Eleanor Roosevelt

by Blanche Wiesen Cook

  Before ER left on a Western trip with FDR, followed by her lecture tour, she insisted that she and Hick see each other. Hick resisted; ER was adamant: “If you can’t come for dinner come after dinner, for the night and breakfast at least.”

  Hick’s elusiveness served almost as a magnet. After two weeks of such appeals, they finally spent a pleasant evening together in New York. Afterward, Hick wrote:

  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your having come down. I’ve missed you so terribly these last few months. I know we did see each other, but usually for only a few minutes at a time—and somehow we were rather like strangers. But the last three or four times have been nice, and I feel happy about you and contented. You look so much better and seem much more like your old self.

  Don’t let that damned trip get you down, dear. And please send me the peace article if you want to. My love to you—always.

  ER’s peace article, which would become a book, grew out of a series of September meetings at Hyde Park filled with details about Germany’s violence and Spain’s tragedy. Bernard Baruch returned from his annual visit to a German spa with information, and two extravagant gifts for ER—and he told “me carefully why he thought I had given him permission to do so! He lunched alone with F and I had nine for a buffet on my porch.”

  ER was convinced that the United States could not remain aloof from the crises in Europe and Asia, and when her brother arrived with several friends, she had support. At dinner that night nobody believed the United States would be uninvolved if a general war occurred. Despite the depth of U.S. isolation, there were ways “to get our people into war,” ER wrote Hick. “Hall thinks it can be done easily. What do you think?”

  While ER focused on Spain and Europe, FDR was more concerned about the Pacific. He deplored Japan’s invasion of northern China. Peking and Tientsin had fallen; Shanghai was surrounded. Japanese planes bombed cities, countless civilians were killed, and three thousand Americans were trapped in Shanghai. Hull issued “preachments” and counseled inaction.

  FDR was so aggrieved that he reconsidered the need for collective security, which he had spurned since June 1933, when he doomed the London Economic Conference. When Ethiopia was invaded by Italy in October 1935 and when Germany reoccupied the Rhineland on 7 March 1936, FDR remained silent. No steps toward an embargo to limit Hitler’s frightful rearmament program were undertaken, although for two years Dodd sent evidence that German factories belched out weapons of death day and night, every day, twenty-four hours a day, enhanced by the most vital raw materials from America.

  By 1937, European internationalists no longer considered the United States a significant factor in diplomacy. Winston Churchill, England’s leading anti-Nazi and only outspoken antifascist agitator, asked a profascist French acquaintance: “With Germany arming at breakneck speed, England lost in a pacifist dream, France corrupt and torn by dissension, America remote and indifferent—Madame, my dear lady, do you not tremble for your children?”

  While the Roosevelts continued to remain silent about Nazi atrocities in 1937, Churchill railed at meetings of the Anti-Nazi Council and wrote articles about freedom’s end, Nazi tyranny, concentration camps that now dotted Germany’s countryside, persecution of Jews: “It is a horrible thing that a race of people should be… blotted out of the society in which they have been born.”

  But while ER considered Spain the moral equator, even Churchill supported the embargo against Spain. That represented a fight between communism and fascism; if the embargo ensured fascism, England would benefit. ER was certain such convictions condemned democracy everywhere, and by summer’s end both ER and FDR considered alternatives to America’s international policy.

  They both turned increasingly to Sumner Welles, an old family friend. His great-uncle was the abolitionist senator Charles Sumner; his mother (Frances Swan) and ER’s mother had been close. Hall’s Groton roommate, Sumner was the page who carried ER’s wedding train in 1905, and he was loyal. ER relied upon him as refugees claimed more and more of her attention. However limited his interest in refugees, he was the only member of the State Department she trusted.

  FDR had named him assistant secretary of state on 20 March 1937, and by autumn he upset the strict isolationists who dominated the State Department, a small brotherhood of 250 careerists and an occasional political appointee. Welles encouraged FDR to move beyond somnambulance on international issues.

  FDR now hoped for an Anglo-American accord, at least to limit Japanese aggression. But it was too late. In May 1937, former minister of the exchequer Neville Chamberlain had become prime minister. He despised America, and never forgave FDR for his actions regarding the 1933 London Conference. He believed war might be forestalled by granting Hitler the territories he wanted for resources, and prestige. Churchill raged against his intentions: It would be “wrong for any nation to give up ‘a scrap of territory to keep the Nazi kettle boiling.’” But in England, only Churchill called for collective security and rearmament.

  In the United States, however, rearmament was under way during the summer of 1937. FDR bolstered the manufacture of U.S. warplanes, bombers, ships, and matériel; naval appropriations were increased by $1.3 billion. Clear about the need for U.S. defense measures, FDR refused to invoke the neutrality law and embargo for the Asian war, or to remove it against Spain. There were no discussions of economic reprisals against Germany, Italy, or Japan. An embargo, FDR argued, would only serve Japan.

  Then, after Japan announced a blockade of the China coast on 25 August, a shipload of nineteen planes bound for China left Baltimore harbor. The isolationist press howled, and six peace societies, including the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, demanded the arms embargo be invoked. Other peace activists, including Carrie Chapman Catt, supported FDR.

  On 13 September, Joseph Kennedy, then head of the Maritime Commission, ordered the ship, the Wichita, detained in California and the nineteen planes off-loaded., FDR agreed: Government-owned ships would not carry munitions to either side. The Neutrality Act was still not invoked, on the legal ground that no state of war had been declared, but China was dismayed. America had forgotten “its moral obligations.”

  The liberal press noted that the United States was now aligned with the aggressors on two continents. Unlike the Spanish situation, however, American exporters were free to trade at their own risk—and the munitions trade with both Japan and China flourished.

  ER considered America’s policy unjust, inconsistent, and weak. While FDR worked on his own controversial foreign policy speech to be given in Chicago, she felt conscience-bound to speak her mind, but constrained from saying anything that would cause FDR additional difficulties. ER confided her dilemma to Hick, who encouraged her to be bold:

  This is a Hell of a time to be trying to write an article about peace! If you could only be absolutely honest, say exactly what you think, and rip things up generally, the article would be easy to write, wouldn’t it? And fun. No wonder you get discouraged….

  ER’s article turned into a major essay, published as This Troubled World in January 1938. Concerned that her views not disturb FDR, she asked him to read it. She wrote Hick: “FDR read the peace thing so he won’t be surprised at any wallops that come.”

  ER’s lead was vivid:

  The newspapers these days are becoming more and more painful. I was reading my morning papers on the train not so long ago, and looked up with a feeling of desperation. Up and down the car people were reading, yet no one seemed excited.

  To me the whole situation seems intolerable. We face today a world filled with suspicion and hatred….

  Only forty-seven pages long, This Troubled World was written with a sense of urgency and hope. Since it actually slammed FDR’s policies, one can only wonder what he thought of their differences, or whether he read it carefully, and took it seriously. Perhaps, on the other hand, it influenced his decision to speak for the first time in his presidency as an internationalist.


  In Chicago, on 5 October 1937, FDR, who had turned his back on the League of Nations and the World Court, on all their shared commitment to collective security, which ER adhered to throughout, now spoke as he had before 1932. He invoked the “high aspirations” of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, shattered by “a reign of terror and international lawlessness.”

  The very foundations of civilization were threatened; all progress toward “law, order, and justice are being wiped away,” FDR said. “Innocent peoples, innocent nations, are being cruelly sacrificed to a greed for power and supremacy….”

  He called for all peace-loving nations to make “a concerted effort in opposition…. There must be a return to a belief in the pledged word, in the value of a signed treaty….”

  The world was at risk, 90 percent of humanity were jeopardized by 10 percent who had unleashed “an epidemic of world lawlessness.”

  When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community… joins in a quarantine in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease…. War is a contagion whether it be declared or undeclared….

  An historic address, FDR’s “quarantine” speech unleashed fierce opposition; his congressional allies reacted with fearful silence. Pacifists and isolationists condemned it as a major policy shift, a giant step toward involvement and war. Internationalists like ER and Ickes were encouraged. It reflected precisely her words in This Troubled World. Ickes considered it “a great speech” that would stiffen “the backbones” of Britain, France, the Spanish Republicans, and China and even “put a little courage into the League of Nations.”

  ER was not with FDR in Chicago, and hoped the press and congressional opposition would not cause him to back down. FDR’s quarantine speech was the culmination of their Western trip taken to assess the New Deal’s progress, and she had returned East. Although all the crowds were friendly from Seattle to the Yellowstone Park, ER was disturbed by a perceptible change in FDR’s “attitude toward the press.” Even on the presidential train filled with his favorite reporters, she noticed a difference. Her husband seemed curt:

  He is always looking for slams and wanting to get back at them. The old attitude of friendliness is gone and instead of indifference which I could understand there is this resentful feeling which I regret.

  While FDR presented his Quarantine speech in Chicago, ER was at a New York Herald Tribune forum to pay tribute to Amelia Earhart. Mayor La Guardia introduced ER, and referred to her as one of the world’s most significant pioneers, a woman who dared. He noted that Columbus had persuaded Isabella to imagine the unknown. She dared, and “a new era in history was started. It’s a long time from Isabella to Eleanor,” and people had now “discovered that the building of cheerful homes by the government for its people is a greater accomplishment than the conquest of new lands and the conquering of strange peoples.”

  ER’s speech emphasized the need for individual courage:

  One of the greatest causes of trouble in the world today is the distrust we have for each other, which brings about fear, and fear is the basis of all our other evils….

  A good deal of conscience and a certain amount of iron in the soul will be needed by the youth of this generation. It has come upon us so gradually that I think most of my generation hardly realizes how very soft we have become….

  To “escape chaos in the future we have got to recapture” the lost pioneering spirit of determination and strength.

  That night, ER dined with her brother and they went to the pier to meet Mama, on her return from Europe. On the drive up to Hyde Park with her brother and SDR, ER heard many things that made her wish fervently FDR would have enough “iron in the soul” to withstand all opposition to his quarantine speech.

  But the very next day, 6 October 1938, an excited press conference demanded his specific intentions. He had none. What did he mean by “quarantine”? Nothing.

  QUESTION. Is anything contemplated? Have you moved?

  FDR. No; just the speech itself.

  QUESTION.… [Is] it a repudiation of neutrality—

  FDR. Not for a minute. It may be an expansion.

  QUESTION. Doesn’t it mean economic sanctions anyway?

  FDR. No… “sanctions” is a terrible word…. They are out the window….

  FDR parried and punted, finally concluding: “I can’t give you any clue to it. You will have to invent one.” The president trusted the conference was “off the record.”

  Distressed by FDR’s waffling, ER still hoped his speech would influence public opinion toward collective security. In several columns, she called for diplomatic action against aggressors. Although she did not contradict her husband by name, she took issue with his failure to define a national policy, his refusal to state clear diplomatic “objectives.” The world faced a perilous situation, while the great democratic nations floundered: “The real trouble is that we have no machinery which automatically deals with these difficulties.”

  Politically, it was the wrong time for FDR to have given a fighting international speech. Many of his former allies were still in active opposition, embittered by the Court-packing business. FDR was also bothered by reports that Jim Farley had resigned as postmaster general because he had been “slighted by the White House.” And everybody was upset by the news that Supreme Court Justice designate Hugo Black had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. A stalwart New Dealer who had supported FDR’s Court plan, Alabama’s senator was not perceived as a Klanner. FDR had sent his name to Congress on 13 August, without any congressional preparation or presidential inquiry, and the question had not come up during confirmation hearings. The newspaper exposé, however, was irrefutable. Black was traveling in Europe with his wife, Josephine Foster Black (Virginia Foster Durr’s sister), and would say nothing until he returned.

  ER’s colleague Allie Freed, philanthropist and Arthurdale supporter, was incensed:

  The [Hugo] Black situation involves… the very fundamentals of Americanism, liberalism and tolerance.

  The horrors of the Klan can only be appreciated by those who cast their eyes on present day Germany. Surely the President has nothing in common with those who would carry America back….

  ER considered it “very bewildering”:

  It certainly seems incredible that he should ever have belonged to the Klan. If he did belong… I cannot quite understand why he did not come out and say so… instead of allowing his friends to believe [otherwise].

  On his return, Black—who became one of the Supreme Court’s most consistent civil rights champions—admitted his former membership and disavowed Klan objectives.

  ER spent the weekend before her birthday with Hick at the Little House. It was a “grand weekend” and ER was glad they had finally managed to pull it off, despite her schedule. Hick was in a good mood even though the Danas were in residence. They were lovely, ER wrote Anna, and “asked so much about you,” and there was a “grand picnic on the beach.”

  Energized by their good time together, ER wanted Hick to reconsider her boycott of Val-Kill. Hick refused: There was no privacy, and altogether “too much friction up there…. At the WH one doesn’t get so close to it, and your sitting room or Louis’ old room will offer refuge. But at Hyde Park!…”

  Their visit was shortened by tragedy. Barbara Duncan Hopkins, Harry Hopkins’s wife, died of breast cancer, and ER returned to Washington for the funeral. Hick noted that “if anybody could ever be said to be indispensable, I think she could. I’ve thought a lot today about the time you went to see her in Washington and found her gazing sadly out the window at little Diana, playing.”

  Diana was not yet five, and Harry’s inconsolable grief lasted for months. ER invited them to move into the White House.

  After Barbara’s somber funeral, with much “standing around with FDR and Mama both,” ER escaped for a ride on her new horse, another gift from Earl. It was “glorious” and she “got a satisfaction out of finding I could manage a fairly spi
rited animal.”

  ER’s fifty-third birthday was unusually festive. Since her September 1936 fever, FDR had begun a new tradition and planned merry celebrations for his wife.

  ER wrote Hick:

  I wish you could have been here tonight. We had a gay party with Tommy Corcoran to play and sing. Everyone seemed to have a good time and Hall came from NY and was noisy as usual but very jolly. Franklin and Ethel drove up….

  The entire day was splendid. FDR gave his wife a fur lining for her raincoat:

  Dear Eleanor: One inside of a coat!

  I hope it keeps you warm, but it ain’t much of a present!

  VERY much love

  There was even politically good news that day: “Arthurdale seems to be progressing.” She rode through Rock Creek Park at nine-thirty in the morning, swam at six-thirty in the evening, and enjoyed every minute of her day. “And now I am very sleepy and a year older! The nicest part was hearing your voice. You were a peach dear. A world of love.”

  The next day, FDR addressed the nation in a dramatic Fireside Chat. The economy had plunged into a recession, and FDR intended to compensate for the legislative time lost on the Court fight. He called Congress into special session, beginning 15 November. These were urgent times, which demanded urgent attention:

  Five years of fierce discussion and debate… have taken the whole nation to school in the nation’s business….

  Out of that process, we have learned to think as a nation…. As never before in our history, each section of America says to every other section, “Thy people shall be my people.”

  The people of America “do not look on government as an interloper in their affairs. On the contrary, they regard it as the most effective form of organized self-help.”