Eleanor and Franklin (2 page)

The young will discover, too, how contemporary the past may, after all, be. They will find students in revolt, marching, picketing, fighting cops, heckling presidents. They will see the first American war against poverty and the greatest American effort to humanize industrial society. And they will see in Eleanor Roosevelt herself, though she would doubtless have smiled over the overwrought ideology and dramatics of Women's Lib, the most liberated American woman of this century.

But what Mr. Lash understands so well and sets forth so lucidly is that her liberation was not an uncovenanted gift. She attained it only through a terrifying exertion of self-discipline. It was terrifying because the conviction of her own inadequacy was so effectively instilled in Eleanor Roosevelt as a child, and because her adult life had so much disappointment and shock, that it required incomparable and incessant self-control to win maturity and serenity. If her mastery of herself was never complete, if to the end of her life she could still succumb to private melancholy while calmly meeting public obligation, this makes her achievement and character all the more formidable. Her
life was both ordeal and fulfillment. It combined vulnerability and stoicism, pathos and pride, frustration and accomplishment, sadness and happiness. Mr. Lash catches all this and, in a remarkable American biography, recreates for a new generation a great and gallant—and, above all, a profoundly good—lady.

Introduction

F
RANKLIN
D. R
OOSEVELT
, J
R
.

M
Y MOTHER
'
S WILL NAMED ME HER LITERARY EXECUTOR
, responsible for her private papers which she deposited with the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, New York. After consulting with my sister Anna and my brothers, I asked Joseph P. Lash to undertake the very extensive research and the writing of this biography based on these papers. Joe Lash has been a close friend of mine and of my entire family for over thirty years, and during this period I have developed great respect for his integrity and objectivity. In inviting Joe to go through my mother's papers, I was also mindful of the fact that in 1947 she had selected him to assist my brother, Elliott, in editing volumes III and IV of my father's letters. She further attested to her confidence in Joe in the authorization she gave him to go through her papers while she was still alive in connection with the book he was writing on the youth movement of the thirties.

The library at Hyde Park houses the papers of both my father and my mother and of many who were associated with them during their public careers. Those careers cover the period in American history during which time the United States grew from a nation isolated not only by geography but often by national policy into the most powerful country in the world, the most advanced industrial society, as well as a nation of great social conscience. That transformation is reflected in the papers in the Roosevelt Library, which make it a fascinating and unique collection of source materials.

Each of us sees a person differently. My brothers and sister in our family conclaves have often argued vehemently, though lovingly, about our parents. It was natural that Joe Lash would see some matters differently from us. I read this book carefully while it was in preparation. I had many sessions with the author, and we discussed his assessments and reconstructions and occasionally disagreed. But I felt from the beginning that this had to be the writer's book.

My parents are figures in history. They were also human beings with foibles and frailties as well as great strength and vitality. Their marriage lasted forty years. To us, as children, they were wonderful parents. Inevitably, there were times of tension and unhappiness as well as years of joy and companionship. For this book to be of value to the present generation the whole picture, insofar as it could be ascertained, had to be drawn.

Many people have written about my mother's contribution to my father's work. This book documents her part in that work. They were a team, and the Roosevelt years, I believe, were more fruitful and creative as a consequence of that partnership.

It was my hope that Joe Lash would present a portrait of my mother that would be objective yet sympathetic and recapture something of her reality as she moved through eight of the most significant decades in our country's history. This book fulfills my hope.

Author's Note

W
HEN
I
FINISHED MY LITTLE BOOK
,
E
LEANOR
R
OOSEVELT
: A Friend's Memoir,
I did not think that I would again be involved in writing about Eleanor Roosevelt, but then Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., invited me to do a biography based on his mother's papers and I accepted happily. Not the least part of my pleasure was the prospect of again working closely with my old friend Franklin.

Many people have aided in the writing of this book, but I particularly want to acknowledge my indebtedness to Eleanor Roosevelt's children for talking with me freely and at length. Anna Roosevelt Halsted's vivid recollections were invaluable, and our many three-hour luncheons were among the most pleasant parts of my research. The footnotes list the names of the many relatives, friends, and co-workers of Mrs. Roosevelt who were kind enough to share their memories with me. My sessions with Eleanor Roosevelt's two remarkable cousins, Alice Longworth and Corinne Cole, and with Mrs. Roosevelt's ninety-six-year-old uncle by marriage, the late David Gray, were especially memorable, as were my many talks with such long-time friends and collaborators of Mrs. Roosevelt's as Esther Everett Lape, Marion Dickerman, Earl R. Miller, Dr. David Gurewitsch, and Maureen Corr.

Dr. Viola W. Bernard read the first half of the manuscript and devoted several evenings to giving me a psychiatrist's view of Eleanor Roosevelt's psychosocial development. She was very helpful; however, she is not responsible for the way I have made use of her observations, nor, for that matter, are the others who talked with me.

The distinguished New Dealer and wise counselor, Benjamin V. Cohen, read the entire manuscript and made helpful comments, as did Nancy and James A. Wechsler, who provided a constant support through their friendship. Mrs. Suzanne P. Roosevelt, who was trained by her father to look at a writer's copy with a grammarian's eye, reviewed part of the manuscript. A promising young writer, Noemi
Emery, helped me with some of the research and made many useful observations.

Living in a lovely old house, Wildercliffe, overlooking the Hudson, I spent three winters going through Mrs. Roosevelt's papers at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, and immersing myself in the Dutchess County countryside and traditions. Research is a lonely task, but the loneliness in this case was offset by the companionship of the Richard Roveres and of the staff of the Roosevelt Library: Dr. Elizabeth B. Drewry, its former director; her successor, Dr. James O'Neill; William J. Stewart, the assistant director; James Whitehead, the curator; Jerry Deyo, the archivist; and Joseph Marshall, in charge of the Search Room.

The typing was done by my sister, A. Elsie Lash, a formidable task to which she gave all of her free time because of her devotion to the memory of Mrs. Roosevelt.

It was my good fortune when I turned the manuscript in to W. W. Norton & Company to have it reviewed by Evan W. Thomas, an exacting but sensitive critic.

The spare words with which I have dedicated this book to my wife do not convey the help she has given me in its writing. There is scarcely a page which does not bear her imprint.

J
OSEPH
P. L
ASH

Preface

T
HE FIRST
R
OOSEVELT
, C
LAES
M
ARTENSZEN VAN
R
OSENVELT
, arrived from Holland in the 1640s when New Amsterdam was a tiny settlement of 800 huddled in some eighty houses at the foot of Manhattan. Who Claes Martenszen was, whether solid Dutch burgher in search of larger opportunities or solemn rogue “two leaps ahead of the bailiff,” as his witty descendant Alice Roosevelt Longworth has suggested, is not known. In either case, by the eve of the American Revolution when New York had become a bustling port of 25,000, there were fifty Roosevelt families, and Claes's descendants were already showing an “uncanny knack” of associating themselves with the forces of boom and expansion in American economic life.

In the Roosevelt third generation two of the brothers, Johannes and Jacobus, took the family into real estate with the purchase of the Beekman Swamp, a venture that was to have “a lasting effect on the city and their own family fortunes.” It was these two brothers, also, who started the branches that led ultimately to Oyster Bay (Johannes) and to Hyde Park (Jacobus). The pre-Revolutionary Roosevelts were prosperous burghers but not of the highest gentry, and in civic affairs they were aligned with the popular faction against the aristocrats.

The first Roosevelt to achieve gentility and distinction was Isaac, the great-great-great-grandfather of Franklin, who for his services to the American cause was called “Isaac the Patriot.” Isaac was a trader in sugar and rum but ended his business career as president of New York's first bank. At his death Philip Hone, the diarist, spoke of him as “proud and aristocratical,” part of the “only nobility” the country had ever had.

It took the Johannes–Oyster Bay branch of the Roosevelts a little longer to advance from trader to merchant prince. Isaac's cousin James, after service with the Revolutionary army, founded Roosevelt & Son, a hardware business on Maiden Lane that swiftly expanded into building supplies. When James's grandson, Cornelius Van Schaack
Roosevelt, was head of the firm, it imported most of the plate glass that was used in the new homes being built in the prospering nation. Cornelius' chief distinction was his wealth; he was listed among the five richest men in New York. His son, on the other hand, the first Theodore, retired from business early in order to devote himself to civic activity and was one of the most esteemed men in the city.

By the beginning of the twentieth century the Roosevelt family was one of the oldest and most distinguished in the United States. Its men had married well—a Philadelphia Barnhill, one of whose ancestors arrived with William Penn; a Yankee Howland, whose family had arrived on the
Mayflower
; a Hoffman of Swedish-Finnish descent, one of the richest heiresses in Dutchess County; and one of the Bullochs of Georgia. The Hudson River Roosevelts led the leisurely life of country squires and Johannes' clan was building its country houses, stables, and tennis courts along the north shore of Long Island.

Conscious of having played their part in the transformation of New York from a frail Dutch outpost into a cosmopolitan city and of the country from a handful of seaboard colonies into a continent-spanning imperial republic, the Roosevelts had a firm sense of their roots. While most of them had changed their church affiliation from Dutch Reform to Protestant Episcopal, they remained faithful churchgoers and believers in the Protestant ethic, which sanctified a ruthless competitive individualism on the one hand and, on the other, the love and charity that were the basis of the family's strong sense of social obligation. Standards of honor, conduct, and manners—the caste marks of the old-stock upper class—were further bred into the Roosevelt sons at Groton and Harvard. They went on to become bankers, sportsmen, financiers, and, in two cases, president of the United States. The Roosevelt women, however, were essentially private individuals concerned with supervising large households and launching their daughters into fashionable society. With a few notable exceptions, they led lives of genteel conformity and escaped public notice—until the advent of a girl who was to become known as First Lady of the World.