Eleanor Roosevelt

by Blanche Wiesen Cook

  “Roosevelt was pale and shaken…. ‘Clean me up,’ he ordered”; and keep your “feet off ‘those damned sheets.’ ” But then he noticed Markham, “close to tears, a look of agony on his face.” FDR, paused, turned, smiled, “took the poet’s hand in his.” All was well. When the president reached the platform, he seemed “tranquil and unperturbed, while he quietly reassembled the smudged and crumpled pages.”

  The campaign of 1936 was dedicated to the extension of the New Deal, to the demise of those who would inflict despair and permanent poverty on working Americans. Accused by his enemies of communism and fascism, FDR introduced a new way—a democratic way—to economic security. He attacked “economic royalists” who controlled America’s material life, built kingdoms of concentrated wealth which dominated industry. “These tyrants of our technology” thought they could forever control the “railroads, steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio.”

  The twentieth century ushered in an age of giant “corporations, banks and securities; new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital.” Modern civilization changed everything, created new power centers and new problems, disempowered “many thousands of small-businessmen and merchants” who “were no more free than the worker or the farmer.”

  The “privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction….” They erected a “new industrial dictatorship” which controlled the “hours men and women worked, the wages’ they received, the conditions of their labor….”

  For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor—other people’s lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real….

  Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people’s mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended….

  And now, FDR promised, democracy’s march would enlarge democracy’s scope:

  The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody’s business….

  Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is [indivisible]. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

  These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power….

  Domestically, FDR’s speech was revolutionary. He hoped it would have international consequences: All was not “well with the world: Clouds of suspicion, tides of ill-will and intolerance gather darkly in many places.” America’s domestic success might rekindle hope among those in other lands who had grown “too weary to carry on the fight” for freedom and had “yielded their democracy” for illusions.

  In America, FDR declared, “we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It … is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.”

  Though he never mentioned fascism or communism, FDR’s speech resounded throughout the world, and reverberated for decades with the conviction that there was another way, a democratic way: “There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny….”

  When she first read FDR’s speech, ER hesitated: She considered his rhetoric vividly crafted, but “not specific enough for me.” After he presented it at Franklin Field, she was enthusiastic. She wrote: “I think F felt every word of his speech.” His delivery was powerful and dramatic; “it was a wonderful sight.”

  Afterward, his wife and mother beside him, his children and grandchildren close by, the cheering went on and on. The band played “Auld Lang Syne.” When it was done, FDR asked that it be repeated, and he and the entire audience joined in song. Then in an open car, to the horror of the Secret Service, ER and FDR drove around the stadium surrounded by a wild display of hope and trust, as the roaring cheers continued into the night.

  Harold Ickes considered it “the greatest political speech I have ever heard”:

  [FDR presented] the fundamental issue that must be decided in this country… whether to have real freedom for the mass of people, not only political but economic, or whether we are to be governed by a group of economic overlords. It is clear that the President’s speech created a profound impression in the country.

  ER wanted her husband’s splendid words transformed into real action, actual legislation, democratic citizen movements committed to change. She worried, as she always worried during campaigns, that platforms and promises would dissolve into nothing after the election. In her subsequent article for The Democratic Digest she wrote about that star-filled, rhetorically galvanizing night:

  You could not feel anything but solemn, for no man faces such a great crowd … without recognizing the fearful responsibility that rests upon him and how many of his fellow citizens depend on his sincerity and ability….

  ER also had a message for political women in 1936. To all women in public life she offered specific advice and encouragement, based on her own experiences—and especially relevant, she noted, to this campaign:

  You cannot take anything personally.

  You cannot bear grudges.

  You must finish the day’s work when the day’s work is done.

  You cannot get discouraged too easily.

  You have to take defeat over and over again and pick up and go on.

  Be sure of your facts.

  Argue the other side with a friend until you have found the answer to every point which might be brought up against you.

  Women who are willing to be leaders must stand out and be shot at. More and more they are going to do it, and more and more they should do it.

  ER subsequently added: “Every woman in public life needs to develop skin as tough as rhinoceros hide,” which seemed particularly appropriate after FDR’s triumph in Philadelphia. Upon their return to Washington, FDR complied even more fully with his advisers who wanted ER kept as quiet and as invisible as possible. With nothing to do, ER wrote Hick glum letters, and berated herself for her sense of detachment: “It has always been so [somber] a business for me (living I mean)…. Gee! I wish I could even be excited about all this, I can’t and I hate myself!”

  Despite her feelings, she carried on, and called women’s meetings to plan strategy. ER’s core group of state and national leaders were the worker bees of the campaign effort, block by block; they prepared the literature; they rang the doorbells.

  In New York, the entire campaign organization was built around ER’s veteran network and remained under the much-concealed direction of ER herself. Caroline O’Day was associate state chair; Nancy Cook ran O’Day’s office; Agnes Brown Leach was in charge of all organization work; Bessie Beatty ran the publicity department; Grace Greene ran the speakers’ bureau; New York Post publisher Dorothy Schiff Backer was radio chair, assisted by Elinor Morgenthau; Mary Dreier conducted literature distribution; and Mrs. N. Taylor Phillips was in charge of voter registration.

  State activities were coordinated weekly with Dewson’s national efforts. It was an amazing and complex apparatus—which worked. With one caveat: It was up to the men to call upon and use their efforts.

  But the new group around FDR was not interested in their contributions. Moreover, the press was vicious, and ER was routinely the target. Even a friendl
y article declared her a debit, or at least a mixed blessing. In July a New York Times Magazine article by Kathleen McLaughlin profiled ER. Her political views were favorably presented, but her role in electoral politics was dubious:

  There is no middle ground with regard to Eleanor Roosevelt…. She is undeniably both an asset and a liability…. It is possible that no woman before her will have swung so many votes both for and against….

  For all ER’s disclaimers about silence during the campaign, McLaughlin wrote, everyone knew about her “private post office” to FDR, the “small basket” by his bedside she filled at the close of each day with observations, analyses, and reports. Nobody doubted that the busiest First Lady remained busy. She received over “105,000 letters in a single year” and traveled “38,000 miles in 1933,42,000 miles in 1934, and 35,000 in 1935.” Her own personal goal was still to “go everywhere and see everything.” ER remained Eleanor Everywhere, with endless influence.

  The article hardened the Democratic strategy to keep her under wraps. FDR’s new advisers emphasized opposition to ER’s column, her controversial pronouncements, and especially her paid lectures and broadcasts. The Republican campaign glorified the traditional concept of First Lady: Mrs. Landon was depicted as the perfect prairie wife—hardworking, silent, at home. FDR’s inner circle was envious.

  Her feelings in turmoil, ER was unusually alone. Hick, still with others, sent letters of encouragement, pep talks on paper to raise ER’s spirits. ER replied to a letter now lost concerning Philadelphia: “You sound happy and you are right, when I write you stupid, sorry-for-myself letters, I would deny all my sentiments six months hence. I know at the time I say it I’m an idiot!”

  Hick’s own attitude during June and July seemed carefree. No longer a journalist on the campaign trail, she seemed almost disinterested. Her new commitment to having fun was no possible source of comfort for ER, although Hick tried to entertain the First Lady. During the summer of 1936, Hick wrote a series of uncharacteristic letters filled with follies and risqué jokes; her usual political observations were replaced with vivid descriptions of pastoral places, and visits to burlesque and drag shows.

  From a resort hotel on the shore of Lake Superior, Hick wrote:

  Dearest: At last I’ve found the perfect place, in all the world, to spend a weekend. This is it. A simple, quiet, scrupulously clean little hotel away up on the northernmost tip of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Inexpensive. Alicent and I have a lovely room, with water lapping against the rocks right outside our window…. Very good food. Nice, simple, friendly people. And all this in a setting beautiful beyond description.

  They had driven over a magnificent road built by the WPA: “Really dear, that road is one of the most beautiful WPA jobs I’ve ever seen, anywhere.” And the scenery reminded her of the Gaspé Peninsula. The lake was azure, the hills lush, “beautiful forests all along the way. Lots of virgin pine. (One of the Old Man’s best remarks while I was there recently: ‘Will you please tell me of what earthly use is a virgin pine?’).” She continued:

  I wish so much that you were here tonight, dear. It’s away after 9 o’clock, but still light…. This is a beautiful little bay, so deeply blue in the day time, but now all orchid and pink and gold in the sunset. Scattered about it are rocky little islands covered with scrubby, hardy little pines. They suggest Chinese screens—or Japanese prints. And it’s so quiet. So very, very restful….

  But there was no radio, and no newspaper. She could not even read FDR’s speech. “Goodnight, dear. I wish I could bring you here sometime….”

  They had no plans to see each other until the end of September, which was such “a long way off,” and ER assured Hick, “I can meet you anywhere you wish.”

  After her Michigan vacation with Alicent, Hick went to Chicago, where she spent most of her time with a male friend named Kruger:

  Kruger complicates the situation in that I have to dress every night and dine out with him. But he amuses himself daytimes, and I do like having him around. I’m gradually making a liberal out of him, and it’s fun. Tonight we dined at Colsino’s, one of the less lurid night clubs which is famous chiefly for its Capone connections. For the most part, we found it depressing. The inanities of sin! There was one funny thing. They had billed one June St. Clair “America’s most alluring woman.” After waiting all evening, we finally saw her. She was fat, forty, very much bleached. Her hair looked like cotton. She bustled about the floor for a few seconds, looking for all the world like a worried, frowsy housewife. Then she stopped in front of the curtain, dropped her dress, which was all she had on, and stood there for a split second—naked and very UN-lovely….

  Came back and found several dozen flat-chested gals and anemic young men, delegates to a Baptist young people’s convention singing “Old Black Joe” in the lobby! In the Continental Room, just off the lobby—air cooled and very expensive—there’s a dancer who calls herself Countess Something-or-Other. She wears a very sheer jade green chiffon gown with nothing under it save a very tiny “jock strap” and an ineffectual brassiere…. Isn’t Chicago funny? Tomorrow morning we’re going to the zoo….

  While Hick tried to cheer up the depressed First Lady with accounts of nightlife in the heartland, ER struggled to enjoy diversions. During the July Fourth weekend she joined FDR’s party aboard the Potomac for a cruise down the James River. Hardly an assemblage of her preferred mates, it included Ickes, Missy LeHand, Farley, several politicians, and FDR’s Harvard friends, courtly Virginians who impressed Ickes: Even “the abolition of slavery has not served to destroy this distinctive … culture.”

  ER wrote Hick:

  Dearest, how I wish you were here tonight…. It was nice on deck but I hated making polite conversation and you would have hated it even more, wouldn’t you? I think I envy you off with one person and when the day’s work is done you don’t have to be with a crowd. Oh! well, most of the time I’d rather have the crowd than be alone with any of them but I’d like a few hours with you now and then!

  While ER felt refreshed by a visit with England’s outspoken social work leader and wife of the new ambassador, Lady Stella Reading, Esther Lape, and Elizabeth Read, FDR enjoyed an unusual private party at Harold Ickes’s place. Missy LeHand had told Ickes that the president “wished he knew some place in the country where he could go and have a quiet and undisturbed evening” with friends. Ickes offered his home, but since FDR had not been to the home of any other cabinet member “the White House wanted the thing kept as quiet as possible.”

  It was a small group, with Missy LeHand, Grace Tully, Tom Corcoran, and several others; an evening made notable by splendid food and drink. Ickes wrote:

  I served Chateau Yquem, a good claret, and a good vintage champagne. We had liqueurs afterward and when the dining table had been removed, the butlers brought out and put on a table, with a supply of cracked ice, Scotch, rye and bourbon whiskey, gin and Bacardi rum….

  The party was a great success…. Tom Corcoran had brought his accordion…. and sang practically the whole evening…. The President seemed to enjoy himself hugely and he entered into the fun very naturally and spontaneously….

  [FDR carried] his liquor well. He must have had five highballs after dinner. He drank gin and ginger ale, but he never showed the slightest effect…. He must have had a good time because he didn’t leave until half past twelve and then only after Miss LeHand prodded him two or three times and insisted that he must go home and to bed.

  It was precisely the kind of drinking party that ER would have hated. During the summer of 1936, her world and his seemed to grow ever more separate and distinct.

  On 14 July, ER saw FDR and her sons off for a leisurely sail on a chartered yacht, the Sewanee, to arrive at Campobello at month’s end, when he would be joined by ER and her party. Until then ER spent time at Val-Kill, to work on political strategy with the Women’s Democratic Committee. She wrote Hick: “I feel fine and very cheerful but I’d like to feel I was going to have y
ou in Hyde Park in August.”

  FDR’s political advisers were either puzzled or enraged by his nonchalance regarding the election, and his decision to take a vacation at such a critical time. Steve Early and Stanley High were in touch with ER, who agreed to wire FDR regarding urgent decisions for speeches that needed to be made before Alf Landon’s campaign dominated the news.

  FDR refused to take Alf Landon seriously; and he paid no attention to the third-party candidacy of William Lemke, whose Union Party was comprised of radicals and fascists. It was led by Dr. Frank Townsend, whose old-age insurance scheme competed with Democratic alternatives, and brutal racists and anti-Semites, including Huey Long’s successor Gerald L. K. Smith and Detroit’s radio priest Father Charles Coughlin. Coughlin astounded observers when he pulled off his coat and collar at the Union Party convention to call FDR a traitor and liar. With little hope of victory, Unionists fronted for Landon; and prominent conservative Democrats defected to him all spring.

  Several summer polls indicated Landon had a significant lead. FDR’s team was actually in disarray, with nobody clearly in charge, engulfed by disagreements and rivalries. ER looked on aghast and angry. Ickes was also aroused: The Landon camp has gone into high gear, and “we have continued to sit by….”

  [While FDR] smiles and fishes and the rest of us worry and fume….

  With even our own private polls showing an alarming falling off in the President’s vote, the whole situation is incomprehensible to me. It was loudly proclaimed that Louie Howe had supplied most of the political strategy… and I am beginning to believe that this must have been true. I do know that Howe was the only one who dared to talk to him frankly and fearlessly…. He could reach him not only directly but through Mrs. Roosevelt. Jim Farley tries to please the President…. I do not think that he takes advice from anybody….