The First Lady of Radio (14 page)

ER: (LAUGHING) Oh, I know just how impatient you got, but it's very essential for little girls to know how to darn.

AB: Well, I learned soon enough without studying it at school. What do you think now, Mother, about making a daughter do things which are good for her but which she doesn't want to do?

ER: You ought to let me ask
you
that question. But my answer is that I still think it's important to learn obedience. When I was young, no explanations were ever made to me. But today I think they should be made. Children get out on their own sooner now and they have to be trusted to decide things for themselves. That is why I think mothers should explain the reasons behind their direction, whenever possible. At the same time, a child should know that if it is told to do something, it must do so, even if the reasons can't be explained until later on.

AB: I've heard you mention self-discipline very often, Mother.

ER: I know you have, and I think it's most important. Today there is more freedom than ever before. Almost any path is open to girls, both into the field of knowledge and of experience. We have to put great emphasis on trustworthiness and a child's knowledge of right and wrong. The only safeguard we can rely on is self-discipline. Now, Anna, I have some questions I want to ask you, but first Virginia Barr has a word to say.

(MIDDLE COMMERCIAL)

ER: Anna, you are in a different generation, and your Eleanor will be in still another. What specific plans are you making to help her meet situations which you feel will be different when she is grown up?

AB: I think that my answer to that can be pretty close to yours, though different in one respect. I think, possibly more than you thought, that my daughter should be prepared for great changes. I don't think that she, or any other girl, should feel that the picture from which they learn their lessons will be the same as the one in which they meet actual experience.

ER: That sounds as if you were advocating adaptability.

AB: That's it exactly.

ER: Well, you're perfectly right. I know our generation didn't think of that so much when I was educating you. Of course, I think every girl should learn how to make and run a comfortable home. She should know before marriage the rudimentary care and bringing up of children. But besides that she should have some training that will enable her to earn her own living if necessary.

AB: But Mother, don't you think it's sometimes hard for a girl who doesn't have to work to understand why she should strive to fit herself to lead a useful life?

ER: Oh, no, I don't think it should be hard for any girl to see why she should lead a useful life.

AB: Well now, I don't mean it that way. But take an eighteen-year-old girl whose father earns enough to support her at home, it might be hard to explain to her why she should train for a job.

ER: You remember that young woman with the little boy whose husband was an aviator? They lived in various South American countries. Her greatest asset was foreign languages. But she had no training, no experience in any line of business. Yet when her husband was killed she had not only herself but her small son to support.

AB: Is that why you tried to give me some training?

ER: Yes, but in line with the interests you showed. I felt that as one of
the things you liked was the country, you might as well learn a little about farming, and so I insisted you take those agricultural courses at Cornell.

AB: I know now that was a good idea. But I didn't like it then. I was having too good a time. Do you remember that day we drove up to Geneva, New York, to the experiment station?

ER: Yes, you were so put out by the whole idea that you wouldn't speak to me for the entire seven-hour drive.

AB: But Mother, what about the girls who have no particular talent?

ER: I think if they are wise, such girls will fit themselves for some line of work which they can use if necessary. And in time they may develop individual interests. Now, Anna, you know this better than I. What do you want for your daughter in life?

AB: What a question! I think I'd say freedom from any sense of superiority or inferiority to any group of people. And knowledge that she gains much from everyone she meets. And a sense of values that will help her to be tolerant, useful, and happy.

ER: That's the twentieth-century answer, and I like it. I think the girl will be well educated to live in our world. I think if my grandmother had been asked what she wanted for her daughter she
might
have answered simply: “A good husband!” (PAUSE)

Now Anna and I must leave you to go home and see the daughter that she is educating for the twentieth century. Next week, I'm going to be back in New York and when I talk to you from there I am going to have a very dear friend with me, Miss Rose Schneiderman. We are going to talk over some of the phases of the life and some of the problems of the working woman today.

As I told you, if you have any questions or suggestions, I should love to get them. And we will try our best to work those which will be of the greatest general interest into our broadcast. If you want to write, just address your letters in care of the station to which you are listening. Good night.

15.

“Problems of Working Women”

The Pond's Program

May 12, 1937

ER: Good evening. Here I am back in New York, after flying all the way across the continent and back on one of the most delightful trips I have had in several years. This evening I have the pleasure of introducing to you a friend, Miss Rose Schneiderman, who has come to talk over with me some of the problems of the working woman today. Miss Schneiderman is the president of the Women's Trade Union League and the secretary of the New York State Department of Labor. She came to this country from Russia as a young girl, and was thrown almost immediately on her own resources. Her father died and she and her mother were compelled to earn the money to support a large family. Rose Schneiderman has worked under all sorts of conditions. Yet she has not become bitter or self-centered. She has never lost her innate sense of fairness and her desire to do what is right for everyone she can help.

RS: Thank you, Mrs. Roosevelt. As I've been sitting here, I've been thinking of the first time I met you.

ER: That was in 1919 in Washington, wasn't it?

RS: Yes, it was. And after that you offered to help with those educational courses we were giving at the New York Women's Trade Union League. One of my most vivid impressions of you is pouring cups of cocoa and passing cakes to fifty girls whom you met every Thursday night, reading aloud to them and discussing the literature over the refreshments you always brought along.

ER: I still look back on those evenings as some of the most valuable evenings I've ever spent. Because, as we talked together over those cups of cocoa, I learned more about the lives those girls led, and their problems, than I could have in any other way. Without that experience, I should be lost now in coping with some of the situations I hear about almost every day. But now, Rose, that was yesterday. What about today?

RS: Today we know that the time is past when we argue whether a woman
should
work or not. Because, you see, now women have become absolutely indispensible to our industrial scheme.

ER: Well, that's your opinion, Rose. But you ought to read some of the letters I get. People write me all the time saying the whole unemployment problem could be solved by taking women out of the labor market.

RS: Well, the girl who works today doesn't work for pleasure. She works, in most cases, because she has to. There may be an invalid mother home, or three small sisters and no father or mother. And then she still wants a husband, a home, and children. But to get married, it may be up to her to supply part of the family income. Before the Depression, it was quite customary for a girl to leave her job when she got married. But, now, it's more likely she'll leave the office or factory Saturday noon, get married, and be back on the job Monday morning.

ER: That's true. Marriage for many a girl today means the beginning
of a dual life. She has two responsibilities, that of her home and that of her job.

RS: Working out those two responsibilities successfully is one of the working woman's chief problems. I, personally, don't think that either has to suffer because of the other. In fact, sometimes each may benefit.

ER: I know one case in which the wife's working
saved
the family situation. She was never domestically inclined, and while during the first year of her baby's life she took extremely good care of her, she chafed at having to accept everything from her husband without making any financial contribution herself. The relationship grew strained. Finally she went back to work. She earned enough money to buy her own necessities and help run their home. The conversation of an evening in that home is far more pleasant than it used to be. That family is growing together instead of apart.

RS: You know, our labor statistics show that the majority of married women who work contribute the major part of their earnings to the support of dependents—children, parents, unemployed relatives.

ER: That spikes the statement I am sure you have heard many times, that women take jobs away from men and spend the money on clothes, beauty parlors, and pleasures.

RS: Oh, yes, I know. Some of their money does go for that. But why shouldn't it? There's no reason why our production methods shouldn't benefit our girls. It would be a waste of our economic resources if we didn't use the clothes we produce. And another angle on that: I know of the case of one factory foreman who told one worker that if she couldn't make a better appearance on the job, she'd get fired.

ER: Neat, nice-looking clothes definitely contribute to the efficiency of a worker. Now, Rose, I've been carrying on a pretty spirited correspondence with a woman from a state where there is some legislation proposed for the protection of women in industry. She herself is evidently a professional woman. Now, here's one of the things she says: “We
are worried to death about a bill to limit women but not men to forty hours a week.” You see, Rose, her contention is that it is unfair to limit women and not men. She forgets that men, being better organized than women, have already made many of these arrangements rather successfully for themselves.

RS: Few people realize how difficult it is for unskilled women to organize [a labor union]. They frequently look on their employment as temporary. They're looking for some man to come along to take care of them. Also they're afraid if they organize they may lose the jobs they need so desperately.

ER: That's true. Now, this lady I've been corresponding with adds this: “Somehow I cannot shut out of my heart a little resentment against those men who are so blithely attempting to take from me the right to compete with any competitor for the best living I am capable of making.”

RS: I'd like to answer that.

ER: I'd like to have you.

RS: In all seriousness, I am not interested in maximum hours and minimum pay for professional women. They are trained and educated and can jolly well take care of themselves. Let's face facts as they are. Of course I want the best possible working conditions for all people, men and women, and it's obvious to me, as it must be to you, Mrs. Roosevelt, that when the working conditions of women are bettered, those of men automatically rise too. You see, when women work long hours and for next to nothing, they are not only competing against each other but are pulling down the wages of their men folks. The women who are working in factories who have home responsibilities, too, need improved conditions most. There are very few men who go home at the end of the day to do the housework.

ER: Oh, I've known some who have.

RS: Oh, yes, of course some do. But they only do it in an emergency. They drop it as soon as they can.

ER: That's so. And I don't think there's any question that a woman who works to give her children the necessities and some of the advantages of life should have her workday limited to eight hours. She has to provide her child with companionship. She has to oversee her home, for no home can run without supervision. I know one woman with six children to bring up. Her husband's wages were not sufficient to give the children the clothes and educational advantages she was determined they should have, so she worked on the night shift in a mill. She was strong and sturdy, and for a time things went well, although I think the sum total of the sleep she got was only four hours a day. After a while she found that her children were getting out of hand. The eldest boy was in trouble with the police. If that woman could have worked an eight-hour day, she could not only have provided the necessities but could have given her boys and girls the companionship and guidance they needed.

RS: I know any number of cases just like that.

ER: Of course you do. But now, Rose, before I go on to the other questions I want to ask you, Virginia Barr has a word to say.

(MIDDLE COMMERCIAL)

ER: What do you think, Rose, is the most vital question facing working women today?

RS: I would say getting over their economic inferiority complex. I think girls should realize that they are just as important to the nation industrially as men are. I've known many women who have felt they could never hold down a job, and even when they find they can, they carry this feeling of inferiority into business and industry and are willing to work for much less pay. You know, in unskilled work, women get one-third less for the same work men do.