The First Lady of Radio (9 page)

From Watertown, Massachusetts, comes a story of an amusing hobby. Frederick Gleason Richardson saves postmarks from all over the United States and he has unearthed some curiously named places in this country of ours. He has Coffee and Toast from Georgia and North Carolina; he has OK from Kentucky; So-So from Mississippi, and he has found towns for each of his own three names in the states of Illinois and Tennessee.

From Geneva comes a plea from James G. McDonald [League of Nations], high commissioner for refugees from Germany, telling the sad story of the exodus from Germany not only of Jews but of non-Jewish people as well. He appeals for help in rehabilitating these people in the countries in which they are now settling.

Ireland is a small country and a very serious condition exists there. A government survey just made on unemployment indicates that they have reached a peak and have 107,411 people without work. The situation in Liberia has become so acute that the United States has decided to make a fresh effort to bring order into that country. The movement to improve sanitary, sociological, and economic conditions has been at a standstill there since the League of Nations withdrew their offer of assistance last January. Mr. [Harry] McBride, who was once financial
adviser to the Liberian government, was sent out by our Secretary of State, Mr. [Cordell] Hull, to inquire into the situation and is now on his way home. The reason why we have stepped in is that most of the other countries, after the League of Nations investigation, seemed to agree that Liberia was our responsibility. We are so far away from it that we have doubtless forgotten, but it was primarily with this country that our original slave trade flourished, and those curious old Bible-reading, psalm-singing sea captains who engaged in this trade are the ones who are responsible for our present interest in Liberia.

From Tokyo, we are glad to see dispatches that the Soviet Union and Japan are resuming their negotiations for the sale of the Chinese Eastern Railroad. This agreement should improve Russo-Japanese relations and dispel some of the war clouds which have been hovering over that horizon. From Paris and Zurich come two dispatches which dovetail into each other. One is the information that the French Foreign Minister, Louis Barthou, returned to Geneva to take up the delicate business of finding a formula for an eastern European peace pact. While in Zurich, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom has been meeting.

From Chicago comes the interesting item that the [meat] packers have granted a wage increase of 8 percent, which will total $10 million a year. The report as of June stated that employment in the packing industry was 101.4 percent of normal; the payroll, 87.2 percent; and the average weekly wage was $21.82.

If the weather is favorable word comes from Detroit that Jean Pic-card, who made the first [balloon] ascent into the stratosphere, will take off with his wife at four a.m. on Thursday, hoping to reach a height of 61,000 feet in their balloon.

There is being carried on at present a drive to make people in general drink more milk. In fact, one circular being sent throughout the schools advocates a quart of milk a day per person. And milk is recommended
for those who do not wish to put on too much weight, for milk adds fewer pounds than beer! In Atlantic City, the judges who passed on the merits of twenty-three brands of beer at the convention of the New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association must have put on several pounds at least!

From Shanghai comes the story of a new tax. We really do not in this country know what it is to be taxed. The Chinese understand the art, and the last one imposed is a “good feelings” tax. It is supposed to be devoted to supplying the provincial soldiers with food and clothing. Aren't you glad you do not live in China?

Last winter there came to me a letter, and it ran somewhat like this: “Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Why do you take so many trips? Think of your poor husband sitting at home, alone in the evening, with no one to keep him company by the fireside.” As is usual with such letters it was unsigned. People seem to enjoy very much giving advice and yet do not like to stand by it by adding their names. It occurred to me—and this belief has been strengthened since this letter—that there are a great many people in this country who have not the remotest idea of the life which is lived by the man who is elected to be president of the United States. Or by his wife. Of course, it is obvious that the conditions in the country as a whole, and personal preferences, make some slight change in the lives of the individuals occupying the White House. But by and large, they lead, administration after administration, very much the same kind of life. In the first place, they carry a burden of work which is scarcely understood by people throughout the country. The president and, to a lesser degree, the head of every federal department, has practically the entire day filled with appointments to see people, especially while Congress is in session. That means that the big volume of mail must be attended to in the late afternoon or evening or early morning. Speeches must be written and any real thinking on troublesome subjects must be done in these periods of so-called leisure. I have found, for instance, that
what exercise I hope to get must be over with by eight thirty a.m., when we breakfast. After that I cannot call a single minute of the day my own.

My husband always liked to have his breakfast in peace and quiet and not to see people until he had a chance to read his morning paper. But at times of stress even this rule is ignored and gentlemen come to confer from eight o'clock in the morning, and it is all he can do to get dressed and get over to his office. There is never a free evening. Evenings are times for conferences and work with one or two people over knotty problems, or for dictating. It is rare for either of us to go to bed much before twelve or one o'clock, and we have been working at our desks all evening long. Occasionally there is a movie after dinner. Even if you cannot have a rest in one way, at least your mind must get some change. But when the movie is over, back to his desk goes the president.

This routine is not just because the duties are what they are today, for every other president has found the burden a heavy one. I can remember personally back to Theodore Roosevelt's day, and he always went to work after dinner. There are stories of how both President and Mrs. Hoover worked, how engrossed Mr. Hoover was at all times and how he would even pass people without seeing them, his mind was so completely wrapped up in the questions before him. He hardly took time to eat, and certainly those who observed him doubted whether his mind, in the brief periods of relaxation which he allowed himself, ever left the difficult problems that had occupied it in office.

Mr. Coolidge was a methodical gentleman and lived his years in the White House in rather placid times, so that he had time for some of the rest which he had been accustomed to every day. But even at that, there was no time hanging heavily on his hands and there were many evening sessions. Nearly every president has to have some form of exercise, for a sedentary life spent largely at a desk requires that individuals have regular air and exercise if they are to keep well. President Wilson played golf. But I seem to remember stories that he worked early and
late to pay for those hours spent on the golf course. And there were times when he could not get that amount of exercise and relaxation. Theodore Roosevelt had to be out of doors and took long rides and long walks and played tennis. But he was up early in the morning and often late at night.

So when you feel the impulse to wonder why the occupants of the White House do this or that, just remember that their lives are very different from the lives of the average individual who works hard from nine to five and may have still some housework or some chores to do when returning home but who goes to bed fairly early and who frequently has the choice of how the evening shall be spent. I think every occupant of the White House will tell you that their choice is rarely a free one.

9.

“Peace Through Education”

Americans of Tomorrow Program
for the Typewriter Educational Research Bureau

Sunday, November 11, 1934, 7:45–8:00 p.m. (CBS)

Two months after she signed off for mattresses, Eleanor Roosevelt was recruited by the typewriter industry to comment on the education of “Americans of Tomorrow.” A Sunday-evening radio program was created, and it premiered on November 11, 1934, on the CBS network. The commercial messages in the program promoted portable typewriters for schoolchildren in the months leading up to Christmas. ER made the broadcasts from New York, Washington, and Warm Springs, Georgia, where FDR had built a cottage and where he and other polio patients from around the world sought treatment.

ER's first broadcast focused on the power of education to promote peace in the world. ER had long been an outspoken critic of war and a proponent of international cooperation. In the 1920s she campaigned vigorously for pacifist causes such as American participation in the
League of Nations and the World Court. In the 1930s, as first lady, she spoke on behalf of the Emergency Peace Committee organized by the Quakers, the National Conference on the Cause and Cure of War, and other antiwar campaigns. In 1934, ER described herself as a “very realistic pacifist.”
¹
As Germany and Japan built up their war-making capacities, ER maintained that the United States had to consider becoming better prepared to defend itself. Over the next seven years, ER would struggle to balance her pacifist convictions with her need to support FDR and his administration's defense policies.

In one of the broadcasts in this series, ER came closer to endorsing the advertiser's product than in any of her other commercial programs. She noted that typewriters had their place in a modern classroom and might even make learning more interesting. While she did not encourage schools to buy typewriters, she gently rejected the potential disadvantages that might be raised by opponents. The typewriter ad campaign was at least modestly successful. On Christmas morning, nine-year-old John Forbes King banged out a note to ER—in all capital letters—saying, “I have listened to your broadcasts about typewriters for children. Santa Claus brought me one.”
²

(MUSICAL THEME: WILLIAM DALY'S ORCHESTRA)

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen. We have the honor of presenting Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt in the first of a special series of broadcasts in which her subject will be “Americans of Tomorrow.” Today, Mrs. Roosevelt will give you her Armistice Day message, a message of peace through education. This program is sponsored by the Typewriter Educational Research Bureau of New York City—an educational bureau supported by the manufacturers of Underwood, Royal, Remington, and Corona portable typewriters. These companies found a few years ago that with the perfection of the portable typewriter as a small, light machine which a child could easily operate, and which
a student could carry, they were allied with the cause of education by millions of young fingers. They found that their service to America was greater than the mere making and selling of typewriters. They were helping American children to better citizenship. The Typewriter Educational Research Bureau has fostered an investigation of the uses and benefits of typewriters through independent educational authorities, and is bringing the facts of this modern educational tool to the parents and teachers of America. Before we introduce Mrs. Roosevelt, William Daly will conduct his orchestra in a favorite waltz from the Johann Strauss operetta
Die Fledermaus.

(ORCHESTRA)

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.

ER: Good evening, mothers and fathers. I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on “Americans of Tomorrow” on this day. Sixteen years ago today the World War came to an end. In talking to you about education tonight, the first question that comes to my mind is: What have we done through education in these sixteen years to make war less possible in the future? The boy who was a baby when the World War ended is almost old enough to be a soldier himself. Do the boys and girls in high school today understand any better the causes of war? Are they any better equipped to analyze the situations which lead up to war, or can they get at the truth about conditions in their own country or in other countries any better than we could?

This much I think we have done. We have a much larger group of young people today who are actively interested in questions of government and who study government from the time they enter high school. The war spirit, however, is built up in a thousand different small ways from early childhood on. All children love to play at different phases of real life. Little girls love to play with dolls and dollhouses, because it seems to them like keeping house and having babies of their own. All little boys have been brought up on toy soldiers, primarily dressed in
the uniforms of their own country, though frequently they have been supposed to learn something of history by playing with soldiers dressed as Romans and Greeks. Or if they are American children, in the traditional red coat of the English soldier—who tried to keep us under Great Britain's control. There was a time when Germany produced the most remarkable toy soldiers because in real life the army was a very important part of every German's existence, with the result that every small boy played with soldiers from his earliest childhood on.

We have also taught history in a way which has led every child to feel that military heroes are great figures in history. It is not until they are comparatively mature that young people discover that some of the most important people in the development of various countries never wore a soldier's uniform. The glory of war has been constantly emphasized and rarely the sordid side—the filth, the cold, the horror of wounds, and of slow death—these are all hidden behind a veil of comradeship and patriotism.