The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (19 page)

I had never had any contact with newspaper people before. My grandmother had taught me that a woman’s place was not in the public eye, and that idea had clung to me all through the Washington years. It never occurred to me to do more than answer through my secretary any questions that the reporters asked about social events. I gave as little information as possible, feeling that that was the only right attitude toward any newspaper people where a woman and her home were concerned.

But the years had taught me a certain adaptability to circumstances and I did receive an intensive education on this trip, and Louis Howe played a great part in this education from that time on. Ever since the Albany days he had been an intimate friend and coworker of my husband’s. At times I resented this intimacy, and at this time I was very sure of my own judgment about people. I frequently tried to influence those about me, and there were occasions when I thought that Louis Howe’s influence and mine, where my husband was concerned, had clashed; and I was, of course, sure that I was right.

Louis was entirely indifferent to his appearance; he not only neglected his clothes but gave the impression at times that cleanliness was not of particular interest to him. The fact that he had rather extraordinary eyes and a fine mind I was fool enough not to have discovered as yet, and it was by externals alone that I had judged him in our association prior to this trip.

In later years I learned that he had always liked me and thought I was worth educating, and for that reason he made an effort on this trip to get to know me. He did it cleverly. He knew that I was bewildered by some of the things expected of me as a candidate’s wife. I never before had spent my days going on and off platforms, listening apparently with rapt attention to much the same speech, looking pleased at seeing people no matter how tired I was or greeting complete strangers with effusion.

Being a sensitive person, Louis knew that I was interested in the new sights and the new scenery, but that being the only woman was embarrassing. The newspaper fraternity was not so familiar to me at that time as it was to become in later years, and I was a little afraid of it. Largely because of Louis Howe’s early interpretation of the standards and ethics of the newspaper business, I came to look with interest and confidence on the writing fraternity and gained a liking for it which I have never lost.

My husband was busy most of the day, when not actually out on the platform of the car, or at meetings in the various cities where we stopped. He had speeches to write, letters to answer, and policies to discuss. In the evenings, after they got back to the train, all the men sat together in the end of the car and discussed the experiences of the day from their various points of view and the campaign in general from the point of view of what news might be coming in from newspapers and dispatches.

Frequently for relaxation they started to play a card game, which went on until late. I was still a Puritan, thought they were an extremely bad example, and was at times much annoyed with my husband for not conserving his strength by going to bed. I did not realize how much he received through these contacts and how impossible it would have been, after the kind of days he was putting in, to go placidly to sleep.

Louis Howe began to break down my antagonism by knocking at my stateroom door and asking if he might discuss a speech with me. I was flattered and before long I found myself discussing a wide range of subjects.

Stephen Early had been borrowed from the Associated Press and acted in a personal capacity as advance man for this trip and went ahead of us for publicity purposes. He only now and then joined us on the train but was always in close touch. All these men were to become good friends of mine in the future.

That trip had many amusing incidents, and as the newspapermen and I became more friendly, they helped me to see the humorous side. They would stand at the back of the hall when Franklin was making the same speech for the umpty-umpth time and make faces at me, trying to break up the apparent interest with which I was listening. When I followed my husband down the aisle and the ladies crowded around him and exclaimed over his looks and charm, they would get behind me and ask if I wasn’t jealous.

On this trip I saw a great deal of our country that I had never seen before; though I had not begun to look at the countryside or the people with the same keenness which the knowledge of many social problems brought me in the future, still I was thrilled by new scenery, and the size of my own country, with its potential power, was gradually dawning upon me.

We ended this trip very weary, for four weeks is a long time to be on the road, but when we reached Buffalo, New York, I who had never seen Niagara Falls insisted on seeing them. Though my husband went to Jamestown, New York, for political meetings, I took the day off and Louis Howe went with me to Niagara Falls.

One of the standing jokes of that campaign was a reference to the day in Jamestown and certain photographs which were taken of lovely ladies who served luncheon for my husband and who worshiped at his shrine. He had to stand much teasing from the rest of the party about this particular day.

It was impossible, of course, to make any arrangements for the children. Our house in New York was rented for another year to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. Lamont, and so we decided it would be better for Anna and Elliott to spend the winter at Hyde Park. I went to Vassar College to find a tutor to take over their schooling. A charming girl, Jean Sherwood, was recommended and we all liked her so much that she came to us that autumn and spent the entire winter with the two children at Hyde Park.

It still remained a question what would happen to the rest of us in case of either election or defeat, but most of us were fairly sure that defeat was in store. Even then I was beginning to wonder what was the point of these long campaign trips, where the majority of people who came to hear you were adherents of your own party. Only now and then would a heckler appear in the audience, and he was usually the type who could never be changed from the opposition point of view.

I still think campaign trips by anyone except the presidential candidates themselves are of little value. In 1920, however, the kind of campaign my husband made was considered reasonable.

Come what might, we had to live somewhere and my husband would probably go to work somewhere. He had already made arrangements to resume the practice of law. The old firm of Marvin, Booker and Roosevelt had ended with the war and he decided to form a partnership with Grenville Emmet and Langdon Marvin, under the firm name of Emmet, Marvin and Roosevelt.

The election was an overwhelming defeat, accepted philosophically by my husband, who had been prepared for the result. In this campaign I had taken no active part in the work at headquarters, but I had been in once or twice and had met my husband’s office manager, Charles McCarthy. He had a young secretary during the campaign, Miss Marguerite LeHand. It was through this association that she first came to my husband as a secretary and she remained with him as his private secretary until her last illness.

I did not look forward to a winter of four days a week in New York with nothing but teas and luncheons and dinners to take up my time. The war had made that seem an impossible mode of living, so I mapped out a schedule for myself. I decided that I would learn to cook and I found an ex-cook, now married, who had an apartment of her own, and I went twice a week and cooked an entire meal which I left with her for her family to criticize. I also attended a business school, and took a course in typewriting and shorthand every day while I was in New York.

Before I had been in New York many days I was visited by Mrs. Frank Vanderlip, who was at that time chairman of the League of Women Voters for New York State. She asked if I would join the board and be responsible for reports on national legislation. I explained that I had had little or no contact with national legislation in Washington, that I had listened a great deal to the talk that went on around me, and that I would be interested but doubted my ability to do this work. Mrs. Vanderlip said she was sure I had absorbed more than most of the New York members of the board knew and that I would have the assistance of an able woman lawyer, Miss Elizabeth Read. She would take the Congressional Record, go through it and mark the bills that she thought were of interest to the league, send for them and even assist me to understand them if I required any assistance.

With this assurance, I finally agreed that I would attempt to do the work. I decided that I would go to Miss Read’s office one morning a week and devote that time to the study of legislation and bring home the bills that needed further study before I wrote my monthly reports.

I felt humble and inadequate when I first presented myself to Elizabeth Read, but I liked her at once and she gave me a sense of confidence. It was the beginning of a friendship with her and with her friend, Miss Esther Lape, which was to be lasting and warm. Esther had a brilliant mind and a driving force, a kind of nervous power. Elizabeth seemed calmer, more practical and domestic, but I came to see that hers was a keen and analytical mind and in its way as brilliant as Esther’s.

My husband was working hard; he went occasionally to men’s dinners, and I remember many pleasant evenings spent with Elizabeth and Esther in their little apartment. Their standards of work and their interests played a great part in what might be called the “intensive education of Eleanor Roosevelt” during the next few years.

My mother-in-law was distressed because I was not always available, as I had been when I lived in New York before. I had long since ceased to be dependent on my mother-in-law, and the fact that my cousin Mrs. Parish suffered from a long illness, lasting several years, had made me less dependent on her. I wrote fewer letters and asked fewer questions and gave fewer confidences, for I had begun to realize that in my development I was drifting far afield from the old influences.

I do not mean that I was the better for this, but I was thinking things out for myself and becoming an individual. Had I never done this, perhaps I might have been saved some difficult experiences, but I have never regretted even my mistakes. They all added to my understanding of other human beings, and I came out in the end a more tolerant, understanding and charitable person. It has made life and the study of people more interesting than it could have been if I had remained in the conventional pattern.

I was back on one or two boards for charities, such as the Bryson Day Nursery, but I had developed an aversion to serving on boards and having no personal contact with actual work. I tried to seize whatever opportunities for actual contact with people the nursery presented, but it was not very satisfactory.

Twelve
    

Trial by Fire

THE SUMMER
of 1921 found us all going to Campobello again and various visitors coming up for short or long periods. There was a certain amount of infantile paralysis in some places again that summer, but it was not an epidemic, particularly among children, as it had been a few years before.

My husband did not go up with us, but came early in August, after we were settled, bringing quite a party with him. He did a great deal of navigating on Mr. Van Lear Black’s boat, which he had joined on his way up the coast.

While Mr. Black and his party were with us, we were busy and spent days on the water, fishing and doing all we could to give them a pleasant time. My husband loved these waters and always wanted everybody who came up to appreciate the fact that they were ideal for sailing and fishing. The fishing is deep-sea fishing and rather uninteresting unless you go outside and into the Bay of Fundy or have the luck to do some casting into schools of fish as they came in.

Mr. Black had left and we were out sailing one afternoon in the little
Vireo
which my husband had bought after giving up the
Half Moon
, in order that the boys might learn to sail. On our return trip we spied a forest fire, and of course we had to make for shore at once and go fight the fire. We reached home around four o’clock and my husband, who had been complaining of feeling logy and tired for several days, decided it would do him good to go in for a dip in the land-locked lake called Lake Glen Severn, inside the beach on the other side of the island. The children were delighted and they started away. After their swim Franklin took a dip in the Bay of Fundy and ran home.

When they came in, a good deal of mail had arrived and my husband sat around in his bathing suit, which was completely dry, and looked at his mail. In a little while he began to complain that he felt a chill and decided he would not eat supper with us but would go to bed and get thoroughly warm. He wanted to avoid catching cold.

In retrospect I realize he had had no real rest since the war. A hunting trip after the campaign had been strenuous, and plunging back into business had not given him any opportunity to relax and he had been going on his nerves.

We had Mrs. Louis Howe and her small boy, Hartley, staying in the house with us. Mr. Howe arrived a little later. He had stayed in the Navy Department after my husband left, to look after his papers and be of any assistance he could to the incoming assistant secretary, who happened to be Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. When Louis finally left the Navy Department he was considering an offer to go into business on a rather lucrative salary, and decided to take his holiday at Campobello before he made up his mind.

The next day my husband felt less well. He had quite a temperature and I sent for our faithful friend, Dr. Bennett, in Lubec. Dr. Bennett thought my husband had just an ordinary cold and I decided that the best thing to do was to get everybody else off on a camping trip, though I was sufficiently worried not to consider going myself.

The trip lasted three days, and by the time the campers were back it was evident that my husband’s legs were getting badly paralyzed. Dr. Bennett wanted a consultation and we found that Dr. Keen was in Bar Harbor, Maine. By now Mr. Howe had arrived and he went with Captain Calder to meet Dr. Keen. Dr. Keen decided that it was some form of paralysis but could not explain it. By this time my husband’s lower legs were paralyzed.