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First Lady

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT HAS DEVELOPED A stature almost equal to that of her husband. Perhaps his life in the White House would have been calmer with a less active First Lady, but it would also have been less full of human interests, sympathy and generosity. His aides sometimes complain about the random people who enter the White House "by the back door," thanks to Eleanor Roosevelt. To his wife's friends and acquaintances the President lends a patient ear, having learned that often they have things to report about America which do not come through official channels.

Between husband and wife there is obviously a deep loyalty. Naturally two such busy people have very little time alone with each other. Customarily Mrs. Roosevelt waits until her husband is in his study at night, or just before he is to retire, to have a quiet talk with him.

The President was deeply troubled over the recent divorce of his eldest son, Jimmy. He was devoted to Jimmy's wife, the former Betsey Cushing. Her intelligence, her sensitive charm, had endeared this daughter-in-law to him. In the year of Jimmy's secretaryship she was seen often with the President, and the legend grew up that when he is "in a Dutch mood," a little upset and unhappy, it is Betsey who could bring him round to gaiety again. "They're free and twenty-one," he has said of his children and their public pursuit of happiness. "There doesn't seem to be anything I can do."

Among the small group working in the White House with him, Marguerite LeHand, his secretary for more than twenty years, would certainly come first. Handsome, dressed always with meticulous care, quiet and self-effacing, "Missy" is perfect in her role. To her the President entrusts his most personal correspondence and his private business affairs. "Missy" has her own suite in the White House-living room, bedroom and bath. To her phone the switchboard operator has routed the transatlantic calls from Bullitt and Kennedy in the watches of the night. If "Missy" approves, then the call is put on the phone bedside the President's bed.

Fight Your Own Battles

THE NEW DEAL PACE LAID LOW ONE OF THE PRESIDENT'S close friends. Harry L. Hopkins is convalescing in the quiet berth of Secretary of Commerce, regaining some of the energy he threw into the job of spending billions for emergency relief. His friendship with the Roosevelts illustrates still another facet of the President's character. Hopkins is the blithe reformer, applying the social worker's formula to broader fields of government with a tart self-confidence which Mr. Roosevelt admires. Then, too, the relief administrator demonstrated that he could take punishment. Whether the messes he occasionally found himself in were of his own or his boss's making, Hopkins stood his ground. And the President rewarded him with his friendship, heaping one kindness after another on the sick man and his motherless daughter. But for those who dump their problems in his lap the President has only irritation and annoyance; the habit of running to the White House with big and little troubles ranks almost with stupidity in his catalogue of sins.

Beyond the circle of family, friends and close co-workers is the whole range of American life. Captains and kings have sat at his desk or dinner table, and he has developed clever techniques for handling them. Here is shaggy-maned John L. Lewis, come to pour out his grievances. He sits down and the President begins to talk, easily, graciously, so that the visitor hardly gets the traditional word in edgewise. Time is winging. Fifteen minutes is such a short space of time. Mr. Lewis finds himself outside, angrier perhaps but none the wiser.

Patience is one of the President's weapons, and his famous charm is another. I have seen men definitely hostile come out from under the Rooseveltian sun with a bewildered look. "He certainly is attractive, isn't he?" they say as though announcing a profound discovery.

In this critical year of 1940 the man in the White House seems to have few worries. Certainly financial worry, which has plagued many Presidents toward the end of their time in Washington, gives Mr. Roosevelt no concern. All his life he has had the comfortable cushion of a private income; not large but sufficient to enable him to do the things he wants to do. In the White House the Roosevelts have stinted neither themselves nor their guests. Those who keep close watch on such things are of the opinion that his annual travel and entertainment allowance of $25,000 has been much too small to cover these items in the Roosevelt budget. It is expensive to entertain royalty; and half a dozen heads of state have stopped at the White House, besides innumerable citizens of every kind and rank. But even were his salary and private income insufficient to make up the entertainment-travel deficit, and he had dipped into his capital, this optimist would not be concerned. He knows very well what his earning power -- as writer or editor, for example -- will be when he becomes a private citizen again. To say nothing of the earning power which his wife has established for herself.