women to prepare themselves, to build networks of women’s support and action.

  ER presented a formula for leadership:

  [Women] should come up from the bottom and learn their jobs in public life, step by step, and above all, they must learn to take other women with them and not to hang onto a job because they feel they will never get another one and therefore be unwilling to let another woman profit by their experience….

  ER’s views on women in politics had changed little since her 1928 Red-book article “Women Bosses,” which argued that “women must play the game as men do.” Not until there existed a strong, aware, united women’s movement would it be possible for a woman to succeed or survive in the vicious vortex of power politics.

  But once women did organize and achieve leadership positions, ER was convinced “the advance of the human race toward the new goal of human happiness will be more rapid than it has ever been in the past.”

  ER wrote that article while many grievous compromises to limit social security were being debated in Congress. She was disappointed and angry that organized women, who had since the 1880s fought for aspects of the social security package, including Sheppard-Towner and aid to dependent children, did not vigorously oppose the race and gender restrictions that degraded the bill.

  She was dismayed that when urgent public activity was needed to achieve full employment and real social security, the women’s movement seemed moribund and quiescent.

  ER had written It’s Up to the Women, convinced that women were then America’s most interested and organized group. She never changed her mind about the potential of women with power, and once told her radio audience that only women could adequately lead a peace crusade. When enough women organized for peace, wars would end, because “a woman’s will is the strongest thing in the world.”

  But during the summer of 1935, ER turned to youth—the newly reorganized American Youth Congress, which now addressed precisely those issues of discrimination, housing, and jobs that she considered most urgent. Always on the lookout for any hint of public activity, the kind of grassroots activism that she considered the engine of democracy, she was thrilled to learn of the AYC’s second meeting in Detroit during the Fourth of July weekend, which included groups as diverse as the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, and the NAACP, along with traditional church, Y, university, and student groups. ER had been displeased by the first meeting of the AYC in 1934, which she considered undemocratic. But the events surrounding the second conference caused ER to change her mind.

  Determined to hold an integrated meeting in Detroit, the AYC had signed a contract with the Fort Wayne Hotel to prevent discrimination in meeting rooms and guest rooms. But when black delegates arrived, the hotel refused to register them. When white delegates threatened to leave, the manager capitulated. All went smoothly until Saturday night while some delegates attended a dance and others met at a local drugstore—which charged Negro patrons double what white patrons were charged. A spontaneous demonstration ensued, with pickets and placards, young people in both formal dance attire and casual dress marching and singing and creating a stir.

  When ER subsequently met with AYC leaders in January she was already one of their most ardent champions.

  ER was also gratified by the NYA’s first conference on the problems of black youth, which she considered a stirring success. On 8 August 1935, Aubrey Williams and Mary McLeod Bethune held a conference of Negro leaders and New Dealers committed to racial justice.*

  It resulted in a permanent committee that fought for equity in education, training for leadership, inclusion in all NYA programs. For ER, the New Deal’s future was increasingly up to the youth—now organizing to confront the intense bigotry that everywhere limited progress.

  Throughout the summer, ER corresponded with Walter White, whose many suggestions were sidelined in Washington. Although WPA salary differentials were prohibited, the NAACP lobbied for “a qualified Negro appointed as a Deputy Administrator in every state,” and Negro administrators responsible for the “proportional integration of Negroes in each project.”

  While ER sent White’s suggestions on to Aubrey Williams and others, on 5 August 1935, Stephen Early sent a “personal and confidential” memo addressed to “Dear Malvina” at Campobello: “I have been asked to send you a memorandum containing information for Mrs. Roosevelt concerning Walter White…. The memorandum is sent at this time because Walter White has been bombarding the President with telegrams and letters.” White wanted Costigan-Wagner brought up again, before Congress adjourned at the end of August; he complained about the War Department’s policy regarding the assignment of “Negro reserve officers in CCC camps”; he complained about many things. “Frankly, some of his messages to the President have been decidedly insulting….”

  Early was irate:

  I am advised by those familiar with White’s actions at the Capitol that it was he who some time ago went into the restaurant within the Capitol Building and demanded that he be served, apparently deliberately creating a troublesome scene, compelling his eviction from the restaurant and giving rise to an issue, made much of in the press at the time. The belief in some quarters is that he did this for publicity purposes and to arouse negroes throughout the country through press accounts of his eviction….

  Mr. [Rudolph] Forster [the executive clerk] advises that Walter White, before President Roosevelt came to the White House … has been one of the worst and most continuous of troublemakers.

  Grandson of Confederate General Jubal A. Early, Steve Early celebrated the mythical magnolia South, and resented all efforts to change the patterns of his homeland. ER usually ignored Early’s contempt for her allies and sought to maintain cordial relations with her husband’s most important public relations aide. But this time she replied directly to his protest against Walter White:

  I realize perfectly that he has an obsession on the lynching question and I do not doubt that he has been a great nuisance with his telegrams and letters, both now and in previous administrations…. I do not think he means to be rude or insulting. It is the same complex which a great many people belonging to minority groups have, particularly martyrs…. It is worse with Walter White because he is almost white. If you ever talked to him, and knew him, I think you would feel as I do. He really is a very fine person with the sorrows of his people close to his heart.

  As ER considered Early’s challenge, her spirits were bolstered by her sense of new movements, and new alliances. Throughout America there had been student strikes for peace in April 1935; a new American Student Union led by Joseph Lash and Molly Yard was organized for activism against fascism, war, and race bigotry, and its earnest activities were displayed during the July AYC meetings. Not irrelevantly, ER wrote her letter to Early the day Aubrey Williams and Mary McLeod Bethune opened their exciting NYA conference. ER was profoundly encouraged by these new radical movements for democracy and change.

  As ER prepared to leave Campo, she wrote Hick: “We have Marion to thank for a really lovely day [of sailing]…. You would have loved the wind and the big waves today, and the white foam on the dark rocks.”

  Although she hated the thought of leaving, she looked forward to their reunion, and had second thoughts about their decision to spend the summer apart. ER now felt apologetic about their difficult time together in 1934:

  After all dear,… last summer was really the longest time I’ve ever been with one person but I stupidly didn’t realize how weary you were and did the wrong things for you. I think how if we have chances to be together I won’t be so stupid or so selfish.

  As ER’s productive and idyllic d
ays at Campo ended, Hick completed her New York tour and was surprised by the upsurge in opposition to FDR among businessmen. The Depression had taught them nothing:

  Not one damned thing! And more and more I’m sure that Harry Hopkins was dead right when he said, “Don’t forget it—this is a war between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’” I think the President needs to get out around the country. Only even then—everybody will “yes” him. When even Isabella Greenway—whether she’s right, or whether she’s wrong—doesn’t feel she can come right out to his face and argue with him, what can you expect of the rest of the country. I certainly do not think she was much impressed by what he was saying at dinner that night. But she never said a word. In my own small way, I’m as bad as any of the others. He’ll turn to me and say, “Am I right Hick?” I don’t always think he is, but I haven’t the nerve to say so….

  Well—you don’t mind my raving on, anyway. Or do you?

  If you got a laugh out of my idea of the possibility of a “happy family” at Campo—I was equally amused at your idea that I could get a newspaper job, telling them I never saw you and didn’t know what was going on. They’d never believe it, dear—unless I actually did quit seeing you. And that would be expecting a good deal of me…. I’m not prepared to give you up entirely! (And I don’t believe you would want that, either)….

  With all my heart I love you.

  ER did not blame Hick “for being gloomy” and wondered, actually, how anyone could hear all she heard and “keep your balance and keep calm.” “If you are doing nothing you are preparing FDR” for the difficulties of the coming election campaign: “And I think you are going to make him concentrate on administration which seems to me very necessary.”

  With a new Red Scare bubbling up, ER relied on Hick’s reports and more routinely passed them on to FDR.

  In Buffalo, Hick was escorted by an old reporter friend who said that “FDR had slipped, badly—and among the middle class and relief groups….”

  “A year ago,” he said, “most of these people would knock your block off if you said a word against Roosevelt. But now—you can walk into any saloon in East Buffalo and pan the hide off him—without ever getting an argument….”

  [There were no jobs, and a] Republican “whispering campaign” [was] circulated among the unemployed and … lower salaried group. People who have jobs are being made to feel that the President’s program may cost them their jobs—“because it interferes with business.” … They are being told: “You don’t owe your job to Roosevelt. You got it back in spite of him, and, if he keeps on the way he’s going, you’ll lose it….”

  On 14 August 1935, one day after Hick wrote that worrisome letter, FDR signed social security into law. For all its defects, the Social Security Act created a groundswell of enthusiasm for the New Deal among working people who voted. It also constructed a “safety net” that saved millions of Americans from neglect and despair.

  FDR considered 14 August 1935 the most significant day of his administration. Though the act was flawed and insufficient, it was a momentous beginning: The U.S. government had tried to “give some measure of protection to the average citizen and his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.”

  Far from being “universal,” social security was virtually segregated racially, and women were discriminated against. Agricultural and domestic workers, the self-employed, workers in small businesses with less than ten employees, “casual labor” or transient, part-time, seasonal, and service workers (such as laundry and restaurant workers), maritime workers, workers in nonprofit organizations, including hospital, charity, and religious workers, and local, state, and federal government employees, including teachers, were excluded from the only “entitlements,” old-age and unemployment insurance. As a result, 80 percent of black women were excluded; 60 percent of black men were excluded, and 60 percent of white women were excluded. Only half the workforce was included.

  Only old-age insurance was the direct responsibility of the federal government, paid for by payroll taxes shared by employer and employee. By 1 January 1937, “Social Security” numbers were assigned to 38 million workers, now entitled to a secure old age. All other programs, including old-age assistance (for those not insured), unemployment insurance, aid to crippled, disabled, and dependent children, aid to the blind, and maternal and child health services and vocational rehabilitation were to be jointly administered by state and federal governments.

  Despite an excellent Social Security Board, headed by progressive Republican John Winant, each state determined social security benefits. Residents of the Southeastern states received the lowest benefits in every category, and traditional discriminations prevailed.

  After months of debate, haggling, and compromise, the Social Security Act introduced a two-tier welfare system, one for mostly white male industrial workers in interstate commerce who were entitled to insurance, and another for the truly needy, who generally remained truly needy. They depended on meager benefits cruelly limited by “means tests.” If a family was not destitute, had any property, a car or even a shack, they could receive no aid—until they gave up whatever they had. “Aid to Dependent Children” was quickly marked by local custom, and various levels of discrimination emerged state by state. Welfare for children did not include their mothers, who were reduced to a nationally sanctioned state-by-state form of beggary, “pitied but not entitled.”

  ER considered the Social Security Act a first step, that gave America time to think: What was needed to avoid permanent poverty, she declared, was an entirely new way of thinking.

  Actually to achieve a New Deal, ER worked ever more vigorously with youth and the most radical members of FDR’s expanding administration—notably Aubrey Williams and Mary McLeod Bethune, Will Alexander at FSA, and Hilda Smith, who headed the WPA’s worker education programs. The First Lady’s influence on them was noted by Hilda Smith, who inscribed her 1935 book of poetry, Frontiers, to ER, “who has helped us all to push on to new frontiers, and has always led the way—.”

  *Vassar’s production of Whittaker Chambers’s documentary of the Arkansas drought, which caused suffering and starvation while Congress “dilly-dallied on the dole,” caused a sensation and toured nationally. According to Jane DeHart, Flanagan’s biographer. Can You Hear Their Voices was a prelude to the Federal Theatre’s popular “Living Newspapers.”

  *FDR’s 1935 Revenue Act, damned as a “soak the rich” law, boosted top personal and corporate income tax rates from 63 to 79 percent and raised estate taxes. But during the 1930s only 5 percent of the population paid federal taxes. Fewer than 10 percent of American families earned as much as $3,200; only 1 percent earned over $10,000. Only one individual, John D. Rockefeller, was subject to the highest tax rate. Not until World War II did income tax finally involve over 70 percent of the population. Before 1935 the people who could least afford to pay shouldered the heaviest tax burdens—through excise taxes on cars, gasoline, liquor—which accounted for 55 percent of federal taxes collected. Only 27 percent was collected through individual corporate taxes. The Social Security Act added another regressive tax, the payroll tax. Nevertheless, taxes exacerbated tensions between FDR and business conservatives—who stepped up their war on the New Deal.

  * Among America’s notable black leaders in attendance were Channing Tobias, director of New York City’s YMCA; Robert Weaver, Department of the Interior; Eugene Kinckle Jones, Department of Commerce; Howard University law professor William Hastie; Elizabeth Perry Cannon, Spelman College; A. A. Taylor, Fisk University; Ira Reid and Mordecai Johnson, Howard University; Marion Cuthbert, YWCA; and Walter White.

  15: Mobilizing for New Action

  On 27 August 1935, ER responded to Elinor Morgenthau’s worries regarding Europe:

  German news is horrible and I don’t wonder you feel as you do for I feel much the same. The Italian news too is dreadful and I feel keenly that if we were in the League we might stop this conflagra
tion and if it starts even if we remain neutral we will suffer in the end. It makes me sick.

  Italy’s intention to absorb Ethiopia was announced in February 1935. For months the United States barely took notice of the situation. During her time in Campobello, before a cabinet-level discussion occurred concerning Italy, ER wrote one of her most important essays, “In Defense of Curiosity.” She hoped Morgenthau would read it in the Saturday Evening Post of August 24th.

  It was an earnest statement of her political philosophy, which emphasized America’s international responsibilities. “In Defense of Curiosity” called upon Americans to realize the connectedness of all life, the many and mysterious paths which joined each individual home to every part of the larger world. An unsubtle protest against the folly of isolation and the defeat of the World Court, it was also a vivid protest against the bigotry, ignorance, and apathy that still hobbled New Deal relief efforts.

  She began by confronting the many criticisms hurled her way because of her own interests beyond the “home”—that area so many still believed the only legitimate space for women:

  A short time ago a cartoon appeared depicting two miners looking up in surprise and saying with undisguised horror, “Here comes Mrs. Roosevelt!”

  In strange and subtle ways, it was indicated to me that I should feel somewhat ashamed of that cartoon, and there certainly was something the matter with a woman who wanted to see so much and to know so much.

  The concept of home, ER argued, needed to be expanded: It “is the primary outpost and link to the rest of the world.” Only “a kind of blindness” limited the home to “the four walls of the house” in which one lived. “No home is an isolated object … All of us buy food, and food costs vary with conditions throughout the country and the world.” Trouble with sheep in Australia affected the cost of woolens in Detroit. Wars anywhere touched the lives of our own children in countless ways. But unless each family was aware and curious about world conditions, public opinion would be nothing “but a reaction to propaganda.”