Empty Without You

by Roger Streitmatter

  I know you felt badly & are tired, but I’d give an awful lot if you weren’t so sensitive!

  E.R.

  September 23rd

  Hotel Statler

  Cleveland, Ohio

  My dear:

  The picture I get of the political situation in Ohio is certainly anything but reassuring. God, but that sap Governor [Martin] Davey30 has made a mess of things! Buzzie31 could run for Governor of this state and give him the trimming of his life.

  It’s common knowledge around the state, apparently—I hear it from all sources, political and otherwise—that he is shaking down the liquor wholesalers to the tune of One Dollar for every case they sell in Ohio. And you have to plunk down to Mister Davey’s organization One Thousand Dollars to get a liquor license. He is also all messed up in the slot machines racket. In Cleveland, where the slot machine racket is said to be very bad indeed, Davey’s state chairman recently got into an automobile accident—with Four Thousand Dollars on his person!

  A newspaper man, who used to be with the AP when I was and who now writes politics for a Republican paper in Columbus, told me that, if things go on the way they are—with the damage Davey is doing the party—and with the president lacking any sort of organization or spokesman in the state—your esteemed husband couldn’t be elected dog catcher in Ohio. And the friendly Scripps-Howard [newspaper chain] people—they have six papers in Ohio, you know—say the same thing. Just seeing Davey in Washington a few weeks ago apparently did the president a lot of harm.

  I could go on at length. And undoubtedly shall in my next report!

  Dear, I don’t think I quite deserve that shaking you say you’d like to give me. I was only trying not to be selfish—to treat you as I would Jean [Dixon],32 Howard [Haycraft],33 or any of my other friends!

  Good night, and please don’t be cross with me.

  H

  September 25th

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  Washington

  Dearest, Your Monday & Tuesday letters both arrived this morning & I liked your explosive one & in spots you are entirely right as to a federal bureaucracy etc. [Governor] Davey I am not surprised to hear about!

  I’m glad to know you were trying to treat me like Jean or Howard, but I shouldn’t think they’d like it much! Your letters made me feel that in some way I’d given you the impression I really don’t care to see you in early Oct. That I thought more of something or someone in N.Y. than I did of you & that you would go about your business & not burden me. No one likes to be burdened by one’s friends, sometimes one can’t do things, but one wants to do them & I wouldn’t give up seeing you after all these weeks for anything except an illness or crisis of some sort & you ought to know it by this time! Darling, I sound like an old scold, forgive me, I treat you badly lots of times I know when I don’t realize it!

  I’ll wire you on Sunday to Cincinatti [sic]. A world of love dear one & bless you,

  E.R.

  This letter reveals that Hick had become so depressed that she wished—as the last line implies—she had never been born.

  September 26th

  New Hotel Secor

  Toledo, Ohio

  Dearest:

  It is so hard even for me not to feel a little bitter at the “big shots” these days. The president, [Harold] Ickes,34 Harry Hopkins,35 all well fed, well clothed, warm, and comfortable, complacently starting off on a vacation while out here in places like Cleveland and Toledo thousands of people aren’t getting enough to eat, are facing eviction, begging for little jobs at a wage that none of us could live on.

  Of course a lot of my bitterness is directed at your husband, Ickes, and, yes, to a certain extent, at Harry. Months and months of rowing about who is going to run the show. And hence—no show running.36 Oh, I know it’s just human nature, and that it happens all the time in private industry. God knows I’ve seen plenty of it there! But, dear lady, we are dealing with the welfare of millions of helpless people—the food they eat, their shelter. The federal government “cracking down” on Governor Davey, who ought to be led out and shot, while thousands of innocent people——

  Well, there isn’t any use in my raving on any more.

  Good night, dear, wherever you are. I feel a good deal as though I were shouting into space!

  Tonight’s paper says the president is going to speak Saturday in Fremont, Nebraska. My mother lived there for a year once, when she was a girl—probably the happiest year of her life. She was engaged at the time to a man she didn’t marry after all. I met him years later, when I was at school in Michigan. A very fine man. Too bad she didn’t marry him.

  H

  Eleanor had now joined Franklin on his campaign train.

  September 29th

  New Hotel Secor

  Toledo, Ohio

  Dearest:

  I’ll be brief tonight, for I must get to bed. Fairly hellish day ahead of me tomorrow. I’m leaving Toledo at 7 a.m. and don’t expect to be in Cincinnati before 8:30 or 9 p.m. I have only about 250 miles of driving, but I’m making a lot of stops.

  Spent this morning inspecting projects—or prospective projects, since most of them are at a standstill—in a cold, drizzling rain.

  It’s things like this that are so maddening dear. Seventy-two relief clients had the job of guarding children as they cross the streets—at the schools in winter, at the playgrounds in summer. When the FERA [Federal Emergency Relief Administration] work program stopped in July, these men volunteered to continue without pay—i.e. only for grocery orders—until the project went through under WPA. The project has gone to Washington. Nothing has been heard from it since. The seventy-two men are still guiding the children across the streets. The project and the men are popular. People keep asking them, “Got your pay yet?” “No.” And every time it happens, the president loses another friend. Even the Scripps-Howard paper is boiling about it. They carried an editorial tonight.

  There’s a meat strike on in Cleveland, and one starting here. The Scripps-Howard people investigated and say they found it was being quietly instigated by the Republican women’s organization. Pretty clever of the Republican ladies—provided they manage to keep it dark. It certainly wouldn’t help their party any with the corn-hog farmers.

  Must go to bed. Can’t imagine where you are tonight. The papers carry practically nothing—and that under the vague dateline “Aboard the President’s Special Train.” Just the same, that dateline makes me damned homesick for the business. Three years ago now I was writing copy under a similar one. “Aboard the Roosevelt Campaign Train.” Oh, well—

  Goodnight, dear. Sleep well.

  H

  Eleanor had now left the presidential train and was at Hyde Park.

  October 7th

  Val-Kill Cottage

  Hick darling, Two letters from you this morning, one of them the detailed criticism [of the role of women article] which is going to be the greatest help. I’ve only had time to read the begining [sic] but so far you are entirely right & I will change it for Mr. [George] Lorrimer doesn’t like it [the first version]. Mr. [George] Bye was here for lunch & will write me in detail on Monday. I told him I’d consider their suggestions & rewrite or take another subject for them & rewrite this for someone else. Mr. B. tells me they say that Republican audience has pounded a lot for the first article.37

  Anna & John [Anna had married John Boettiger in January] are here & we are now going to Elinor Morgenthau’s clambake. I exercised all a.m. & have done no work!

  I was a pig to give you the impression it was hard here, it is just a life I don’t enjoy & I feel rushed & distant & like [I do in] Washington—but I don’t really mind! Your life would seem to me much worse!

  A world of love,

  E.R.

  Although Eleanor was very generous herself, it was difficult for her to accept gifts from other people. This cryptic letter suggests that the fiercely independent Lorena believed, and Eleanor agreed, that this trait was contributing to the problems in th
eir relationship. Eleanor’s use of the phrase “dearest person” at the end of the letter also may be a telling choice of words, as the restrained tone it communicates is dramatically different from the intimate tone that had permeated the first lady’s letters a year earlier. The letter was written when Eleanor and Lorena both were living at the White House, as Lorena was preparing to depart for West Virginia.

  [October 10]

  Hick darling, I’ve thought of you so much all day & I wish I had not had to leave you last night, tho’ of course I wanted to come & see Anna.38 You are a grand person dear & don’t ever think I don’t appreciate what you are going thro’ for me. I love the bag39 & it will be in constant use next summer no matter where I am. I do love presents & I love you to give them to me but I can’t let go & be natural that’s all. I will try dear to do better work as long as it matters to you! You see I care so little at times, other times I realize if one does anything one should do it as well as one can. I might at least do things to the best of my ability which however is far more mediocre I fear than you imagine!

  I hope you are enjoying getting your job started40 & that it will be fun to do, it certainly will be valuable.

  Anna is much better still rather weak but I get her home before lunch to-morrow.

  A world of love & good night dearest person,

  E.R.

  This letter begins with Eleanor’s reference to what ultimately became the final version of the manuscript that she, Lorena, and Tommy had been working on for five months. The time and effort proved to be well spent, as the central idea that Eleanor expressed was both remarkable and prescient. Indeed, it was virtually identical to the concept that would, thirty years later, ignite the modern Women’s Liberation Movement: Many American women are not satisfied with living their lives inside the strict parameters of domesticity. Calling the belief that all women should live in the shadow of their husband and children “a kind of blindness,” Eleanor wrote, “When people say woman’s place is in the home, I say, with enthusiasm, it certainly is, but if she really cares about her home, that caring will take her far and wide.” The Saturday Evening Post published the article in its August 24, 1936, issue.

  [October 15]

  49 East 65th Street

  New York

  Darling, I’ve really worked hard on my Sat. Eve. Post article & we finished to-night.

  A dreadful story came out about poor John [Boettiger] to-day & going to T.V.A. & I think he almost decided not to go!41 What a price one pays when a revered parent decides to serve his country! I’m begining [sic] to think obscurity the greatest boon that we can ask for in this world!

  E.R.

  The beginning of this letter provides stark evidence of Lorena’s deepening frustration—with Eleanor as well as her job and the state of the nation.

  October 16th

  Daniel Boone Hotel

  Charleston, West Virginia

  My dear:

  Well—your day sounded full. Mine hasn’t been exactly loafing.

  It’s 10 o’clock, and I’ve just finished my first day’s toil in West Virginia. Shall I tell you about it? Or save it for my report? Which probably will never be read. Oh, I know you all think this is temperamental with me—that it’s impossible for me to see anything but the dark side. But, God, I wish some of the rest of you had to listen to this, day in and day out. I bet you’d all feel gloomy, too. Ten hours of it I’ve had today—politics, bitter factionalism, greed, personal ambition, downright dishonesty. I’m beginning to think—not beginning to think, for I’ve really been aware of it for sometime—that, if the president is defeated next year the Relief and Works Progress Administration will be responsible. Despite all of Harry’s fine idealism, loyalty, unselfish devotion. This West Virginia situation—well, I’m going to recommend that we send in a federal examiner to go over the books of the relief administration. It’s that bad. I got my first report on Red House42 tonight. Their principal difficulty is the same as that of all the other homesteaders. No work, except that provided by the Federal Government.43

  And God help us if Congress ever really does start an investigation of relief and WPA. What they’ll turn up—or might turn up—in some of these states won’t be pretty. The thing’s too big. It’s got out of hand. And much of it is so ridiculous. Do you know what I was told tonight—and by one of our own federal people? It may take 100 cards, including duplications, to put one individual to work on WPA and keep him working! Imagine the fun the press could have with that! Just damned red tape.

  Oh, well, week after next I’ll be trying to boil it down into a reasonably coherent and objective report—to be tucked away somewhere in the files. Objective? HELL—I can’t be objective.

  Well—I leave for Washington the 26th.

  I’m sorry this letter sounds so gloomy. Well, it’s my job to tell you all what I hear. And I’m telling you—part of it. It’s just a sample.

  I hope you are having a nice time.

  H

  When Lorena wrote this letter, Eleanor was on a speaking tour in the Midwest.

  October 19th

  Daniel Boone Hotel

  Charleston, West Virginia

  Dearest:

  I think my most poignant experience today was this:

  One of the homesteaders we visited, a friend of Major [Francis] Turner,44 had a dog with pups. Just a little white mongrel dog, thin as a rail. The little boy of the family, about 11 years old, took me out to the barn to show me the pups. They, too, didn’t look as though they were thriving any too well.

  “Aw, she don’t get enough to eat,” he said gruffly, referring to the mother, whose name was “Missy.”

  “We ain’t got nothin’ to feed her, and so she ain’t got no milk for the pups.”

  The expression on his face and that in the eyes of the dog made me want to weep. I thought of giving him some money. But that didn’t seem to be the thing to do, either.

  On the way in, I told Major Turner about it. He stopped the car—so suddenly that I almost went through the windshield!

  “By God, I’ll send that kid a case of dog food,” he said, drawing out a notebook. I’m going halves on the case with him.

  I’m going to get undressed now, get into bed, and read for a couple of hours. And I’ve turned down three dinner invitations tomorrow to stay here and write letters, read, do my expense account, and so on.

  Good night. I hope you are having a nice weekend, wherever you are.

  H

  In Lorena’s next emotional outburst, she became angry when the first lady agreed to meet her—Lorena, at the time, was working out of a hotel in Baltimore—at the White House for a quiet hour or so together. The time was set for 6:15, but Eleanor was delayed a few minutes. When 6:30 arrived and the first lady hadn’t arrived, Lorena bolted out of the mansion and drove back to Baltimore in a huff. The letter contains Eleanor’s gentle suggestion that Lorena may have overreacted; the second paragraph contains a second suggestion that Lorena should not be so sensitive about the first lady’s every word, although the precise comment that Eleanor made—and that Lorena found so agitating—is unclear.

  [October 31]

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  Washington

  Hick dearest, I am sorry you were hurt dear, but weren’t you a bit hasty? I was back at 6:45 & lay on the sofa & read from 7:15-7:45 which was the time I had planned for you. I do plan times dear one to be with you but you have been here a good deal & the steady routine gets on your nerves, in the old days when it was only a day now & then we broke routine & you pine for that & we must do it more often!

  You must not think so long of things I say which I really do not mean so seriously. I want you to be happy because I love you, & when I’ve hurt [you] I am sorry & cross with myself for not thinking ahead & preventing it but I wouldn’t give up our times to-gether & our happiness for these little troubles. You have been a brick & don’t think that I don’t know how hard it is.

  It has been a busy day, ride
, work, saw Mrs. [Lillian] Evanti the colored singer who wishes to broadcast,45 Mrs. [Helen] Wilmerding46 to the chrysanthemum show at 11:45 & at 12:15 took Louis for a drive. Had the Harold Butlers, English (International labor bureau of the League of Nations) to lunch & enjoyed them. Worked till I left at 3:20 to plant a tree in a playground. Then a dash to see John in the hospital. He had his tonsils out to-day. Worked all evening & have just sent Tommy home at 11:30.

  Darling, I hope these next few weeks won’t be bad & I shall always be sorry for your unhappiness.

  Well dear one, sleep sweetly,

  E.R.

  By December, Lorena was back on the road. This time she was in northern Michigan.

  December 10th

  Douglass House

  Houghton, Michigan

  Dearest:

  This has been a day! Tragic as parts of it have been, I grin in spite of myself. It’s so absurd.

  I landed in Iron Mountain at 6:30 this morning. Clear, cold weather, with a biting wind from the North. Lots of snow. Curse had come in the night. Cramps.

  The district WPA director met me at the station with his chief engineer, and they took me out to the attractive and cozy little log cabin in the pine woods, where they “bach it.” Then they proceeded to cook breakfast, while I sat around, feeling foolish. Very delicious food. Nice experience.

  Then we went out to look at projects. We slithered and slid over ice, snow, and ruts around and up to the top of a small mountain over a road that eventually is to be called “Franklin D. Roosevelt Parkway.” Up on top of this hill, in the snow, in a wind that cut to the very bone, some 200 men were at work, clearing out underbrush, digging out stumps, working on the roadway and building a ski jump.