ER wrote that she learned one very important lesson during the summer of 1933:
I came to the conclusion that … just having a few people in the government take an interest in trying to achieve peace is never going to achieve peace, that it has to be done by the interest of the people, and unless all the people—the men who work on the farms, the men who work in the factories, the scientists and teachers, and all the people who make up a nation—take an interest, we will fail….
After FDR left the next day on the Indianapolis, ER, Nancy Cook, and Marion Dickerman drove Norman Davis to the train in Maine. His calming words and a magnificent sunset created a healing drive down, “and I recaptured a little serenity.”
On her return, ER made plans to meet with the leaders of the international peace movement, including Carrie Chapman Catt, Jane Addams, Alice Hamilton, and Lillian Wald. More immediately, like Hull and Moley, she sought to protect the president. She did not discuss FDR’s decision to wreck the London Conference. About her time at Campobello, she told her press conference only that there were a hundred people for a picnic, and she did women’s work: “I made all the beds for 22 people.” She did not add with anguish or wrath that men made momentous decisions, while women served in silence.
Sunday afternoon, 2 July, FDR returned on the Indianapolis to Washington, accompanied by his son Franklin, Henry Morgenthau, and Louis Howe. Homeward bound, FDR drafted yet another message to criticize the London Conference:
The sound internal economic system of a nation is a greater factor in its well-being than the price of its currency, or currency exchange rates, or any of the issues debated in London:
When the world works out concerted policies … to produce balanced budgets and living within their means, then we can properly discuss a better distribution of the world’s gold and silver supply to act as a reserve base of national currencies….
This was the specific “bombshell” that cashiered the London Conference. For many it was not only substantively shocking, it was arrogant and belligerent. Members of his own delegation were merely perplexed. They had no idea what it meant, or what kind of “jest” it was supposed to be. James Warburg resigned that week, because he could no longer interpret the president’s vision.
It was over. Never again during the 1930s would the effort to achieve economic international accord be made. The British were astonished. Ramsay MacDonald felt personally assaulted. He told Moley: “This doesn’t sound like the man I spent so many hours with in Washington. This sounds like a different man. I don’t understand.”
On 4 July 1933, The New York Times reported that the Nazi press praised FDR’s action. German leaders regarded the “death agonies” of the London Conference with satisfaction, “because they see the end of any united front against Germany.” They exulted that “the Americans merely turned the tables on the conference.” Hitler was pleased, since FDR’s policies confirmed his own: Economic nationalism ruled the day. One Nazi paper hailed “President Roosevelt’s truths,” because he “adopted an economic program which is the foundation of Chancellor Hitler’s policy.” One can only wonder what ER felt when she read those words.
FDR’s decision was championed by an odd assortment of observers, including Louis Howe and Henry Morgenthau—who evidently encouraged him to write the final bombshell as they cruised south to Washington on the Indianapolis. Ultimately Moley was pleased:
The United States “had for once gone to an international conference without making ridiculous concessions. And I was gratified that the President’s newly strengthened distrust of international ‘cooperation’ even in its mildest form had been, at last, unmistakably proclaimed.”
Above all, Hearst was vindicated. His primary fear was that the United States would cave in on the European debt. The United States now only hardened its position. In 1934, the absolute isolationist Johnson Act forbade U.S. citizens to lend money to, or buy securities from, indebted governments in default to the United States. This was considered a great victory by a wide range of economic nationalists, even though it prevented credits that would have revived U.S. export trade and destroyed the rationale for the “token” payments some nations had been conscientiously making. But the Johnson Act was discriminately applied; and the debts were never repaid.
More than hope for international cooperation ended when the conference closed forever on 27 July 1933. European statesmen no longer trusted the United States. British leaders, from MacDonald to Neville Chamberlain, who had personally appealed to FDR in June, now despised the president. Throughout the 1930s, they simply dismissed FDR’s sporadic diplomatic overtures as ridiculous and irrelevant. As ER feared most, a great opportunity for international leadership had been lost. Her husband had failed to take a risk for peace. Rearmament and economic nationalism would forevermore rule the day.
Surrounded by fascism, communism, and Europe’s economic and imperial rivalries, FDR built a stronger navy and an economy unfettered by international accords with European leaders he judged untrustworthy.
For veteran peace activists allied with Addams and Wald, the conference was a bitter portent. Oswald Garrison Villard, The Nation’s longtime editor, returned from Europe “to admit a sense of almost complete hopelessness…. The London Conference dealt a deadly blow….”
In London, Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov, as in Geneva, where he made the only substantial proposal for general disarmament, made the only substantial suggestion for general prosperity: Litvinov offered a billion dollars’ worth of business from Russia to prime business pumps in exchange for long-term credit.
Litvinov worked the room and walked away with stunning nonaggression treaties with neighboring states from Afghanistan to Estonia, and generous trade agreements with France, England, and the United States. Litvinov and Hull arranged for Russia to borrow $4 million with which to buy American cotton.
FDR, a man of endless imagination who enjoyed playing every angle, now considered alternatives to the specter of Japanese aggression in America’s Pacific ”sphere of influence” and Nazi Germany’s rearmament without collective opposition. He decided to explore the possibilities for U.S. recognition of the Soviet Union. As if to make amends to his wife’s disappointed circle, he turned to Esther Lape and her American Foundation to initiate a study of Soviet-American relations.
Indeed, on the same day London received FDR’s bombshell, 3 July, the American Foundation issued a press release to announce the creation “of a Committee on Russian-American Relations.” The committee would extend the work of Esther Lape’s unofficial survey of national leaders and public opinion, conducted in June, which revealed “a genuine desire” for “trustworthy” information concerning our relations with the Soviet Union.
With her usual diligence and efficiency, Lape staffed her initial “Committee of Inquiry” with notable scholars, labor leaders, diplomats, and business leaders.
The purpose was to explore the terms “upon which other countries have recognized Soviet Russia; the collateral arrangements that have … accompanied or followed recognition; the extent to which there have been government guarantees of payments for goods sold to Russia; the facts as to the debts of the Czarist regime …; the confiscation of property of citizens of other countries; … Russian trade with other countries and the U.S.”
On 3 July, Lape wrote, FDR had read the initial report “personally, with obvious interest,” and urged her new committee to work tirelessly all that summer, to be ready for his projected but as yet unscheduled autumnal meeting with Litvinov.
In addition, FDR wanted his wife to know that he appreciated her concerns, expressed so forcefully at Campobello, and cabled Hull on the eve of his return: “Before you sail, I want you to know once more of my affectionate regard for and confidence in you.” He wrote nothing to Moley, nor did he say anything encouraging to Moley when they met. Moley knew that he had been personally “kicked in the face” and resigned as soon as possible without seeming to resign in protest.
FDR also encouraged ER’s team not to abandon their fight for the World Court. He wanted now to mollify his wife. As ER knew, above all, he wanted to keep his options open. There were circles within circles. No decision was final.
*When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, Hoover and Secretary of State Henry Stimson issued a policy of nonrecognition: the Stimson Doctrine, which gave moral support to China and affirmed that Japan was an aggressor nation. But it called for no action, neither economic sanctions nor arms embargo. FDR now called for stricter neutralism, which would not even designate the aggressor.
*Unknown to Ramsay MacDonald, the pacifist Prime Minister, was FDR’s executive order of 16 June 1933 to refurbish the U.S. Navy. See p. 132 and notes.
7: Private Times
and Reports from Germany
In Washington, as ER and Hick prepared to leave for their holiday together, the First Lady made a momentous decision. She would transform her new column in the Woman’s Home Companion into a correspondence with the American people. FDR had always told her that if she could promote popular support for a policy, he would pursue it.
Perhaps influenced by Lape’s correspondence campaign on behalf of Russian recognition, perhaps influenced by Hick, who never underestimated the power of public opinion, and undoubtedly staggered by the failure at London, which elicited no particular public response, on Monday, 3 July, ER told her readers: “I want you to write to me.”
ER hoped her column would become “a clearing house for millions.” She urged everyone to write freely and without hesitation, “even if your views clash with what you believe to be my views.” ER wanted to create a new climate of activity, controversy, and communication between the presidency and the public, and encouraged her readers to believe they had a friend in the White House, one who “is really a servant of the people.”
ER’s two-year contract with the Woman’s Home Companion would pay her $1,000 a month, plus $325 provided for secretarial help. She used that to hire her daughter Anna to assist Tommy. Together, they kept up with the mail from her column—and kept it separate from her White House mail. A daunting task, since ER received more mail than any of her predecessors. After her invitation, within six months she received 301,000 letters; occasionally she received four hundred letters a day. She and her team answered every one, and referred most of them to the appropriate agency or individual concerned.
With ER’s new column under way, she and Hick motored north from Washington early in the morning of 6 July. As promised, their vacation together was private, uninterrupted, and peaceful.
For Hick, the three months since FDR’s inauguration had been agony. Her life as a reporter was completely disrupted by her friendship with the First Lady. Daily, she had faced a cruel and unbearable decision: to report what she was told or overheard, or abandon the pretense that she was still one of America’s best reporters. On one occasion she killed a story because ER asked her to, and suffered her first indignity as a valued AP star when her pay was slashed as a result of her discretion, and self-censorship.
Hick’s work was an ongoing theme of their correspondence. She was tormented by a sense of pressure to change her life and abandon her career, which ER encouraged her to do. It would be easier for both of them, although the First Lady acknowledged Hick’s anguish: “I do understand your joy and pride in your job, and I have a deep respect for it.” But she added: “When you haven’t the feeling of responsibility to the AP I know you have a happier time with me.” There were, ER insisted, other even more rewarding alternatives: “I hope that whatever your decision, it may be the right one for you. I want you to be happy in your work, but I want you to be free from this worry over finances….”
ER failed to appreciate that Hick’s status as a national political reporter, one of the AP’s highest-paid newshawks, was the very core of her identity. She suggested instead a series of articles for McCall’s, and she introduced Hick to her literary agent Carl Brandt to discuss book and magazine possibilities. To Hick, these ideas seemed vague, remote, unexciting.
Finally, ER arranged an interview with Harry Hopkins, who offered Hick an interesting job as chief field investigator for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. She would use her reporter’s skills to explore real truths about life in New Deal America. Hick was grateful, and ER was relieved. She was sure Hick would make the best field reporter Hopkins could get, but noted incongruously: “It is so nice to do anything for you,& Lord knows, you won’t be spoiled by a little ease of life now.”
ER evidently had no idea what it meant to Hick to lose her readers, and her byline. Moreover, her job at FERA involved endless travel, and long, hard hours.
To FDR, ER wrote: “Hick wanted me to tell you how much she appreciated your being so nice about her taking this job for Hopkins. I think she’ll do it very well & she felt she must get out of the AP with all the Elliott & Anna troubles coming.”
The turmoil and self-doubt Hick suffered as she abandoned her life’s career is indicated by ER’s note: “Some day you won’t need me to tell you that you can write, and then I’ll pat myself on the back.”
In the weeks before their trip, ER repeatedly reassured Hick: Her new work, and their good times together, would soon replace all current anxieties.
ER had carefully planned an uninterrupted and secluded holiday. There would be no press, no fanfare, no intrusions. The Secret Service was aghast. ER planned to drive alone with Hick—unchauffeured, unprotected. Kidnappings were much in the news, though to Hick and ER “the idea of anybody trying to kidnap two women, one nearly six feet tall and the other weighing close to two hundred pounds, seemed funny.”
“Where would they hide us?” ER asked. “They certainly couldn’t cram us into the trunk of a car!”
FDR supported their effort at anonymity and privacy, and they had a joyous holiday. It was for each of them a time of self-discovery, and generosity. Neither had grown accustomed to being pampered. They each always tended to put others first. Now, spontaneous and carefree, they had no friends to meet, no obligations of any kind. They drove until dusk, and casually looked about for shelter.
Their first night was spent in a little house in the woods near the Adirondacks—drawn in by a little sign: A recently married young couple had decided to take in tourists. But the house was not quite finished, and there was sufficient hot water for only one bath. “Well—you’re the First Lady, so you get the first bath,” Hick told ER. But ER would not hear of it: She thrust “her long, slender fingers in my direction. I was so ticklish that all she had to do to reduce me to a quivering mass of pulp was to point her fingers at me.” Finally, ER agreed to take the first bath. But she evidently took it cold, because there was plenty of hot water for Hick.
ER brought along one of her favorite books, Stephen Vincent Benét’s John Brown’s Body, and near Lake Placid they paused to make a pilgrimage to John Brown’s grave. ER loved to read poetry aloud, and she particularly loved the rhythmic power of Benét’s stirring evocation of the Civil War, America’s most enduring crisis.
From Lake Placid they drove beyond Burlington, Vermont, to Mount Mansfield, where there was a small hotel about four thousand feet up a treacherous road. ER had always wanted to make that drive, and even though they arrived in the village at the foot of the mountain in darkness, “to the horror of the town’s one policeman,” who argued vehemently against it, ER announced that she would continue on. Hick was impressed:
It was a narrow road, with steep grades and so many hairpin turns that I lost count of them. Very few women had ever driven up that mountain, and no woman had ever attempted it in the dark…. Not only did she drive up Mount Mansfield that night, but she did it in [high] gear.
Evidently ER sped up the mountain, which filled Hick with awe: Anybody else “would have put the car into low gear” and driven cautiously around those curves. But she was “a superb driver.” Also, one suspects, reckless and stubborn—especially when she was entirely in control an
d with somebody who appreciated, even enjoyed her physical prowess rather than criticized or faulted her various efforts, as her husband and sons so routinely did.
For two weeks ER and Hick “wandered happily about” in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. There were no reporters, and nobody noticed them. After several days Hick wondered about the mysterious anonymity. ER explained, “My dear, they’re all Republicans up here.”
Their time in Quebec and the Gaspé Peninsula was splendid; the provincial French food was perfect, and every accommodation satisfied them. ER later reported that the “trip around the Gaspé is I think as beautiful as any which I have taken anywhere.”
After Quebec, they spent a week in Campobello. It was a vivid contrast to her various disappointments at the time of the London Economic Conference, and her letters to her husband while there with Hick were pleasant and jolly. The weather was good, and everyone, including SDR, was cordial.
ER wrote FDR from Campo that she decided to stay home alone “to sit on the balcony & watch the sunset over the water & listen to the waves a few feet away on the stones & catch up on mail. It has been a wonderful trip & Hick is grand to travel with. Nothing bothers her. She isn’t afraid. She doesn’t get tired & she’s always interested! We’ve had plenty of interesting experiences!” ER reminded her husband “to swim every day, you need some exercise. I hope all goes well with you/ Love to Missy/ Love ER.”
Hick accompanied ER to the Chautauqua Women’s Club in New York, where her nationally broadcast speech created a profound stir. Prominent leaders of the International Congress of Women who had met in Chicago traveled to Chautauqua to meet ER, and she was inspired by the presence of international leaders including Dame Rachel Crowdy and Mme. Kraemer Bach.
Eleanor Roosevelt Page 18