Eleanor Roosevelt

by Blanche Wiesen Cook

  By April, ER was puzzled and miffed that the men continued to do virtually nothing and had not even begun their campaign. On 18 April 1936, she wrote Jim Farley: She wanted at least “one really good woman’s speech” made at the convention in June. ER was eager to go over details with Farley and sent personnel and patronage suggestions:

  “Senator and Mrs. Costigan are very hard up.” Despondent over the failure of his antilynch bill, the senator was ailing and ER wanted Mrs. Costigan to “have a job on some commission….

  “Don’t forget that Molly wants a job either on the Social Security Board or as an assistant secretary doing [something] she is fitted for.

  “I forgot to say that Phoebe Omlie should be given consideration. Is there any chance of moving [Eugene] Vidal? If so she might be assistant secretary in charge of aviation and considering all the fighting she might be rather acceptable to all concerned….”*

  Farley assured ER that he would discuss all her suggestions “and be governed by your wishes on anything I do relative to the activity of the women.”

  ER also pursued major political alliances and policy issues. The Women’s Trade Union League was scheduled to have its first national convention in seven years in Washington. Close to the working women’s group she had supported for so long, ER invited a delegation to stay at the White House. Rose Schneiderman was “overwhelmed”: “You are a perfect saint…. It will be something they will remember all their lives.”

  The press made much of the White House’s week-long house party for fifteen union women, including “seven Alabama textile workers, six New York garment workers, a waitress and a stenographer.” When a reporter asked Nell Morris how she felt about her proposed visit, she said: “I think it’s the most wonderful thing that ever happened to a Southern girl. It’s an honor to the state of Alabama.”

  FDR greeted the delegation on their arrival, and made them welcome. ER promised to keep the kitchen icebox unlocked and looked forward to breakfast at seven.

  New York dressmaker Feige Shapiro was awed to be assigned Lincoln’s bed, where for the first time her “toes didn’t touch the end.” She awoke the first night, and exclaimed aloud: “Imagine me, Feigele Shapiro, sleeping in Lincoln’s bed!”

  Forty years later, Pauline Newman noted that it was the first time working women had been White House guests. Annelise Orleck considered that fact key to their enthusiasm for FDR: For all the wage differentials and Democratic opposition to working women, he “treated them with respect.”

  That respect was extended as well to an amazing gathering of six thousand country women from every state in the union and twenty-four nations, representing Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The Associated Country Women of the World triennial convened in Washington in June. The women were hosted at a White House garden party, where FDR announced that their meeting proved farmers and farmers’ wives and daughters could learn from each other and cooperate to achieve conservation as well as bountiful crops.

  FDR emphasized the need to undo “past mistakes,” restore “the former gifts of nature to their former value,” and see that “harmful practices of the old days shall not be repeated.” It was a diplomatic event as well as an environmental one, and peace and international trade were part of the agenda.

  At an evening reception ER celebrated country women as leaders and “full partners” in building the future. Radio gave rural women access to the “outside world;” better transport enabled easier travel; the telephone “banished loneliness.” It was an extraordinary convention that heralded a concept later called sustainable development and the movement toward women’s emancipation in rural communities throughout the world.

  Howe’s death plunged ER into gloom. Funeral arrangements “always recall previous experiences and depress me unreasonably. I hate funeral parlors. I hope I get put rapidly in the ground in the least expensive of coffins. It all seems so unimportant when ‘you’ no longer exist.”

  ER arranged every detail of Louis Howe’s funeral. “There have been endless questions all day, seating, flowers, etc.” ER comforted his family, arose early to meet his daughter, Mary Baker, and others at the train, and considered the services, held in the East Room, just as Louis “would have wanted them to be”—filled with his family, friends, allies—and his most significant enemies and detractors. The journey to Fall River for Louis Howe’s burial “was a trying trip,” but the cemetery service “was lovely and the place itself is beautiful.” According to newspapers, FDR seemed dazed, and “appeared oblivious to everything around him….”

  For eight hours on the train back to Washington, ER contemplated Louis Howe, who since 1911 had been her husband’s chief advocate and adviser, and since 1920, her own confidant, mentor, and jolly chum.

  He painted; had a wild sense of humor, a pleasing and trained tenor voice. They both loved the theater, and they enjoyed creating theater together. Since FDR never went out, much of their time together was spent inventing entertainments for his amusement. They worked on sets, lyrics, spoofs.

  Howe was considerate of her foibles. ER marveled that he once sat at a restaurant table he did not like, eating food he found disagreeable, without a complaint—because he knew a complaint would embarrass her. Very little embarrassed him. Called a medieval gnome in the press, he answered the phone: “This is the Medieval Gnome speaking.” He had cards printed: “Colonel Louis Rasputin Voltaire Talleyrand Simon Legree Howe.”

  Their relationship was intimate and unique. She shopped for his clothes; he bought her extraordinary gifts. Wherever he went he thought about what she would like. When his great friend Fannie Hurst served him cognac in a “tiny ruby glass,” one of a Venetian set of mixed and vivid colors he thought exquisite, he said: “How Eleanor would love these.” Fannie Hurst offered them for her as a gift. But Louis never accepted gifts, as a political rule. Hurst—flamboyant and generous—was stunned and hurt. When he realized she was offended, he accepted them for ER—which pleased everyone.

  ER worried especially about his devoted assistant Margaret Durand. “A merry freckle-faced girl” he called “Rabbit,” Durand joined the Roosevelt team in 1928. According to Howe’s secretary and biographer Leila Styles, Rabbit “devoted her life to him… as he devoted his to Franklin Roosevelt and no tribute paid her would do her justice.”

  That night, ER wrote Hick: “Rabbit is the one I am most sorry for just as if I should outlive FDR I know Missy would be the one I should worry about! I rather hope however that I will be the one to go, before I go through this again….”

  ER learned lifelong lessons from Howe: “Never admit you’re licked.” She added: “If you have to compromise, be sure to compromise up!”

  She pondered Howe’s death in terms of FDR’s loss. Howe was older than FDR, deeply trusted and respected: “Louis Howe’s death left a great gap in my husband’s life…. For one reason and another, no one quite filled the void.” Each new adviser “disappeared from the scene, occasionally with a bitterness which I understood but always regretted. There are not many men in this world whose personal ambition is to accomplish things for someone else, and it was some time before a friendship with Harry Hopkins, somewhat different but similar in certain ways, again brought Franklin some of the satisfaction he had known with Louis Howe.”

  Personally, Louis Howe had never disappointed ER. Above all, they shared a sense of why the game of politics was actually played. One built places like Arthurdale, with dispatch and despite all opposition, because it was right to do so. They shared a vision of public responsibility, which was for each of them in entirely selfless ways what the quest for public power was all about. At the time of Louis Howe’s death, ER wrote in her column:

  There never was a more gentle, kindly spirit. He hated sham and cowardice, but he had a great pity for the weak and helpless in this world, and responded to any appeal with warmth and sympathy. His courage, loyalty and devotion to his family and friends will be an inspiration to all of them as long as they liv
e.

  Over the years, ER wrote about Howe’s impact on her own life, her political evolution, and her public style. But ER rejected his conviction that she could serve in any elective or public office she chose. Specifically, Howe wanted ER to contemplate the presidency.

  In a letter to Hick, ER explained his vision of the future: “He always wanted to ‘make’ me President when FDR was through, and insisted he could do it.”

  One of Howe’s last legacies was an eleven-page essay, “Women’s Ways in Politics,” a celebration of women’s activities. Howe wrote it for Molly Dewson to use in the 1936 presidential campaign: “Forty years ago … a woman interested in politics was as scarce as an Irish snake.” Public interest among women was “regarded with raised eyebrows as denoting a perverted and plebeian taste which raised grave suspicions as to the social standing of her ancestors.” Even after women achieved the vote, “male political leaders” regarded women “with an indifference that to me was incomprehensible.” But women’s demands for social reform “rudely awakened” men from their “peaceful sloth,” and they began to concede power to women in local party organizations.

  Since 1928, Howe concluded, women had actually transformed the political game. He credited ER and her circle with introducing a new sense of determined independence: “Our women once tasting a sense of political power, have made in this short time many sweeping changes in the men’s organizations … and now are rapidly approaching an equal power with the men.”

  Howe listed women’s attributes: They wanted and demanded facts. They wanted their facts free of rhetoric and confusion. They understood how to write leaflets free of cant and artifice. They were always skeptical, and unlike men who were willing to accept “their leader’s statements” without evidence or investigation, women demanded real arguments. Howe believed his female coworkers “revolutionized the character of campaign literature.”

  Howe also considered “women very much superior to the men” in their “actual work among the voters.” The women’s division of the Democratic Party “organized a flying corps of women.” Without any compensation, they went door to door, in every community, “armed with literature and prepared to debate any question with intelligence. We called them at headquarters the ‘Grass Trampers’ and to their devotion, to their intelligence, to their tireless activities I cannot pay too high a tribute.”

  Howe concluded his essay “with a prophecy which will be violently disputed by almost every man.” If women continued to progress in politics during the next decade as they had in the past, they would run for every possible office and there was “not only the possibility but the advisability, of electing a woman as President of the United States.” He continued:

  And if the issues continue to be as they are now—humanitarian, educational, and all the other features of the so-called “New Deal,” it is not without the bounds of possibility that a woman might not only be nominated but elected to that office on the ground that they better understand such questions than the men.

  Howe died firmly convinced that ER could be that candidate.

  *ER’s reference to tensions between Gene Vidal, director of air commerce, and other Department of Commerce officials, including its secretary, Daniel Roper, is one example of her endless ability to involve herself in every aspect of FDR’s administration. In September, Vidal (Gore Vidal’s father) was removed. Amelia Earhart (his champion and lover) was furious and threatened to abandon her promise to ER to campaign. She wrote ER, who appealed to FDR, and Vidal was temporarily restored. After that Earhart made twenty-eight speeches for FDR throughout the country.

  *ER’s reference to tensions between Gene Vidal, director of air commerce, and other Department of Commerce officials, including its secretary, Daniel Roper, is one example of her endless ability to involve herself in every aspect of FDR’s administration. In September, Vidal (Gore Vidal’s father) was removed. Amelia Earhart (his champion and lover) was furious and threatened to abandon her promise to ER to campaign. She wrote ER, who appealed to FDR, and Vidal was temporarily restored. After that Earhart made twenty-eight speeches for FDR throughout the country.

  18: The Roosevelt Hearth, After Howe

  At the height of the campaign season, ER and FDR had to contend with the loss of the bridge between them. Louis Howe was the one friend who had consistently served their partnership: With wit and discernment, he helped adjust moments of confusion, disagreement, stubbornness, coldness. After Howe died, no one else spoke the kind of blunt truth to power they had both relied upon.

  FDR had lost the one man he could turn to for selfless advice, offered always in his best interest. ER had lost the one man who understood them equally, and who considered ER essential to FDR’s success. Frances Perkins believed ER had “loved him the way you love a person who has stood by you in the midst of the valley of the shadow and not been afraid of anything, a person who has stuck it out with you in physically, mentally and emotionally impossible situations.”

  For as long as Howe lived, ER had an ally whose views mattered to FDR. Once on their own, ER and FDR began to fly apart. Communication grew harder for each of them, and for their work together. Almost immediately, FDR made a series of political decisions ER opposed and argued fervently against. In the past, Howe would have joined her. He would shout and stamp, bang his fists: “Idiot”; “damned fool.” Invectives and warnings would fly: This is too dangerous; positively stupid. Now FDR was surrounded by people who increasingly told him whatever he most wanted to hear. Several of them regarded ER as that difficult woman in their way. In the past, Howe had protected her from those who wanted “to get the pants off Eleanor and on to Franklin.” ER was now alone when she entered FDR’s court, and tensions increased between them.

  FDR’s first decision was to call upon his eldest son, James, to replace Howe as secretary, companion, chief adviser. No president after John Adams had done that, and there was a democratic tradition that condemned, or at least disfavored, nepotism. ER worried about her husband’s reputation, and she worried about her son, not yet thirty. She argued and cajoled; she argued and grew cold, as was her way. FDR explained that he had a right to have his clever, strong, trusted son beside him.

  The delicate balance between ER’s court and FDR’s court tilted dramatically when James and his wife, Betsey Cushing Roosevelt, joined the White House family. Forever sensitive to the plight of a daughter-in-law, ER sought to maintain warm, noninterfering, generous relations with her sons’ wives. In most cases, she succeeded. But Betsey Cushing Roosevelt, beautiful and efficient, was utterly charmed by FDR, and completely disinterested in ER.

  Betsey blamed ER’s public interests for FDR’s loneliness, and she set out to make up for his wife’s neglect. She would amuse and entertain him, protect and pamper him. Her attentions pleased FDR, made James jealous, and infuriated ER—who now felt herself disdained and diminished by two Mrs. James Roosevelts who acted as if she were irrelevant or, worse, an interloper in her own home.

  ER was astonished to find that Betsey interfered with household matters, invited guests for dinner, reordered the table, countermanded orders, menus, and plans, even when she was in residence. Critical and rude, Betsey seemed to despise her mother-in-law. On one campaign trip, Betsey sounded as if she resented ER’s very presence: Awakened by an excited voice in the adjoining stateroom at 3:30 A.M., Betsey heard ER tell FDR about her unexpected meeting with her brother Hall. Betsey complained to the president about his interrupted sleep over inconsequential news. But FDR defended his wife: “Bets, you don’t understand her at all—she has no concept of time.”

  During a particularly festive White House party, ER invited Betsey to dance—which resulted in a spiteful confrontation when ER noted that Betsey was reported to be a splendid dancer, but she stepped on ER’s feet twice. No, smiled Betsey, Missy was the good dancer. Subsequently, Betsey concluded that ER did not so much like to dance “as to lead.”

  Although FDR defended his wife from direct
assault, he insisted on Betsey’s continued place at the table. According to James, “Father approved because Betsey delighted him. She was pretty, playful, a teaser. She flattered him, and he adored her.” Ultimately, there was nothing but bitterness between ER and Betsey, who subsequently became a fountain of reliably mean stories about her once and former mother-in-law.

  Many people stepped momentarily into the cavernous gap Howe left. Felix Frankfurter sent letters of advice and proposed an army of young men to serve, many of whom did so. But nobody took Howe’s place, and nobody cared to bridge the widening space that developed between America’s First Couple.

  Immediately after Howe’s funeral, ER set about to refurbish her own court. She increasingly relied on Tommy for companionship. After touring Todhunter students through the Williamsburg restoration, she wrote Hick: “I was in the state when one doesn’t want to do anything more, but now I’m glad I came for we had a glorious drive down and Tommy is a nice comfortable person for I never feel she expects attention or entertainment, and by lunch time I felt smoothed out….”

  ER’s closest allies were Harry Hopkins and others in WPA and NYA; also Rex Tugwell, now at the Resettlement Administration, which had authority over Arthurdale and other communities.

  ER was relieved to write Hick that she spent part of the afternoon with Rex Tugwell, “and I do feel he is doing a better and better job and I wish the public knew it.” She worried, however, about Harry Hopkins and his wife, Barbara, who was diagnosed with cancer: “I would like to help them….”