Eleanor Roosevelt

by Blanche Wiesen Cook

  FDR returned to the unfinished business of the New Deal:

  Specifically, FDR sought legislation for a minimum-wage and maximum-hours law; an end to child labor, disallowed when NRA was declared unconstitutional; government reorganization, in the interests of efficiency; an expansion of the TVA for seven regions of the nation; and more vigorous antitrust activity, to curtail “private monopoly and financial oligarchies.”

  Permanent prosperity depended on long-range considerations—the need for reforestation to avoid desertification, the need for a permanent granary—food—available for all Americans at a cost base that guaranteed survival for farm families, with storage for years of scarcity. This involved an expansion of CCC and WPA efforts, tree plantings, dams and ponds and water tables.

  FDR concluded on an internationalist note. Despite his disclaimer of 6 October he now said: “Nor can we view with indifference the destruction of civilized values throughout the world. We seek peace, not only for our generation but also for the generation of our children….” Peace “must be affirmatively reached for.” FDR again tilted toward collective security, the day after ER’s joyous birthday. His speech, in part prepared that night, had contributed to her good mood.

  Her husband seemed again on course. He was “satisfied with the State of the Nation and sounds as though he were enjoying himself.” But her sense of well-being was short-lived. After two weeks of Harry Hopkins’s residence in the White House, she was disturbed: “Gosh, he gives me a feeling of being hollow!”

  When ER encouraged Hopkins to move into Louis Howe’s room, she had not anticipated that he would abandon their alliance and move completely into FDR’s court. All the issues that most concerned her, including the future of the NYA, were endangered as he lost interest. ER had lost not only a friend but her last powerful ally.

  Immediately, ER turned to Aubrey Williams to save the National Youth Administration. Everything was threatened by the autumnal recession. With new resolve, ER campaigned with youth and student leaders to increase the NYA budget and fought for the long-delayed federal aid to education bill.

  Her goals clear, ER left Washington for her autumn 1937 lecture rounds. She was glad to be removed from the White House as Congress’s special session revealed a strident opposition to FDR’s vision. While ER traveled, the special session gave him nothing he asked for.

  Her schedule caused her to “criss-cross” the country, “going south as far as Memphis, Tennessee, and north as far as Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.”

  ER flourished on the road. Tommy thought she was so happy and never got depressed while traveling because she had no tensions “to tire her as she has at home or at Hyde Park.”

  ER had a remarkable capacity to see her audiences and relate personally to each individual. Her only complaint on tour was lack of exercise. Without her horse or an available swimming pool, she felt cooped up. Inactivity “upsets my digestion, and makes me sleepy.”

  In Indiana, ER visited a Negro housing project and laid a wreath on the tomb of the first soldier killed in World War I. She also visited friends of Hick’s who were “very attractive and nice and so anxious to hear about you. People do remember you with warmth once they know you, don’t they?”

  In Illinois, ER wrote that her trip had been “more restful than any trip I’ve ever taken” and the audiences had been “bigger than ever before.” She was pleased: “I’ll probably always have to do a good deal of it till I retire and sit by the fire with my knitting!”

  Despite the crowds, ER also found time to write several articles, including “My House” and “My Job.” Her agent George Bye wanted more color and suggested that she allow an editor to rewrite. ER cabled him a resounding “NO” from Memphis and complained to Hick: “They will not believe that I’ll write it myself or not at all!” But she wanted Hick’s advice.

  While ER traveled, wrote, and had the kind of exciting life Hick once had, the former reporter descended into a foul and angry mood. While Hick felt herself now no more than a glorified errand girl for the World’s Fair, stuck in a stupid job she hated, ER sent her articles for editorial advice. Her own work was meaningless; she felt “bored with life,” and wanted ER to appreciate her misery:

  I swore at other drivers all the way in, and I’m now about to go to the dressmaker and shall try not to bite her ear off. Yes—I’m thoroughly bad. And why do necessary people like Barbara Hopkins… have to die and leave me to live this fretful, innocuous existence of mine? Oh—I don’t know the answers—none of them.

  On the whole, I like [It“My JobIt”]. It’s fresh, and I like the sincere tone of it. I do think, though, you might have put in more of your serious work and less of the White House social duties. They make me gag. I suppose that’s what people want, though. Damned yokels.

  Hick’s frequent outbursts reflected another level of her private agony as she tried to steer a reasonable course through their complicated intimate and public friendship. She was desperate to express her feelings and was unable to contain them. Her desire to protect the most famous woman in America prevented her from confiding in anyone. Their relationship had to absorb her frustration and anger. ER was rarely willing to explore feelings, and instead offered advice, emotional platitudes:

  You poor child!… You did have a bad day and react just as we all do. Everyone of us feels that way every so often and it certainly is hard. I do hope you get a chance to go on the road soon. You’ll enjoy the change…. Stop worrying about why you should have to live and enjoy what you can.

  And she defended her article:

  I didn’t put in anything but what is at present my job, the White House end. The rest is not my job just my preference and stolen from the time I can get away from “the job”! No one is interested in my [goals or ideas] they are only interested in a First Lady!

  Curiously, ER suggested Hick spend social time with Tommy, who had told ER she missed Hick and hoped that they might go out together. But Tommy and Hick each resented the time ER spent with the other. More than ER’s secretary, Tommy was devoted to ER. They spent every day together, and except for the few trips ER took with others, they traveled together everywhere. She typed all ER’s columns, worked on her books, and arranged her business life. ER really could not function, write, or live without Tommy.

  Tommy did not live in the White House, but with Henry Osthagen in Washington. They did, however, have an apartment in ER’s new home at Val-Kill. Except for Henry, who occupied a corner of her time, Tommy’s major concern was with ER and her work. And she was protective of her time and affections—which was, of course, why Hick never wanted Tommy included in her times with ER.

  Moreover, Hick and Tommy were very similar: gruff and direct; drinking, smoking, high-life, hardworking women. ER enjoyed their company, and they enjoyed hers; but Tommy and Hick were no longer friends—although they were both willing to spend time together.

  Hick wrote: “Tell Tommy I’d love to go on a bat with her sometime.” But she was upset to hear that Tommy thought she had changed:

  I suppose she means that I was never impressed by the WH and all that, and God knows I wasn’t. I would be entirely occupied with a purely personal situation while right in the center of things, in a position where many, many people would have given their very eye teeth to be! And it would have been so much easier for you had I… enjoyed it instead of hating it, and had I been more preoccupied with that and less—much less— with you!

  Anyway, Hick concluded, “I’m feeling better tonight,” and her assistant Barbara was with her for dinner. “She is rather good for me, I think—fresh and humorous.”

  While on tour, ER received exciting news: The reviews of her autobiography in the Times and Tribune were ecstatic. The major newspapers agreed: Crisp, clear, profoundly moving, This Is My Story was “a portrait of a great lady in a democracy,” who sorrowed and struggled, and found her own way. The book was a popular sensation. Joe Patterson of the Daily News wrote: “I think your book is splendid; and
that it may become a classic.”

  Cousin Alice was overheard to ask at a party: “Have you read it? Did you realize Eleanor could write like that? It’s perfect; its marvelous….”

  Dorothy Canfield Fisher wrote: “You see I think you are a kind of genius. Out of your personality and position you have certainly created something of first-rate and unique value… an example.”

  Isabella Greenway, her first and once closest confidante, wrote a long handwritten letter of gratitude. One of ER’s bridesmaids, she knew many of the stories and all the players across the generations:

  Eleanor MY dearest—, &, for the moment NO one else’s… You have in your own way (great in its kind honesty) found such a perfect [voice] for narrative…. You tiptoe, you run, you march & you stride…. your example of translating bitterness to triumph… will help many a person….

  ER was particularly touched by a scholar’s essay in The North American Review and wrote to thank him for his “very interesting review.” Lloyd Morris wrote that the enthusiastic praise for This Is My Story might initially have been because of curiosity about the First Lady, but actually it was “a tribute to genuine merit.” Its “literary merits… spring from deeply personal sources. It is, in the best and literal sense, ingenuous,” and “its warmth, candor, and simplicity” reflect “inherent qualities of mind, heart, and character.”

  After five effusive pages, Morris concluded that the book’s “major significance and import… have to do with the future, and not the past.” Without “vanity or ostentation, Mrs. Roosevelt opens up a vista for American women… of more complete individual function, of more thorough self-mastery, of more socially valuable activity….” She pointed the way to full personhood “and a less superficial culture.”

  Despite her personal triumph, ER felt fettered by White House upset and her growing estrangement from FDR’s court. Thanksgiving was a hard day. FDR recovered slowly from’ a dreadful infection that began with a painfully abscessed tooth. Untreated for too long, the infection spread throughout his body, causing fever and swelling. He canceled his plans for Warm Springs, and there was a small White House dinner for seven. ER wrote nothing of her husband’s agony, and noted coldly: “Not much of a party, though two is enough if you really want to be together I suppose.”

  She understood that it was inconvenient to call Hick in the country, where the Danas had no easy-access phone. ER wished Hick a happy day, and hoped “you’ll find something you can be thankful for.”

  Hall sailed for Europe. “It almost makes me want to go. How about you?…”

  The next day, ER and FDR left Washington. FDR embarked on a cruise to the Florida Keys, and ER took Doris Duke Cromwell for a three-day trip through “the poor mining sections” and new homesteads of West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

  Tommy wrote John Boettiger that Clarence Pickett had arranged it as “an intensive education for the little lady”:

  I can’t say it is very subtle—Clarence Pickett… inveigled Mrs. R into taking her with the hope that in such excellent company she will be so impressed that she will make a handsome contribution to the Friends. A hold-up without arms or ammunition!

  Clarence Pickett may be a saintly soul and a doer of good works, but he always inspires me with a desire to at least cut his throat. He asks Mrs. R to do so many things and is so persistent there is no getting out of them. Sweet and generous as Mrs. R is, I know she could easily think of many things she would rather do than tote Doris through the homesteads….

  Undoubtedly, Tommy’s words reflected ER’s reaction.

  In December, ER juggled family and official life on an ever-faster carousel. She planned a special Christmas date with Hick: “Remember you are spending the night [at 11th Street] and what do you want for dinner? You are so much better at thinking up nice dinners than I am.”

  If you just come on the 20th and have a happy evening that is enough present for me and please don’t spend money on things for me. Love means so much more and Heaven knows you give me that 365 days in the year.

  On 14 December 1937, ER had a literary lunch for Washington Times-Herald publisher Cissy Patterson, one of the most powerful women in Washington, and British writer Vera Brittain. Their luncheon coincided with the settlement of the Panay incident. Two days before Japan had bombed and sunk the U.S. gunboat Panay in Chinese waters, and Washington was in turmoil. Three public-spirited women brooded over the bitter possibilities for the future in Europe and Asia.

  Vera Brittain wrote: “Eleanor Roosevelt’s duchess-like dignity at first inspired me with an alarm which disappeared as I came to know her better and to understand the deep sincerity of her approach to human problems.”

  When ER took her in to meet FDR, he “interrupted a dispatch to Japan” to question Brittaih closely about her travels through the Middle West and her opinion of isolationist sentiments. She sensed his struggle in his “pale, drawn countenance behind the mercurial smile,” and concluded he was a “great man, with one of the most charming expressions I have seen on the face of any human person, and exquisite manners.” Later that day, Japan apologized for its “mistake,” and promised to pay for U.S. losses. U.S. neutrality continued, while bitter distrust escalated.

  On 16 December, ER hosted the diplomatic dinner, usually the “gayest and most light-hearted” party of the year. This time ER sensed the grave “solemnity in all the [foreign dignitaries] that came past us.” Everyone wore a somber expression, and there was no relief from the “tension in the air.”

  Throughout the week, there were also family tensions: Elliott was angry because after Hearst offered him all the radio stations (he already ran the “paying ones”), he canceled his entire broadcast contract—and explained: “The White House was the opposition.” Evidently FDR had finally had enough of Hearst, and ER felt “no one is being entirely truthful with [Elliott].”

  ER wrote Anna that Elliott thought “James did it, which I told him was not so.”

  ER was “so busy these two weeks in Washington that I was sick with inward rebellion and if I had not had a peaceful Friday in New York seeing Elliott and Ruth and Earl (who left… on a two weeks cruise with Roberta and Jane Brett), I think I would have blown up!” ER explained to her daughter that she found “the social racket increasingly distasteful and there is so much tension over internal and international affairs that one feels worn Out for no real reason…. Well I suppose the world will run smoothly again….”

  On the 17th, ER went to New York to decorate the tree for the Women’s Trade Union League children’s party, and on the 20th she officiated at the opening of the Harlem Art Center, a WPA project. It was a gala event that included an exhibit of paintings and demonstrations of all the new opportunities available at the center. ER took great pride in this particular project, which offered courses in pottery, photography, drawing, painting, and sculpture.

  Suddenly, on 22 December, ER abruptly changed her Washington Christmas plans to fly to Seattle and be with Anna, who was hemorrhaging. It was the second year in a row that FDR and ER were separated on Christmas. There were evidently various reasons for her decision, including her increased sense of exclusion from the happy social group that now surrounded FDR, intensified by her sense of loss over Harry Hopkins. Their “bridge-playing” and good cheer dotted ER’s correspondence with Anna. Once again feeling “odd girl out” in her own home, she explained her decision in her column:

  Yesterday I decided very suddenly that with so many of the family together at the White House they would have a very jolly time. [And] I think mothers were meant to go where they are most useful….

  Before she left for Seattle she had her party with Hick, who was grateful:

  Darling, it was a lovely “Christmas” last night—one of the nicest I can remember. And I did mean it when I said that I would try all through the coming year to show you how happy your sweet thoughtfulness had made me. Gosh, it meant a lot! We were peaceful and contented and glad to be together….

 
Dearest one—still, and always, dearest one—you made me very, very happy, and I thank you. During the next few days there will be times when you feel tired and discouraged and low. Please try to remember at those times that there are several people who love you very very dearly, not because of your position, or because of being related to you, just because you are your own swell self—just you.

  ER was relieved to be with Anna in Seattle. Although she looked “pale and thin… we are going to have a jolly time.”

  Anna wrote Tommy: “The five of us did indeed have a wonderful Christmas together. We were absolutely alone the entire time, except for Christmas dinner…. Ma pitched right in the day she arrived,” and her presence caused Anna to feel cured: “All the transfusions, pills, and injections… have been nothing compared to the tonic of having her with us.”

  ER’s time away cheered her up, and she returned to the White House in a festive mood for New Year’s Eve: “Hall and a stream of wild youngsters came in…. Now a good dance is on and I’ve come up to send you just a line.” ER was in an uncommonly good party mood: She loved to dance, and waltzed the night away with her brother, and others. Hall’s loud ebullience and his wild circle of friends momentarily restored some balance to the war of the White House courts. She wrote Hick:

  I think our young people look very nice in a crowd! But Betsey has a dress I hate, it is so undressed! Darling I must get back but I love you and was so glad to hear your voice. A very Happy New Year.

  On New Year’s Day, ER and Hall “had a grand ride,” which ER considered auspicious, and she hoped 1938 would be a year full of “peace and contentment,” although peace appeared nowhere on the horizon.

  *A most curious exchange between ER and Henry Morgenthau, whose Treasury Department presided over FDR’s Secret Service and Intelligence unit, heightens the puzzle. When ER asked him to release the Itasca file to Earhart’s friends, aviators Paul Mantz, Jacqueline Cochran, and others, Morgenthau’s office sent ER an unsigned memo: The secretary said he “cannot give out any more information than was given to the papers at the time of the search of Amelia Earhart. It seems they have confidential information which would completely ruin the reputation of Amelia and which he will tell you personally some time when you wish to hear it. He suggests writing [Paul Mantz] and telling him that the President is satisfied from his information, and you are too, that everything possible was done.” ER followed that suggestion.