Back at the Big House, ER reported, everyone rushed to change into their “picnic clothes” for the most famous hot dog picnic in American history. The queen telephoned her two young daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, at Buckingham Palace, who were “much amused” that she was to go to lunch while they were ready for bed. In addition to the hot dogs, which were to cook on “an outdoor fireplace,” there was “smoked turkey, which Their Majesties had not tasted before, several kinds of ham cured in different ways . . . salads, baked beans, and strawberry shortcake with strawberries from Henry Morgenthau’s farm.” The program introduced Native American artists to the king and queen, including Ish-Ti-Opi, “a quite remarkable actor and singer,” and Princess Te-Ata, “a real princess from an Oklahoma tribe, I knew well.” The stage was built around old-growth trees FDR was so proud of, “and the setting was quite perfect for the Indian songs and legends.”*
After the picnic the royals were invited to relax around the pool under the shade trees at ER’s cottage. The president and the king swam, but ER and her guests sat with the queen and “looked on.” ER “discovered” that a queen “cannot run the risk of looking disheveled,” and evidently ER, who always swam, could not persuade her to enjoy the moment.
After a quiet dinner at the Big House on their last evening, the royals, FDR, and ER left for Hyde Park Station. A crowd of more than a thousand people greeted the procession of cars despite “a very heavy thunderstorm” that had come through earlier. The king said, “It’s been a long week-end, but a short visit.” As the royals waved from the rear platform of the train, FDR shouted, “Good luck to you! All the luck in the world!”
As they departed, “the people who were gathered everywhere on the banks of the Hudson and up on the rocks suddenly began to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne.’” ER later wrote: “There was something incredibly moving about this scene—the river in the evening light, the voices of the many people . . . the train slowly pulling out with the young couple waving good-bye.” Then “we stood and waved, but my mother-in-law reminded us of the old superstition that one must not watch people out of sight, so before they turned the bend, we were back in our cars.”
ER “thought of the clouds that hung over them and the worries they were going to face . . . and left the scene with a heavy heart.”
Britain prepared a “monster welcome” for the royal return. The New York Times monitored British enthusiasm for the demonstrable good and many successes of the king and queen and the goodwill they had inspired. Much was made of the king’s new self-confidence and his robust and relaxed manner. With gratitude for what the royals had achieved, Harold Nicolson described their reception at Parliament Square:
Such fun yesterday. . . . The bells of St Margaret’s began to swing into welcome and the procession started. . . . There were the King and Queen and the two princesses. We lost all our dignity and yelled and yelled. The King wore a happy schoolboy grin. The Queen was superb. She really does manage to convey to each individual in the crowd that he or she have had a personal greeting. . . . We returned to the House with lumps in our throats.
As ER reflected on her time with the king and queen in terms of “the changed conditions which we are facing all over the world,” she was relieved that “this country will have a kindlier feeling toward the English nation. . . . May it bring us peace for many years to come.” She reported to Hick, “FDR was satisfied and all went well. I liked them both but what a life! They are happy together however and that must make a difference even in the life they have to lead.” Mackenzie King was “jubilant over the whole trip. I should think it might give Hitler and Mussolini food for thought.” The king and queen “undoubtedly made friends.”
ER wrote nothing about the big question of the picnic: did the queen in fact eat an American hot dog? Stories abounded. The fullest description was in Assistant Attorney General Norman Littell’s letter to Anna. Littell and his wife, Katherine, were among Anna’s closest friends. He and a group of subcabinet liberals met with FDR to consider strategy for 1940. As conversation “drifted” to the royal visit, he repeated FDR’s account. When offered her first hot dog, the queen had said, oh no, she could not possibly, her mouth was too small. According to FDR, she tried, but her mouth really was too small. He explained, you just push it in and chew, and she “tried hard but simply could not get around the hot-dog and bun and had to put it down and cut up the famous Roosevelt hot-dog. The King, on the other hand, devoured [several] with gusto.”
Littell wrote Anna that “your father particularly commends the King ‘as the real personality of the two.’” FDR explained that the king “is very much in love with the Queen, and is proud to have her in the foreground.” Littell also noted that both royals “struck a few blows . . . for Liberal government in this country, by their casual remarks about our catching up with reforms which were really old in England.” The king’s statement that power had been removed from “the capitalists quite some time ago in England” had been much quoted in the Washington papers.
Indeed, FDR wrote his Republican cousin Nicholas Roosevelt that the king and queen
are very delightful and understanding people, and, incidentally, know a great deal not only about foreign affairs in general but also about social legislation. Actually they would qualify for inclusion in that famous book, which is constantly quoted by some of your friends—not mine—to the effect that Eleanor and I are Communists!
After the royal visit, FDR urged Congress to repeal the arms embargo in the 1935 Neutrality Act and reconsider America’s role in the event of war. While there is no record of what FDR and the king discussed, we know each day they read the newspapers—filled with headline stories and editorials about ships afloat and stranded refugees.
The Roosevelts and the royals might have discussed the many headline stories and editorials about refugees that were appearing every day that June in the major newspapers. Because the new British White Paper limited Jewish immigration to Palestine, many ships with refugees were moving from port to port in the Mediterranean, and the situation was becoming critical. The Liesel, with 906 Jews on board who were not allowed to enter Palestine, reportedly dumped many of its refugees on barren Mediterranean islands.
In the western hemisphere the biggest daily headline concerned the luxurious steamship SS St. Louis. Its affluent and privileged passengers were refugees from Berlin and Breslau—they had been fired from their universities and orchestras, removed from their offices and shops, and forbidden to enjoy the simplest pleasures, even the right to saunter through a park or dine at a café. Initially they found their trip to Cuba to be restful, even happy. They had valid passports stamped with a red J.
But a new Cuban policy barred most refugees from disembarking from such ships. Already three other liners had gone from port to port seeking shelter for their passengers.* While the St. Louis waited in the harbor, representatives of the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a Jewish refugee aid group, went to Havana to negotiate a fiscal aid package: the JDC was authorized to post a significant bond to guarantee that none of the passengers would become an economic burden. But Cuba ignored this appeal.
Captain Schröder then turned the St. Louis for the United States, sailing very slowly while the JDC worked feverishly. The frantic negotiations included the offer of a significant bribe for President Brú, who requested that the ship’s passengers purchase their safety. Brú gave the JDC forty-eight hours to raise the money. The St. Louis anchored first off the South Carolina coast, then along the Florida coast. There it was shadowed by a Coast Guard vessel to make sure nobody swam ashore. The JDC deposited $500,000 in a Cuban bank, but Brú demanded more. Additional haggling ensued until it became clear that Brú would not be satisfied.
While 734 of the 936 passengers had quota numbers for eventual admission into the United States, they were told they might have to wait three months to three years until their quota space came up. So the passengers and sympa
thetic U.S. citizens appealed “to the President and Congress to grant the refugees emergency asylum as a mark of international good-will at the time of the visit of the British King and Queen,” and a committee of passengers sent an “appeal to President Roosevelt for last-minute intervention.” Their wireless message: “Help them, Mr. President, the 900 passengers, of which more than 400 are women and children.”
But the United States sent no word of concern. FDR did not consider issuing an executive order to allow the ship to dock; nor did he send a telegram to influence any of his Latin American allies to take in the refugees. The State Department rejected all appeals to admit passengers temporarily—and informed the JDC that no Central or South American nation would allow the ship to dock.
It was over. The St. Louis sailed for Europe, filled with refugees in quest of a temporary haven. They “could see the shimmering towers of Miami rising from the sea,” the New York Times reported, “but for them they were only the battlements of another forbidden city. . . . Germany, with all the hospitality of its concentration camps, will welcome these unfortunates home.”
Aboard the ship, Captain Schröder overheard two small boys playing guards, surrounded by a barrier of deck chairs. Other children lined up to appeal for permission to pass and enter.
“‘Are you a Jew?’ asked one guard.
“‘Yes,’; replied the child.
“‘Jews not admitted.’
“‘Oh, please let me in. I’m only a very little Jew.’”
Negotiations continued throughout the trip back. The JDC sought refuge for the passengers in Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and France. Dutch queen Wilhelmina accepted 181 passengers. Louise Weiss, secretary general of the Central Refugee Committee in Paris, negotiated with the French foreign minister Georges Bonnet, who authorized the admission of 224. Belgium took 214, and the U.K. accepted 287. The St. Louis passengers were safe, for the moment.*
The voyage of the St. Louis served to highlight the U.S. government’s capacity for inaction and cruelty. Its haunting silence in the face of the St. Louis resounded everywhere. To date, not one word about the St. Louis has been found in ER’s writings. Ironically, her staunch friend bodyguard Earl Miller was in Florida as the St. Louis sailed slowly beyond Miami and around the Keys. Miller cabled ER in distress: surely something might be done, he pleaded—this was not a decent thing. But ER’s correspondence with Miller has been lost, so we have no idea how she answered his urgent messages regarding the St. Louis.
Miller referred to that event decades later. ER, he knew, had talked with FDR. When he inquired about her silence, she told him that FDR had handed the matter over to the State Department. There was at the time nothing she could do.*
Hitler made full use of the tragic voyage. That very week Germany expelled its Polish Jews, thousands of whom had been in Germany for generations. East Prussia expelled its remaining eleven thousand Jews. Leipzig expelled four thousand Polish Jews. Some were ordered to leave within a month, others within hours. Those without valid passports or visas were arrested. Dresden, Breslau, Kassel, Hanover, Kiel, Bremen, Nuremberg, Würzburg, and Cologne all issued orders of expulsion. Ordered “to leave or go to concentration camps,” they appealed for visas, admission, or haven anywhere.
ER pondered these developments. With her full participation, the United States had sent two specific messages to Nazi Europe. There was to be a strengthened Anglo-American alliance; this she hoped would give Hitler pause. And there would be no official protest, no governmental response to Hitler’s crusade against the Jews.
With congressional opinion vitriolic regarding refugees, FDR refused to take a stand. He would spend none of his political currency defying public or congressional sentiment concerning Jews. His priority was to end the arms embargo and promote defense measures. It is impossible to know what words were spoken to ER to keep her so uncharacteristically silent on an issue that concerned her. In the wake of the St. Louis, she must have been relieved when Chile and Bolivia declared that they would uphold “the inviolability of the right of asylum” and promised haven. China announced plans to build a colony to welcome 100,000 refugees from Europe in Yunan Province, in south-central China.
ER was relieved by these signals of hope, but dismayed by the dominant attitudes that surrounded her. Angry at being silenced and worried about the future, she worked ever more closely with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) to confront bigotry. With so many ships stranded upon the high seas, the Quakers issued Refugee Facts, a pamphlet that called for a new policy to enable Christians and Jews, dissenters and unionists, to escape Hitler’s terror. The AFSC observed that between 1933 and 1938 the United States had admitted only 26 percent of its German quota. While 241,962 immigrants from “all parts of the world” had entered the country, 246,000 people had left permanently, “a decrease of almost 5000.” AFSC chairman Clarence Pickett pointed out that 31 percent of German refugees admitted to the United States were Christian. New alliances would be necessary, ER realized, to counter indifference and end the deadly silence surrounding the refugee crisis.
Chapter Four
“We Must Think of the Greatest Good for the Greatest Number”
After the royals left, ER had two weeks of relative calm, mostly alone at Val-Kill, to replenish her energies. She swam, rode, wrote her columns and longer articles. The worse things got, the harder she worked; it made her feel better, and she had occasional victories. In her 16 June column, she noted that New York governor Herbert Lehman had signed a bill introduced by “Jane H. Todd, Republican, which makes it permissible to have equal representation of the sexes on all political committees” of the New York legislature. Equal representation for women and men on all committees had been a Democratic Party goal for many years. Seventeen states actually had fifty-fifty rules by 1939. She was pleased that New York had taken this step toward “equal representation . . . and I congratulate Miss Todd and the Governor.”
But in the same column, ER noted with dismay that her stand on working wives was again the subject of criticism. For her, the right of women—married or single—to work was not a partisan matter; it was a “basic right of any human being to work.” It was far better to create more jobs than to exclude “any group.” To limit women’s freedom to work represented a step toward fascism, for “as soon as you discriminate against one group that discrimination . . . cannot be controlled and spreads to others.”
This was an old debate, which ER had considered settled. In February 1936 she told a town hall meeting that once “the children are grown and at school, there is nothing much of interest to do in the home.” Now, three years later, Florence Birmingham, president of the Massachusetts Women’s Political Club, was spearheading a campaign to bar married women from state jobs—such legislation had been introduced in twenty states. Birmingham challenged the first lady to a debate.
ER refused, but urged a national campaign to defeat all state and local efforts to throw married women out of jobs. Not only did many women need to work for their survival, but ER encouraged affluent women to work. Indeed, she agreed with her friend Helen Rogers Reid, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, who advised the Todhunter graduates of 1939 to do the best work they could do, “if not for your own sakes, then for your husbands, because it is bad for men to feel superior to the women they marry. It makes them quite insufferable.”
William Felker, the irate mayor of Northampton, Massachusetts, had ordered married women who worked to resign and resented ER’s opposition. He urged her to “attend to your own knitting” and behave like his “more discreet” and mostly silent neighbor Grace Coolidge. The New York Times editorialized in support of ER: “How can any woman knit without talking?”
During the summer of 1939 ER’s intimate friendships were rather frayed. Hick was preoccupied by her work at the World’s Fair and unavailable for fun or even significant conversation. When Earl Miller arrived to spen
d a week with ER at Val-Kill and brought his splendid color films of the royal visit, ER was grateful for his company. His new camera provided the best coverage of the famous hot dog cookout. She enjoyed his visit, their hikes and horseback rides in the woods. He was, for the moment, her steadiest companion besides Tommy.
ER remained devoted to Esther Lape and Elizabeth Read, her great mentors and political allies. Although she and Esther regularly went to the theater and occasionally to the World’s Fair together, Elizabeth was not well and spent most of her time at Salt Meadow, their country estate in Westbrook, Connecticut. The community of intimate friends that ER, Nancy Cook, Marion Dickerman, and Caroline O’Day had created at Val-Kill no longer existed. Tommy wrote Esther and Elizabeth regularly that the air at Val-Kill had soured, peppering her letters with unkind observations about “the Cook and the Dickerman,” the two most egregious “chiselers” in ER’s orbit. Except for Esther and Elizabeth, Tommy did not much like any of ER’s friends: “I can’t for the life of me understand why such a fine person as she is has so many chiselers around her. . . . I do say sincerely ‘Thank God for Esther and Elizabeth.’ You save her faith in human nature.”
Nancy Cook did nothing but sulk, Tommy complained, and pretend to be “very ill.” Because she and Cook shared a physician, Tommy had learned that there was “not one thing wrong with her except that she was getting old terribly fast.” As for “chiseler” Dickerman, Tommy thought she had very bad timing and appalling manners. Val-Kill had become a center of cold discontent and bitter resentments.
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