Eleanor Roosevelt

by Blanche Wiesen Cook

  397 ER kept worst news: ER to FDR, 22 Nov. 1936.

  397 FDR to “Dearest Mama”: 17 Nov. 1936, Letters, pp. 630–31.

  398 FDR to “Dearest Babs,” a “happy ship”: 26 Nov. 1936, ibid., p. 632. For a description of this event, see William Poundstone, “Queens for a Day: An Inside Look at the Navy’s Most Perverse Ritual,” Spy (Mar. 1993), pp. 50–53, ff.

  398 “felt like an impostor”: James Roosevelt, Affectionately FDR: A Son’s Story of a Lonely Man (Harcourt Brace, 1959), p. 284; James was ultimately sufficiently embarrassed to retire his rank; although he never forgave his mother’s disapproval.

  398 ER and Hick drove to Arthurdale: ER to Anna, 4–6 Dec. 1936.

  398-99 from Rio: FDR to ER, 30 Nov. 1936; also to SDR, Letters, p. 634.

  399 in Brazil: see Ken Davis, pp. 656–57.

  399 in Montevideo, “don’t blow”: James Roosevelt, Affectionately, p. 288.

  399 1 December, first Inter-American Conference address: FDR’s Selected Addresses, pp. 73–79.

  400 many achievements, no mutual accord: Ickes, p. 15; Robert Dallek pp. 126–36.

  401–2 Gus Gennerich’s death, FDR devastated: See Ted Morgan, p. 547, for examples of Gennerich and liquid revelries. FDR to ER, 2 Dec. 1936; ER to FDR 3 Dec. 1936, children, Box 16. Although FDR believed that Gennerich died of a heart attack, James subsequently suggested that his death was an aftermath of the equator crossing party when Gus hit his head with great force. He complained of headaches thereafter and, James believed, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. James Roosevelt, My Parents, pp. 237–38; “Gus was an amazing person”: Hick to ER, 6 Dec. 1936; FDR to ER, pp. 635–36; TIR, p. 149; Ken Davis, p. 660.

  403 King Edward abdicated, toast: FDR to ER, 10 Dec. 1936.

  403 FDR “disgusted”: Ickes, pp. 16–17.

  403 “Poor little King”: Hick to ER, 5 Dec. 1936.

  403 “Poor fellow”: Hick to ER, 10 Dec. 1936; 11 Dec. 1936.

  403 ER, “his love too!”: ER to Hick, 10 Dec; also, 7 Dec. 1936.

  404 Marshall Haley’s funeral: ER to Hick, 9 Dec; ER to Anna 10 Dec. 1936.

  405 Earl Miller’s nerves “about like yours”: ER to Hick, 5 Dec. 1936.

  405 “frying pan into the fire”: Hick to ER, 8 Dec. 1936.

  405 dined with Baruch: ER to Anna, 7 Dec 1936.

  405 “my work cut out”: ER to Hick, 7, 8 Dec; ER to Anna, 10 Dec., Halsted, Box 56.

  405 “stumbled into a lot of the early letters”: Hick to ER, 6 Dec. 1936.

  406 “now and always”: Hick to ER, 6 Dec. 1936.

  21: Second Chance for the New Deal

  407 “It takes a hungry man”: Hilda Smith to ER, 7 Dec. 1936; ER to Smith 16 Dec. 1936: “The President was very much interested in the story….”

  407 Crystal Bird Fauset: ER to Farley, 14 Jan. 1937, 70, Box 710; see also Aubrey Williams to ER, with memo by Alfred Edgar Smith, in charge of Negro Activities for WPA, 20 Oct. 1936; The Crisis, Oct. 1936; on black vote: The Crisis, Dec. 1936, p. 396.

  407 ER believed Walter White: See The Crisis, editorials, Jan. and Feb. 1937.

  408 18 December 1936 cabinet meeting, in Ickes, vol. II, p. 20.

  408 “rather dread the future”: ER to Elinor Morgenthau, 17 Nov. 1936.

  409 FDR nominated Hull for a Nobel Peace Prize annually, presumably for his reciprocal trade agreements. Hull was awarded the prize in 1945. FDR, Letters, pp. 642–43; FDR to R. Walton Moore, 28 Dec. 1936.

  409 Claude Bowers to FDR, 26 Aug. 1936, Davis, p. 665; Bowers quoted, p. 653. See Supreme Court, “this vast external realm,” Time, 4 Jan. 1936.

  409 “terrible catastrophe”: FDR to Bowers, 16 Sept. 1936, Letters, 614–15.

  410 Dodd: Bullitt to FDR, 7 Dec. 1936; Bullitt, ed., p. 196.

  410 “saying nothing”: ER to Anna, 6 Dec. 1936; “protested vehemently”: ER to Anna, 16 Dec. 1936.

  411 happiest time of his life: James Roosevelt, Affectionately, pp. 290–94, 308.

  411 Hick patient: Hick to ER, 7, 9, 10 Dec. 1936.

  412 Bethune to study committee: Mack Roth to Pepper to McIntyre, to Wallace, 4 Dec. 1936; Will Alexander, RA, 9 Dec. 1936; PPF 9079.

  412 Mary McLeod Bethune to ER re conference, 1 Dec. 1936; ER to Bethune 3 Dec.; re SDR’s tea, and Jan. conference, 8 Dec. 1936; 4 Jan. 1937, 100, Box 1366.

  412 “new day has dawned”: Bethune to ER, 11 Jan. 1937, re Clara Bruce and “the wonderful conference”; quoted from 13 Jan. 1937, 100, Box 1415.

  412 Gridiron Widows party: ER to Elinor Morgenthau, 13 Nov. 1936, E. Morgenthau Papers.

  412–3 Gridiron Widows parties: NYT, 10 Dec. 1933; 9 Dec. 1934; Bess Furman on 1934: Apple Mary, pp. 224–26; In TIR, ER credited Louis Howe for her makeover; Furman, pp. 224–26; 1936, Tobacco Road, Bess Furman, p. 237; Time, 4 Jan. 1937; NYT, 22 Dec. 1936, Romeo and Juliet; four hundred women cavorted at ER’s party, capped by a midnight supper in the State Dining Room.

  440 Competitively: TIR, pp. 93–94.

  414 lonely Christmas column: My Day, p. 98.

  441 This problem is so vast: My Day, Dec. 1936, p. 99.

  414 Ethel du Pont: ER to Anna, 1 Jan. 1937.

  415 “Madame I salute you”: Hick to ER, 27 Dec. 1936.

  415 “Don’t let ‘the eyes’ get you”: Hick to ER, 28 Dec. 1936.

  415 With Tommy, ER moved into Peter Filene’s lovely home on 12 Otis Place: “What a sensible man to live like this, all you need for comfort, much charm and no fuss and feathers…. I think I could enjoy Boston. We should come here sometime!” ER to Hick, 29 Dec. 1936.

  415 Carolyn Marsh: ER to Hick, 1 Jan. 1937; FDR rude to Alice: ER to Hick, 2 Jan. 1937.

  416 “your poise more than human”: Hick to ER, 4 Jan. 1937.

  442 Hick very social and not guilty about her book. Hick to ER, 18 Jan. 1937. 416 revealing column: My Day, Jan. 1937, p. 105.

  416 plans for Charleston and New Orleans: Hick to ER, 16, 18 Jan. 1937; ER to Hick, 17 Jan. 1937.

  416 “I hear less and less”: ER to Hick, 7 Jan. 1937.

  443 In early January Hick was dazzled by ER’s bold words to the Junior League: “My dear, it was simply corking! Give it to ’em baby—straight from the shoulder! I like your speeches so much when you get very straight forward and say what you really think.” 8 Jan. 1937.

  416–17 American Medicine, published in April 1937. The NY Times considered the American Foundation report incontrovertible. The AMA no long spoke for “organized medicine.” Lape’s team demanded “far-reaching, socially-conceived reforms in medical education and practice.” The Foundation’s report “refutes a Bourbonism which holds that all’s well.” The future required fundamental changes to serve community needs. Lape and Read embarked on a long crusade that FDR never did join. Patricia Spain Ward, “U.S. v. AMA et al.: The Medical Anti-Trust Case of 1938–1943,” American Studies (Fall 1989), and John Kingsbury, Health in Handcuffs, 1939.

  417 FDR’s 6 Jan. speech did not reflect several areas that dominated ER’s correspondence, including federal aid to education, full employment, and renewed work on behalf of the Wagner-Costigan antilynch bill. Both the National Education Association and NAACP endorsed a Harrison-Fletcher bill for federal aid to education, which ER promised to support. White to ER, 5 Jan., 13 Jan. 1937; Virginius Dabney to White (to ER), 17 Jan., predicting the antilynch bill’s passage; ER to White, 25 Jan.; White to ER, 3 Feb., with DC Post article on poll, 30 Jan. 1937; ER’s penned reply atop page.

  418 “Umbrellas and more umbrellas”: My Day, 21 Jan. 1937; announcers “said lovely things”: Hick to ER, 20 Jan. 1937; “gave Mrs. Helm a bad time”: ER to Hick, 22 Jan. 1937.

  419 “Well, another four years”: ER to Anna, 20 Jan. 1937.

  419 more introspective: ER to Hick, 21 Jan. 1937.

  22: 1937

  420 fourth annual National Public Housing Conference: NYT, 23 Jan. 1937; FDR to Mary Simkhovitch, 14 Jan. 37.

  420 invited Harry Hopkins: ER to Harry Hopkins, 7 Jan. 1937, 70.

  421 Fannie
Hurst to ER, 13 Feb. 1937, Hurst Papers, Texas.

  421 ER to FH, 16 Feb. 1937; “we are looking forward to your visit the 26th,” Texas.

  421 “a liqueur for tender memory”: ER to FH, 5 Mar. 1937, Texas.

  421 TIMS as tribute to Howe: TIR, p. 177.

  421 Jane Hoey on social security restrictions: Ruby Black, pp. 170–71.

  421–22 revisited National Training School for Girls: NYT, “Remodeled After Her Protests,” 4 Feb. 1937; “the mere sight”: My Day, Jan. 1937, p. 108.

  422 to Junior Leaguers: NYT, 4 Feb., 55 WPA women from Atlantic City sewing project tour White House; ER urged Junior Leaguers to visit WPA projects themselves, and try “shoveling snow,” NYT, 8 Jan. 1937; Hopkins and ER campaigned for work not dole, 5 May 1936.

  422 WPA art projects: My Day, 22 Jan. 1937.

  422 Nikolai Sokoloff’s Federal Music Project report to ER: n.d., 1936, Box 681/70; cf. a letter of gratitude to ER “for saving” the Treasury Relief Art Project, PWA: We “are most happy to have received word that it is to be left intact.” Edward Bruce, also on behalf of Olin Dows, to ER, 12 May 1936, Box 676/70; re appropriations for 1935–1937 artists to decorate [2500] federal buildings, at going WPA rate, via EO 7046.

  423 vacation plans at the Little House: Hick to ER, 22, 23 Jan. 1937. Hick loved everything about her new home, and planned to have stationery made up to read: The Little House/On the Dana Place/Moriches, Long Island. As for their vacation plans, ER was glad that Hick had been “blunt,” and would do whatever she enjoyed most; although ER still preferred the drive. ER to Hick, 25 Jan. 1937.

  423 “Don’t be anybody’s Mrs. Moskowitz”: ER to Hick, 10 Feb. 1937.

  423 “life can be diverting”: Hick to ER, 8 Feb. 1937.

  423–24 Although U.S. ambassador Joseph Davies attended many of the trial sessions, there was little mention of the purges at this time. Indeed, Marjorie Merri-weather Post Davies wrote ER long letters from Moscow about the changes under way for women, and the ongoing suffering of the people due to years of famine and natural disasters, despite great material bounty and huge factories.

  Marjorie Davies to ER, 3 Mar. 1937, PSF, Russia. See also Joseph Davies, Mission to Moscow (Simon & Schuster, 1941); Nancy Rubin, American Express: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post (Villard Books, 1995). Subsequently, ER wrote about the “horrors” of dictatorship which distorted “the real communist theory.” ER to Mrs. Maloney, 28 Nov. 1938, in Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, pp. 594–95.

  423–24 Anna Louise Strong’s visit: ER to Hick, 2 Feb. 1937; Strongs goal in Tracy B. Strong and Helene Keyssar, Right in Her Soul: The Life of Anna Louise Strong (Random House, 1983), p. 171.

  424 “the U.S. Army should be used! I ask you!”: ER to Hick, 10 Feb. 1937.

  424 more young people in the CIO than in the AFL: ER in Ruby Black, p. 177.

  424 Broun quoted in Ruby Black, p. 141; ER to press conf.: Beasley, p. 167; on Guild, p. 185; for Broun see Heywood Hale Broun’s Collected Edition of Heywood Broun (1941); and Alden Whitman, ed., pp. 124–25. ER condemned Sloan: Black, p. 172; moved to yearly wage: Black, pp. 182–83.

  425 ER to YWCA: in NYT, 5 May 1934.

  425 said nothing about sit-down strikes: Ruby Black, p. 178. However completely ER supported unionism, even the right of WPA workers to join the Workers’ Alliance, she opposed “the strike” as an inappropriate weapon for WPA and other federal workers “against the government,” in Ruby Black, p. 185.

  426 ER with Evelyn Preston, to audience of over 1000, at League of Women Shoppers, N.Y., Ethical Culture Society, NYT, 9 Dec. 1937.

  426–27 John L. Lewis and La Follette hearings: Saul Alinskey, John L. Lewis: An Unauthorized Biography (Vintage, 1970 [1949]), pp. 89–94; Jerold S. Auerbach, Labor and Liberty: The La Follette Committee and the New Deal (Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), pp. 100–2 and passim; Alinskey on Lewis’s contribution to 7A, pp. 66–70; on La Follette; Alinskey, pp. 105–6.

  427–28 Jack Barton (pseudonym for Bart Logan) and Gelders in Auerbach, pp. 94–5; 108; Robin Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (University of North Carolina Press, 1990), pp. 130–31, 184–85. I am grateful to Marge Frantz, Joe Gelders’s daughter, for background.

  428 “Babies and Banners,” the film; Mary Heaton Vorse, “Women Stand By Their Men,” re Genora Johnson, mother of two and wife of strike leader Kermit Johnson, home and union fused, pp. 175–78; Vorse, “Soldiers Everywhere in Flint: Unionists Hold the Fort,” pp. 179–80; “The Emergency Brigade in Flint,” pp. 181–85, in Dee Garrison, ed., Rebel Pen: The Writings of Mary Heaton Vorse (New Feminist Library, Monthly Review, 1985); Sidney Fine, Sit-Down: The General Motors Strike of 1936–1937 (University of Michigan Press, 1970), pp. 200–1, 279–80, passim; Philip Foner, Women and the American Labor Movement (Free Press, 1982), pp. 327–37.

  428–29 strikers assumed; “Unarmed as we are”; Lewis to Detroit: Alinskey, pp. 127–30.

  429 “deadly feud;” militia of 1300: Alinskey, pp. 144–47.

  430 Majority favor unions: Feb. 1937, My Day, pp. 114–16.

  430 “Nicholas Kelley, I am not afraid of your eyebrows”: Alinskey, p. 152.

  432 ER defended her husband: My Day, 10 Feb. 1937; persuasive in Supreme Court columns: June Rhodes to ER, 15 Feb. 1937; Lape to Lash about Democratic opposition, and public confusion: Lape interview, Lash Papers; “might have saved himself a good deal of trouble”: TIR. For Supreme Court controversy, see especially Leuchtenberg.

  432 Molly kissed Farley: ER in Democratic Digest, Apr. 1937.

  432 Hick to ER, re Washington festivities, 12, 16 Feb. 1937.

  433 Alice to tea: ER to Anna, 10 Jan. 1937, Box 57.

  433 ER to Nan Honeyman, Jan. 1936: Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, p. 427.

  433 Alice lost the competition: see Felsenthal, pp. 178–79; ER wrote Hick that she would divide the $75,000—spend half, and give the other half to causes, mostly Arthurdale.

  433 On 16 February, drove off “in a young blizzard”: Tommy to “Dear Gorgeous,” n.d., Feb. 1937, ARH, Box 75; ER’s Apr. Democratic Digest column tells the story of 16 Feb.

  433 On 24 Feb., ER and Frances Perkins attended Maud O’Farrell Swartz’s funeral. ER was close to the WTUL activist, Rose Schneiderman’s partner of 23 years, then secretary of N.Y. State’s Department of Labor. Maud Swartz had initiated a WTUL campaign to unionize laundry workers, and end the domestic workers’ “slave markets,” whereby housewives hired day workers at dreadful wages from street corners. ER supported the WTUL’s campaign for standardized salaries and minimum wages for domestic workers. N.Y. Governor Herbert Lehman appointed Schneiderman to succeed Swartz as New York’s secretary of labor. In 1938, Sidney Hillman’s CIO-affiliated Amalgamated Clothing Workers admitted laundry workers; within a year a union of 27,000 laundry workers won “contracts that guaranteed decent wages, reduced hours, sick leave with pay, and paid vacations.” That success was followed by the unionization of hotel workers and cleaning staff. See ER, Democratic Digest, Apr. 1937; Anilise Orlick, pp. 163–65.

  433 “FDR is tired and edgy”: ER to Hick, 27 Feb. 1937.

  433 Elizabeth Read had a stroke: ER to Hick, 2, 3, Mar. 1937.

  433 Lape devastated by FDR’s rejection of their program: See Patricia Spain Ward, U.S. v. AMA, et al.: The Medical Anti-trust Case of 1938–1943,” American Studies (Fall 1989); Ward, “Medical Maverick, Hugh Cabot’s Crusade for Universal Health Care,” Humanities (NEH Journal, Mar., Apr. 1994). Lape’s two-volume American Foundation Report, American Medicine: Expert Testimony Out of Court, published in April 1937, created a sensation, and a movement, but little official response. ER to Lape, “better meeting next time”: Mar. 1937.

  433–34 FDR’s 4 March speech: Ickes, pp. 88–89. ER was amused to be with the women of the Liberty League as she listened to her husband’s speech. With FJ’s fiancé Ethel du Pont and her mother to plan the June wedding festivities, ER noted: “I couldn’t help thinking over my company!” as FDR declared
: “We have only just begun to fight….” ER to Hick, 4 Mar. 1937; “Cicero when I was a kid”: Hick to ER, 4 Mar. 1937.

  434 From Louisiana, ER wrote Hick, “Huey did some good things for them!” 6, 7 Mar.

  23: A First Lady’s Survival

  435 a “grand talk”: ER to FDR, teslegram from Fort Worth, 9 Mar. 37; fam/chldn, Box 16; ER now supported: ER to Hick, 20 Mar. 1937.

  435 from Oklahoma to Pennybacker in Texas: Tommy to Anna, 14 Mar. 1937; ARH 75.

  436 “Yesterday was the worst”: ER to Hick, 19 Mar. 1937; Hick to ER: “you are with president Kate Zaners…. I hope it isnt too awful and that you are not too tired,” 17 Mar. 1937.

  436 from Oklahoma to Shreveport: ER to Elinor Morgenthau, 16 Mar. 1937.

  436 “My reception was horrible”: ER to Hick, 24 Mar.; “your mother in 1940”: Tommy to Anna, 17 Mar. 1937.

  436–37 ER to FDR at Warm Springs: 12 Mar. 1937, fam/chldn, Box 16.

  437 On 17 March, “cunning little”: ER in Democratic Digest, May 1937.

  437 In Washington, ER to Hick: 28 Mar. 1937, Hick and the Danas visited for the Easter weekend.

  437 Smoky Mountains: ER and Hick also drove through a Cherokee reservation, spent a night in Asheville, North Carolina, and visited a Friends (AFSC) crafts school “for young mountaineers”; then went on to Charleston, South Carolina. “There is a rather sweet melancholy about this city….” Democratic Digest, June 1937.

  437 “wonderful for a week of climbing”: ER to Anna, 14 Apr. 1937.

  437 “Your mother”: Tommy to Anna, 14 Apr. 1937, ARH Box 75.

  438 “Dickie is having fits”: Tommy to “Dear Gorgeous,” n.d., Feb. 1937, ARH, Box 75. Nancy Cook also “gave your mother a bad time”: Tommy to Anna, 14 Apr. 1937.

  438 “Betsey’s devotion to your father”: Tommy to Anna, 14 Apr. 1937.

  438 “Pa is both nervous and tired; outburst on meals”: ER to Anna, 3 Mar. 1937.

  439–40 use of “darky”: Esther S. Carry to ER, 13 Apr. 1937, 100, Box 1417; ER to Esther Carey, 20 Apr. 1937. ER wrote more fully to a NY attorney, who “had the pleasure of being at the dedication of the Eleanor Roosevelt School for colored pupils in Warm Springs … dedicated by the President last month.” Although ER was responsible for the brick school, she did not attend its dedication in April because she was lecturing in Oklahoma. She had earlier written Hick that a speech she had made in 1935 had resulted in the building of a fully equipped modern brick school: “It salved my conscience a bit for I feel a skunk not to do more on the lynching thing openly.” ER to Hick, Mar. 1936; ER to R. B. DeFrantz, 22 Apr. 1937, 100, Box 1420.