Eleanor and Franklin

by Joseph P. Lash

  Molly arrived in Warm Springs well briefed. In the course of talking to Roosevelt about minimum-wage legislation she shifted the discussion to the department responsible for the administration of labor standards. “Why don’t you appoint Frances Perkins your Industrial Commissioner?” she interjected. Franklin gave Molly the impression that he was not surprised by her request and that he was thinking about it favorably.11

  The final confrontation between Roosevelt and Smith came during a four-hour meeting soon after his return from Warm Springs. All during December the battle had been fought behind the scenes and through stories planted by both sides, mostly in the Democratic World. “While [Smith] will retire to private life, probably to banking,” wrote Ernest K. Lindley, who had covered Smith for many years, “no one doubts that he will continue to be a very powerful, if not the dominating influence in the Democratic Party in this State.” Roosevelt means “to administer the office in his own name and by his own right,” wrote another correspondent for the World on the same day. “This means,” the story continued, “there will be changes in the Smith Cabinet.” Lieutenant Governor-elect Herbert Lehman—a protégé of Belle’s—confirmed on his return from Warm Springs, where he had gone to discuss the legislative program, that Roosevelt intended to be much more active as governor than had generally been assumed at the time of his nomination. And Roosevelt, tanned, buoyant, and “fit as a fiddle,” underscored Lehman’s observation. “I am ready,” he announced as he left Warm Springs, “to carry on the duties of Governor of New York and to remain constantly on the job during the entire legislative period.”

  Eleanor had alerted Franklin that Smith wanted to see him as soon as possible after his return, and three days after Roosevelt’s arrival in New York the two men talked. Moses “rubs me the wrong way,” Roosevelt told Smith flatly, and that finished the campaign to keep him on. He was less definite about Belle, and an added complication was Smith’s disapproval of Roosevelt’s plan to appoint Frances Perkins as labor commissioner.12 He was proud of Miss Perkins, Smith said—it was he who had appointed her chairman of the Industrial Commission, and she had performed ably—but a cabinet post carried administrative responsibilities, and, he said, “men will take advice from a woman, but it is hard for them to take orders from a woman.” Smith’s attitude did not surprise Eleanor. She had caught a glimpse of it in the way he had talked about the visit paid him by Nellie Tayloe Ross when she was governor of Wyoming, when Smith had gloated over her inability to produce the kind of figures that he always had at his fingertips. He did not feel a woman should be governor of a state or head of a department.13

  Roosevelt, nevertheless, appointed Miss Perkins and also, as Eleanor had suggested, put Nell Schwartz on the Industrial Commission.

  To the end of her life Eleanor would deny that she had had any part in the naming of Miss Perkins, and yet she kept a watchful eye on developments just to make sure there would be no last-minute hitches. At Miss Perkins’ request, she arranged for her to come to Hyde Park to have a relaxed talk with the governor-elect and to make sure that their ideas agreed on how far her writ would run. It was a “very satisfactory talk,” Miss Perkins informed Eleanor afterward, “under conditions which couldn’t possibly have occurred otherwise.”14 She wanted Eleanor to know “how much the women of the State admire your prospective relationship to Government.” But that relationship, Eleanor knew, and her closest collaborators soon perceived, depended on how well she buried her tracks and how persuasively she disavowed that she had any influence. Molly sensed the hazards in Eleanor’s path; if she had not emphasized how much Mrs. Roosevelt had helped her, she later wrote, it was “because I thought she was in a delicate position, and the less I said about her in connection with my work, the better.”15 Defeated on Moses and Perkins, Smith still fought on for Belle, and he appealed to Perkins, who was on good terms with both men, to intercede with Roosevelt. She did, but Roosevelt turned her down. Belle was “very, very able” and had done “a great deal for Al,” as she would for any man who was governor, he conceded. But, and Miss Perkins suddenly became aware how much the man leaning back in his armchair had grown in strength and maturity, “I’ve got to be Governor of the State of New York and I have got to be it MYSELF. . . . I’m awfully sorry if it hurts anybody particularly Al.”16

  The battle to be governor in his own right was won, but Frances Perkins, who saw it from the inside, believed that Roosevelt might well have drifted into accepting Mrs. Moskowitz if it hadn’t been for Eleanor.17

  On the afternoon of January 31 the Smiths were at the executive mansion to await arrival of the Roosevelt motorcade from Hyde Park. When it came into view preceded by motorcycle outriders, Smith went down the steps. “God bless you and keep you, Frank,” Smith greeted him. “A thousand welcomes. We’ve got the home fires burning and you’ll find this a fine place to live.” As Smith came toward him, Roosevelt added, “I only wish Al were going to be right here for the next two years.” Mrs. Smith kissed the governor-elect and Smith embraced Mrs. Roosevelt. Both sides were cordial and considerate, a more difficult script for Smith to follow, for these final days in Albany with their outpourings of affection and “Auld Lang Synes” were something of a wake, but he carried it off in splendid style.

  That evening Irving Lehman, associate justice of the court of appeals and Herbert’s brother, swore in the new governor and lieutenant governor. Leaning on James’s arm Roosevelt took the oath of office on the Old Dutch Bible that had been in the Roosevelt family since before Isaac the Patriot’s day. Theodore Roosevelt had been sworn in as governor thirty years before in the same room.

  The executive mansion quickly took on the easy informality of the Roosevelt household. It was always full, its nine guest rooms usually occupied, and large groups sat down to every luncheon and dinner. Informal meals were taken on the sun porch; the big state receptions and dinners were held in the large dining room. They came off “with full dignity,” wrote one newspaperman who was often a guest at the mansion, “but with less stuffiness than such occasions acquire in the hands of less skilled hostesses.”18 House guests mingled with political leaders. Roosevelt’s closest aides, and Eleanor’s, became members of the household. Every afternoon when she was in Albany Eleanor served “a good substantial tea with chocolate cake” in the family sitting room, and whoever was in the house was invited: family, secretaries, newspapermen, friends, state troopers, distinguished guests. The servants were swept up in the warmth and friendliness of the governor and his lady, for their outstanding trait was that they enjoyed people.

  A movie theater was set up in the hall on the third floor. Books, magazines, and papers were everywhere. Dogs raced through the halls—Chief, a large police dog, and the first Falla, a black Scottish terrier named after Murray of Fallahill, a remote Scotch ancestor. There was naturalness, noise, laughter, and continuous commotion. It was a home, not an official residence. At the center was Eleanor, managing the household, making life comfortable for its members, making guests feel at home, and making it all seem easy.

  There is a picture of the Roosevelt hospitality in the diaries of Caroline Phillips. She and William arrived on a Friday afternoon to visit their old friends. “A very efficient-looking English butler” showed them upstairs “to a comfortable sitting room where we found Eleanor presiding over a tea table as quiet and peaceful as though she had nothing at all to do.” Caroline noted, a little wonderingly, all the household people who drifted in for tea. John A. Warner, Al Smith’s son-in-law and the head of the state police, and his wife came for dinner. And afterward they watched a movie starring the Barrymore brothers. “All the servants, black and white, seventeen in all, sat behind the house party and enjoyed the show with us.” The Phillips marveled at the way Franklin and Eleanor were handling their jobs, “entering into the lives of their friends and household with greatest sympathy and courtesy. . . . Eleanor never seems to worry.”

  The fixed points in Eleanor’s schedule during the Albany years we
re the Sunday evening train to New York and the noon train back on Wednesdays so that she would be in time for her Wednesday “at homes” from 4:30 to 6:00 P.M. Each Sunday before she left she obtained from Franklin a complete list of the people who would stay in the house while she was away and wrote out precise instructions for Harry Whitehead, the mansion’s major-domo—menus, seating order at table, assignment of rooms, cars to meet guests, issuance of invitations. She settled servant problems, considered proposals for the purchase of labor-saving equipment, and made decisions on the one hundred and one little matters that are involved in the management of a large household. When friends expressed admiration for the ease and dispatch with which she managed the governor’s house, she dismissed the praise: “Everything is done for me. I simply give the orders.”19

  Missy offered to take over some of the responsibility when Eleanor was away, but Eleanor firmly declined. She was grateful to the young woman, because if Missy were not living in the mansion it would be difficult to continue teaching. Yet it made her unhappy that Missy served as hostess at the all-male dinners Franklin gave while she was in the city and that he accommodated himself so genially to her absences; she would have liked him to protest.

  Often Eleanor took early Sunday supper with Franklin and their guests, but usually the pre-supper talk flowed on until there was only time for her to gulp down milk and crackers and dash for the train. As a belated birthday present Nan and Marion had given her “a new kind of brief case bag” whose chief virtue was supposed to be an almost infinite expandability, and it soon bulged with the letters and documents that poured in upon her as the governor’s wife. On the train she penciled out the replies she would dictate to Miss Thompson in New York—at the women’s division office that she continued to share with Nancy. She also marked students’ papers and worked on her lesson plans for the coming week. She had classes at Todhunter from nine to one on Monday, nine to five on Tuesday, and nine to eleven on Wednesday, which left time for her many other activities, and her calendar was always packed tight from morning to night. “If Mrs. Roosevelt did not hit two birds with every one stone, she never could have carried out her schedule,” remarked Molly, who had been told to come and pour out her woes while Eleanor was on her way to the dressmaker.20

  She worked with Louis Howe, whom she kept informed of Franklin’s activities. Louis had remained in New York City, since the right position could not be found for him in Albany. To be the governor’s secretary did not seem fitting, and he could not have headed a department. He, therefore, continued as Roosevelt’s political chief-of-staff. Since he liked to work behind the scenes, the city seemed a better place from which to handle Roosevelt’s political mail, so he continued to live at 49 East Sixty-fifth Street and serve as assistant to the chairman of the National Crime Commission. A guest room was set aside for him at the mansion for week ends. It was not as satisfying as being able to control access to Franklin, as he had done for so many years, but he adapted to the governor’s necessities, as did everyone else around Franklin. Moreover, there was always Eleanor. At times the two seemed like conspirators in their efforts to hold the governor to a course of action they favored.21

  Eleanor’s political activities underwent a period of experimental adaptation. She no longer made political speeches, resigned from the boards of civic organizations that lobbied for legislation in Albany, and for a while declined to attend any meetings that “savor[ed] of politics,” as she told Henry Morgenthau, Jr., when he invited her to a conference of master farmers. She also refused invitations to local Democratic dinners in four upstate counties, “so you see I’m being most discreet,” she assured her husband.22 She would miss not having “direct political responsibility,” she told a farewell luncheon of the Women’s City Club, especially after having worked so long to make women feel their political obligations.23

  But this withdrawal from political activity was more a matter of form than substance. She removed her name from the masthead of the Democratic News, but continued to edit it behind the scenes, wrote editorials anonymously, and assigned the articles to be written.

  By May, Franklin had lifted the prohibition on attending political gatherings as long as she did not make political speeches. In fact, he wanted her to go: it took another burden off his shoulders. The meetings were often exhausting affairs. She attended a Democratic luncheon on Staten Island, which she described to Franklin: “Arrived at 12:30, stood and shook hands till 1:30, ate till 3:30; talked till 5:20; home here at 6:40 nearly dead! They nominated you for President & you are the finest Gov. ever & I have all the virtues & would gladly have dispensed with half could I have left at four!”24 A week later she was going to a Democratic dinner in Cohoes, “so let me know if you want anything done.”

  Her feminine grace and sympathy did not interfere with her hard-headed astuteness as a politician. When the Women’s Democratic Club of Buffalo wanted to know whether a woman could be elected to office, she answered, “I think there is more opportunity now than ever before for women in politics if they will keep their ideals high and go in with the purpose of being of service rather than with the purpose of obtaining an office.” Offices would come as a matter of course when the service was rendered. “Why not try to run one Buffalo woman this coming autumn in a district which has some chance?” was her closing advice.25

  She championed the representatives of the women’s groups lobbying for protective legislation for children and women workers. All through the twenties they had arrived faithfully on the Monday Empire State Express while the legislature was in session, had spent long hours waiting in corridors and anterooms to see legislators, and then were brushed off. Now they went to the executive mansion “for tea, or dinner or even to stay overnight.”26 Sometimes she lectured the women on the realities of wheeling and dealing in the legislative halls. “My dear girls,” she told a League of Women Voters’ delegation brought to Albany by Mrs. Leach, “you don’t know what you are talking about,” and then proceeded to tell them what the men really thought. “Of course, I have Franklin so they don’t dare talk that way to me.”27

  Molly, who did not require lectures on lobbying, was also helped by Eleanor on occasion. She came to Albany to lobby for a bill to reduce the working hours of women in retail stores. A compromise bill had passed and was ready for the governor’s signature, but it was strongly opposed by business, and the governor had arranged a public hearing. Molly found the hearing room “packed with elegantly tailored, prosperous looking gentlemen, the merchants, and not a single backer of the bill except . . . [for the] representative of the League of Women Voters. Somehow the Women’s Conference had not received their notice of the hearing.”

  She was pouring out her disgust later to Eleanor over a cup of tea when Franklin came rolling in in his wheel chair, looking, Molly thought, as fresh and cheerful as if he were going off for a week end. Immediately Eleanor said, “What are you going to do about the bill?” with what Molly felt was a touch of anxiety in her voice.

  “Sign it, of course,” he debonairly answered, and held out his hand for tea.28

  The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Women’s Trade Union League took place in 1929. The Finance Committee headed by Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Lamont had raised most of the money to pay off the mortgage on the league headquarters. They were arranging to celebrate the event with a party at the clubhouse when a letter came from Mrs. James Roosevelt inviting them to have their party at Hyde Park. Eleanor urged the governor to appear. “Don’t forget the Women’s Trade Union League party on June 8 from 2-6 PM, you are the pièce-de-résistance,” she reminded him.29 A boat was chartered and shopgirls and trade-union leaders made the trip up the Hudson.

  “Did your ears ring all evening on Saturday?” Rose Schneiderman wrote Roosevelt afterward. “You were the main topic of conversation all the way down the river. The girls were saying over and over again, ‘was not the Governor great’ ‘what a kind face he has’ and ‘How democratic he is’ etc. etc. . . . A
s for myself—well, I wish there were a million more like you and Eleanor.”30

  Sara issued the invitation, Mrs. Lamont turned over the check, Franklin starred. Eleanor stayed in the background, but she was the link with the Women’s Trade Union League, and it was often Eleanor who was in the lead on labor issues, rather than Franklin, on occasion even joining a picket line.31 In April she presided at a luncheon of the Women’s Trade Union League where the discussion centered on the five-day week. Merwin K. Hart, the manufacturers’ lobbyist, commented that Mrs. Roosevelt would not want to be told she could work only five days a week. Taken by surprise, she agreed, but then qualified her agreement. “Work is living for me. The point is whether we live in our work.”32 Repeating a single motion throughout the day in a factory was drudgery, not to be compared with doing work that one enjoyed. And when in October, 1930, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union struck against the fashionable Fifth Avenue dressmakers and David Dubinsky was arrested for disorderly conduct, Eleanor came to his aid and endorsed the ILGWU’s efforts to organize the unorganized.

  “The Legislature adjourned, thank the Lord,” Eleanor wrote, as the first session came to an end.33 Franklin left for Warm Springs, and she began preparations for a trip to Europe which Franklin had suggested she take with Franklin Jr., who was called “Brother,” and Johnny, together with Nan and Marion. The prospect of showing her sons her favorite places in Europe was appealing, but it also worried her. She was not sure she could handle Brother, going on fifteen, and Johnny, thirteen, and their inevitable wrestling matches. “I’m getting colder and colder feet about going abroad,” she confessed in May. “It seems such a fearful effort.”34 She also fretted about the costs. There were large doctors’ bills that spring, between Johnny’s knee and Brother’s broken nose and Elliott’s rupture and James’s digestive troubles—“if Franklin gets thro’ under $6,000 he will be doing well.” There were other money worries: “James asked me to beg you to send his check as he says it is a necessity. I wonder if you have forgotten Louis too? He has said nothing but Mary, when they were leaving last night, asked him for money & he was so hesitant to give it I wondered if he was short!” Sara as usual came to the rescue. “I am glad Mama is giving you a present because now I hope we will be able to pay all our many demands!”35