Eleanor Roosevelt

by Blanche Wiesen Cook

  104 Bullitt on Hull: Bullitt to FDR, 13 June 1933, Bullitt, pp. 34–35; see also Davis, p. 131. On 15 June 1933, Warren Delano Robbins wrote to his cousins, “Dear Franklin and Dear Eleanor,” Cordell Hull was “very temperamental and was on the verge of resigning.” Edgar Nixon, ed., FDR and Foreign Affairs (Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 237.

  104 Groton graduation: NYT, 17 June 1933.

  105 The schooner was accompanied: Davis, pp. 158–60; Charles Hurd, When the New Deal Was Young and Gay (Harper, 1965) pp. 157, 150, 153.

  105 FDR to Herbert Bayard Swope, telegram, 16 June 1933, in Letters, III, p. 353.

  105–6 James Warburg considered it urgent for FDR to accept dollar-pound stabilization. Unless he did, the U.S. could not “assume a leading role” in the effort to achieve “lasting economic peace.” But FDR rejected his advice. Schlesinger, pp. 215–16; Davis, pp. 155–57.

  106 ER distracted and agitated: ER to Hick, 17 June, 20 June 1933.

  106 In sour mood: ER to Hick, 23 June 1933.

  106 “FDR and the whole fleet”: Davis, FDR, pp. 164–65; Davis, Invincible Summer, pp. 115–16.

  106–7 “I hope we have good weather”: ER to Hick, 24–25 June 1933.

  107 ER went sailing: ER to Hick, 27 June 1933.

  108 “I was amazed”: Moley, pp. 245–49.

  109 Moley’s cable: 29 June 1933, Moley, pp. 252–55.

  109 FDR lifted anchor: Davis, Invincible Summer, p. 116; Davis, FDR: The New Deal Years, p. 185.

  109 Hurd, When the New Deal Was Young and Gay, pp. 165–71.

  110 “Mama would cancel all the debts”: FDR to Waldorf Astor, Apr. 1933, FDR’s Letters, III, p. 341.

  110 “kings cannot err”: Moley, pp. 255–57. Hull ordered minutes burned, Herbert Feis, “Some Notes on Historical Record Keeping,” Frances Lowenstein, ed., The Historian and the Diplomat (Harper, 1967), p. 97.

  111 blamed his wife: For example, Davis, FDR, pp. 187–88; Freidel, Rendezvous, p. 117; but see also Freidel, Launching, pp. 478–79.

  111 learned one very important lesson: See ER, “The Importance of Background Knowledge in Building for the Future” (July 1946), in Allida Black, ed., p. 545.

  111 “recaptured a little serenity”: ER to Hick, 27–29 June 1933.

  112 FDR’s bombshell: Moley, pp. 259–61.

  112 MacDonald, “I don’t understand”: Moley, p. 263.

  112 “Roosevelt Praised in German Press,” NYT, 4 July 1933.

  112–13 FDR was supported by an odd assortment of boosters, including Felix Frankfurter, who dismissed the London “formula, with all its mischievous ambiguities,” as a “literary shell-game.” FF to FDR, 6 July 1933, Freedman, ed., pp. 147–48; and Moley was satisfied, p. 267.

  113 Supported in the new Germany: For Schact, Selig Adler, The Isolationist Impulse (Collier, 1961), p. 153; John Garratty, The Great Depression (Doubleday, Anchor, 1987), p. 201. See also, John Weitz, Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schact (Little, Brown, 1997); felt hopeless: 2 Aug. 1933, Villard in Gronowicz, ed., p. 424.

  113 Litvinov worked the room: Villard, p. 427.

  114 Esther Lape’s “Committee of Inquiry”: Lape to HR Reid, 14 June 1933; on Monday, 3 July 1933. Reid collection, LC.

  7: Private Times and Reports from Germany

  115 Woman’s Home Companion. ER’s two-year contract, NYT, 18 Feb., 8 July, 20 July 1933; TIR, p. 99; The last issue of Babies—Just Babies was published in June. See Robert Ernst, Weakness Is a Crime: The Life of Bernarr Macfadden (Syracuse University Press, 1991), pp. 86, 127. There is no evidence, however, that ER resigned because the venture was “widely ridiculed.”

  116 Hick’s pay slashed: Lowitt and Beasley, p. xxix.

  116 Easier for both of them: ER to Hick, 6 Apr., 20 Apr. 1933.

  116 ER failed to appreciate: ER to Hick, 20 Apr.; 4 May 1933.

  116 “you won’t be spoiled”: ER to Hick, 15 June 1933.

  116 “Some day”: ER to Hick, 24 June 1933.

  117 “Where would they hide us”: Hickok, p. 120.

  117 “You take the first bath”: Hickok, p. 122.

  118 “All Republicans here”: Ibid., p. 123.

  118 The trip around the Gaspé: ER in Women’s Democratic News, July 1933, p. 6.

  118 After Quebec: Ibid., p. 133.

  118 From Campobello: ER to FDR, 8 July 1933 Family, Box 16.

  119 Catt worried that Austria: Carrie Chapman Catt to Rosa Manus, in Mineke Bosch, with Annemarie Kloosterman, eds., Politics and Friendship: Letters from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1902–1942 (Ohio State University Press, 1990), pp. 227–28.

  118–19 The Christian Women’s protest was not sent directly to Germany for fear of reprisals against their remaining allies. It was intended to pressure Germany by an aroused public opinion. Jacqueline Van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt (Feminist Press, 1987), p. 214. Rosa Manus was moved by Catt’s efforts “more than I can tell you … and the Jews of the world can never be grateful enough to you for having done this masterly piece of work.” Manus to Catt, 31 Aug. 1933, p. 229.

  119 ER spoke dramatically: NYT, 26 July 1933; ER to Anna Pennybacker, 11 May 1933, Pennybacker collection, Austin, Texas.

  119–20 Pennybacker to ER, “please remember me to Miss Hickok who impressed me deeply,” 9 Aug. 1933; cf. 9 Sept. 1933, Texas; cf. Stacey Rozek, “Anna Pennybacker and ER: Feminism Between the Wars,” unpublished paper, c. 1986, University of Texas at Austin, to author.

  119 In Washington, the Hulls visited and Mrs. Hull confided to ER that the London conference was “a great strain.” On the Hulls’ visit, ER to Hick, 4–5 Aug. 1933; see Irwin Gellman Secret Affairs: FDR, Cordell Hull, and Sumner Welles (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. 40.

  120 Hick loved her new car, Bluette: Hick to ER, 7 Aug. 1933.

  120–21 ER described her trip to Abingdon in the Women’s Democratic News, Aug. 1933, p. 6; See David Wishnaut, All That Is Native and Fine, pp. 186–93. I am grateful to Chris Brown for this reference. ER told her story, Furman, pp. 178–79.

  121 “Newport depresses me”: ER to Hick, 1 Sept. 1933.

  121 Mayris Chaney performed at White House: ER in Women’s Democratic News, Apr. 1933, June 1933, p. 6.

  121 Nan through test of friendship: ER to Hick, 20 Sept. 1933.

  121 Earl under par: ER to Hick, 15 Sept. 1933.

  121 ER’s summer idyll was disrupted by the sudden death of head White House usher, Ike Hoover, who had devoted “42 years of faithful and loving service.” She left immediately that evening to attend Ike Hoover’s funeral, and returned to Chazy Lake the next day. ER to Hick, 15 Sept.; ER in Women’s Democratic News, Sept. 1933, p. 6.

  122 Alice Hamilton reported to Jane Addams on shipboard, returning to New York, 1 July 1933; Barbara Sicherman, ed., Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters (Harvard University Press 1984); also Alice Hamilton, “Woman’s Place in Germany,” Survey Graphic, Jan. 1934, pp. 26–47. I am grateful to Barbara Sicherman for Hamilton’s articles.

  123 “How could anyone refuse?”: Charlotte Perkins Gilman to Catt, 9 Aug. 1933, Catt Papers, Box 1, NYPL. Others doubted, Evelyn Riley Nicholson to CCC, 1 July 1933, ibid. Catt shocked by FDR’s battleships, to Nicholson, 2 Aug. 1933, ibid. Catt believed 30 new naval vessels were “snuck” into the public works bills in April and May, and only radical peace veterans such as Oswald Garrison Villard in The Nation had bothered to protest. In “The President and a Big Navy,” Villard pointed out that FDR would “yield to the demand” to waste another $230 million on “munitions manufacturers and shipbuilders,” because he had always been a “big navy” partisan. Hearst supported a big navy, and there was little public discussion about this development, which so bewildered Catt and Villard, who wondered how the United States could criticize Hitler’s demands for rearmament, “if we go piling up our own armaments? Certainly, if we engage in a naval race with … England and Japan, there will be only one outcome—another terrible conflict.” OGV, 19 Apr. 1933, Gronowicz, ed., p. 423.

 
124 Catt refused to lunch with ER and FDR at Hyde Park, “unless I am overcome with a desire to make a plea for something.” Catt to ER, 15 Aug. 1933, ER, Box 1257/sh100.

  124–25 Details of Alice Hamilton’s visit from Barbara Sicherman’s collection, Hamilton’s date books.

  125–27 Alice Hamilton, “His Book Reveals the Man,” Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 1933.

  127 Alice Hamilton to Jane Addams, 1 July 1933, in Sicherman, p. 345.

  Initially, Catt resisted calls for a German boycott. Catt to Samuel Untermeyer, 12 Sept. 1933, Catt papers NYPL.

  128 Germany walked out: Schlesinger, p. 232; Arnold Offner, p. 40. NYT, 15 July 1933, quoted Hitler’s Volkischer Beobachter, and ACLU effort, Arthur Morse, While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy (Random House, 1968), p. 122.

  129 ER’s first letter to appeal for racial justice: ER to W. H. Matthews, 18 Aug. 1933; Matthews to ER, nd; ER to Matthews, 31 Aug. 1933; Box 1270, 100.

  129 ER did not publicly write of the crises Jews faced in Germany. In her monthly article for the Women’s Democratic News, she bypassed her meetings with Wald, Addams, and Hamilton; ignored her conversations and correspondence with Catt; and wrote only of her 18 Aug. visit to West Virginia.

  8: Creating a New Community

  130 Arthurdale: See Stephen Edward Haid, “Arthurdale: An Experiment in Community Planning, 1933–1947,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of West Virginia, 1975, pp. 11–12; 19–21; and Clarence Pickett, For More Than Bread (Little, Brown, 1953), pp. 19–40.

  130–31 Hick’s report: Beasley and Lowitt 16–26 Aug. 1933, pp. 114–24; Pickett, p. 20; Ronald Lewis, “Scott’s Run: America’s Symbol of the Great Depression in the Coal Fields,” in Bryan Ward, ed., A New Deal for America (Arthurdale Heritage, 1995), pp. 1–23.

  131 Hick’s reports inspired ER: ER to Hick, 25 Aug. 1933.

  131 ER wrote a searing column: Women’s Democratic News, Sept. 1933, p. 6; Cf. report of Arthurdale visit by AFSC worker, ibid.

  132 white rabbit: TIR, p. 127. Bullitt, named America’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union, was attending a White House dinner to honor Maxim Litvinov. Co-incidentally, FDR recognized the USSR the same day the first twenty-five families moved from Scott’s Run to begin work on their new homes, 7 Nov. 1933. See chapt,/ Silence; “Experiment & Error,” Time, 4 Feb. 1935.

  132–33 Scott’s Run and Alice Davis: TIR, pp. 128–30. Subsequently, Alice Davis was named to the County Welfare Board to administer all federal relief funds allotted by the state for the area.

  134 ER first discussed Arthurdale at press conference: NYT, 4 Nov. 1933.

  134 The other mining communities were Norvelt, just over the mountains from Arthurdale in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and named for ER; the Tygart Valley Homesteads, also in West Virginia; and the Cumberland Homesteads near Crossville, Tennessee. For back-to-the-land visions, and the legislative history of Section 208, see Haid, pp. 34–58; see also Paul Keith Conkin, “Tomorrow a New World: The New Deal Community Program,” Cornell University Press, 1959 (University Microfilms, 1970).

  134 Ickes subsequently criticized Wilson as a poor administrator. Pickett also thought him slow and ponderous, but considered M. L. Wilson a philosophic visionary. See Pickett, pp. 44–53; and “Promised Land,” Time, 18 June 1934.

  135 “Louis don’t be absurd”: Meeting and ER quoted in Haid, pp. 70–74.

  135 Cost overruns: Haid, pp. 87–88. According to Time (4 Feb. 1935), of the $25 million funded for Subsistence Homesteads, the Interior Department spent “$437,645, not including c. $140,000 worth of work by CWA, CCC and FERA employees” on Arthurdale. In January 1935, Interior added another $900,000 to the project.

  136 Arthurdale expenses indefensible: Ickes diary, 10 Mar. 1934, p. 152. But Ickes also resented ER’s “poking her nose” around his bailiwick. FDR, “My missus,” Ickes, 4 Nov. 1934, pp. 218–19; and “I am very fond …” Ickes, 19 Nov. 1934, pp. 227–28.

  137 Houses furnished with: Haid, pp. 90–91; and Mountaineer Craft Cooperative, see Haid, pp. 23–26.

  137 Arthurdale identified with ER: See esp. ER, “Reedsville” mss. for three articles, 70, Box 662.

  138 First families to be restricted: ER’s report, sent to Hick, 26 Mar. 1934, Box 1.

  138 Interviewers were to ask: Haid, pp. 75–79; Questions quoted from “Record of Interview to determine eligibility …, Monongalia Rehabilitation Association, prepared and conducted by representatives of West Virginia University,” in Arthurdale Archives. For Jew Hill, see Sandra Barney, “You Get About What You Pay For,” in Bryan Ward, ed., A New Deal for America (Arthurdale Heritage, 1995), p. 32. I am grateful to Arthurdale’s Bryan Ward for these materials.

  140 The community in Monmouth County, New Jersey, also benefited from Eleanor Roosevelt’s enthusiasm. The thriving community is best known as Ben Shahn’s home. Claude Hitchcock to ER, 16 Feb., 1934,70, Box 628; Pickett to ER, 1 Mar. 1934.

  140 “I want you to succeed”: Haid, pp. 93–94; “My husband adores onions,” Time, 18 June 1934. See esp. ER’s article, “Subsistence Farmsteads,” Forum, 1 Apr. 1934, pp. 199–201.

  140–42 ER depended on her friends to support Arthurdale. Among those who gave generously Were Elinor Morgenthau, the Allie Freeds, Henry Hooker, Gertrude Ely, Doris Duke, Agnes Brown Leach, and Dorothy Payne Whitney Straight Elmhirst. Their correspondence, and Baruch’s in ER’s Arthurdale files, 70. ER wrote Hick about Baruch, 27 June 1934.

  141 On 15 Feb. 1935, ER began a ten-week series of broadcasts sponsored by the Selby Shoe Company, earmarked exclusively for her work at Arthurdale; see Time, 4 Feb. 1935.

  141 ER spent: ER to Pickett, 27 May 1935; Pickett to ER, 24 May 1935, with Bernard Baruch balance sheet; ER Transit Funds of AFSC, 14 May 1934–31 Dec. 1934, George Schectman, CPA, to Pickett, 31 Jan. 1935, 70, Box 661.

  141 Doris Duke in Betty Hovatter Carpenter, “Homesteader’s Corner,” (Arthurdale newsletter), Summer 1993.

  142 ER to Oscar Chapman, 17 Nov. 1934,70, Box 605.

  143 Ickes was relieved: Ickes, 19 Nov. 1934, pp. 227–28.

  143 ER never doubted: Forum article, 1934.

  144 Arthurdale was mostly attacked as Red, but it was also attacked by Communists. See esp. Harold Ware and Webster Powell, “Planning for Permanent Poverty: What Subsistence Farming Really Stands For,” Harper’s, Apr. 1935; and T. R. Carskadon, “Hull House in the Hills,” The New Republic, 1 Aug. 1934.

  144 Arthurdale’s abiding value: “Is Reedsville Communistic? Mrs. Roosevelt Says ‘No,’” The Literary Digest, 21 Apr. 1934, p. 45; press conference, 11 Apr. 1933; Beasley, pp. 20, 23; ER’s press conference 23 Apr. 1934.

  In the House, Isabella Greenway made an impassioned speech implying that the death of the factory would be the death of Arthurdale. Arthurdale’s representative, Jennings Randolph, argued that the Keyless Lock Company was one of America’s “worst antiunion plants,” and paid the lowest wages. The company’s president opposed the child labor bill, the women’s nine-hour bill, and workers’ compensation: “Should Mrs. Roosevelt’s plan to let a little sunlight into the lives of coal miners be wrecked in order that this kind of a concern may be preserved?’” Haid, pp. 125–28.

  144 Upton Sinclair to ER, 31 Jan. 1934, 70, Box 632.

  144 “Man is vile…”: ER to Hick, 2 July 1934. As she drove, 4 July 1934.

  144–45 Upton Sinclair: See esp. Greg Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics (Random House, 1992), pp. 6–7, 208. See also Leon Harris, Upton Sinclair. American Rebel (Crowell, 1975), pp. 298–99. ER to Sinclair, “I have read your books,” quoted in Harris, p. 302. Wallace and Hopkins supported Sinclair, Mitchell, pp. 7, 11, 27. If EPIC communism, Mitchell, pp. 21–23.

  146 Hick’s report: Beasley and Lowitt, pp. 305–8. A $10 million campaign of minsinformation, Leon Harris; see also Hick to ER, 3 July; ER to Hick 7, 8 July 1934. ER defended Arthurdale’s cooperative fiercely.

  ER’s a
nswer to Dr. Wirt, and Senator Schall, + clip, nd, Schall’s charge, 23 Apr. 1934, 100/ copy with Baruch’s correspondence, 24 Oct. 1935, 70, Box 662; cf. Beasley.

  147 All handicrafts continually ridiculed: See esp. Thomas Coode and Dennis Fabbri, “The New Deal’s Arthurdale Project in West Virginia,” West Virginia History, July 1975, pp. 291–308; and Haid, chapters 5 and 6.

  148 M. L. Wilson prepared a study, in “compliance with your request,” on industrial research, see: Wilson to ER 24 Sept. 1934/70, Box 628; see Scheider to Wilson, 5 Sept. 1934, 100 re Wilson’s visit to Hyde Park to report in further detail.

  148 ER and Baruch agreed with the homesteaders: Baruch to ER, 24 Oct. 1935, with enclosures, esp. p. 4; 70, Box 662. Consider also, Homesteaders Club to ER, 7 June 1934/ 70, Box 629. Baruch quoted by ER in Educational Committee Meeting, WH, 31 Oct. 1935; attached Elsie Clapp to ER, ibid.

  149 Sherman Mittell: Mittell to Peterson, 25 Oct. 1935, 70, box 662. The “scraps” distressed Elsie Clapp, see Clapp to ER, 18 Oct. 1935; Peterson to Dr. E. E. Agger, director of the Management Division, 28 Oct. 1935.

  149 “They expect them to fail”: Clapp to ER, 2 Nov. 1935,70/662; Clapp to ER, 8 Nov. 1935; also Clapp to ER, 31 Oct., with attachments, including Meeting of Educational Committee, WH, 31 Oct.: present Clapp, Lucy Sprague Mitchell, Dr. Agger, Pickett, Dr. Rainey, ER, etc.; and Pickett to Clapp, 5 Nov. 35: FDR planned to journey from Warm Springs to Arthurdale on 10 Dec., with ER. NYT, 27 Jan. 1934; Haid, pp. 124–30; See also, Wesley Stout, “The New Homesteaders,” a particularly nasty article, The Saturday Evening Post (4 Aug. 1934), pp. 6–7, 61.

  149 Bernard Baruch, “I do not think you ought,” to ER, 22 Mar. 1937; 70, Box 722. On the Phillips Jones Corporation, see J. O. Walker to ER, 3 Apr. 1937, ibid. ER re Margaret Innes, to Baruch, 22 Sept. 1937, 100, Box 1414.

  150 On the schools and Elsie Clapp: See Charles Pynchon, “School as Social Centre: Life in a Subsistence Homestead Turns About an Experiment in Education,” NYT, 5 May 1935, 70/662; Sam Stack, “Elsie Ripley Clapp & Progressive Education,” pp. 115–34.