FDR - Jean Edward Smith [253]
FRANKLIN AND ELEANOR continued to move in separate circles.* ER was considerably ahead of the president in racial matters and equal rights for women, and was not always an asset in FDR’s struggles with Congress. “She is not doing the President any good,” wrote Harold Ickes, who could scarcely be described as unsympathetic to the New Deal. “She is becoming altogether too active in public affairs and I think she is harmful rather than helpful.”51
Roosevelt was tolerant if not supportive. “I can always say, ‘Well, that’s my wife; I can’t do anything about her.’ ”52 For her part, Eleanor made the best of it: “He might have been happier with a wife who was completely uncritical. That I was never able to be.… Nevertheless, I think I sometimes acted as a spur, even though the spurring was not always wanted or welcomed. I was one of those who served his purposes.”53
FDR’s relations with his children were another cause for concern. “One of the worst things in the world is being the child of a President,” he once said.54 Anna, now married to the newsman John Boettiger, lived in Seattle and rarely came to Washington. Boettiger had resigned from the stridently anti-Roosevelt Chicago Tribune to avoid embarrassing the president, and he and Anna had been given a sweetheart deal by the media mogul William Randolph Hearst. Hearst and FDR disliked each other personally, yet they often needed each other and Hearst relished doing favors for the First Family. Boettiger was made publisher of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer at a salary of $30,000 a year plus a share of the profits, and Anna became editor of the women’s page at $10,000. The salaries were far in excess of prevailing pay scales but Hearst was buying White House goodwill. Various associates of FDR were disgusted at the arrangement, but neither Roosevelt nor Eleanor seemed concerned. “I shall miss them,” ER wrote Franklin, “but it does seem a grand opportunity.”55
James, the president’s eldest son, and his wife, Betsey, lived in Boston, where James was in the insurance business. In 1936, evidently feeling the need for companionship, FDR summoned the couple to Washington and made James his naval aide with the rank of a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps. That was the rank FDR deemed appropriate, despite James’s lack of military experience. Eleanor disapproved. “Is James a 2nd Lieut. or Lieut. Colonel?” she asked.56 When Louis Howe died, James became the president’s executive assistant and moved into the adjoining office. James was utterly unequipped to fill Howe’s role. Roosevelt got loyalty, but his son lacked judgment and experience. He made commitments in the president’s name without FDR’s knowledge and brazenly used his position for personal gain. William O. Douglas, then head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, reported a visit by James on behalf of a client with business before the SEC.57 Douglas was so shocked that he went to the White House with his resignation. According to Douglas, FDR cradled his head on his arm and cried like a child for several minutes.58
Public criticism of James became so shrill that he was forced to release his income tax returns. They disclosed nothing illegal, but media pressure was sufficiently intense that in mid-1938 the president’s son checked into Rochester’s Mayo Clinic with a perforated ulcer. A large portion of his stomach was removed, and James chose not to return to the White House. His marriage to Betsey Cushing was also on the rocks. FDR, who was very fond of his daughter-in-law (Betsey often served as White House hostess during ER’s travels), sent Harry Hopkins to dissuade James from getting a divorce, but to no avail. “I was hurt that Father had sent him instead of taking it up with me himself,” wrote James. “In