Gestión de la seguridad y salud en el trabajo

“No one who ever saw Eleanor Roosevelt sit down facing her husband, holding his eyes firmly and saying to him, ‘Franklin I think you should...Franklin surely you will not...’ will ever forget the experience...It

would be impossible to say how often and to what extent American government processes have been turned in a new direction because of her

Introduction

Eleanor Roosevelt is another First Lady who was very influential in her role. Her life, political activism, and her role in the United Nations have been researched by many historians, and the Roosevelts are the most written about couple in presidential history.3 Most of these historians, however, do not delve deeply into her time in the White House, but Roberts, Marton, Beasley, and Gutin do study her role as First Lady. Mrs. Roosevelt was the longest serving First Lady in the United States history, serving just over three terms from 1933 until her husband President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed away in 1945.4 This chapter will establish the historical setting in which the second Roosevelt administration ran the executive office, provide a brief biographical summary of Mrs. Roosevelt, discuss security issues, and reflect on her effect on the security agenda within the realm of the theoretical framework.

Historical Context 1933-1945

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the second Roosevelt administration that occupied the White House after cousin Theodore from 1901 to 1908.5 President Roosevelt successfully won an unprecedented four presidential elections, prior to the ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1947 that limited the number of terms the president could serve to two.6 This section will briefly summarize the period in which the Roosevelts served in the executive office.

The Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1939, was the deepest, longest, and most widespread economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world.7 _The Great Depression was triggered in the United States by the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as “Black Tuesday,” which sent Wall Street in New York into a panic, and financially wiped out millions of investors.8 _{Over the next few years, consumer spending and} investment dropped, which led to a steep decline in industrial output and rising levels of unemployment. Between 1929 and 1932, the global Gross Domestic Production (GDP) fell by an estimated fifteen percent.9 During this ten-year period, international trade dropped by fifty percent, and the unemployment rate rose to twenty-five percent in the United States, the highest unemployment rate in the country’s history.10 In 1933, President Roosevelt took office when the Great Depression reached its worst point, with the highest rates of unemployment and lowest GDP.11 He implemented the “New Deal,” which was a series of liberal social policies, the bulk of which were enacted between 1933 and 1938.12 Although these policies helped

improve conditions of the Great Depression, it was not until the outbreak of World War II in 1939 that the United States was lifted out of the Great Depression.13

The Second World War began on September 1, 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, and France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.14 _{For the first few} years, the war was fought mainly between European powers. It eventually involved most of the world’s nations which formed two military alliances: the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers. The Allies were made up of China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States. The Axis Powers consisted of Germany, Japan, and Italy. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan carried out an attack on the United States’ naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and other European territories in the Pacific Ocean, drawing the Americans into the war.15 World War II in Europe ended with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, persuading Germany to an unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945. The Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945, which called for the Japanese surrender, however, Japan refused to surrender under its terms, leading the United States to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki, on August 9, 1945. The war in Asia ended on August 15, 1945, bolstering the total victory of World War II by the Allied Powers.16

World War II surpassed World War I in terms of casualties and became the most widespread war in history, which involved more than one hundred million people from over thirty countries.17 It was a repeat of the period of “total war,” which first occurred during World War I, which meant that all available economic, industrial, and scientific resources were put towards the war effort, effectively erasing the distinction between military and civilian resources.18 _{World War II was the deadliest conflict in history due to the mass deaths of} civilians, the Holocaust, which killed approximately eleven million people,19 _{and the atomic} bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, which killed approximately one hundred and thirty thousand people, totaling the casualties of World War II between fifty million to eighty- five million people.20 Following the Second World War, the United Nations was created to prevent future conflicts and to foster international cooperation. The victorious powers – France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States – became the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.21

Road to the White House

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884, in New York City, New York.22 Ms. Roosevelt had a difficult childhood. Her mother died when she was eight years old, and her alcoholic father died from delirium tremens, a brain disorder caused by alcoholism, when she was ten years old.23 Ms. Roosevelt and her siblings were separated among different family members, and Ms. Roosevelt was sent to live with her grandmother.24 The family kept their promise to Ms. Roosevelt’s mother and sent her to Allenswood Academy, an all-girl boarding school in London, England.25 Ms. Roosevelt returned to the United States in 1902, where she was introduced as a debutante and expected to start dating men.26 Her fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, began to take a romantic interest in Ms. Roosevelt, and after a sixteen-month engagement, the couple married on March 17, 1905.27

Over the next ten years, the Roosevelts had six children, five of whom lived to adulthood.28 In 1910, Franklin Roosevelt won a state senate seat in New York after he was drafted to run by the Democratic Party.29 In 1912, Mrs. Roosevelt attended her first national political convention, where the couple threw their support behind Woodrow Wilson.30 When he won the presidential election in 1913, he appointed Franklin Roosevelt as the assistant secretary of the Navy.31 _{Coincidentally, this position was the same position President Theodore} Roosevelt, Mrs. Roosevelt’s uncle, occupied during the McKinley administration.32 _{He served} in the role from 1913 until 1920, when he moved to further his political career.

In 1920, Franklin Roosevelt partnered with James Cox, the Democratic presidential nominee, as his vice presidential nominee, campaigning around the country promoting the League of Nations and Wilsonian institution-based internationalism.33 _{They suffered a defeat} to Republican Warren Harding.34 In 1921, Franklin Roosevelt contracted poliomyelitis, commonly known as polio, an infectious disease that causes muscle weakness resulting in the inability to move.35 He never fully recovered from polio and was often restricted to a wheelchair unless he made a public speech. Reporters respected his wishes to not be photographed while in a wheelchair, which is how much of the American public was not aware of his handicap.36 Franklin Roosevelt’s illness rekindled the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt, which had grown distant due to extramarital affairs they both participated in.37 Franklin Roosevelt previously had an affair with Lucy Mercer, Mrs. Roosevelt’s social secretary, and it was rumored that Mrs. Roosevelt later had a relationship with Lorena

Hickok.38 There are eighteen boxes of Ms. Hickok’s personal papers documenting her affair with Mrs. Roosevelt at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library. Many letters schedule phone calls or meetings like this one written on January 11, 1940: “Call me at apartment 9:30 tomorrow morning. Love, Eleanor.”39 _{Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt decided: “like} many another political spouse, Eleanor believed it was better to keep up the public pretense of a normal marriage rather than go through a divorce that would not only shatter their nuclear family but also compromise the couple’s future prospects.”40 _{Both had political aspirations,} and Franklin Roosevelt was on the political trajectory to become President. A divorce would cripple this possibility as no prior President had ever been divorced before.41 This has since changed as President Reagan and President Trump were both divorced men prior to their election.

After Franklin Roosevelt’s defeat in the 1920 election and his contraction of polio, he temporarily retired from politics and traveled to Florida to recover.42 When Mr. Roosevelt returned to New York, Mrs. Roosevelt became a doting wife and cared for her invalid husband.43 Also during that time, Mrs. Roosevelt became his surrogate with the Democratic Party, as she kept his name in the public and became a political activist herself.44 She found her own public voice through radio broadcasts, writing newspaper columns, and publishing the

Women’s Democratic News.45 She also edited all the national and New York state Democratic Party publications, was on the boards of labor unions and social reform organizations and taught civics, history, and literature at a girl’s school.46 _{During this time, the Roosevelts’} relationship was strengthened as they began to rely on each other. They no longer had an emotional relationship but created a political partnership. This is evidenced by their extramarital affairs, the continuation of their marriage, and their work together during the twelve years they resided in the White House, which will be discussed in greater detail in this chapter. In 1928, Franklin Roosevelt re-entered the political world and won the governorship in New York, with the aid of Mrs. Roosevelt’s activism.47 _{In 1930, Franklin Roosevelt won} reelection for governor of New York48 _{and in 1932, Franklin Roosevelt won the presidential} election, again with the help of Mrs. Roosevelt who worked behind the scenes coordinating with the “Women’s Division of the Democratic Party,” gave public speeches, and participated in photo opportunities.49 During Franklin Roosevelt’s term as New York governor he was restricted by his handicap, so Mrs. Roosevelt traveled around the state acting as his “eyes and ears.”50 _{Mrs. Roosevelt continued this as she became the First Lady of the 32}nd _presidential

administration, and the longest serving First Lady as President Roosevelt was elected for four presidential terms, but died early into his fourth term in 1945.51

Security Issues

The president kept a basket at his bedside, called “the Eleanor basket,” in which she placed policy and personnel recommendations.52 In her biography, Eleanor Roosevelt: Transformative First Lady, Maurine H. Beasley says:

Eleanor had Franklin’s ear, if not always his agreement to act, on causes that particularly concerned her. According to columnist Raymond Clapper, Eleanor became a ‘Cabinet Minister without portfolio – the most influential woman of our times.’ Working both publicly through her own network of various New Deal officials, she tried to exercise leadership within the administration, even if she did not succeed.53

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt affected three key security issues: one foreign policy issue, World War II, one economic issue, the Great Depression and the New Deal, and one social issue, human and civil rights for African Americans. These issues were selected based on the criteria in the research design and are supported by primary documentation. They will be discussed theme-based rather than chronologically, outlining Mrs. Roosevelt’s influence, and will reflect on her effect based upon the theoretical framework utilized in this thesis.

Foreign Policy Issue: World War II

The Second World War effectively pulled the United States out of the Great Depression as total war drew all available resources and stimulating the economy by providing jobs. This is considered a foreign policy issue because it deals with diplomatic actions and implications abroad. During this time, Mrs. Roosevelt advised the president on important personnel appointments; for example, Mrs. Roosevelt suggested that the president appoint Harry Hopkins as chief diplomatic advisor, who became emissary between President Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin during World War II.54 Mr. Hopkins performed as the president’s emissary as he carried out diplomacy between Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin to initiate the Lend-Lease program in 1941, which helped arm Great Britain and the Soviet Union, to defend themselves against the Nazis until the United States entered the war.55 The First Lady also aided European refugees during World War II, in particular, European children under the age of fifteen. Her work for European refugees is considered a foreign policy issue because it deals with diplomatic actions abroad because if one world power closes its doors to refugees

that could lead other countries to close their doors as well, and her work was to help European children which could have further implications on the relationship between the United States and European countries.

The Immigration Act of 1924 or Johnson-Reed Act was a federal law passed with minimal Congressional opposition that limited the number of immigrants who were admitted from any country in the world to two percent of the number of individuals from that country who were already in the United States.56 _{The Department of State, Office of the Historian states} that this law was aimed “to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity.”57 _{This act restricted} the immigration of Africans and Europeans and banned the immigration of Arabs and Asians.58 This law was enacted prior to the outbreak of World War II, and the Nazis persecution of German Jews and other minority groups, and caused Mrs. Roosevelt to support relief efforts for German refugees. In February 1939, she joined Senator Robert Wagner of New York and Representative Edith Rogers of Massachusetts to create the Wagner-Rogers bill which would allow the entry of twenty thousand German refugee children under the age of fifteen.59 At a press conference on February 13, 1939, Mrs. Roosevelt said, “I hope the Wagner Act on Refugees will pass. I think it is a wise way to do a humanitarian act and it seems the fair thing to do.”60 Also, on November 28, 1939, the First Lady gave a speech at Hotel Roosevelt, in which she stated: “We must not let ourselves be moved by fear in this country. We have seen that happen too many times in other countries. Sometimes I worry about the possibility that we will follow their example.”61

In June 1940, President Roosevelt asked Mrs. Roosevelt to form a committee to coordinate refugee rescue efforts, and she worked with organizations like the American Friends Service Committee and the German-Jewish Children’s Aid to establish the Committee for the Care of European Children (USCOM).62 _{Through her work with USCOM, Mrs. Roosevelt also} petitioned the United States Congress and the State Department to expand immigration quotas to provide refuge for Jews and other displaced individuals of the war.63 _{She worked with Jewish} leaders to urge Congress to pass a bill that would increase the immigration quota for Germans by twenty thousand, unfortunately, the bill failed to pass Congress.64 Breckenridge Long, a well-known anti-Semite, who was in charge of refugees for the State Department, persuaded the president that the refugees would pose a wartime security problem.65 However, Mrs. Roosevelt was successful in pressuring the State Department to issue several hundred visitor visas for Jewish children under the age of fifteen to come to the United States.66 In her “My

Day” newspaper columns, Mrs. Roosevelt mentions the USCOM several times as she talks about attending meetings, for example on September 21, 1940, she writes, “There followed a long meeting of the United States Committee for the Care of European Children. Mr. Eric Biddle is still in London and his efforts to see people and talk over questions of transportation for children must be somewhat impeded by the conditions now existing in that city.”67 _Mrs. Roosevelt did not falter in her support for the USCOM, on March 6, 1944, the First Lady writes.

Every group interested in feeding the children of Europe is a humanitarian group, but war is a ruthless business. It cannot be conducted along humanitarian lines. The sooner our pacifists and church groups realize this and bend their efforts to winning the war, the better it will be for the children of the world. I know that one of the arguments is that feeding children will help us to win the war. It is said that the people in the occupied countries are becoming weak and bitter, and that they will not feel that we are any better than their present oppressors when we attack. That again is a question for the military to decide. We have not as much information as they have, but even a layman like myself cannot believe that the peoples of the nations now subjugated can be so shortsighted.68

In addition to her efforts of negotiating for refugees, Mrs. Roosevelt toured the battlefront to both observe conditions and to boost morale during World War II. In 1942, Mrs. Roosevelt traveled to Europe to visit American soldiers, and in 1943, she visited American troops on the Pacific front and toured the hospitals there.69 The First Lady discusses her visit to the Pacific:

I do not remember when my husband first suggested that it would be a good idea for me to take a good-will trip to the Pacific, though I do remember the suggestion came because he felt that Australia and New Zealand, being so far away, had been rather neglected in the matter of visitors. Both countries were exposed to attack and the people were under constant strain and anxiety. We had had to send a great number of our servicemen out there, an influx which had added considerably to the strain and which had been, for people whose own men were fighting in Africa and Italy, a disrupting even though reassuring occurrence.70

On December 7, 1941, the United States suffered a tragic attack at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as Mrs. Roosevelt recalls: “A few minutes after three o’clock the secretaries of war and navy, Admiral Beardhall, my husband’s naval aide, secretaries McIntyre and Early, and Grace Tully