The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression: Shirley Temple and 1930s America (35 page)

7
State of the Union Address, December 3, 1929, in Hoover,
Containing Public Messages
, 411–13; Lester V. Chandler,
America’s Greatest Depression, 1929–1941
(New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 20.

8
“Employment Gains Cited by Hoover,”
Wall Street Journal
, March 8, 1930, 1, 12; “Worst of Depression Over, Says Hoover,”
New York Times
, May 2, 1930, 1.

9
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.,
The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919–1933
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957), 231; Chandler,
America’s Greatest Depression
, 11.

10
“Text of President Hoover’s Address before American Bankers’ Convention in Cleveland,”
Chicago Daily Tribune,
October 3, 1930, 6. On February 12, 1931, Rogers added in the same vein: “Starving isn’t so bad, it’s getting used to it that is tough. The first three years of a Republican Administration is the hardest. By the end of that time you are used to living on predictions.” Donald Day, ed.,
The Autobiography of Will Rogers
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949), 241.

11
David M. Kennedy,
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 66–67; Chandler,
America’s Greatest Depression
, 21, 34.

12
New York World
, October 15, 1930, as quoted in Edward Angly,
Oh Yeah?
(New York: Viking Press, 1931), 27.

13
Joslin,
Hoover off the Record
, 33.

14
Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, December 8, 1931, in Herbert Hoover,
Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, January 1 to December 31, 1931
, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1976), 583–84; Basil Rauch, ed.,
The Roosevelt Reader: Selected Speeches, Messages, Press Conferences, and Letters of Franklin D. Roosevelt
(New York: Rinehart, 1957), 66.

15
Hoover in conversation with Bryan Price, as quoted in Hoff,
Herbert Hoover
, 163.

16
“Hoover’s Silent Partner,”
Literary Digest
, September 8, 1917, 52; William Allen White,
The Autobiography of William Allen White
(New York: Macmillan, 1946), 515; Grace Tully,
F.D.R., My Boss
(New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1949), 60.

17
Joslin,
Hoover off the Record
, 163, 170, 218, 306, 318, 324; Irwin Hood Hoover,
Forty-Two Years in the White House
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934), 218, 184.

18
Donald R. Richberg,
My Hero: The Indiscreet Memoirs of an Eventful but Unheroic Life
(New York: Putnam, 1954), 149; Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy,
On Active Service in Peace and War
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), 205.

19
Louis Liebovich,
Bylines in Despair: Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression, and the U.S. News Media
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), 146; Roy Victor Peel and Thomas C. Donnelly,
The 1932 Campaign: An Analysis
(1935; rpt. New York: Da Capo Press, 1973), 181; Joslin diary entry, August 8, 1932, as quoted in Liebovich,
Bylines in Despair
, 146.

20
Joslin,
Hoover off the Record
, 3; David Burner,
Herbert Hoover: The Public Life
(New York: Knopf, 1978), 314.

21
Liebovich,
Bylines in Despair
, 135; Joslin,
Hoover off the Record
, 315.

22
Hoff,
Herbert Hoover
, 140. The estimate of apple vendors appears in William E. Leuchtenburg,
Herbert Hoover
(New York: Times Books, 2009), 109; Herbert Hoover,
Memoirs
(New York: Macmillan, 1951), 3:195.

23
Hoover, interview by Raymond Clapper, February 27, 1931, in Olive Ewing Clapper,
Washington Tapestry
(New York: Whittlesey House, div. of McGraw-Hill, 1946), 4; “The Presidency: Opener,”
Time
, October 10, 1932, 223; Day,
Autobiography of Will Rogers
, 275.

24
Hoover, interview by Raymond Clapper, February 27, 1931, in O. E. Clapper,
Washington Tapestry
, 4; Guido van Rijn,
Roosevelt’s Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Songs on FDR
(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997), 25.

25
On “bulldog gravy,” see Kennedy,
Freedom from Fear
, 169; [Archibald MacLeish], “ ‘No One Has Starved,’ ”
Fortune
, September 1932, 28.

26
Jonathan Alter,
The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 120; “Candidature,”
Time
, January 25, 1932, 9.

27
Peel and Donnelly,
1932 Campaign
, 51; Burner,
Herbert Hoover
, 316.

28
Chandler,
America’s Greatest Depression
, 3, 6; Herbert Hoover,
Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, January 1, 1932 to March 4, 1933
, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1977), 569; Herbert Hoover,
Campaign Speeches of 1932
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1933), 227.

29
Burner,
Herbert Hoover
, 315–17; Hoff,
Herbert Hoover
, 167.

30
“Election Results: President Reject,”
Time
, November 14, 1932, 26.

31
John Gray, review of
Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth,
by Margaret Atwood,
New York Review of Books
, April 9, 2009, 46.

32
Frances Perkins,
The Roosevelt I Knew
(New York: Viking Press, 1946), 166.

33
Gladstone Williams, “Smiles of Franklin D. Roosevelt Will End Decade of Dourness,”
Atlanta Constitution
, November 25, 1932, 6.

34
Geoffrey C. Ward,
A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt
(New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 91. On Roosevelt’s childhood, see Geoffrey C. Ward,
Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882–1905
(New York: Harper & Row, 1985).

35
Perkins,
Roosevelt I Knew
, 11.

36
Ward,
Before the Trumpet
, 253; Ward,
First-Class Temperament
, 509.

37
Ward,
Before the Trumpet
, 315; Ward,
First-Class Temperament
, 86. FDR fulfilled TR’s example even to the point of having six children, though one of FDR’s sons died in infancy.

38
On Roosevelt’s bout with polio, see especially Hugh Gregory Gallagher,
FDR’s Splendid Deception
(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1985); Ward,
First-Class Temperament
, 576–648 and passim; and Garry Wills, “The Power of Impotence,”
New York Review of Books
, November 23, 1989, 3–4.

39
Gallagher,
FDR’s Splendid Deception
, 17; Ward,
First-Class Temperament
, 623, 647.

40
Sara Roosevelt to Frederic Delano, as quoted in Frank Freidel,
Franklin D. Roosevelt
, vol. 2,
The Ordeal
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1954), 100.

41
James Roosevelt and Sidney Shalett,
Affectionately, F.D.R.: A Son’s Story of a Lonely Man
(New York: Hearst, 1959), 143.

42
On FDR’s skillful and ultimately unconscious diversions from his handicap, see Rexford G. Tugwell,
The Brains Trust
(New York: Viking Press, 1968), 22.

43
“Republicans: Dutch Take Holland,”
Time,
June 27, 1932, 11; James O’Donnell Bennett, “Boos Give Way to Victory Song as Tide Turns,”
Chicago Daily Tribune
, July 2, 1932, 4; “Learns ‘Happy Days,’ ”
New York Times
, July 10, 1932, 12; “Roosevelt’s Theme Song,”
Washington Post
, July 10, 1932, M6; Peel and Donnelly,
1932 Campaign
, 147.

44
Clinton L. Mosher, as quoted in Frank Freidel,
Franklin D. Roosevelt
, vol. 3,
The Triumph
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1956), 358; Peel and Donnelly,
1932 Campaign
, 170.

45
Chandler,
America’s Greatest Depression
, 35, 40.

46
Tully,
F.D.R., My Boss
, 68; Stephen Hess and Sandy Northrop,
Drawn & Quartered: The History of American Political Cartoons
(Montgomery, AL: Elliott & Clark, 1996), 94.

47
Gallagher,
FDR’s Splendid Deception
, esp. 93–97, 65; Ward,
First-Class Temperament
, 651, 780–84.

48
Samuel I. Rosenman, ed.,
The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt with a Special Introduction and Explanatory Notes by President Roosevelt
, vol. 2,
The Year of Crisis, 1933
(New York: Random House: 1938), 11, 12, 15. Although FDR had drafted much of the inaugural address with the aid of Raymond Moley, the famous phrase “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” was contributed by his longtime aide Louis Howe. Davis W. Houck,
FDR and Fear Itself: The First Inaugural Address
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002), 120. On the enthusiastic response to FDR’s possible use of broad executive power, see Alter,
Defining Moment
, 219.

49
“500,000 in Streets Cheer Roosevelt,”
New York Times
, March 5, 1933, 1; Gish quoted in Sally Stein, “The President’s Two Bodies: Staging and Restagings of FDR and the New Deal Body Politic,”
American Art
18, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 37.

50
For analysis of Roosevelt’s Hundred Days, see William E. Leuchtenburg,
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940
(New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 41–62; Kennedy,
Freedom from Fear
, 131–59; Anthony J. Badger
, FDR: The First Hundred Days
(New York: Hill and Wang, 2008); and Thomas J. Sugrue, “The Hundred Days War: Histories of the New Deal,”
Nation
, April 27, 2009, 25–28.

51
Hiram Johnson to Katherine Edson, April 20, 1933, as quoted in Leuchtenburg,
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal
, 62 n. 54; William E. Leuchtenburg,
The FDR Years: On Roosevelt and His Legacy
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 7.

52
Leo C. Rosten,
The Washington Correspondents
(New York: Harcourt, 1937), 39–53, esp. 49–50; Leuchtenburg,
FDR Years
, 11–13; “Roosevelt at Ease in Chat with Press,”
New York Times
, March 9, 1933, 3; see also Alter,
Defining Moment
, 253–58.

53
The U.S. Census Bureau reported the proportion of families with radios rose from roughly 46 percent in 1930 to 81 percent in 1940. See table Dg117–130, “Radio and television—stations, sets produced, and households with sets: 1921–2000,” in Susan B. Carter et al. eds.,
Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present
, Millennial ed. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 4:4-1027. Obviously, many people also listened to the radio outside their own homes.

54
Bruce Lenthall,
Radio’s America: The Great Depression and the Rise of Modern Mass Culture
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), esp. 53–114.

55
Ira R. T. Smith with Joe Alex Morris, “Dear Mr. President . . .”:
The Story of Fifty Years in the White House Mail Room
(New York: J. Messner, 1949), 12, 216.

56
Helen S. Brown to FDR; Laurence L. Prince to FDR; Frank J. Reveley to FDR, President’s Personal File 200B, Public Reaction, March 4, 1933, Hyde Park, New York (hereafter FDR Library).

57
Dow D. Burch to FDR, President’s Personal File 200B, Public Reaction, March 4, 1933, FDR Library; Cleveland correspondent, quoted in Houck,
FDR and Fear Itself
, 10.

58
Mrs. John H. Quigley to FDR; Mae Barnie to FDR, President’s Personal File 200B, Public Reaction, March 4, 1933, FDR Library.

59
William F. Purdy to FDR; Charlotte Reeve Conover to FDR, President’s Personal File 200B, Public Reaction, March 4, 1933, FDR Library.

60
F. W. Clements to FDR (emphasis in original); James A. Peers to FDR, President’s Personal File 200B, Public Reaction, March 4, 1933, FDR Library.

61
The description of FDR’s conception of a chat around the fireside comes from his press secretary, Stephen T. Early, as quoted in Lenthall,
Radio’s America
, 88–89. The Washington bureau chief for Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), Harry Butcher, popularized the phrase “fireside chat.” See Betty Houchin Winfield,
FDR and the News Media
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 104.

62
Lawrence Levine and Cornelia Levine observe that FDR usually spoke at not more than 100 to 120 words per minute, a pace 30 percent less than was commonly used on the radio and a decided contrast with the rapid-fire styles of the columnist Walter Winchell and Louisiana senator Huey Long. Lawrence W. Levine and Cornelia R. Levine, eds.,
The People and the President: America’s Conversation with FDR
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2002), 16.

63
Radio address, March 12, 1933, in Russell D. Buhite and David W. Levy,
FDR’s Fireside Chats
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 12–17.

64
F. W. Meyers to FDR; Florence M. Betts to FDR, President’s Personal File 200B, Public Reaction, March 13, 1933, FDR Library.

65
Charles L. Kimmel to FDR, President’s Personal File 200B, Public Reaction, March 13, 1933, FDR Library.

66
Frank J. Cregg to FDR; Ruth Liebermann to FDR, as quoted in Levine and Levine,
People and the President
, 37, 22.

67
Walker S. Duel, “Landslide Victory Held Tribute to Roosevelt’s Courage, Character,”
Atlanta Constitution
, November 7, 1936, 2; Levine and Levine,
People and the President
, 17.