The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (34 page)

The next day, after we had all been to church, people from far and near came to Franklin’s cottage for a picnic. I had corralled two friends to cook hot dogs on an outdoor fireplace, and we had smoked turkey, which Their Majesties had not tasted before, several kinds of ham cured in different ways from different parts of the United States, salads, baked beans, and a strawberry shortcake with strawberries from Henry Morgenthau’s farm in Dutchess County.

When the picnic and the handshaking were over, my husband invited the King to swim with him in the pool. I hoped the Queen would feel she could relax in the same way, but I discovered that if you were a Queen you could not run the risk of looking disheveled, so she and her lady in waiting sat by the side of the pool with me while the men were swimming.

After a quiet dinner we took the King and Queen to join their train at the Hyde Park station. Their luggage and all the rest of their party were on board. Their Majesties had said good-by to everybody and were about to get on the train when the Queen suddenly came back to me and said: “Where is the man who has been driving the King? I want to thank him.” I found my husband’s chauffeur and the Queen thanked him for the care with which he had driven.

The royal couple stood on the rear platform of the train as it pulled out and the people who were gathered on the banks of the Hudson suddenly began to sing, “Auld Lang Syne.” There was something incredibly moving about the scene—the river in the evening light, the voices of many people singing this old song, and the train slowly pulling out with the young couple waving good-by. One thought of the clouds that hung over them and the worries they were going to face, and turned away and left the scene with a heavy heart.

Twenty-one
    

Second Term: 1939-1940

MANY PEOPLE
may have forgotten how worried we were about the young people in our country during the early days of the depression. How deeply troubled these young men and women were was shown by the fact that many of them felt it necessary to leave their homes, because they could not find jobs and could not bear to eat even a small amount of what little food their families had.

I felt that in any efforts they made to help themselves or one another the young people should have all the consideration and assistance their elders could possibly give them. My deep concern led to my association with various youth groups and to my meeting with many young people who either were brought by their elders to Washington or came through an organization of their own.

I believed, of course, that these young people had the right to be heard. They had the right to fight for the things they believed in as citizens of a democracy. It was essential to restore their faith in the power of democracy to meet their needs, or they would take the natural path of looking elsewhere.

One of the most prominent young people’s organizations of this unsettled time was the American Youth Congress. It spread all over the country and worked closely with other youth groups, such as the Southern Youth Council and the Negro Youth Congress.

During one of their meetings in Washington the leaders of the AYC came to see me and told me what they were trying to do. In time I came to know some of them quite well. I like all young people and those in the American Youth Congress were an idealistic, hard-working group. Whether they were Communist-inspired from the beginning I have never known. After I had been working for them for a while accusations began to be made, and I had a number of the leaders come to my sitting room in the White House. I told them that since I was actively helping them I must know exactly where they stood politically. I asked each one in turn to tell me honestly what he believed. In every case they said they had no connection with the Communists, had never belonged to any Communist organizations, and had no interest in Communist ideas. I decided to accept their word, realizing that sooner or later the truth would come out.

The first direct contact that Franklin had with the American Youth Congress came after I was fairly sure that they were becoming Communist-dominated. Ordinarily, Franklin had little time to devote to individuals or even to particular groups. On February 10, 1940, the American Youth Congress organized a parade and a meeting in Washington, and I thought it advisable to ask Franklin to speak to them. It rained that day, and a wet group stood out in the south grounds, expecting to be patted on the back. Instead, Franklin told them some truths which, though they might be unpalatable, he thought it wise for them to hear. They were in no mood for warnings, however kindly meant, and they booed the President.

When the leaders of several youth organizations were summoned to appear before the Dies Committee, I sat through most of the hearings, because I had heard that when the members had before them people of little influence or backing, their questions were so hostile as to give the impression that the witness had been haled before a court and prejudged a criminal. If there is one thing I dislike it is intimidating people instead of trying to get at facts. At one point, when the questioning seemed to me to be particularly harsh, I asked to go over and sit at the press table. I took a pencil and a piece of paper, and the tone of the questions changed immediately. Just what the questioner thought I was going to do I do not know, but my action had the effect I desired.

Because I dislike Gestapo methods in this country, I have never liked that kind of Congressional committee. I doubt that they ever harm the really powerful, but they do harm many innocent people who are unable to defend themselves.

On one occasion my husband and I were given a confidential list of organizations which were considered Communist or subversive or un-American, a list compiled by the FBI for the use of the Dies Committee. People who belonged to any group on that list or who had even contributed to any of them were
ipso facto
under suspicion. We found that among those listed as contributors to two or three of these organizations were Secretary Stimson, Secretary Knox and my husband’s mother. Franklin and I got particular amusement out of the inclusion of her name; we could picture her horror if she were told that the five or ten dollars she had given to a seemingly innocent relief organization put her among those whom the Dies Committee could easily call before it as belonging to subversive organizations.

I once asked the Dies Committee and the FBI point-blank what evidence they had on any of the young people they were talking so loosely about. They told me they had none. A book written later by a woman in Washington states that Mr. Dies offered me information which I refused to read. The fact of the matter is that I invited Mr. Dies to lunch and asked specifically for information; he never sent it to me.

After my decision to part from them, the young people of the Youth Congress accused me of having been “sold down the river to the capitalists,” and some of them picketed the White House with a peace group.

When news was received that Germany had invaded Russia, however, the Youth Congress held another mass meeting and clamored for cooperation with Russia and for greater preparation for war. They even sent me a telegram saying: “Now we can work together again.” The war was suddenly no longer an imperialistic war, and the pickets were called off at the White House.

Of course, I never worked with the Youth Congress again. I could not trust them to be honest with me.

I wish to make it clear that I felt a great sympathy for these young people, even though they often annoyed me. It was impossible ever to forget the extraordinary difficulties under which they were growing up. I have never felt the slightest bitterness toward any of them. I learned from them what Communist tactics are. I discovered for myself how infiltration of an organization is accomplished. I was taught how Communists get themselves into positions of importance. I learned their methods of objection and delay, the effort to tire out the rest of the group and carry the vote when all their opponents have gone home. These tactics are now all familiar to me. In fact, I think my work with the American Youth Congress was of infinite value to me in understanding some of the tactics I had to meet later in the United Nations!

During the summer of 1939 we spent a great deal of time at Hyde Park. When the news finally came that Hitler’s troops had gone into Poland, Franklin called me at Hyde Park at five o’clock in the morning. All that September day I could not help remembering the good-by to the King and Queen and the lump that had come into my throat as they stood on the back platform of their departing train. Now their people faced the final hour of decision.

As I look back over the whole year of 1939, it seems to me that my husband’s major efforts were bent on trying to avert total war in Europe and to awaken us here to the need for preparation. Perhaps he might have saved himself the trouble of these various efforts, yet one would not like to feel that the President of this country had not done all he could to try to change the threatening course of history.

His actions during this year and the next were only a continuation of the line of action he had begun to follow as far back as 1936. Immediately after the failure of the London Naval Conference, he had secured from Congress money to construct additional battleships and airplane carriers. The following year, in his quarantine speech in Chicago, he warned the country of the worsening political situation abroad and of the dangers it held for the United States; and he tried to persuade the people that this country should make a definite and positive effort to preserve the peace. The opposition this speech aroused was so great that Franklin realized the people were not yet ready to go along with any drastic steps toward international co-operation.

All through the Czech crisis in 1938 he continued his attempts to save the peace, through appeals to Hitler and the heads of other countries. After Munich, he blamed Neville Chamberlain for weakness, but said that England had let her defenses go down so much that there was perhaps nothing else the prime minister could do. To ensure that our country would never be found similarly unprepared was now Franklin’s greatest concern.

In January he asked Congress for funds to expand our air force and construct new naval air bases. In April he warned the country of the approach of war in Europe and sent a personal message to both Hitler and Mussolini, appealing for a ten-year pledge not to attack or invade other countries. In late August Russia and Germany signed their nonaggression pact. Franklin sent a peace appeal to Hitler, King Victor Emmanuel of Italy, and President Moscicki of Poland, urging settlement of the Danzig-Polish Corridor issue. On the following day he sent another message to Hitler.

Then Hitler invaded Poland. Convinced that further peace efforts would be unsuccessful, Franklin on September 21 urged Congress to repeal the embargo on the shipment of arms under the Neutrality Act, which he had signed reluctantly in 1937, at the time of the Spanish Civil War. In December Franklin appointed Myron Taylor as his special representative at the Vatican.

The letters between my husband and the Pope seem to indicate that this appointment was one of the wise preliminary steps in the preparation for war, although it created a certain amount of difficulty among some of our Protestant groups. Mr. Taylor was well known and respected, and most people felt that the Pope could be a potent force for peace at this time and that we should have some direct tie with him. I do not think Franklin regarded this appointment as creating a permanent diplomatic post, but he thought it a necessity during a period of emergency.

During this year Franklin had persuaded his mother to deed, with him, to the United States government a piece of their property on the Post Road. Frank Walker headed a committee, made up of a number of other friends, to collect the money to build a library at Hyde Park. The war had its influence in this, too. For a long time Franklin had felt that it would be a great advantage if the important papers and collections of the country were not all crowded together in one building. In case of war, the European countries would have to scatter their collections, since one bomb could completely destroy the historical records of the whole nation. In particular, he realized that Congress was never likely to give the Congressional Library sufficient appropriation for the continuing flow of public papers to be brought rapidly up to date and made available to those who wanted to study them. He also thought it would be easier to deal with a particular period if all the records relating to it were in one place. Intending to give his own papers and many other interesting things to the library, he believed he could persuade other people who had been active in the life of the period to do the same thing.

I shall never forget his pleasure and pride in laying the cornerstone of the library on November 19 of that year. It was a simple but moving occasion. His strong feeling for history added greatly to his pleasure in knowing that here, on his own land, there would be gathered in one building the record of the period of his country’s history in which he had had a part.

The next year, 1940, had the disadvantage of all election years; everything that happens seems of necessity to have a political slant. Though the war in Europe was moving inexorably on and Hitler seemed to be sweeping all before him, some people were concerned only with the effect that any move of Franklin’s would have on the chances of the Democratic party for success in the next election.

Nevertheless, throughout the year he took additional steps which, though each one in itself seemed unimportant, together tended to prepare the country for the ordeal before it. In February he urged the immediate purchase of strategic war materials; in April the combat areas were defined; and in May he asked for additional appropriations of over one billion dollars for defense. These moves were justified, since Hitler was moving fast.

Dunkirk was a sad and anxious time for us in the White House as well as for the people of Great Britain. When the full story was told, the heroism of the people on that embattled island and the way the Royal Air Force defended the country called forth admiration from everyone in the United States. We understood the kind of courage and tenacity that Winston Churchill was beginning to put into words, words that expressed the spirit of the British people in the months following Dunkirk.