The First Lady of Radio (30 page)

Somehow one feels these people are beyond fear, and they know the business of life must go on. They are able to bear whatever is their lot. I have come back with a tremendously increased confidence and admiration for the ability of human beings to stand up under difficulty and danger. I am sure we could do just what the British have done, but I hope we may not have to. I trust that we will be able to understand
enough about the world in which we live so that we will truly allow all of our energies and all of our power to go into the organization of a world in which such things as this war cannot happen again.

Men and women in Great Britain—and children, too—are fighting this war day in and day out, hour in and hour out. They spend long hours in factories, give constant service in military establishments and civilian relief work, and through it all hope and confidence in the future never flags. They have time to strive to make the community in which they live a better community than ever before. And they consider such work a necessary part of the war effort. Many people have learned lessons which are lessons for all time, not just for the war period.

In Bristol, the Women's Voluntary Service, manned largely by housewives, use their mobile canteens—which fed the whole population during the blitz—in the more peaceful times they now enjoy to take midday and midnight meals to the dockworkers so they will not have to waste time leaving their work in search of food. One of the housewives told me that she had lived all her life in Bristol and had been rather fearful of the dockworkers; they were rough men, men who used bad language, who got drunk and were generally not the nice people of the town. But now they were her friends. They were keeping the lifeline open by loading and unloading ships as quickly as their strength would allow. And she would never feel again that gulf between herself and her neighbors.

Our boys who are in camps over there are learning a great deal too. They are learning what the homes in Great Britain are like, what the people are like, and that there is gratitude there for the generosity of people in this country in their hour of trial. Our boys have had to stand up under the same difficult climate as the British and I doubt if they like it in the autumn and winter. But at least they have American food in camp and are not restricted as the British are. They have their own canteens and it is lucky that they have, for the young American has a sweet tooth and can consume more candy and more sugar than one would
think possible if one had not observed it. Even the paratroops have, as part of their rations, a cake of chocolate. And some of the boys tell me that on long marches hard candy is a tremendous help.

Our boys have a justifiable pride, I think, in their equipment. Their uniforms are good and they are well supplied. If we in private life find it hard here and there to get just what we want, it will give us satisfaction to know that the reason may be that our boys are getting more of the necessary clothes for whatever climate they may be in than is the case in any other army in the world.

They do have to learn a lot from experience. Most of them haven't liked woolen socks a great deal in the past, unless they were working in the woods or going on a skiing party or a long hike. Now they find that, at least in Great Britain, everyone wears woolen socks and they are pretty comfortable. If they scorned them at first when they were offered them, they hope they will have another chance to accept them.

They are getting good medical care, in many cases probably better than they would have at home. War is a job which hardens men both physically and mentally, and there are hazards which no amount of good equipment or preparation can prevent. But some of the boys who come through safely will perhaps have had certain chances to remedy physical defects which they might never have had in civilian life.

I said the other day that I wished we trained young officers, especially, for leading discussion groups. And one of the New York papers found an ex-sergeant of Marines who boiled over on the subject of what this would do in the way of softening the men. He just did not seem to realize that that was part of the mental toughening which many of the men need, and not my idea at all, but one that some of the best fighting men I have ever known have actually put into practice.

Out of this war will come men toughened physically and mentally, and knowing what they want in the future. But unless they also know how to go about getting it and how to really analyze the world situation,
they will not be much use to us as citizens. No matter how good a soldier you are, your fundamental value is as a citizen in the future. Your boys, scattered over the world, are learning to be the best United States citizens possible, because they are learning about the world as a whole, of which the United States is just a part. We who stay at home must stretch our own horizons in every way possible, so when the boys return they will find us able to keep step with them mentally.

This is recognized in Great Britain, and many people are preparing for the postwar period now. The Beveridge Report [on British social security] shows how far their thinking has gone, and I think that we should be grateful that there are groups of people in and out of the government who are also planning for the future over here. No matter how well we plan, there must be a long period of readjustment, and the better we plan, the better we will be prepared to make that period count for the good of the whole world.

There are certain community services in Great Britain which I felt were not, as yet, sufficiently developed, and many people in Great Britain feel the same way. For instance, they have the same problem that we have about the schoolchild too old for a day nursery or nursery school, who attends school and yet is left for several hours—more hours in Great Britain than in this country, as yet—with mothers who work and no one to supervise the home. They are talking of what can be done to develop better supervision for these children so that the period between the actual closing of school and the time when workers return to their homes may not be a period of danger for the children and the young people.

I did not feel that in this field they had anything to offer us, as yet, and I hope that we will go on with the development of school use for after-school activities, and perhaps we may be able to originate some ideas which may be of use to them. They have the same problem with their girls of fourteen and fifteen that has cropped up in some places in the United States, where young boys are working in factories, as they
now are also in England before they enter the military forces. There, as here, they make more money than they could have made in the past, more money than a soldier makes, with the result that unless wholesome and attractive leisure-time activities are developed for this fourteen-to-eighteen-year-old group, they will take to the entertainment provided for older people and will suffer in consequence.

It seemed to me also that, in connection with British restaurants, which are undoubtedly a godsend to all people with families who have to get food occasionally out of their own homes, in moderate-priced places there might be developed a service where people could order food and take it home with them. Of course, the evening meal is a fairly simple meal to get in Great Britain, so that the canteens in every factory, with their midday and midnight hot meals, and the universal school lunches for children in school, do mean a great relief and reduction in home cooking. We probably do more preparation for our evening meal than they do and it might be more important to us to have a home service than it is to them. This, of course, is only necessary in places where great numbers of women go from the homes to work on a full, daily schedule.

Over here we will probably never have the long hours which they have been forced to have in Great Britain. There is also a possibility of organizing neighborhoods into cooperative groups for filling these home needs. They acknowledge in Great Britain that it is better to work shorter hours, particularly for the women, but necessity and shortage of manpower drives them to the longer hours.

I have an idea that in this country we may feel our shortage of manpower more acutely on the farms than anywhere else. Perhaps the organization of a Land Army may be the most helpful pattern for us to study in Great Britain. The most outstanding thing about it to me was that training was given the women who entered the Land Army, that they were issued equipment and uniforms just as the auxiliary military services were. And that they had the same social-security benefits in
health-insurance allowances and unemployment compensation that the factory workers had. They try, in England, to so organize their farms that they have at least a nucleus of workers who are all-the-year-round workers. Their farms are smaller and more diversified, and it is an easier problem than it is with us on some of our big ranches, which have primarily seasonal needs for a great number of workers. This problem, however, will have to be met in a special way, I imagine, with volunteers during the war period.

The regular supply of farm labor might be greatly helped over here by the organization of a Women's Land Army. The placement would, of course, be done through the regular employment service channels. The recruiting and training would probably be better done under the Department of Agriculture. Here, I think, we might find much help in a careful study of what the triumphs and disasters may have been in the development of the work in Great Britain. Ours would have to be a voluntary enlistment. Over there, these workers are drawn from the regular draft group. There is compulsory billeting over there so that if the farmer has not room to house and feed the workers, they can be put in houses in a nearby village and their board paid. Or the government sets up a hostel, probably in some unused country house where their board money is used in the general upkeep. Lady [Trudie] Denman, who heads this group in England, might be one of the people it would be helpful for us to consult over here.

Some of our American girls who are in the Ferry Command in Great Britain, flying all kinds of airships from place to place within the island, must be getting an opportunity to see something of the work of a great many of the British girls. I wonder if, from time to time, it might not be a good idea to ask some of them to report to us their impressions over the radio from Great Britain. Fresh points of view that come to us from people who are actually doing work in faraway countries, it seems to me, would be helpful in understanding the world situation as it develops. I
hope that our War Information service may occasionally be able to arrange this for us.

In closing, I think I will tell you the two things which seem to be the most important to the boys from the US that I saw in Great Britain, many of whom are now in Africa. One was mail, the other was pay. I am sure that in their letters you have had these same things come up. Why don't they get their pay on time? Why don't they get their letters? The answer is that when men move about, and they do move from camp to camp within Great Britain, and suddenly from this country to other parts of the world, and from their first destinations to new destinations, it is sometimes very difficult to work out the mere mechanics of getting their paychecks on the date due and of having the mail reach its destination as quickly as possible. I think every effort should be made by the departments involved to improve both of these things as rapidly as possible. But where the pay is concerned, I think the most important thing is that allotments to families should be promptly paid. After all, the men are taken care of as far as their actual needs are concerned, but family needs cannot wait. Even then, I do not think that we should ever be complacent over any shortcomings, and I hope that both these things will eventually be improved.

36.

“D-Day Message”

June 6, 1944 (NBC Blue Network)

On June 6, 1944, a massive force of Allied fighters landed on a fifty-mile ribbon of Nazi-occupied French coastline in Normandy. The attack by 160,000 Allied troops was the largest amphibious invasion in history and a turning point in the war against Germany. FDR had addressed the nation in a Fireside Chat the evening before, marking the fall of Rome to Allied forces. As he spoke, Allied ships were crossing the English Channel. Early on the morning of June 6, radio listeners heard the first bulletins from London that the D-Day invasion had begun. CBS and NBC broadcast in-depth war news throughout the day. At ten p.m., President Roosevelt went on the air to read a prayer for the troops storming the French coastline. Earlier in the day, ER went on NBC to rally the women of America who had loved ones taking part in the fight.

ER: It is a great privilege to have this opportunity to speak to the women of this country at this time, when they are undergoing such a great strain. I am speaking particularly, of course, to those who have men
they love—husbands, sons, brothers, sweethearts, or very dear friends—taking an active part in the European invasion or stationed anywhere in the areas where there may be intensified activity during the next few weeks.

We know that, in the end, we will win. But we do not know what the cost will be. The only thing I can say to you is that every woman, no matter what her church affiliation may be, will be praying daily that the victory will be speedy, and that this time the sacrifices, whatever they are, will bring results which will justify in the eyes of those who fight whatever they may have gone through.

All that science can do to protect our men will be done, and to the care of the wounded will be added all that human devotion can do. We may be sure that all that can be done to alleviate suffering and save human lives, will be done.

All that we at home can do, however, is to pray, and to prepare ourselves to fulfill our obligations to those who fight. They will feel we have backed them up in attaining their objectives if we use our citizenship to attain the ends for which they sacrifice. It is not enough to win the fight; we must win that for which we fight. In this case, it is the triumph of all people who believe that the people of the world are worthy of freedom and that no race has a right to seek domination over any other, so that we ultimately build a permanent peace.