The First Lady of Radio (12 page)

Anything bought for the White House in the way of linen is marked with the initials “U.S.” on a shield. The White House china is marked with the president's shield and the silver is all of the same pattern and marked as it originally was in the president's house. We have found it necessary to buy inexpensive doilies and napkins and plated spoons for large entertainments, but this is a purely practical item and costs very little.

In addition to this yearly appropriation, Congress usually appropriates every four years a special fund so that an incoming administration may overhaul the house and make some definite improvements which need to be made. This fund is about the only one that one can really spend for replacing furnishings.

The height of the ceilings, and therefore the size of the windows, makes curtains and draperies an extremely expensive item and all the little economies practiced in any private home are practiced in the White House. Curtains are turned, rugs which are worn are sent to be rewoven or mended, and much darning and general repair work goes on in the sewing room on the third floor—all done by the maids, four in all, who have charge of the upstairs rooms. Two of the maids have been in the White House for a great many years.

The maintenance of the White House is under the supervision of the Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Repairs and furnishings, supplies, and payment of personnel are accounted for in the records of the Park Service.

The laundry of the bedrooms and the table linen is paid for as one of the items of maintenance, but personal laundry is paid for out of the president's own pocket in exactly the same way as food for the family and the servants and private guests. Stamps for personal letters, personal telegrams, and telephone calls are all paid for by the president and myself. Official communications must be signed by a secretary and the official mail must go out through the secretaries.

Any purchase for the White House, if it is a large one, must be handled through the Supplies and Warehouse Section of the National Park Service. Specifications are prepared and formal bids received and contracts awarded to the low bidders. For small purchases and emergencies, the chief of the Supplies and Warehouse Section telephones or sends one of his assistants to the various stores to obtain informal bids on the articles to be purchased. The president is authorized under the appropriation act to buy direct without securing bids or going through the Supplies and Warehouse Section, if he so desires. But as neither the president nor his wife have much time for personal shopping the more formal way is usually adhered to.

Immediately upon receiving anything for the White House, the article is duly recorded and entered in an inventory. All changes in White House property are accounted for on the inventory and presented annually to the president for his approval. This is in accordance with a provision in a section of a certain statute, 773–774.

You may see by this that housekeeping in the White House is a little complicated. When you buy any such things as a chair or table, or even new hangings for the formal rooms, it is customary to request the advice of the commissioner of fine arts. This is a wise practice, as it keeps these
rooms harmoniously furnished, but it does add to the complications when so many people are consulted. Of course, gifts are frequently sent to the White House, either of furniture or china or hangings or rugs or paintings. These are, at once, referred to the Commission of Fine Arts, for if they are to be permanently placed in the White House, they have to be approved by the Commission of Fine Arts and accepted by an act of Congress.

Now as to the less formal duties of housekeeping, as far as possible, staple articles are bought wholesale and as the number of people in the White House is very great, a great many things are bought. In large quantities, a great many things are also sent in as presents, such as hams, game, fruit, et cetera. These are all passed on, of course, by the Secret Service and nothing is allowed to come to the president's table which has not been carefully gone over. A large storeroom houses the supplies and the housekeeper keeps a complete list of things as they are given out to the kitchen. She also tries to buy fresh things as far as possible from the markets around Washington and she does her shopping herself.

A very careful housecleaning is done during the summer months, besides a complete inventory of furnishings taken every June. One cannot be a lighthearted and happy-go-lucky housekeeper in the White House, for there is the weight of responsibility which always goes with handling anything which does not belong to you and which belongs really to the people of the United States. However, there is a certain pride in doing it all in a manner which will conform with the dignity of tradition, and at the same time preserve the simplicity which should exist in a democracy.

13.

“What It Means to Be the Wife of the President”

The Pond's Program

Wednesday, April 21, 1937, 7:15–7:30 p.m. (NBC Blue Network)

Eleanor Roosevelt launched a new radio series for Pond's Cold Cream in the spring of 1937. The national economy had improved markedly since the depths of the Depression. American productivity rose above pre-1929 levels for the first time. Payrolls and stock prices had improved, unemployment was down. But it wouldn't last. Assuming that the recovery would continue, FDR slashed government spending and New Deal programs. By fall, the nation would slide back into deep recession.

The sound of war grew louder around the world. There was civil war in Spain, where Fascist forces bombed the city of Guernica. Japan invaded China, capturing Peking, Shanghai, and Nanking. The Nazis opened a concentration camp at Buchenwald.

ER's topics in the thirteen-week Pond's series would include audience
favorites like a typical day in the White House and the rigors of official state dinners. But she would also discuss the problems of working women with her friend Rose Schneiderman of the Women's Trade Union League and the hardships of slum living with Ida Harris, the head of a group of mothers living in New York tenements.

The first lady made headlines when she explained in one program why she traveled so much. She said that if she stayed too long in the White House, she would lose touch with the rest of the world. In another program, she discouraged a George Washington University student from taking the so-called Oxford Peace Pledge to remain a pacifist in the case of war.

The issue of ER's radio pay became a controversy again in the summer of 1937. Hamilton Fish, a Republican member of the House of Representatives from FDR's home district in New York, was a relentless critic of the New Deal and the president. He accused ER of using loopholes to evade paying taxes on her radio work. As always, ER maintained that the $3,000 she got from Pond's went to the American Friends Service Committee. What ER did not disclose was that her radio agents typically got a $500 to $1,000 cut for each broadcast. The Treasury Department approved of ER's arrangement and the congressional committee investigating tax avoidance eventually dropped its inquiry into ER's finances.

ER often liked to have guests on her program. Sometimes she asked the questions; sometimes the guest did. On the program about being the wife of the president, ER was joined by Genevieve Forbes Herrick, whom ER referred to as Geno, a former
Chicago Tribune
reporter who had covered many of ER's White House press conferences, which were restricted to women reporters.

On one of the Pond's broadcasts, ER's guest was her daughter, Anna Roosevelt Boettiger. They interviewed each other on the proper ways to raise a girl in the twentieth century. ER would not have claimed to be an
expert on this subject. Her own troubled childhood in a patrician family had ill prepared her for motherhood. ER and FDR had six children, five of whom lived to adulthood. ER left much of the child-rearing to a series of nannies and caregivers. ER later regretted her maternal ineptitude and the resulting struggles her children endured.

ANNOUNCER: This is Virginia Barr of the Pond's Company speaking from Washington, DC, and bringing you Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Tonight, in beginning this series of broadcasts, Mrs. Roosevelt talks informally about what it means to be the wife of the President. First, let me take just a moment to speak of the coronation. In a recent issue of
Life
magazine, there were pictures of beautiful women who will take part in the coronation social activities. On two pages, there were five women shown: a daughter of an earl, a sister of an earl, [and] wives of a baron and a baronet. Now, of these five English beauties, four use Pond's Cold Cream. So many English women use Pond's it has become the biggest-selling cold cream in England. Remember this when you're wondering what to do for your complexion. Follow the same method used by English and American beauties for refining the skin and keeping away signs of age. Cleanse and invigorate your skin night and morning the easy, effective Pond's way. Begin tomorrow. Get a jar of Pond's Cold Cream in the morning. Now, it's my great privilege to present Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.

ER: Tonight I want to tell you a little of what it means to be the wife of the president. And I'm just going to talk it over here, for you, with Mrs. Genevieve Forbes Herrick—a very charming young lady whom I came to know soon after I first arrived at the White House. She used to be well known as a reporter on the
Chicago Tribune
. She and her husband are now living in Alexandria [Virginia], where she is writing a monthly feature for the
Country Gentleman
. Now, Geno, is that chair perfectly comfortable for you?

GH: Yes, it's fine, thank you. I wonder if you'd say, Mrs. Roosevelt, that being the wife of the president means being a very busy lady?

ER: Someone wrote me a letter recently in which she said in sport, “You may think you are useful to poke your nose into so many things. You are really America's first nuisance.”

(LAUGHTER)

GH: How did you like getting a letter like that?

ER: I was very much amused. My family and I have laughed over it and I've even used it in a few speeches I've made.

GH: One of the things I've discovered about you, Mrs. Roosevelt, is a very keen sense of humor. Do you think a sense of humor is essential for a first lady?

ER: Well, I think if you can see the funny side of some things, it's easier now and then. For instance, the day a lady wrote me that if I would stay at home and attend to the housekeeping and not run around the country so much, she would not have soiled her white gloves on the stair rail which leads up from the lower floor to the East Room. I might have taken it really seriously and made my household unhappy, but knowing that the stair rail is wiped on an average of every fifteen minutes during the period when visitors are allowed in the White House, it struck me as extremely amusing that I should personally test the cleanliness of it. People do not realize the conditions that prevail in a house of this type and consequently cannot appreciate that it cannot be run exactly as your own house would be.

GH: I didn't meet you until after you came to Washington, and I've often wondered just what you thought when Mr. Roosevelt was elected for the first time in '32.

ER: Geno, I was terrified. One of my children was at the campaign headquarters that night. He came up and asked me the same question. If I'd dared to tell the truth then, I'd have told him what I've just told you.

GH: Why were you so terrified? When Mr. Roosevelt was governor of New York, didn't you get used to such a position?

ER: Four years in Albany were relatively simple. The White House, I knew, would be very different. To begin with, Albany was fairly near home. I would have to leave that. There were so many people I was fond of and with whom I worked; they couldn't all go with me. My time was taken up with so many interests that I'd have to curtail. And my privacy—I couldn't imagine what would become of that. I even remember wondering if I was going to be able to drive my own car.

GH: Well, you've been able to do that, haven't you?

ER: Well, yes. But one old gentleman I met up in Maine didn't think I should.

GH: What did he say?

ER: He said he didn't believe I was Mrs. Roosevelt because if I were, I'd have a chauffeur. He said his wife had always told him if she were living in the White House she'd have a chauffeur and the most expensive make of car.

GH: Well, Mrs. Roosevelt, you've kept right on doing things. How have all your fears worked out?

ER: I lost some of them when I decided that I'd be lost if I pretended to be anything I was not. Of course, that applies to everyone in any position. You must retain your natural self. If you don't, people whom you meet won't be themselves. They will think of you as a personage, not as a person. In realizing that, you see, many fears could be discarded. The household, the increase in mail, the more formal entertaining didn't really trouble me. But the realization of how much of it there'd be appalled me.

GH: You have quite a few people at the White House with whom you've worked before, haven't you?

ER: Yes, and I don't know what I'd do without them. There is really too much for one person to do. And if you have a few people you know
can do things without supervision, you're lucky indeed. The greatest danger, from my point of view, is that many of them are so ready to be helpful and shield me from contact with the ordinary difficulties and activities of daily life that I might become a helpless individual. As an example, Mr. Ike Hoover, who was then head usher, informed me that it was not the custom for either the president or his wife to run the elevator. I had to be quite insistent before I was allowed to do it myself, in spite of the fact that I told him that I had worked a similar elevator in our house for years and that I could still do it.