The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (16 page)

My brother, Hall, who was at this time working for the General Electric Company in Schenectady, was forbidden to enlist, under the rules which barred a man from everything but aviation if he was responsible for the production of war materials in the General Electric Company plant. He had been so close to Uncle Ted and his family that when all those boys enlisted he felt he must join also. He slipped away from work on the plea that he wanted to visit his uncle, and he and Quentin Roosevelt went together on July 14 and enlisted in the only branch of the service which was permissible for Hall under the circumstances—aviation.

I think both Hall and Quentin must have memorized the card for the eye test, because neither of them could have passed otherwise. Hall was called to the first school of aviation in Ithaca in late July or August. My grandmother felt strongly that he should not leave his wife and little children, and I remember my feeling of utter horror when I went to see her one day and she demanded to know why he did not buy a substitute! I had never heard of buying a substitute and said that no one did such a thing. Her old eyes looked at me curiously and she said: “In the Civil War many gentlemen bought substitutes. It was the thing to do.” I hotly responded that a gentleman was no different from any other kind of citizen in the United States and that it would be a disgrace to pay anyone to risk his life for you, particularly when Hall could leave his wife and children with the assurance that at least they would have money enough to live on.

This was my first really outspoken declaration against the accepted standards of the surroundings in which I had spent my childhood, and marked the fact that either my husband or an increasing ability to think for myself was changing my point of view.

That autumn, back in Washington, real work began, and all my executive ability, which had been more or less dormant up to this time, was called into play. The house must run more smoothly than ever, we must entertain, and I must be able to give less attention to it. The children must lead normal lives; Anne must go to the Eastman School every day, and James and Elliott must go to the Cathedral School, which was in the opposite direction. All this required organization.

My mother-in-law used to laugh at me and say I could provide my chauffeur with more orders to be carried out during the day than anyone else she had ever listened to, but this was just a symptom of developing executive ability. My time was now completely filled with a variety of war activities, and I was learning to have a certain confidence in myself and in my ability to meet emergencies and deal with them.

Two or three shifts a week I spent in the Red Cross canteen in the railroad yards. During the winter I took chiefly day shifts in the canteen, for I was obliged to be at home, if possible, to see my children before they went to bed, and I frequently had guests for dinner. I can remember one or two occasions when I got home in my uniform as my guests arrived, and I think it was during this period that I learned to dress with rapidity, a habit which has stayed with me ever since.

Everyone in the canteen was expected to do any work that was necessary, even mopping the floor, and no one remained long a member of this Red Cross unit who could not do anything that was asked of her. I remember one lady who came down escorted by her husband to put in one afternoon. I doubt if she had ever done any manual labor in her life, and she was no longer young. The mere suggestion that she might have to scrub the floor filled her with horror and we never again saw her on a shift.

Once a week I visited the naval hospital and took flowers, cigarettes and any little thing that might cheer the men who had come back from overseas.

The naval hospital filled up rapidly and we finally took over one building in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital for the so-called shell-shocked patients. The doctors explained that these were men who had been submitted to great strain and cracked under it. Some of them regained sanity, others remained permanently in our veterans’ hospitals for mental care.

St. Elizabeth’s was the one federal hospital for the insane in the country. A fine man was at the head of it, but he always had been obliged to run his institution on an inadequate appropriation, and as yet the benefits of occupational therapy were little understood in the treatment of the insane, though I knew that in some hospitals this work was being done with a measure of success.

I visited our naval unit there and had my first experience of going into a ward of people who, while they were not violent, were more or less incalculable because they were not themselves. Those who were not under control were kept in padded cells or in some kind of confinement.

When the doctor and I went into the long general ward where the majority of men were allowed to move about during the daytime, he unlocked the door and locked it again after us. We started down that long room, speaking to different men on the way. Quite at the other end stood a young boy with fair hair. The sun in the window placed high up, well above the patients’ heads, touched his hair and seemed almost like a halo. He was talking to himself incessantly and I inquired what he was saying. “He is giving the orders,” said the doctor, “which were given every night at Dunkirk, where he was stationed.” I remembered my husband’s telling me that he had been in Dunkirk and that every evening the enemy planes came over the town and bombed it and the entire population was ordered down into the cellars. This boy had stood the strain of the nightly bombing until he could stand it no longer; then he went insane and repeated the orders without stopping, not being able to get out of his mind the thing which had become an obsession.

I asked what chances he had for recovery and was told that it was fifty-fifty, but that in all probability he would never again be able to stand as much strain as before he became ill.

The doctor told me that many of our men in the naval hospital unit were well enough to go out every day, play games and get air and exercise, and that we had enough attendants to make this possible in the rest of the hospital; however, they had been so short of attendants since the war started that the other patients practically never got out. The doctor also told me that in spite of the fact that wages had gone skyrocketing during this period, the hospital had never been able to pay its attendants more than $30 a month and their board, which was low in comparison with what men were getting in other occupations.

I drove through the grounds and was horrified to see poor demented creatures with apparently little attention being paid them, gazing from behind bars or walking up and down on enclosed porches.

This hospital was under the Department of the Interior, so I could hardly wait to reach Secretary Lane, to tell him that I thought an investigation was in order and that he had better go over and see for himself. He appointed a committee which later appeared before Congress and asked for and obtained an increased appropriation. I believe this action of the secretary’s enabled Dr. White to make the hospital what every federal institution in Washington should be, a model of its kind which can be visited with profit by interested people from various parts of our country.

In the meantime I was so anxious that our men should have a meeting place that I went to the Red Cross and begged them to build one of their recreation rooms, which they did. Then, through Mrs. Barker, I obtained $500 from the Colonial Dames, which started the occupational therapy work, and in a short time the men were able to sell what they produced and to buy new materials for themselves.

I was seeing many tragedies enacted in that hospital. There was a woman who sat for days by the bed of her son who had been gassed and had tuberculosis. There was a chance that he might be saved if he could get out west. She could not afford to go with him but we finally obtained permission to send a nurse.

Another boy from Texas, with one leg gone, wanted so much to get home; finally, with the help of the Daughters of the Confederacy, some of whom were our most faithful workers, he achieved his desire and I think became self-supporting.

These are just examples of the many things touching the lives of individuals which came to all of us in those days; and so far as I was concerned, they were a liberal education. Some of the stories were sordid, all of them filled with a mixture of the heroism in human nature and its accompanying frailties.

Out of these contacts with human beings during the war I became a more tolerant person, far less sure of my own beliefs and methods of action but more determined to try for certain ultimate objectives. I had gained some assurance about my ability to run things and the knowledge that there is joy in accomplishing a good job. I knew more about the human heart.

One by one, all of Uncle Ted’s boys sailed. Auntie Corinne’s two boys enlisted, and Monroe Robinson went overseas, as did another cousin, James Alfred Roosevelt. Harry Hooker, one of my husband’s former law partners in New York City, sailed with his division.

Over and over again my brother tried to be assigned to work overseas. Over and over again he was refused, with the admonition that his value was greater where he was. He pulled every wire possible, besought my husband to use his influence, got Uncle Ted to use his, and ate his heart out because he could not get to the other side. In spite of the fact that we pointed out to him that he took his life in his hands more frequently in instructing novices than he would at the front, he was never satisfied. He always felt that if some of us had just tried a little harder we could have put him on a transport and given him his heart’s desire.

All the time I knitted incessantly and worked in various ways. I wished that I might offer my services to go overseas. I was very envious of another Eleanor Roosevelt, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt’s wife, who had gone over before her husband and, in spite of the regulations against wives of officers going to France, was serving there in a canteen.

My husband was engaged in naval operations and of necessity had to keep in close touch with the members of the English and French embassies. Gradually the foreign offices of England and France began to feel that their representatives were not being active enough, and Sir Cecil Spring-Rice was recalled by his government, much to the regret of his many friends in this country, who realized that he and his wife were rendering a great service to the Allied cause.

They were succeeded, in January, 1918, by Lord and Lady Reading. Everyone in Washington recognized this diplomat’s great ability and liked them both.

M. Jusserand remained French ambassador until after the war was over, but a special envoy, M. Andre Tardieu, was sent over in 1918 to take up certain financial questions. My recollection is that this was not an entirely happy arrangement. M. Tardieu was an able man, but he had not, perhaps, the temperament that appealed to the French ambassador. However, the mission was successful in carrying through its business and M. Tardieu returned to France.

The winter of 1917-18 wore away and remains to me a kaleidoscope of work and entertaining and home duties, so crowded that sometimes I wondered if I could live that way another day. Strength came, however, with the thought of Europe and a little sleep, and you could sleep, and you could always begin a new day. When summer came I decided that I would spend most of it in Washington to help out at the canteen, for so many people had to be away.

Hot though the Hudson River was, I felt the children were old enough to stand it, particularly as my mother-in-law had built a large addition to the old house and the rooms that the children occupied were less hot than they had been because of the new insulation. I took the children with their nurse to Hyde Park for the summer and stayed with them awhile to get them settled.

I was making preparations to return to Washington, for I had promised to be on duty during the month of July. In June my husband got word that he was to go to Europe. Franklin had spoken and written to various people ever since we had entered the war, seeking to get into uniform. He stated that, “Even though this means doing far less important work for the Navy than if I continue the organization and operations’ supervision, not only in the department itself, but also in the patron bases, in the transport service and in many shipyards, I will be in active service.”

Then came orders to go overseas and report on the operations and needs of the many American naval and aviation bases and ships in European waters. He obtained a promise that when this was done he would be permitted to return to Europe as a lieutenant commander.

He sailed on the destroyer
Dyer
on July 9, 1918. The
Dyer
was convoying a number of transports taking troops to France. Franklin was naturally much excited at the prospect of this trip, and it gave him great satisfaction to feel that he was going to the front.

Neither his mother nor I could see him off, because they sailed under secret orders; and I realized at the time that it was for her a fearful ordeal, for he was the center of her existence. Luckily, she had the grandchildren to keep her busy, and there were numerous activities in which she took her full share in Hyde Park and Poughkeepsie.

I went back to Washington and spent all day and most of the night at the canteen. I had nothing else to do. Many of the members were away, and in the heat, to which I was quite unaccustomed, I was anxious to keep busy. No place could have been hotter than the little corrugated-tin shack with the tin roof and the fire burning in the old army kitchen. We certainly were kept busy, for we were sending troops over just as fast as we could train them, and we knew now that it was manpower that the Allies wanted as much as our financial resources or the assistance of the Navy.

It was not an unusual thing for me to work from nine in the morning until one or two the next morning, and be back again by ten. The nights were hot and it was possible to sleep only if you were exhausted. When my month was up and others came to take my place, I went to Hyde Park to be with the children and my mother-in-law.

In early September we began to expect to hear of my husband’s start for home; but before that news came I received word, on September 12, 1918, that my uncle, Douglas Robinson, had died.