Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (64 page)

Eleanor valued Franklin’s new position more than Sara did. The role of First Lady of the nation didn’t differ enormously in kind from that of First Lady of New York, but the scale was much larger. Her first chore was to make a home of the White House, and she discovered that while a staff of eight or ten had sufficed to run the governor’s mansion in Albany, three to four times that many maids, butlers, ushers, cooks, gardeners, secretaries, security guards, and chauffeurs were required at the president’s house. The expenses were proportionally greater, and much came out of the president’s pocket. The federal government paid the wages of the staff, but the president, for reasons most apparent to the Congress that had imposed the practice in the early days of the republic, had to feed them. The president also had to pay for the Christmas parties and bonuses that were perquisites of their jobs. The government footed the bill for state dinners, but personal guests were the responsibility of the president. If Eleanor hadn’t heard it from Uncle Ted’s side of the family, she soon learned that the presidency drained most incumbents not simply psychologically and physically but financially as well. Eleanor’s separate financial accounts shielded her from the losses the presidency imposed on Franklin, but not from the worries they produced.

Had Aunt Edith been speaking to Eleanor, she could have told her about the myriad demands on a First Lady’s time. The receptions alone—for dignitaries from other countries, for members of Congress, for governors, for party officials, and for the well-heeled faithful—could wear the strongest woman down. Eleanor felt her feet screaming after only a few such receptions, until one of the members of the honor guard, who knew a bit about standing at attention for long periods, offered the hint to flex her knees ever so slightly now and then. No one would notice and the strain would be much less. Eleanor took the hint, and it worked. But it did nothing for the problem of having to shake hundreds of hands during the average reception, and thousands in the typical week. Here her genes came to the rescue. “I was lucky in having a supple hand, which never ached,” she wrote.

People wrote to the president about policy matters; they often wrote to the First Lady about personal issues. Amid the depression, Eleanor received countless letters relating the travails of their authors. Most were sincere, although some were ill conceived. One woman said she wanted a baby and hoped Mrs. Roosevelt could find her one. A follow-up letter arrived shortly saying that once she had the baby, she would need milk for it, and so could Mrs. Roosevelt get her a cow? And to keep the milk cold, she could use an icebox, if that wouldn’t be too much bother.

Some letters were patent scams. A young girl wrote that she had been chosen valedictorian of her high school class but didn’t have money to buy a dress and so would have to give her speech in her brother’s overalls. Could the First Lady help out? The envelope included a page from a mail-order catalogue showing the sorts of dresses that would be appropriate. Eleanor was normally a trusting type, but something about this letter evoked suspicion. She asked one of her staff to inquire about the girl and discovered that she wasn’t poor, wasn’t valedictorian, and in fact wasn’t even graduating. Another con artist intended to write Eleanor asking for money but at the same time wrote to an accomplice who was to act as a character reference if the White House investigated. The letter to the accomplice detailed the story that was being pitched to Eleanor—but, in an evident mix-up of envelopes, this letter went to Eleanor instead, revealing the whole plot.

Certain of Eleanor’s burdens she brought on herself. During the 1932 campaign the Associated Press had assigned Lorena Hickok to cover Eleanor. The two became friends and allies, with Eleanor providing Lorena insight into the campaign and Lorena providing perspective on life among the working classes. Hickok pointed out that the depression had been hard on journalists generally but on women journalists in particular. As in other fields, employers often assumed that men supported families and women didn’t and therefore that men were more in need of the jobs that remained available. Eleanor determined to do her part for females of the fourth estate by holding press conferences to which women reporters alone were invited. The discrimination appeared harmless or positive at first, when the topics tended to be of minor importance and focused on the social calendar at the White House. But as Eleanor broadened her activities and emerged as a voice for groups otherwise underrepresented within the administration, her comments elicited the interest of the major newspapers’ predominantly male political reporters. At the same time, one of the women reporters—Elizabeth May Craig—regularly argued that the solution to unfairness toward women was not unfairness toward men. Eleanor held the line. “I have great respect for her point of view,” she said of Craig, “but I never quite agreed on this question.” The men stayed out.

T
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besides being home to Franklin and Eleanor, was the permanent address, though not the primary domicile, of their two youngest children, Franklin Jr. and John. Franklin Jr. was finishing at Groton and would start at Harvard in the fall; Johnny was two years behind him at Groton and similarly gone from their parents’ home most months. But they attended the inauguration and learned firsthand how their father’s new job would affect them. Johnny enjoyed the fast life, and on the night of the inauguration went out partying. He returned late and somewhat the worse for his pleasures. The guard at the White House gate didn’t know him, and Johnny carried no identification. The guard refused to wake the president or Mrs. Roosevelt for some kid who seemed to be playing a stupid prank, and he put Johnny off till morning, when his parents vouched for his identity. Not many days later Johnny got hungry in the evening. He went to the kitchen and tried to open the refrigerator, only to find it locked. “What kind of a joint is this?” he demanded of his mother. “You not only can’t get past the gates, you can’t even get into the icebox!”

Elliott Roosevelt remained in revolt against his parents. His first marriage—of an eventual five—was falling apart, and he blamed his father and mother and their lifestyle, and swore to have nothing to do with any of it. He kept his distance from the White House, visiting only when necessary.

Anna Roosevelt Dall’s marriage—her first of three—was likewise collapsing; her response was to seek out her parents rather than shun them. She moved into the White House with her two children, who became the daily delight of their grandmother and especially their grandfather. The president began his mornings with breakfast in bed and the morning papers; he refused to receive visitors, even Eleanor, until he was finished. The only exceptions were the grandchildren, who were allowed to bounce on his bed and romp about the room, regardless of the disruption they caused to the president’s concentration on matters of national or international importance.

James Roosevelt joined his mother and father and sister in the White House. James had married—for the first of four times—while Roosevelt was governor; his wife, Betsey Cushing, was one of three daughters of Harvey Cushing, America’s most famous neurosurgeon. The Cushing girls were celebrated for their beauty and the prominence of the men they married—a group that included, besides James Roosevelt, Vincent Astor (owner of the yacht that had carried Franklin to Florida before the inauguration), William Paley (founder and longtime chairman of CBS), and Jock Whitney (publisher of the
New York Herald Tribune
and eventual American ambassador to Britain). The wedding of James and Betsey recapitulated in certain respects the wedding of Franklin and Eleanor. Franklin stole the show from the bride and groom, who were left standing alone as the guests gathered around the popular New York governor and leading candidate for the presidency.

Franklin’s fondness for Betsey doubtless encouraged him to invite James to come live at the White House after the inauguration. James had provided indispensable assistance during the campaign, physically supporting Roosevelt at campaign stops, serving as subliminal proof of his virility, and providing a foil for his jokes. “This is my little boy, Jimmy,” Roosevelt would say, laughing, while looking up at his son, who was a couple inches taller than he was. Invariably Roosevelt would add, “I have more hair than he has!”—at which the gradually balding James would merely smile good-naturedly while the crowd applauded his father’s cleverness. Roosevelt wanted to keep James around, and so asked him to join the administration in an informal capacity. “It was an ambiguous sort of arrangement,” James recalled. “I had no official status, no salary.” James weighed the offer carefully. After a slow start on his career, he was finally making some money in the insurance business. He had Betsey and their small child to support. And he had debts from a chronically spendthrift lifestyle. “I was, as usual, pretty much behind the financial eight-ball,” he admitted. Roosevelt offered to pay him out of his own pocket, but James thought such an arrangement sounded too much like an allowance, and he turned it down. But he accepted the rest of his father’s offer. “I was intoxicated by the excitement of the campaign I had just been through with him, and I was keen to learn more about politics and government. I knew that stirring events were ahead, and nothing could have kept me from taking advantage of the ringside seat he offered me.” So the three moved into the White House as the permanent guests of Franklin and Eleanor.

T
HE
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HITE
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became the new home of Louis Howe as well. For the man who had labored for twenty years to make Roosevelt president, the election victory was bittersweet. “I guess I’ve worked myself out of a job,” he said half jokingly—but half seriously. Both Howe and Roosevelt knew that without Howe Roosevelt might never have reached the White House. But now that Roosevelt was
in
the White House, Howe’s role was unclear. For a time the press delighted in depicting him as the manipulator behind the throne. “Colonel Howe,” he was called, in reference to Wilson’s éminence grise, Edward House. Howe accepted the plaudits even as he understood that his hold on Roosevelt was weakening. The more powerful Roosevelt became, the more he attracted powerful people to him. Howe might get elbowed aside.

His uncertain health compounded his problems. The respiratory and heart troubles that had afflicted him for years got worse. His mind was as sharp as ever, and his wit as wicked. But he lacked the stamina for the major initiatives that obviously lay ahead. No one told him he was dying; no one had to. And no one knew whether death would come in six months or six years. But it was coming, and Roosevelt would have been foolish to lean too heavily on a reed that was about to break.

Roosevelt wasn’t foolish, yet neither was he hard-hearted. Besides, he knew that Howe, even in his diminished state, could provide him something that would be in decreasing supply in the months ahead—and would be the more valuable for its scarcity. Louis Howe was the last person who could call Roosevelt a fool to his face. The only other person who might have done so was Eleanor, but for all the reasons that made their marriage so complicated, she always felt she had to work by indirection. Howe regularly informed Roosevelt he was being pig-headed. He sent subordinates to Roosevelt’s office with instructions: “Tell the president to go to hell.” On one occasion Roosevelt exasperated Howe and then left to take a swim. “I hope to God you drown!” Howe shouted after him.

There was never any question that Howe would be part of the White House family. Eleanor set aside the Lincoln Bedroom for him, and he moved his meager belongings in. His wife, Grace, had relocated to Fall River, Massachusetts, and become something of a political force in the southern part of the Bay State. She and the children visited Washington occasionally—more frequently as Howe grew sicker—but their lives evolved separately from his.