First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s timeless yet overshadowed words for the nation upon the most infamous American event of the 20th Century
By Athena Jeanne Hale
(Picture, above is of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1941. Photo courtesy of Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library [FDRL])
When most Americans with minimal historical understanding think of the phrase “Pearl Harbor Address”, they usually may picture President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the podium addressing the joint emergency session of congress on December 8th and those famous words that have echoed through history:
“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan…”
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “Pearl Harbor Address”, December 8, 1941.
One may even hear FDR’s distinct trans-Atlantic accent in the recesses of their mind when they read these words – some of the most renown words ever spoken by an American President.
However, most Americans are unaware that the President was not the first representative from the White House to address the nation after the notorious events on that infamous day; the First Lady was.
In the afternoon of December 7th, after the President had been briefed on the situation in Hawaii and while he set about writing the words he would address to Congress, the American People, and the World on the following morning, the First Lady too was writing an address for the American people to be included in her weekly Sunday radio address that evening.
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin writes:
“While the president worked on his speech, Eleanor was across the hall, rewriting the script for her weekly radio broadcast. When she reached the NBC studios at 6:30 p.m., she was joined by a young corporal, Jimmy Cannon, who was scheduled to follow her with a report on the army. Astonished to be in the presence of the first lady, the young solder fumbled with the clasp on his script. ‘She leaned over,’ he later wrote, ‘gently took it from me and broke the clasp.'”
– Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 291.
Eleanor Roosevelt was terrified of what there was to come and how all Americans would rise to face it. As a mother, she was terrified for her own family as well. Her fourth son Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. (third surviving; one of his older brothers died in infancy) was already serving on a destroyer in the U.S. Navy. Two of her other sons, James and Elliot, were in the military as well. Her daughter Anna Roosevelt Halstead and her children, as well as Franklin and Eleanor’s youngest son, John Apsinwell Roosevelt (who would eventually enlist and join his brothers in the war), were living in West Coast cities.
In the confusion of the events on Pearl Harbor day, there was great fear that the Japanese had aircraft and ships headed to attack the West Coast of the United States. The Japanese had, after all, already attacked not only Hawaii, but they were in the process of attacking Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippines, Wake Island, and they were planning to attack Midway. The idea that they would target California, Oregon, and Washington was neither unreasonable nor beyond the realm of imagination on a day riddled with such devastation.
Eleanor had already lost one of her favorite younger cousins Quentin Roosevelt, son of her uncle (President) Theodore, in the First World War when his plane was shot down over France on Bastille day in 1918. Therefore she knew that Presidents’ families were not immune from tragedy in times of war.
Nevertheless, and despite the fear she felt, the First Lady’s voice was strong and filled with courage and resolve when she took to the airwaves on the night of December 7th, 1941. She intentionally specifically addressed the women of the country and the youth on the specific challenges they would face in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead. While her words are less famous than those of her husband the following morning, I argue that they, just as her overall leadership during World War II, were just as poignant and just as important to our history.
Below, I have attached an audio clip of her radio address that night, as well as the full text:
Video credit: C-SPAN via Youtube
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking to you tonight at a very serious moment in our history. The Cabinet is convening and the leaders in Congress are meeting with the President. The State Department and Army and Navy officials have been with the President all afternoon. In fact, the Japanese ambassador was talking to the president at the very time that Japan’s airships were bombing our citizens in Hawaii and the Philippines and sinking one of our transports loaded with lumber on its way to Hawaii.
By tomorrow morning the members of Congress will have a full report and be ready for action.
In the meantime, we the people are already prepared for action. For months now the knowledge that something of this kind might happen has been hanging over our heads and yet it seemed impossible to believe, impossible to drop the everyday things of life and feel that there was only one thing which was important – preparation to meet an enemy no matter where he struck. That is all over now and there is no more uncertainty.
We know what we have to face and we know that we are ready to face it.
I should like to say just a word to the women in the country tonight. I have a boy at sea on a destroyer, for all I know he may be on his way to the Pacific. Two of my children are in coast cities on the Pacific. Many of you all over the country have boys in the services who will now be called upon to go into action. You have friends and families in what has suddenly become a danger zone. You cannot escape anxiety. You cannot escape a clutch of fear at your heart and yet I hope that the certainty of what we have to meet will make you rise above these fears.
We must go about our daily business more determined than ever to do the ordinary things as well as we can and when we find a way to do anything more in our communities to help others, to build morale, to give a feeling of security, we must do it. Whatever is asked of us I am sure we can accomplish it. We are the free and unconquerable people of the United States of America.
To the young people of the nation, I must speak a word tonight. You are going to have a great opportunity. There will be high moments in which your strength and your ability will be tested. I have faith in you. I feel as though I was standing upon a rock and that rock is my faith in my fellow citizens.
Now we will go back to the program we had arranged for tonight……”
– Eleanor Roosevelt, “Pan American Coffee Bureau (ER’s regular weekly radio broadcast)”, December 7, 1941
Sources:
Burns, Ken. The Roosevelts: An Intimate Portrait, Episode 6: “The Common Cause” (PBS: Florentine Films, 2014). Film.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994).
How a millennial trans woman born in the mid-1980s came to dedicate so much of her life to the study of the most outspoken and independent U.S. former First Lady and diplomat born a century earlier.
By Athena Jeanne Hale
(Picture, above is of me visiting the Eleanor Roosevelt statue at the FDR National Monument in Washington, D.C. this past February)
Many have asked me variations of the same question: “Why Eleanor Roosevelt?” “How did you come to study Eleanor Roosevelt?” “What is it about Eleanor Roosevelt that draws you so much?” In this blog post I will attempt to answer these questions as well as what about me and my life makes Eleanor Roosevelt a fitting topic of study. You will learn a lot about my family and my story in this post.
Our patriarchal society fundamentally neither values nor respects older women and their accomplishments. Older women are expected to be silent and invisible unless they are standing in the kitchen or sitting at the dinner table (and even there they are often treated condescendingly). Any older woman who defies that expectation and attempts to make a career for herself and take on public leadership and authority faces backlash, hostility, and is often passed over in positions for far less qualified and far less competent men. The painfully recent 2016 U.S. Presidential election is an extreme example of this phenomenon. Older women, particularly ambitious, commanding, and powerful older women are socially constructed as inferior, objectionable, and even loathsome.
I was raised in a household that completely defied and diverged from this construction. My grandmother, whom my single mother and I lived with until she died of stomach cancer in 1993 when I was seven, was the single most influential and prominent person in my childhood and chiefly responsible for my early development as a person. Beverly Jeanne Schumacher, known by Jeanne or Jeannie, was not just our family Matriarch and did not just inspire in me a lifelong passion for cooking (she did fit that bill like many wonderful grandmothers) but she was also a successful professional and highly respected leader in the community of Imperial Beach, California (south of San Diego) where we lived. Before I was born, my grandmother served as the Assistant Director of the San Diego Boys and Girls Club in the late 1970s and the director of Admissions at San Diego Job Corps in the early 1980s (both highly rewarding jobs that, alas, paid very little money) before retiring when her health started to decline. She remained active and involved in the community after retirement. She spearheaded programs that worked with teens at risk for dropping out of school and turned their lives around. She found them jobs, personally tutored them until they found passion in learning, and gave them hope. Everyone within a twenty block radius knew and respected my grandmother; when Jeanne Schumacher spoke, people listened.
My grandmother, Jeanne Schumacher, in the 1960s (left) and in the early 1990s (right). Photos credit: Family collection.
My grandmother was highly independent and individual, highly intellectual (studied literature and history), highly creative (she was an accomplished local artist and craftswoman), highly authoritative, and highly compassionate and empathetic to others. She instilled all of these qualities in me. She also sewed the seeds of my value system and activism. She was a strong feminist, a Civil Rights activist, an ally to the Gay liberation movement (which in the early 90s and earlier, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, was not a popular position to take), and an advocate for the rights of the local homeless community. She was also politically engaged. She took me to see then Governor Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary speak at San Diego State University during the 1992 election, when I was six years old. She also encouraged free gender expression and performance in me from my earliest age; I believe she’s the first person who really saw me for my true gender. I often wonder if I would have came out a lot sooner if she had lived to know me in my adolescence. My grandmother was overall my first and greatest hero.
My Grandmother and I (age 1) sitting in our front yard on a warm summer day, 1987. Photo credit: family collection.
So I grew up with a deep respect and admiration for older women, particularly older woman leaders, that I have carried with me always. As I developed a passion for learning history in elementary school, I often became frustrated at the lack of older women represented in the curriculum. In elementary school we learned about Susan B. Anthony and Rosa Parks and that is about it. First Ladies and Queens were not even covered in the curriculum, except in rare passing. I did not even learn about trailblazers Sandra Day O’Connor (first woman Supreme Court Justice), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (second woman Supreme Court Justice), or Madeleine Albright (first woman Secretary of State) until years later, even though the three reached the top of their respective public service careers shortly before or during my childhood.
As I entered middle school and high school, I began to study the U.S. Presidents in my classes and studied First Ladies and woman diplomats on my own time. Often these books were collections of short one-chapter biographies of the First Ladies that did not go into details about their accomplishments beyond marrying and supporting their husbands. Nevertheless I tried to learn what I could about these women with the limited resources and research skills I had at the time.
Even in high school, when I went through a particularly conservative phase influenced by my JROTC instructors and church pastors at the peak of George W. Bush’s nationalism (I will always regret voting for him in 2004, the year I turned eighteen), I still looked towards prominent women leaders to be the subjects of my study and fascination. I began to read biographies and collect books about Bush era National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for example.
After high school, I did not have the resources or the ability to qualify for the resources to begin college for some time. I could not fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) because I did not have access to my parents’ tax information – a requirement for those under the age of 24 in Nevada. So I entered the workforce and bided my time until I could attend college, paying for two part-time semesters at Community College out of pocket in the meantime.
Meanwhile, I became active in politics and joined the Barack Obama primary campaign as a volunteer in late 2007. After attending one of his rallies, I connected with his contagious message of “the Audacity of Hope” and after researching his policy positions and critically thinking for myself, I began to move back to a liberal worldview and campaigned vehemently for his election (serving as a precinct captain, Washoe County delegate, and delegate to the Nevada State Democratic Convention in the process). One may ask why, since I respect and love to study older women leaders so much, I did not support Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary. I have asked myself the same question. I think it was a combination of the charisma and charm of Barack and Michelle Obama, the fact that I still had a lot of ties to conservative influences in my life (and even then, they really hated Hillary Clinton), and the fact that one of the biggest news story of the primary was Hillary’s support for the Iraq War (I soured on Bush when I lost a few friends from high school who went into the service; lost them either permanently or in a complete shift in personality from the horrors of that war). I recognize my own hypocrisy now in criticizing someone for voting for Bush’s war when I myself voted to keep him in office. At any rate, I did not adamantly oppose Hillary in 2008 and would have proudly voted for her had she won the primary; I just preferred Obama at the time. I really favored her appointment to serve as Secretary of State. (Eight years later, I was all in for Hillary from the beginning, even serving as an organizer for her campaign in Philadelphia for six weeks).
When I returned to Community College full time in the Spring of 2011, I tried to bring women’s history into all of my classes. In U.S. History I (up to 1865), I incorporated a section on Abigail Adams into a paper on the founding fathers. In Core Humanities I (a course that looks at the history, literature, art, architecture, and philosophy of Ancient and Medieval times – of course, with an unfortunate Eurocentric focus), I wrote a hilarious multi-form long poem that combined the styles of Ancient Greek lesbian poet Sappho, Mary – mother of Jesus, Hildegard von Bingen, the Wife of Bath from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Joan of Arc, and Queen Elizabeth I (I wish I still had a copy!) I continued and still continue to consistently seek out and bring forth the hidden or undervalued accomplishments of women for the rest of my academic career.
In the fall of 2011, my study of Eleanor Roosevelt began. Prior to taking U.S. History II (1865 to present) with Dr. Sharon Lowe at Truckee Meadows Community College, I knew very little about Eleanor Roosevelt. I knew she was FDR’s wife, of course. I kind of knew she was Teddy’s niece. I knew she was outspoken advocate of Civil Rights. I had a vague picture of a tall woman with fox furs and a flowered hat who spoke with a funny high-pitched old-timey mid-atlantic accent. But I knew next to nothing about her story. An assignment in Dr. Lowe’s class changed my life.
One of my favorite things about Dr. Lowe and her classes was the sheer flexibility, creativity, and variability of her big assignments. She had a list of twenty different options from which each student could choose to complete for their one big assignment before the midterm, and another list of twenty different options from which each student could choose for their one big assignment after the midterm. The possibilities were endless. Standard analytical essays, book reviews, movie reviews correcting all historical inaccuracies and explaining how the writers could have been more true to history, “write a long letter from ___________ to ________” (insert historical figures), “write a letter as a constituent of ____________, complaining about their policy of _____________”, etc. The most daring and most creative assignment was to read an autobiography written by an historical figure from the time period studied during that half of the class and come to class dressed as that historical figure and give a speech about their life in their character.
For my first big assignment (before the Midterm, which covered Reconstruction through the Great Depression), I read the Theodore Roosevelt biography Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris (New York: Random House, 2001) and wrote a standard book review. For my second big assignment (covering World War II through the end of the Cold War), I wanted to continue my focus on the Roosevelts but shift to the younger generation, so I decided to embrace my theatrical nature and read Eleanor Roosevelt’s Autobiography (New York: Da Capo Press, 1992 edition) and come to class dressed in her persona. Looking back, I can see where my need to experiment with gender expression paired with my respect for older women leaders and my interest in the Roosevelts to give me the audacity to take on this assignment. (I would not come out as a trans woman for another three and a half years).
Me (right, obviously) in costume as Eleanor Roosevelt for my presentation in class in November 2011 next to a portrait of Eleanor in a similar outfit. Photo credit: personal collection; portrait credit: William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library (portrait was presented to First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on May, 26 1994).
I learned so much I did not know about her from Eleanor’s autobiography. I did not know about her ‘My Day’ column. I did not know she was one of the primary campaigners for FDR’s New Deal policies. I previously had no idea she traveled around the world meeting foreign dignitaries and visiting troops during World War II. I was shocked that I had never before learned that a former First Lady worked at the United Nations after leaving the White House and was in fact one of the very first American delegates to the UN General Assembly. Most significantly, I had never before learned that there was a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) nor that Eleanor Roosevelt was the person most responsible for its drafting and adoption. The document that became the foundation for international human rights law was created because an outspoken and unapologetic older woman and former First Lady set out to achieve it. I became obsessed with the UDHR, because I believe, like Eleanor did, that it provides the best and most concise blueprint ever created for the eradication of so many of society’s problems and is the greatest chance we have to create true and lasting peace – the main obstacles to this objective are that many governments (including our own) deliberately try to eradicate and deligitimize any education on human rights from public education systems. I argue that despite not having the legal authority to make governments adhere it it, the UDHR is an extremely powerful document precisely because governments go to such lengths to not educate their citizens on its contents.
I intend to discuss the question “What are human rights?” and the whole UDHR in depth in one of my next posts, but the main idea of the UDHR can be summed up in its first (of thirty) article:
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
The first time I read the document, I realized that everything my grandmother had ever taught me about humanity, life, and goodness could be summed up in the UDHR’s philosophy. I also realized that I deserve dignity no matter who I am. Being human was enough to qualify for rights and dignity.
I continued my scholarship of Eleanor Roosevelt and human rights throughout 2012, writing a paper on her diplomatic travels for my World War II history course, completing a major project on human rights for my International Relations political science course, and discussing her autobiography a lot in ‘the History and Culture of the Cold War’, another outstanding course taught by Dr. Lowe.
In the spring of 2013, my last semester at TMCC, the Library faculty committee (which planned scholarly events) and the history department asked me to headline their Woman’s History Month event in March with a reprisal of my Eleanor Roosevelt presentation, except bigger, better, and more detailed with a more detailed costume. I spoke on March 26, 2013 to an audience of about 50 which included my soon-to-be-wife, my mother, and one of my aunts. I even set the stage with several framed pictures of significant figures in Eleanor Roosevelt’s life and a poster-size version of the UDHR.
Me, in costume as Eleanor for my presentation at the 2013 TMCC Women’s History Month Event. Photo credit: (me) personal collection; (ER) Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.
Video of my presentation at the 2013 TMCC Women’s History Month event, with introduction by English Professor Mark Maynard. Uploaded to my own Youtube channel but credit of TMCC Audio/Visual department.
One of the reasons why I chose Stetson University (in DeLand, FL) as the institution at which to complete my Bachelor’s degree (besides the fact they offered me a generous scholarship), was the freedom they give to students in choosing the topic of their own undergraduate thesis project (as long as students can keep to the structure and writing rules for their field of study). I knew I wanted to write mine on Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I knew I wouldn’t change my mind.
I started Stetson in the Fall of 2013 and continued to focus on Women’s history, human rights history, and Eleanor Roosevelt. I took American Women’s History with Dr. Emily Mieras in my first semester and wrote my term paper on how ER came to work at the UN and how she supported women’s rights while there. In the Spring of 2014, I applied for and was awarded a Student Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) grant by the College of Arts and Sciences, with Dr. Mayhill Fowler as my research adviser. The SURE grant is a wonderful program they conduct each year to supplement student research and travel. For a student relying on their spouse’s paycheck just to eat, and behind on bills every month, the SURE grant really made my research possible.
In the summer of 2014, I traveled to Hyde Park, New York and spent three weeks in the archives of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library. I collected a bank of copies of over 400 documents and 13 audio files from Eleanor Roosevelt’s personal papers covering all UN documents related to the UDHR. While there I visited the FDR museum, Franklin and Eleanor’s graves in the Rose Garden at Springwood (FDR’s boyhood home, which shares the grounds with the Presidential Library), Eleanor Roosevelt’s own national historic site at Val-Kill Cottage, and even the Eleanor Roosevelt monument in Riverside Park, two hours south of Hyde Park in Manhattan.
The following are a sample of the many photos I took during my trip:
Statue of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt outside the Welcome Center at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
The graves of Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1882-1945 and Anna Eleanor Roosevelt 1884-1962 in the Rose garden at Springwood in Hyde Park. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
The busts of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in the Entrance to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s Red Cross Uniform she wore to visit the troops in both World Wars; Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s personal typewriter she used to type (or dictate) many of her ‘My Day’ columns while at Val-Kill, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
Collection of books written by Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
Val-Kill is the only National Historic Site, as recognized by the U.S. National Park Service, dedicated solely to a former U.S. First Lady. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s Val-Kill Cottage, Hyde Park, New York. Photo credit: Personal Collection.
Eleanor Roosevelt Monument in Manhattan, New York City, at the entrance to Riverside Park at the corner of Riverside Park Drive and West 72nd Street. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
In the Fall semester of 2014, under the guidance of Dr. Eric Kurlander, I wrote my undergraduate thesis “Eleanor Roosevelt’s ‘Most Wonderful and Worthwhile Experience’: Chair of the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission, 1946-1948” with the documents I had collected and the book collection I was slowly accumulating. I presented my research in front of the Stetson history department faculty, my peers, my wife, and my mom who flew out specifically to visit us and see me present the research I had been working on for over a year. My presentation was excellent and received a standing ovation. I was extremely proud of my work.
In the Spring of 2015, I presented a poster at the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference (FURC), and presented powerpoint presentations at Stetson’s Gender and Sexual Diversity Conference and the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Spokane Washington (heavily medicated since I fell and broke my arm the second day of the conference and still got up the next morning and gave my presentation). I was the only representative of Stetson University at the Conference. Dr. Kimberly Reiter, director of Stetson’s SURE grant program, helped me apply for all the conferences and also gave me a lot of guidance on research in general.
I won the Stetson Department of History Manuscript of the Year Award that April as well as the Ann Morris long analytical essay contest in the Gender Studies department and the Jacqueline Hogue Gentry Award for scholarly commitment to the advancement of women’s rights.
I also finally came out in February of the Spring semester 2015, and started living authentically. The knowledge, gained from the UDHR and the personal convictions of Eleanor Roosevelt, that my humanity alone granted me the right to dignity and freedom of expression and conscience, really has empowered me to stand proud in the face of all the adversity I’ve faced since.
Now, everyone who knows me associates me with Eleanor Roosevelt and I wear that association like a badge of honor. When I can finally afford to apply to grad school, I intend to continue my scholarship of Eleanor and dedicate my life to education on and the pursuit of universal human rights. In doing so, I not only carry the personal convictions of Eleanor Roosevelt forward but also the personal convictions of my grandmother and my own conscience.
All of the books I now own on Eleanor Roosevelt, including many of her own works. Photo credit: Personal Collection.
Armistice Day, as Veteran’s Day was known before 1954, which observes the ceasefire signifying the end of World War I at 11:11 AM on November 11, 1918 and commemorates all those who fought in that war and every war since, was a very significant day for Eleanor Roosevelt. She was left with a lifelong impression of the horrors of war when she toured the French battlefields of “the war to end all wars” and visited wounded soldiers in hospitals across Western Europe in 1918 on a trip with her husband, who was then Assistant Secretary of the Navy. From the onset of the national holiday, ER believed that the great value in celebrating Armistice day was to think deeply about the reasons why humanity has to work together to prevent future wars.
In an essay for Why Wars Must Cease (1935), Eleanor Roosevelt recounted her impressions of the great loss the French populace suffered as a result of World War I. She writes:
“Out of the fields at evening came old men and boys. Apparently two generations were missing in these French villages where placid rural life was again being carried on. One generation lay under the sod in the acres of cemeteries that fill the French countryside. The next generation was in military training, getting ready to take the places of those who had already died for their country. War maneuvers were in progress and the young men who had grown up since the World War were learning to use bayonets and charge across the fields where their fathers had died.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt, “Because the War Idea is Obsolete,” reprinted in What I Hope To Leave Behind: The Essential Essays of Eleanor Roosevelt (New York: Carlson Publishing, Inc., 1995), p. 495.
Eleanor Roosevelt habitually reflected on Armistice Day in her highly syndicated daily ‘My Day’ newspaper columns every year in November. Starting with her ‘My Day’ columns in 1937 and continuing through 1955, one can observe an evolution on her views of Armistice Day. At first she shared the, perhaps naive, hope that the storms of war that were rumbling through the rest of the world, especially Europe and East Asia, would not come to darken the lives of her fellow Americans (the columns from 1937 and 1938). Then, once American involvement in the war became inevitable, ER is observed to be frustrated and saddened by the grim fate already plaguing Europe and soon to involve young Americans (the column from 1940). Once the war was brought home for Eleanor Roosevelt, she writes of a renewed deep significance for observing Armistice Day, using the day to not only respect those who fell in the First World War, but those who were currently fighting the second (the columns from 1941-1945). In the aftermath of World War II, coinciding with her work at the United Nations and on behalf of International Human Rights, Eleanor writes with renewed vigor of the need to use Armistice Day as not only a day to commemorate the service of those who fought wars in the recent past and were still fighting wars, but also a rallying call to recommit to the cause of working toward world peace and an end to all wars (the columns from 1946-1955).
The purpose of this blog entry, the first in what I hope will be a large project soon (more information later), is to list several quotes from Eleanor Roosevelt on Armistice Day as we reflect on the status of our world this Veteran’s Day. I have interspersed the quotes below with pictures of ER visiting troops on her diplomatic trips around the world throughout World War II. In 1941, ER flew with the Tuskegee airman, the all African-American air force unit. In the fall of 1942, ER visited American and British troops on a tour of the wartime preparations in Great Britain. In the summer of 1943, she visited tens of thousands of troops in a morale-building tour of the South Pacific, sometimes being the only woman on the islands she visited. In 1946, after the first session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt took a tour of war-torn Europe, including the concentration camps used in the Holocaust and she visited with refugees at displaced persons camps.
As we honor those who have fought past wars, those who are fighting wars around the world now, and those who will soon be fighting, surely the best way we can ever hope to honor them, is to really do all we can to create a world and a society that eliminates the need for war.
“The papers record today that in Germany no Armistice Day ceremonies will be held. I hope that over here we will continue to remember this day and that it will serve always to renew our reverence for those who served our country, but at the same time that it will emphasize our determination to prevent the recurrence of war.”
Eleanor Roosevelt visits a wounded soldier in the South Pacific c. 1943. Photo Credit: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (FDRL).
“Today is Armistice Day and I wish that on this day we could bring home to everyone in our country how fortunate we are to have no threat of war hanging immediately over our heads. In any direction that we turn our eyes, we see people who live in daily anxiety either because of the threat of war, or because one is actually going on. For what we are spared may the Lord make us truly thankful!”
Eleanor Roosevelts visits with Allies soldiers in the United Kingdom. c. 1942. Photo Credit: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (FDRL).
“Again we gather in body or in spirit at unknown soldiers’ tombs the world over, but the belief that their sacrifice would never have to be renewed is gone. In the years to come, in many countries in the world, people will again gather to mourn the death of young men, old people, women and children, killed in this period of war madness.”
Eleanor Roosevelt visiting a wounded soldier in the South Pacific. c. 1943. Photo Credit: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (FDRL).
“We reached Detroit, Mich., on time yesterday, and barely arrived at the hotel before the military parade in commemoration of Armistice Day began to pass in the streets. It was cold and gray, and yet the streets were lined with people. It was evident that this was because of a new realization of the significance of the day. Every other Armistice Day we have celebrated something that was past. Today, we celebrate a rededication of ourselves to preserving, in the present, what people died for so frequently in our history. This time, I hope, that we can use this period of emergency to awaken in every citizen the realization that democracy at home and in the world, must be made safe by daily continued efforts, year by year, which will bring to all people a freedom from want and fear. This entails a more equitable economic situation and some kind of machinery which will allow nations to suppress an aggressor who wishes to take up arms. ”
Eleanor Roosevelt with a large group of soldiers at a U.S.O. presentation on the White House lawn before deployment. June 1, 1942. Photo Credit: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (FDRL).
“Today is Armistice Day. When I think of the rejoicing which we all felt on this date in 1918, I cannot help having a sense of futility. There is just one thing for which I pray on this day—that as a nation we will not fool ourselves again into believing that which is pleasant but will accept reality and grasp the fact that we are part of a world which cannot be divided and treated in sections.”
Eleanor Roosevelt visiting a soldier in the South Pacific. c. 1943. Photo Credit: Wiki Commons.
“It seems appropriate, also, today to speak of the fact that tomorrow will be Armistice Day. For a brief moment this morning, we shall stop to say a prayer not for the dead, but for the living who are not being spared their present sacrifices because of those that were made in that hope in the last war. May all of us pledge ourselves this year on Armistice Day to study unremittingly the causes of past failures and to keep constant watch over ourselves and our actions as citizens so that our country may avoid the pitfalls of the past. We can allow ourselves, in the future, neither the luxury of hate and prejudice, nor of soft sentimentality. We know that those who brought about this war must be punished. We know that nations which allowed themselves to be ruled by Fascist leaders, must prove their ability to rule themselves and to act democratically before they again earn our complete trust. We know that among the Allies there must be trust and understanding and that we must not allow such prejudices as have prevented us in the past from cooperating fully with other people, to stand in the way of real understanding and real cooperation. We know that a continuing peace means great economic adjustments, probably certain temporary sacrifices. But if we are looking for a peaceful world and more prosperity in the long run, we must study economic questions and make such adjustments as are necessary for better world cooperation. To all those who like myself have people whom they love fighting in far distant places, this Armistice Day must bring the hope that before long there will be another one.”
Eleanor Roosevelt presenting a wounded soldier with a medal. c. 1943. Photo Credit: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (FDRL).
“The skies wept on Armistice Day and, as I stood in the quiet garden by my husband’s grave with three friends, I kept thinking of the great futility of war. The war is over, but fighting goes on. China is still waging a civil war. The Javanese are fighting for freedom because no satisfactory agreement has yet been reached between them and the Dutch government. India still seethes, and the whole of Europe is a changed world. Great Britain is different, too, though the British character shows change less quickly than some of the other European peoples. It does not really seem a very satisfactory Armistice. Nominally, we are no longer at war. Our men therefore clamor to come home, and new men feel aggrieved when they have to go out to far distant places. We, at home, quarrel among ourselves and each and all of us are bent on achieving our own special interests.”
Eleanor Roosevelt visiting the site of a downed plane near Guadalcanal, c. 1943. Photo Credit: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (FDRL).
“Although on this Armistice Day millions of people throughout the world grieve for those who will never return to share their lives, it is essential that the people translate this grief into the kind of action which will serve the ways of peace. Two things seem to me essential to be done in this country if we are going to achieve the democracy which we hope will become the strongest force in the world today. First, we must really see that every one of our citizens has a right to participate in his government and that no longer, anywhere in this nation, will anything be allowed to interfere with that participation… The poll-tax must go. Next, the nation must insure equal economic opportunity regardless of race, creed or color… On Armistice Day, when men of every religion and every race are being mourned, we cannot forbear to speak out against any discrimination which curtails unity and democracy in our nation.”
Eleanor Roosevelt being flown to the Tuskegee Institute by Chief Civilian Flight Instructor Charles Alfred Anderson. c. 1941. Photo Credit: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (FDRL).
“Some people had a holiday on Monday, the 11th of November. But how many people actually stopped for two minutes at 11 a.m. and thought of what they should do to prevent future wars? As a country, our unwillingness to pay the price for peace comes up in one thing after another, day by day. Let’s stop and add up the price of peace!”
Eleanor Roosevelt presenting a soldier with the Purple Heart medal for his sacrifice and bravery, in the South Pacific. c. 1943. Photo Credit: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (FDRL).
“The prayer which all of us had in our hearts this Armistice Day was that we might be given wisdom to use our military and economic strength with restraint and generosity during these next few years, and not be tempted to use it for increased power. May God help us to work for greater confidence throughout the world, so that men may dare to disarm and to hope for a world in which the brotherhood of men may be stronger than their fear of one another.”
Eleanor Roosevelt meeting with Allied women service members in her tour of wartime Great Britain. c. 1942. Photo Credit: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (FDRL).
“On Armistice Day last Friday, as I sat in Committee Three [at the United Nations] and heard representatives of several countries still saying none too kind things to each other, I could not help wondering whether Armistice Day meant a great deal to any of us. It is a day that should give us many sobering thoughts. As we pay tribute to the men who gave up their lives in the first World War, we should rededicate ourselves to the ideals of peace”
Eleanor Roosevelt visiting the refugees of the Zelsheim displaced persons’ camp. c. 1946. Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM).
“For it isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt. Broadcast, Voice of America, (November 11, 1951).
Eleanor Roosevelt in one of her many Radio Addresses. c. 1940s. Photo Credit: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
“I have before me an article written by a high-school boy after the past Armistice Day program. He realizes how many of the former high-school boys have gone out to be killed in “the little wars” around the globe and that perhaps before too long in the names he has heard read out in praise as heroes will include his own name and those of his contemporaries. He writes: ‘Such a thought is terrible enough to be unspeakable. Yet I write it knowing its awfulness and its hopelessness. Convince me, you teachers, that I am wrong. Teach me, you history teachers, that history will not repeat itself. Deflect me if you can from the path of cynicism but I think I am too old already.’”
– Eleanor Roosevelt, ‘My Day’, (January 1, 1953).
Eleanor Roosevelt inspecting Australian troops in Queensland on her visit to the South Pacific, c. 1943. Photo Credit: John Oxland Library, University of Queensland.
“The eleventh of November was Armistice Day and one cannot help but think of all those who have given their lives for their country in wars that are past, including the Korean War in which so many of our men have been involved. Those who fell fought for the United States but under the United Nations flag. One only hopes that they and their loved ones realize that stopping aggression in Korea may have stopped World War III, and prevented aggression throughout Asia. This first attempt at collective security may be a milestone in history. It had to be done on a voluntary basis and for that reason those nations that took part may have suffered more than had there been a sufficient compulsory force ready to put down aggression whenever it appeared. Let us hope that in the future through the world more people will be able to live to work for peace.”
Eleanor Roosevelt eating dinner with American soldiers in the Virgin Islands, c. 1943. Photo Credit: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.
“Armistice Day, of course, was thought by many to be the end of all wars and yet it proved to be only an armistice with frequent breaks. I am glad we celebrate this day, however, because it reminds us that we have been struggling ever since the end of World War I to find a way to bring an end to war.”
Eleanor Roosevelt's 'My Day' Revisited 