Eleanor Roosevelt

by Blanche Wiesen Cook

  Unemployed professionals and white-collar workers failed to get the benefits due them while unionists were demanding more than their share and Negroes were devouring all available relief funds.

  Hick had two suggestions: Create separate intake centers for white-collar workers so that they could get the benefits they needed and still retain their pride, and take most Negroes off relief. Hick’s racialist conclusion was based on what she was told by caseworkers:

  In New Orleans, for instance, EIGHTY-FIVE PER CENT of the load is Negro! … There isn’t much doubt in my own mind that thousands of those Negroes are living much better on relief than they ever did while they were working. You hear the same stories over and over again—Negroes quitting their jobs or refusing to work because they can get on relief. Perhaps only half the stories are true, but that’s bad enough. And God knows the wages they receive are low, and that their standards of living ought to be raised. But God knows our money is limited, too…. If we were not carrying so many Negroes, I wonder if perhaps we couldn’t solve the white collar problem…

  White-collar workers needed to pay higher rents; their suits cost more than overalls. She was adamant; it was obvious: Whites needed money; blacks could do without. And “the more people we carry who really could manage to subsist… the less adequate will be our relief for the people who really have to have it.”

  Hick repeated that solution in her reports from Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico—where Indians and Mexicans dominated the relief rolls. In El Paso, 60 percent of the relief load was Mexican, and half were not U.S. citizens. Relief “is too attractive to thousands of Mexicans and Negroes who might be able to get along without it,” while whites over forty-five would “never get their jobs back. They’re our babies. And what are we going to do with them? … I’m talking about white people now.” People like herself, stranded women and men, single or married, were in trouble.

  Hick’s screeds from the South galvanized ER. They coincided with her most vigorous efforts to build an antiracist movement, ensure relief equity, and achieve an antilynch law.

  ER never allowed political differences to tear a relationship. But these differences pierced to the center of her political soul. One can only wonder why Hick sent ER messages so aggressively steeped in racialist bigotry, knowing how hard ER worked to change just such views and put issues of racial justice on the national agenda.

  Since she knew it would aggrieve ER, perhaps her reports veiled other issues and emotions. When she told ER she wanted to return to her own work, become a foreign correspondent, and feared that ER was sorry they had ever met, ER replied: “No, I am always glad you were assigned to me in 1932,” and she did not enjoy Hick’s new career fantasy. “Europe and Peking” might well be “easier and pleasanter but you are seeing our own country in a unique way and… the rest of the world will perhaps come later!”

  ER did not want their differences to end their relationship, and would more fully address Hick’s attitudes when she had more time.

  At the moment, she was preoccupied by Crystal Bird Fauset’s new project. A member of the AFSC’s Committee on Race Relations, Fauset returned to Philadelphia “deeply moved by our conversation.” She thanked ER for giving “so generously of your time; and your interest, not only in the Institute but in the whole racial situation….”

  ER had promised to help finance and promote a summer seminar at the AFSC’s Interracial Institute, and she quickly followed up with letters to friends. She wrote George Foster Peabody, president and treasurer of Yaddo, the writing colony, and a supporter of Warm Springs and other Roosevelt interests, for suggestions. She appealed to Vincent Astor, and sent a blunt request to Henry Morgenthau, Sr.:

  Dear Uncle Henry: Will you do me a favor and see Crystal Bird Fauset? She wants some help in getting up an interracial institute for the better understanding of the Negro problems. I do think it is important….

  Both Morgenthau and Vincent Astor offered to meet with Fauset; Peabody enlisted others and wrote ER: “I must say Bravo! You are splendid!”

  ER presented her first forceful public speech against discrimination on Friday morning, 11 May 1934. She told the National Conference on Fundamental Problems in the Education of Negroes, meeting in Washington: “I noticed in the papers this morning the figures given of the cost in certain states per capita for the education of a colored child and of a white child, and I could not help but think … how stupid we are….” Since democracy depends above all on an educated citizenry, a literate, informed, and concerned people, “we should really bend our energies … to giving to children the opportunity to develop their gifts, whatever they may be, to the best that is in them….”

  It was, for ER, a matter of self-interest and national preservation:

  There are many people in this country, many white people, who have not had the opportunity for education … and there are also many Negro people who have not had the opportunity…. Both these conditions should be remedied and the same opportunities should be accorded to every child regardless of race or creed….

  [You] can have no part of your population beaten down and expect the rest of the country not to feel the effects from the big groups that are underprivileged….

  The federal government intended to help in the crisis; but this issue was chronic, because there were those who considered education “a menace.” Some believed “it was better not to educate people to want more than they were getting.”

  In this speech, ER countered virtually every word Hick had sent to her over the past month:

  To deny any part of a population the opportunities for more enjoyment in life, for higher aspirations is a menace to the nation as a whole. There has been too much concentrating wealth, and even if it means that some of us have got to learn to be a little more unselfish about sharing what we have than we have been in the past, we must realize that it will profit us all in the long run.

  ER was adamant, and optimistic:

  I think the day of selfishness is over; the day of really working together has come, and we must learn to work together, all of us, regardless of race or creed or color; we must wipe out, wherever we find it, any feeling… of intolerance, of belief that any one group can go ahead alone. We go ahead together or we go down together….

  ER’s dramatic call for universal education and equality avoided the issue of segregation. But the group of educators, university scholars, and public school teachers she addressed that day came from every part of the country to demand a new deal for all children, and for the first time they officially condemned segregation.

  Sponsored by the U. S. Office of Education, the conference resolved: “Enforced segregation, whether by law or local pressure in education as in the general life of the people is undemocratic.”

  According to Harvard Sitkoff, there was no opposition, and historian Howard K. Beale argued that separate schools were inimical to black students’ “incentive, self-pride and esteem.” They “stigmatize the Negro and give his children a sense of inferiority and the white man’s children a feeling of superiority which can never be outgrown in later life.”

  ER’s rallying cry “We go ahead together or we go down together,” in the context of that national conference, encouraged the civil rights movement that began to blossom during the 1930s. Her May 1934 address was broadcast nationally over the NBC network, and published in the Journal of Negro Education. It inspired activists in Washington and throughout the country. “Certainly,” Sitkoff concluded, “no individual did more to alter the relationship between the New Deal and the cause of civil rights.”

  On education, ER worked with John W. Studebaker, U.S. commissioner of, education, Aubrey Williams and Hilda Smith, who shared ER’s enthusiasm for the creation of a national youth program, adult education projects, equal opportunity from nursery schools to parent-education programs, and federal aid to education. But in the South, federal support for education was actually rejected by state and local officials. Nevertheless, in 1934, th
irty-three states accepted federal funds to keep rural elementary and high schools open and to pay teachers work relief wages where all school funds and credits had been “exhausted.”

  In opposition to Hick’s suggestion that blacks be eliminated from the relief effort, Aubrey Williams assured ER that all state relief administrators and school officers received an order which covered “the essential points referred, to in Mrs. Roosevelt’s memorandum” concerned with “complete equity.”

  Since in proportion to population unemployment among Negroes is equal to, if not even greater than, unemployment among other groups, and since educational opportunities for Negroes are notably inadequate, equity demands that educational relief to Negroes be at least at the level of their percentage of the population in each state….

  Ironically, ER’s 11 May address coincided with the start of Hick’s two-week visit. ER wrote that she was to broadcast on Friday between ten-thirty and eleven-thirty, the day Hick was expected. Without mentioning the subject, she asked Hick to arrange her schedule with that hour in mind, “for I couldn’t bear not meeting you.”

  There is no record of their conversations after Hick heard ER publicly repudiate everything she had written from Louisiana and the Southwest. But the day Hick left, ER wrote to apologize for their “bad times.” ER’s dismay and anger evidently exploded and she now promised “to try to keep on an even keel.”

  Hick dearest, I know how you felt today, you couldn’t let go for fear of losing control and being with me was hard…. Darling I love you dearly and I am sorry for letting my foolish temperament make you unhappy and sorry that your temperament does bad things to you too but we’ll have years of happy times so bad times will be forgotten….

  During the two months until their reunion in July, Hick made a determined effort to be positive. There were improvements in the Midwest, and in Dayton, Ohio, successful subsistence homesteads were under way. ER was relieved that Hick sounded “so cheerful” and had finally found “this hopeful angle.” “Dear for your sake as much as mine we must try to keep happy together and you simply must not get so emotionally tired and worn out….”

  But there was one more issue upon which ER wanted to take Hick “to task.” More than once she had ignored “that phrase” Hick used so often to compliment intelligent women: “She had the mind of a man.” Hick had used it once too often. Now, ER wrote, she never wanted to hear it again: “Why, can’t a woman think, be practical and a good business woman and still have a mind of her own?”

  During the last days of May, ER traveled to West Virginia with Elinor Morgenthau. They visited Alderson Prison for women, where the rehabilitation program seemed splendid, and Dr. Mary Harris “is a wonder.” ER and Elinor Morgenthau visited Alderson annually, and supported the innovative programs that sought to return the women, many of whom had “not only a husband but a large number of children,” to their families with both psychological and work skills.

  Concerned about prison reform, ER visited them regularly. Once she left the White House very early in the morning and failed to tell FDR that she would be gone. When he asked Tommy where she was, ER’s secretary replied: “She’s in prison, Mr. President.”

  “I’m not surprised,” FDR said, “but what for?”

  ER’s crusade to change America’s stingy attitude toward the nation’s neglected and rejected people increasingly met howls of protest. By 1934 every dollar spent, every schoolroom or new house contemplated, became part of the ongoing racial battle that drove and defined the twentieth century. But for ER and her allies, there was no turning back. There were many steps to take before people would no longer be condemned to suffer and wither. She was convinced that unless there was dignity for all, there would be security for none. White supremacy degraded the entire nation; a lynching diminished everybody’s life.

  In June 1934, while ER was at Arthurdale, White wrote urgent daily memos to the president to bring up the antilynching bill before adjournment. Disregard for the legislation, White lamented, “is obviously encouraging lynchers to begin their deadly work again.” From South Carolina to California, lynchings had occurred; in South Carolina a grand jury had convened and every witness was sent threatening letters and crude drawings.

  White was desperate: Representatives “of all races and residents of all sections … plead with you to act speedily and vigorously to save America from the horrors of more lynchings.”

  Congress adjourned on 18 June without bothering about the lynching bill. FDR had said nothing to push it along. It was a grievous loss, but ER, the NAACP, and all the bill’s supporters regrouped to bring it up again in the autumn.

  There was, however, one unexpected triumph: Congress finally passed the alley bill. On 6 June, ER told her press conference that she “suggested to the President” he invite Charlotte Everett Hopkins to the bill’s signing, “and the pen used be given to her.” On 12 June 1934, in the presence of her longtime colleagues, FDR complimented Mrs. Hopkins and celebrated a law that he hoped would make “Washington a model city” and serve “a great purpose.” FDR also said the $500,000 revolving fund promised in the legislation “was by no means sufficient” and suggested the commissioners turn to Harold Ickes’s PWA for additional support.

  Charlotte Everett Hopkins said that the “worst thing we’ve had to fight has been indifference.” Most people in Washington “don’t know we have care.” She hoped the new law would change that. It was her birthday month; she was eighty-three, grateful to see this day.

  ER was at Arthurdale for the official opening ceremonies on 12 June, which coincided with the signing of the alley dwelling bill. Her two victories filled her with pride and renewed energy.

  For all their difficulties over Arthurdale, ER and Ickes worked harmoniously on Washington housing—and Ickes asked ER not only to remain honorary chair of the Washington committee but also to become an official adviser.

  ER was “very glad to accept” and for many years led that small group of Washington civic leaders initially led by Charlotte Hopkins, including FDR’sUncle Frederic Delano and John Ihlder, who was named executive of the new Alley Dwelling Authority. The chief task of ER’s Washington housing committee was to lobby for the construction of decent housing to replace the alleys, so as to prevent homelessness, displacement, Negro removal. It would be years before adequate housing was built and, as at Arthurdale, the purchase of every tree, kitchen amenity, and indoor toilet was embattled. ER participated in the ongoing fight item by item.

  11: Private Friendship, Public Time

  ER spent much of June at Hyde Park, in an unusually contemplative mood. As her train ran alongside the Hudson, ER reflected on the splendor of that wide rolling river and the countryside she knew so well. “I guess it is bred in me to love it.” She had recently attended a conference on aging, which caused her to consider her own future, and wrote Hick: “It is sad to be helpless and poor or old, isn’t it? I hope you and I together have enough to make it gracious and attractive!”

  The key to ER’s politics was her ability to empathize with the poorest, loneliest, most needful people in every circumstance. Her ethic was simple: She wanted to see the best she could imagine for herself and her loved ones made available to everyone. But ER was no longer certain what she wanted for herself.

  As she worked in her garden at Val-Kill, the home she had shared with Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman since 1925, it seemed no longer to serve her needs. Increasingly she felt confined, and she disliked the emotional tension between her old and new friends:

  I’ve been wondering the last few days what I really want for my declining years. I could completely take over the cottage at Campobello and make that the place to turn to when I want to be “at home” but it is far away not only for me but for my friends and quite out of the question for winter. Shall I build a cottage at Hyde Park? Perhaps I won’t ever use it but I could lend it to people.

  ER sent Hick a rose from Val-Kill, and wondered “if any of the sweetness of thi
s little favorite rose of mine will linger by the time it reaches you? Everything at the cottage was a lovely sight in full bloom,” and “I wanted you to see it with me.”

  In a pensive nostalgic mood, ER turned her thoughts to “Franklin’s future.” They had a lovely sunlit day: As she drove with her husband of almost thirty years along roads they both loved, ER hoped that “Franklin has a few years here, he would really enjoy it.” Despite all the routine tensions he had with his mother, ER believed “he would enjoy it even with Mama here.”

  ER felt protective of FDR, but also angry and wistful:

  I kept thinking of the mess we had made of our young lives here and how strange it was that after all these years I came here as indifferent and uninterested as a stranger and I doubt if any child has any feeling about it because nothing has ever been his or her own here. It is a pity one cannot live one’s life over again but at least one can try to keep one’s children from making the same mistakes and if you cannot help them much-financially one can at least leave them free!

  ER did not give “vent to these thoughts so F doesn’t have such a bad time!” They seemed in fact never to discuss the complicated emotions that often surfaced unexpectedly out of their past. ER’s memories of bitter moments and profound hurt remained forever a veil between them.

  The big house was crowded with Astors, Morgans, Molly Dewson, Nancy Cook, children and grandchildren. ER swam, relaxed; and spent an hour with Mama:

  She is unhappy & I see why and yet I feel so strongly she brought it all on herself but she can’t help it for she just can’t understand. She’ll be 80 in September and I must make an effort to make it a happy day for her. I’ve been such an unsatisfactory daughter-in-law!