Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Eleanor

By David Michaelis.

Overall I liked this, but it's a loooooooooong book to get through and at this point the library is demanding the book back, so I dragged myself through 300+ pages when I woke up too early this morning + read through lunch at work. Huzzah to me for plugging away on that one, I think.

 

One thing I notice about this book, after having read a bunch of biographies of Eleanor and FDR pretty recently, is that it has some dish (mostly on racist moments, sigh, and the medical mishandlings of Eleanor's death) I haven't read elsewhere, but seems to be kind of short on relationship stuff. Eleanor's various inamoratos and inamoratas are brought onstage and a lot of them then kind of just...drift off and we never hear what happens to these people again, which I think seems kind of like an omission. I admittedly know what happened with say, Nancy Cook, but he doesn't get into how people are in and out of her life and why? Strange.

 

That said, I was quite touched at the end of the book when the author wrote about meeting her at age 4, it's freaking adorable.

 

Interesting details:

 

* Eleanor's own mother called her plain to her face, as well as "Granny." What a bitch.

* "It took Eleanor two weeks to get her calling routine to six minutes."

* Franklin's boss at the Navy apparently thought "only Negroes could wait on their superiors." With a horrifying direct quote of "Whom else could one kick?" Eleanor was horrified.

* Racism is a fun one in this book (she says sarcastically). Eleanor's mentioned as having racist moments--she used to not like Jews too much, used the word "darky" a few times and got called out on it--but she got over it and made friends with people of other races. Franklin, uh...nope. Like, dude, ugh. He didn't care if anyone got lynched unless they were white, and Thurgood Marshall inadvertently heard him dropping the n-bomb. YEEEEEEEESH.

* Added bonus: one of Eleanor's boyfriends, Earl Miller, thought the Nordic race was superior. Ughhhhh.

* I am, however, quite proud of the time Eleanor objected to a segregated seating by plopping her seat in the aisle, straight on the dividing line. Nobody could dare to make her move. She also disagreed with the relocation camps.

* Quote from Franklin: "It would be wonderful to be a war president of the United States."

* I loved the whole section about knitting (the Fiber Nation podcast covers this) and how Eleanor got involved in that campaign. I was less thrilled to find out that when Eleanor refused to take Lucy Mercer's money for the knitting program, Franklin HAD THE WHOLE PROGRAM DISBANDED. Dude, so shitty.

* Eleanor: "I have no talents, no experience, no training for anything."

* At one point Franklin is "declared responsible" for using raw recruits to entrap homosexual citizens, which he rebuts. This was made public and considered shameful. Franklin apparently blamed this on getting scapegoated by a senator. Me: "the hell?"

* After Franklin got polio, their youngest kid John said, "From then on, I had no parents." He was five.

* "The children, visiting, took their father's closeness with Missy "as a fact of life." Elliot registered the barest of mild surprise when he found Missy on Franklin's lap in the main stateroom. As for her wearing only a bathrobe, "it was no great shock to discover that Missy shared a familial life in all aspects with Father."

* Eleanor: "Either you must learn to allow someone else to meet the need, without bitterness or envy, or somehow you must make yourself learn to meet it."

* Eleanor to Franklin on dealing with his mother--the author notes that they've already had a failed marriage, dead child and crippling disease--"Sometimes I think constant irritation is worse for one than real tragedy."

* Add another to the list of men Eleanor seemed to have inordinate affection for: her son-in-law John Boettiger, who "understands" his relationship with her daughter. John claims that he and Anna "FEEL each others' thoughts." However, someone finds out from some of John's former colleagues that he's emotionally unstable and in addition to warning Anna about this, GIVES ANNA A GUN, saying "You may need this sometime." Daaaaaaaaamn.

* "FDR's skill was the handling of human beings. He could get people to do what he wanted them to do by making them feel free to do as their own best judgment dictated, which he then happily betrayed if another point of view served his larger purpose."

* When the king and queen of England came to dinner, hosted by Sara, at one point the Limoges china is piled up too much, the table tips over and an avalanche of dishes falls. Eleanor's sister-in-law Betty grumbles, "I do hope that wasn't MY china." The king and queen are unfazed.

Sara wanted Eleanor to keep it a deep dark family secret, but Franklin and Eleanor disagreed, and she wrote the story in her column so that everyone else would know that nothing that happens to them while host/essing could be as bad!

Later, while visiting in a village in Israel, a kid drops a lemonade pitcher and Eleanor helps clean it up and comforts the kid, telling him this story and says, "You mustn't worry, son, it happens everywhere."

* Franklin "seemed to have no bond to people, not even his children." 

* While at the Palais de Nations chambers, she said she'd love to slide on those floors. Later, she got to!

* Eleanor: "You ought to know me well enough to know that I like young men."

* Eleanor to a protege of hers: "Well, Allard, you must remember you can't flush all the toilets."

* Eleanor got backed into by a car while trying to cross the street, which she blamed on herself--also she noticed that the guy was young, African-American, and she didn't want him to get into trouble for hitting her. She goes home and gets patched up by her doctor/roommate, then headed out in a rainstorm to a fundraiser. "When they saw the condition I was in at the dinner, they raised more money!"

* Later on she shows up on a rainy night for the Kennedy inauguration party. The hostess invited 100 people, and nobody came but Eleanor, "covered with plastic bags."

* Eleanor was giving a speech for Ed Koch and a crowd gathered, blocking a cab. People told the cabbie to stop honking and the cabbie said he had a fare and the guy was in a hurry. Upon finding out the speaker was Eleanor, the cabbie got out of the car, let his fare sit there, and listened to the rest of the speech. Awwwwww.

* In the acknowledgements, the author said he met Eleanor at age four and asked her for Juicy Fruit. "I have no recollection of anything she said, I was held close by an intensely noticing gaze, which was so full of goodwill, it seemed to brim out of her eyes as light. I had never seen that: actual goodness flowing out of a human being and only long afterward realized how fortunate I was to have felt it full in the face at four." AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

 

Four stars. 

Coolidge

By Robert Sobel.

Is there anything interesting to say about Coolidge? I guess what stands out to me after 400 pages is that he had it pretty cushy. He governed during a period of time that was pretty peaceful.. He managed to nip out JUST before the depression struck, no major war things going on, he had a "if it ain't broke, why fix it?" sorta 'tude. I guess things looked pretty cool to Cooldge.

The other mysteries of this guy: how was he popular enough to get elected? And how did he manage to get married when I can't? (I have this thought about a LOT of presidents, especially the most boring/unpleasant ones.) The opening quote says that Coolidge's personality was apparently so negative that it at once challenged human interest." 

Standout things (such as they are):

• He disliked Prohibition, the Ku Klux Klan and racism in general, but would he do anything about stuff like that? Mmm, nope. 
• "Those who think he was humorless will be surprised to learn that he was selected by his graduating class to deliver the Grove Oration, which by tradition had to be amusing." He said he delivered it in a monotone, which people found hilarious. 
• Quote from a nameless reporter: "You just have confidence in Coolidge. He may not do what you want him to do, he may not do what you think he ought to do, but you know he's doing his best to do right." Author: "Of all our presidents, Coolidge was the one who couldn't care less what we thought of him--while taking pains to make sure his reputation was safeguarded." 
• The author: "Coolidge scholars will find some fresh interpretations in these pages but no major revelations." and "This book is no based on original research." SO WHY AM I READING THIS, HMMMM?
• The author notes that Coolidge destroyed his private papers, which is usually an indicator of THIS IS GONNA BE DULL, y'all.
• His wife Grace said he once told her, "I am as much interested in human beings as one could possibly be, but it is desperately hard for me to show it." 
• He didn't make it into a fraternity originally, which shocked him but not me. A classmate said, "A drabber, more colorless boy I never knew than Calvin Coolidge when he came to Amherst. He was a perfect enigma to us all. He attended class regularly, but did not show any great interest." 
• Later he did get recruited to join a new fraternity as a senior. He wasn't much of a joiner.
• He did get a reputation for public speaking in college, though. 
• "The wonder of Coolidge was that he accomplished all he did without the usual trappings of politicians. He meant to be accepted on his own terms, and he was."
• Coolidge was hired at a law firm because, according to one of the partners, "I liked to laugh and Calvin Coolidge was very funny."
• Grace Coolidge: "I have to talk for two."
• "What a lively, inquisitive person like Grace Goodhue saw in Coolidge is difficult to imagine."
• On nominating Harding: "There aren't any first-raters this year. This ain't 1880 or any 1904; we haven't any John Sherman or Theodore Roosevelt; we got a lot of second-raters and Warren Harding is the best of the second-raters." Explains a lot. 
• Someone calls in Harding to ask him if he has any skeletons in his closet: Well, let's see, illigitimate child, another girlfriend, and "there were rumors one of Harding's ancestors was black." "Harding asked for a few minutes to think it over, then said he was clean." LOLOLOLOLOL GOOD GOD, DUDE. I haven't read a Harding biography yet because they don't have any at the town library and I haven't hit the college one since You Know When, but I really look forward to the ridiculousness of Harding.
• However, when nominating Coolidge, "several reporters wrote that the applause was louder than the cheers that had come with the Harding nomination."
• The Boston Globe said, "Calvin Coolidge was the first vice president in a hundred years who was not wished on the country; the country wished him on the Republican Party." Oh my.
• Coolidge believed in not pursuing office, but waiting until it came to him. Seemed to work!
• Quote from someone else: "Everything comes along to him in a most uncanny and mysterious way."
• Got mistaken by a fire marshal at a hotel for being vice president--of the hotel. 
• Coolidge on the Senate: "the Senate would do anything it wanted to do whenever it wanted to do." 
• Coolidge didn't have a phone on his desk and never used the one in a booth outside of his office, saying phone calls weren't private and "it isn't in keeping with the dignity of the office."
• This book notes that Coolidge cultivated a ...well, very quiet persona. "The Coolidge archives have many pictures of him laughing heartily, but the press rarely used these; newspapers seemed to prefer the photographs in which he looked blandly and blankly out on the world. Of course, that was the image the president had deliberately fixed on reporters who covered him."
• Coolidge: "Whenever I do indulge my sense of humor, it always gets me into trouble."
• He also "did not suffer fools gladly, wanted to save time, and he found silence was the best way to accomplish this" "Many times I only say 'yes' or 'no' to people. Even that is too much. It winds them up for twenty minutes more." Also, "If you keep dead-still they will run down in three or four minutes. If you even cough or smile they will start up all over again." 
• Why yes, there IS a "Coolidge Wit and Wisdom" book that someone published! Will Rogers said "I bet he wasted more humor on folks than almost anybody."
• The joke about Coolidge describing a church sermon as about "sin" and "he's against it" wasn't true, but he said "It would be better if it were true."
• Coolidge disliked Hoover, who he called "Wonder Boy," said Hoover "gave me nothing but advice, and all of it bad." At one point Coolidge told him that if you see ten troubles coming down the road, nine of them will run into the ditch before they reach you. Hoover agreed, but said he disliked being unprepared for the tenth.
• Coolidge: "The president shouldn't do too much, and he shouldn't know too much." Specifically that the president can't resign if he's involved in someone else's mistake. Author's snark: "One can only wonder whether presidents in the 1970's and afterward have considered this matter." LOL.
• A small boy came by the White House to give his consolations on Coolidge's son's death, and the guy who brought the kid in was told "Whenever a boy wants to see me, always bring him in."
• "Coolidge's campaign was both unusual and dull." LOL.
• Coolidge's opponent: "What I wanted was for Coolidge to say something. I didn't care what it was, jus so I had someone to debate with. He never opened his mouth."
• Coolidge: "I don't recall any candidate for president that ever injured himself very much by not talking." 
• "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" was a theme with him. 
• There's debate as to whether or not Coolidge had any idea or not if a depression was coming. 
• "I would like to be known as a former president who tried to mind his own business."
• Sherwin Lawrence Cook tried to rank presidents, putting Coolidge solidly in second tier, not leading the pack but not as bad as Polk or Fillmore. High praise?
• Coolidge's autobiography stops after he wins his presidential election. 

Overall, three and a half stars. Could have used more humor anecdotes, but I suppose this is as comprehensive as you get with this guy. 

 

 

 

 

FDR

By Jean Edward Smith.

I got this from the library. It's really huge. I speed read and I'm still like, about to start my second renewal of this at the library. It's long. Good and comprehensive, especially on war stuff, but long.

Interesting bits:

• "Three presidents dominate American history: George Washington, who founded the country; Abraham Lincoln, who preserved it; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who rescued it from economic collapse and then led it to victory in the greatest war of all time." True dat. I do say he's about my favorite president (more or less...ish....) since he really did a lot (and as this book pointed out, while paralyzed).
• "The riddle for a biographer is to explain how this Hudson River aristocrat, a son of privilege who never depended on a paycheck, became the champion of the common man." This is generally chalked up to his getting polio--and the author notes that hanging out at Warm Springs with poorer people. 
• Frances Perkins: "the most complicated human being I have ever known." FDR on himself: "I'm a juggler. I never let my right hand know what my left hand is doing." 
• "With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan, no president has been more serene in the conviction that whatever happened, everything would turn out all right. "Take a method and try it," he once said. "If it fails, admit it and try another. But above all, try something." (Something Hoover was...not into.)
• Things that didn't exist before FDR: Social Security, unemployment compensation, uh, a bunch of things...also we used to be "a third rate military power" before WW2 and finished as the most powerful nation in history.
• FDR had over a million stamps in his collection and the WH physician estimated that he spent over 2000 hours while president working on it. 
• Authorial snark on Eleanor's upbringing: "A nunnery novitiate would have met more men than she did." 
• Franklin "never let law school interfere with his personal life." "FDR's attitude towards law school was similar to Ulysses S Grant's view of West Point: it was a hurdle but should not be taken too seriously." Grant painted and read books and FDR "led an exhausting social life and wrote doggerel about his professors." When someone told him he couldn't be called an intellectual until he passed his law exams, he said, "That just shows how unimportant the law really is." He "had little passion for the law," but "proved adept at the law when he chose to apply himself." At one point he's handed $1000 at work when he was a managing clerk to handle 8-9 minor suits. Later, FDR returned the money and said, "Oh, when they called the cases, I tried them all and won." 
• "While in Paris, Franklin and Eleanor had their fortunes told by a French clairvoyant. "E is to inherit a fortune," FDR wrote Sara, "and I am to be president of the U.S. or the Equitable, I couldn't make out which." (Equitable?!) 
• Basically, FDR only did law to run for president. His goals were (a) seat in the State Assembly, (b) assistant secretary of the Navy, (c) governor of New York. His audience hearing him say this found it reasonable. 
• A quote from FDR on a speech: "On that joyous occasion of clams and sauerkraut and real beer I made my first speech, and I have been apologizing for it ever since."
• I haven't seen a whooooole lot in these books about FDR's relationship with Huey Long, but when you find something, it's choice: (a) Sara "sotto voce" saying "Who is that awful man sitting on my son's right?" when Huey, wearing "a loud checkered suit, orchid shirt, and a water melon pink necktie" came to lunch. Huey's opinion on FDR was "I like him. But by God, I feel sorry for him. He's got even more sonsabitches in his family than I got in mine."
• Quote from FDR on one of his political campaigns: "I had a particularly disagreeable opponent. He called me names...and I answered in kind. And the names I called him were worse than the names he called me. So we had a joyous campaign."
• My Beloved Smother Sara: "I have always thought Franklin perfectly extraordinary, and, as I look back, I don't think he has ever disappointed me." 
• More FDR on campaigning: "There is nothing I love as much as a good fight. I never had as much fun in my life as I am having right now." 
• "Children take one look at me on the street and run." -Louis Howe, bragging that he's one of the four ugliest men in New York.
• Howe upon meeting FDR: "Almost at that very first meeting, I made up my mind that nothing but an accident could keep him from becoming President." (And heck, polio didn't stop him....)
• Here is a totally random story in the footnotes. I'm not sure who "Jusserand" is, but he's recounted as having gone skinny-dipping with Theodore Roosevelt, but kept on his gloves. "We might meet ladies," he informed the president when asked about his attire." 
• Eleanor on Louis Howe: "Louis had enormous interest in having power, and if he could not have it for himself, he wanted it through someone he was influencing." 
• Louis Howe: "Oh, hell, it's no trick to make a President. Give me a man who stays reasonably sober, shaves, and wears a clean shirt every day and I can make him President."
• Eleanor got interviewed about wartime thriftiness while having ten servants in the house. ...shyeah. 
• "As a young legislator in Albany, FDR had backed the prohibitionist cause, reflecting the sentiments of his upstate district. In his personal life, Roosevelt enjoyed a drink as much as anyone. He paid no attention to Prohibition and never believed in it for an instant." 
• There is a very heartwarming story about how Sara sat Mary McLeod Bethune next to Eleanor at a big deal ladies lunch. "From that moment on, my heart went out to Mrs. James Roosevelt. I visited her at her home many times subsequently, and our friendship became one of the most treasured of my life. Eleanor also notably provided water for the lady herself when she was giving a speech.
• "They knew how to lift him out of cars sand devised a technique for carrying him up long flights of stairs. The two men would each grasp an elbow and lift Roosevelt up the steps in a standing position. Those watching from a distance could well believe Franklin was climbing the steps himself."
•  "Eleanor and Franklin were strong-willed people who cared greatly for each other's happiness but realized their own inability to provide for it." 
• Eleanor: "From a personal standpoint, I did not want my husband to be president. I realized, however, that it was impossible to keep a man out of public service if that was what he wanted and was undoubtedly well equipped for. It was pure selfishness on my part, and I never mentioned my feelings on the subject to him." She did, however, write a "hysterical" letter to her sorta-girlfriend Nancy Cook about how she couldn't bear to be First Lady, who showed it to Louis Howe, who destroyed the letter. Cook's girlfriend Marion Dickerman, who also read the letter, claimed that Eleanor wanted to get a divorce and run away with Earl Miller. 
• Hoover called FDR "a chameleon on Scotch plaid" for his ability to say the right thing at the right time to the right audience.
• Frances Perkins on FDR: "He had no doubts. He just believed with a certainty and simplicity that gave him no pangs or struggles." 
• A reporter said that essentially, he had an expressive face but he said almost nothing and deflected very well if he didn't want to give a direct answer.  "I never met anyone who showed greater capacity for avoiding a direct answer while giving the questioner a feeling it had been answered." (Like Jen Psaki these days!)
• "We never saw Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt in the same room alone together," said the White House chief usher. 
• FDR didn't really ask his Cabinet for advice. 
• Eleanor quit the Daughters of the American Revolution after they refused to let Marian Anderson sing at Constitution Hall. She later performed at the Lincoln Memorial and for the King and Queen, so nyah. 
• Depressing quote from Eleanor on her husband: "I realize more and more that FDR is a great man. He is nice to me but as a person I'm a stranger and I don't want to be anything else." Also, "I was one of those who served his purposes."
• FDR on his wife: "I can always say, Well, that's my wife; I can't do anything about her." 
• Quote from FDR in a speech: "You have heard for six years that I was about to plunge the nation into war; that you and your little brothers would be sent to the bloody fields of battle in Europe; that I was driving the nation into bankruptcy; and that I breakfasted every morning on 'grilled millionaire.' Actually, I am an exceedingly mild mannered person--a practitioner of peace, both domestic and foreign, a believer in the capitalist system, and for my breakfast a devotee of scrambled eggs."
• Harold Ickes on poker with FDR: "One thing about playing with the President, we do not have to curry favor by letting him win." 
• Quote from Roosevelt before he met and befriended Churchill, on Churchill becoming prime minister: "I suppose Churchill was the best man England had, even if he was drunk half of his time." LOL.
• Alice Roosevelt on Wendell Willkie: his candidacy sprang from the grass roots--"the grass roots of a thousand country clubs."
• I'm amused that FDR, around the time of running for term #3, sent a message to the delegates saying he had no desire or purpose to continue being president, to be a candidate or to be nominated, and anyone can vote for whoever they want. So within 15 seconds everyone starts yelling "We want Roosevelt!"
• At one point Willkie, giving a nice slam to Frances Perkins, yells that he won't appoint a woman as secretary of labor. FDR: "Why didn't he have the sense to leave well enough alone? He was going good. Why did he have to insult every woman in the United States? It will make them mad, it will lose him votes." Which apparently it did." Hahahahah.
• FDR: "I consider it a public duty to answer falsifications with facts. I will not pretend that I find this an unpleasant duty. I am an old campaigner, and I love a good fight." "He's all the Barrymores in one," a reporter exclaimed."
• FDR claimed he wouldn't send anyone's sons into any foreign wars, which pissed off Willkie. "That hypocritical son of a bitch. This is going to beat me." FDR noted that "if we're attacked, it's no longer a foreign war."
• I don't know what to make of the Summer Welles situation: dude was gay. FDR doesn't appear to be bothered by this. There's definitely An Incident in which Hull got drunk and came on to a bunch of Pullman car porters, and Roosevelt "chose to ignore the incident, believing it was a momentary lapse triggered by alcohol and fatigue." However, a dude named Cordell Hull really hated Welles, got a lot of evidence about the whole thing and basically blackmailed Roosevelt into getting rid of Welles. Roosevelt was pissed AF about the whole thing and got super mad at William Bullitt, who helped Hull get the blackmail material and then asked for Welles's job. "If I were St. Peter and you and Sumner came before me, I would say to Sumner, "No matter what you have done, you have hurt no one but yourself. I recognize human frailties. Come in." But to you I would say, "You have not only hurt another human being, you have deprived your country of the services of a good citizen; and for that you can go straight to Hell."  

Quotes on dining at the White House:

• Hemingway: "We had rainwater soup followed by rubber squab, a nice wilted salad and a cake some admirer had sent in. An enthusiastic but unskilled admirer."
• Tallulah Bankhead ate before she came (sensible).
• Harold Ickes: "It does seem a little out of proportion to use a solid-gold knife and fork on ordinary roast mutton."
• Eleanor on the lady she hired to cook, Henrietta Nesbitt: "I don't want a professional housekeeper. I want someone I know." Nesbitt had never had a job before and had no supervisory experience and suddenly had to direct 26 people.
• Blanche Wiesen Cook called it Eleanor's revenge. "The housekeeper was one expression of her passive-aggressive behavior in a marriage of remarkable and labyrinthine complexity."
• James Roosevelt: "The worst cook I've ever encountered." 
• Anonymous observer noted that Nesbitt didn't cook herself, but she did stand over the cooks, "making sure that each dish was overcooked or undercooked or ruined in one way or another."
• Nesbitt loved Eleanor and "displayed contempt for the president's desires." 
• "When the King and Queen of England wanted coffee, Mrs. Nesbitt sent iced tea." 
• FDR eventually imported his mother's cook into the "family kitchen" after his mother died.
• FDR claimed to Anna and Grace Tully "not entirely in jest" that the real reason he wanted to be elected to a fourth term was "so I can fire Mrs. Nesbitt." Alas, Truman ended up doing the job after Mrs. Nesbitt refused to bring a requested stick of butter to a lunch. 

Anyway, four (loooooooooooooong) stars. Took even me forever, but there's a lot to cover.

Empty Without You: The Intimate Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok

Edited by Rodger Streitmatter.

This is a comprehensive look at the Eleanor/Hick love relationship, featuring over 300 of their surviving letters to each other (out of 16,000 pages worth!) and helpfully filling in the context of the letters, and writing up what went on whenever the two were together on (frequently inevitably disastrous) vacation trips. The editor admits to focusing on their most significant relationship years of 1933-35 and omitting the duller ones. Things started out well and diminished over the years when Lorena had to quit her beloved career as a reporter over her being "First Friend" and kept trying to find other jobs she didn't hate, and feeling more and more unhappy with that and with not seeing a super busy Eleanor as much. Eleanor thrived on Lorena's admiration, but the more that she got from others/the masses, the less she felt dependent on her. Eleanor ended up financially supporting Lorena a lot. They kept writing and meeting throughout the years, but Eleanor probably felt less after a while. Lorena got another girlfriend for awhile but never got over Eleanor. 

I'll admit I'm not sure if I get the appeal of Hick exactly, but she's a much better writer than Eleanor (then again, she's a professional), as the editor notes that Eleanor pretty much had a format of being schmoopy at the beginning and ending of letters and then being "here's what I did today" in the middle. 

Notable things:

• Eleanor: "No form of love is to be despised." 
• Yes, it sounds like they got laid. And Lorena got gifted with lingerie.
• Lorena (not a fashion plate) reports that someone mistook her for a Girl Scout leader. "My very soul writhes in anguish."
• Every time they got mobbed by the press on vacation, Lorena got pissy. Especially at awful photos. 
• I enjoyed Eleanor snarking that she "suddenly felt like being herself and not like the first lady said several things the first lady shouldn't have said."
• Lorena writes about her travels for her traveling job: "You are now in the drought area." He had hardly got the words out when simultaneously we got a flat tire and it started to pour! Hail, too!" 
• Eleanor gets this absolutely wrong about their upcoming location: "Of course we are going to have a good time together and neither of us is going to be upset." 
• Their 1934 vacation was the worst of many bad ones, in which Lorena just totally lots her shit at reporters, got forced to go camping with a bunch of people who invited themselves along and loved naked cold swimming, fell off her horse into a river, and embarrassed the heck out of Eleanor.
• Eleanor notes that Lorena and Earl Miller "need me more than anyone who things go wrong for neither of us have anyone much nearer to turn to whom I must remember not to offend!" 
• Eleanor considered leaving FDR at one point. 
• Eleanor: "What a nuisance hearts are and yet without them life would hardly be worthwhile!"
• Eleanor felt like she loved Hick just the same even if she wasn't always returning the love in kind.
• Eleanor: "Why can't someone have this job who'd like it and do something worth while with it?"
• Lorena: "But about 90 percent of the time I'm out of step with life and miserable." I hear ya.
• Eleanor: "Last night I had written questions and was asked if I loved my husband, which I did not answer!" 
• "In 1939, they had written each other a daunting 533 letters; by 1944, that figure had plummeted to fifty." 
• "I had 800 ladies to tea to-day. It was awful but I think successful!" -life of Eleanor
• Lorena wrote a biography of Eleanor, but it never found a publisher because it "lacked the breath of life." 

Overall, four stars. If you want a comprehensive dive into this relationship, here it is.

Franklin and Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life

By Joseph E. Persico.

I think you can figure out the plot and argument behind this one, even though Franklin and Lucy were in off-and-on contact throughout the years, so other things and women turn up, obviously. There's more biography of Lucy's upbringing and mentions of her married life and whatnot.

Fun facts:

• Sara Delano's love of her life was Stanford White, who was notably murdered by Harry K. Thaw. 
• Franklin's older brother was literally named "James Roosevelt Roosevelt" so as to not be named James Roosevelt Jr. Seriously?!
• Quote from young Franklin: "Mommie, if I didn't give the orders, nothing would happen."
• Quote from Grover Cleveland upon meeting 5-year-old Franklin: "My little man, I am making a strange wish for you. It is that you may never be President of the United States."
• Franklin graduated from college in 3 years, but hung around campus for another year to run the newspaper. He had two graduations and claimed to be a member of the later class.
• Why was Franklin originally into Eleanor? The family trait of "a deep and abiding interest in everything and everybody."
• A "typical" journal entry of Alice: "RETALIATE! REVENGE! RETALIATION!"
• Alice seems to kinda hate and kinda like Eleanor a lot? Very confusing. Eleanor both admired Alice and was afraid of her. Sounds legit.
• Alice tried to explain "the facts of life" to Eleanor before her wedding, having watched her pet rabbits and guinea pigs. Eleanor tried to smother her with a pillow.
• Eleanor's sex talk to her own daughter: "Sex, my dear, is something a woman must learn to endure." 
• Franklin "certainly kept Eleanor steadily pregnant before 1915...."
• Lucy met the Roosevelts when working for them. After Eleanor fired her for obvious reasons, she went out and got a job working for Franklin at his Navy office. So....yeah, that worked well.
• How did the Roosevelts economize in wartime? Skipping the bacon, 2 course lunches and 3 course dinners.
• "Cousin Alice asked Eleanor how she might help. She showed up at Union Station twice, then disappeared. Pouring coffee and handing out sandwiches had afflicted her with what she called "canteen elbow."
• "Alice's idea of helping the war effort involved recruiting Franklin in a mad spy caper." "All I was being asked to do was to look over transoms and peep through keyholes," she recalled. "Could anything be more delightful than that?" Franklin was enlisted to set a trap by providing phony classified documents concerning ship movements to be carefully left about May's house."
• Alice: "Franklin deserved a good time. He was married to Eleanor." She constantly did imitations of Eleanor even long after she was dead. "Both Eleanor and Franklin could be very boring together."
• Alice catches her so-called friend Cissy fucking her husband. "Finding hairpins in the library, Alice sent them to Cissy with a note, "I believe these are yours." Cissy wrote back, "And if you look up in the chandelier, you might find my panties."
• Franklin's son James claims Franklin took Lucy to a motel overnight, except motels didn't exist then and there's no evidence of this. The author notes that James needed money and was always doing stupid get-rich-quick schemes. 
• Lucy SOMEHOW later got fired from her job, ahem. 
• Franklin wanted a divorce, but his mommy wouldn't let him and threatened to cut him off financially if he did. So much for that. Also that would have killed his political career. "Practicality and economics are the death of romance." Franklin broke up with Lucy. 
• Squick: "Father, I think, thought of Missy as another of his children," though a distinction might be drawn between a child sitting on a man's lap and his secretary doing so." EWWW.
• "When an interviewer asked Anna point-blank "whether father was having an affair with Missy" she answered, "Who could tell?" 
• "In plain English, he could sustain an erection."
• Missy's various breakdowns most likely were brought on by finding out that Franklin was still in contact with Lucy. They were secretly corresponding and a stash of letters was found by her granddaughters. 
• Eleanor: "As it turned out Franklin's children were more my mother-in-law's children than they were mine." Ouch.
• Eleanor used to be pretty racist, but when she met more people of different ethnicities, she chilled out on that topic. 
• More from James Roosevelt on Missy: "Elliot makes a lot of Missy being seen entering or leaving father's room in her nightclothes, but was she supposed to dress to the teeth every time she was summoned at midnight?....None of us thought anything of it." Her bedroom was right next door....with an adjoining doorway to Franklin's...
• Franklin wrote some smartassed remarks to a misspelled letter: "I cannot walk without a cain because I am not abel" and "We all have to watch our step with so many prohibition agents around" and "My principal pain in the neck is when I get letters like this." 
• "It was a triangle of mutual advantage. Franklin gave Missy her reason for being. Missy provided the adoring female companionship that Franklin required. And his dependence on Missy freed Eleanor to pursue the life she wanted." 
• I'll be getting into this with another book, but in 1978 a woman named Doris Faber went to the Roosevelt Library and found all the romantic letters between Eleanor and Lorena Hickok and asked to see the director and asked him to embargo the letters for several decades to save her the dilemma of what she should make of it all. The director decided to leave the collection open. 
• One maid reported that "Eleanor kissed everyone" and found it funny when people went on about Eleanor and Hick kissing. 
• Hick moved into the White House but frequently pretended she was just a visitor, and the doormen/ushers had to pretend along. One time someone asked her, "In residence today? Or just a visitor?"
• Eleanor asked Franklin to read Gone With The Wind and put it by his bedside. He'd read it through by the next morning. JEEBUS CHRIST AND HERE I THOUGHT I WAS A SPEED READER. Was he up ALL night with that one?
• Franklin had a "miniature pig collection." 
• "We really had two mistresses in the White House." "Missy was the substitute wife." "The staff had originally been perplexed by what appeared to be a four-way domestic arrangement." 
• Eleanor: "He couldn't have lived without me, but neither could he have lived without Missy."
• Both Franklin and Eleanor wanted to write novels about people who were fed up with their marriage. 
• Even though Dorothy Schiff regarded Franklin as a "sun god," she noticed he never asked about her or was interested in her. "He was interested in himself, and having what he thought was this well-dressed young woman who he could ramble on to." Of his various sorta-girlfriends, she seems the least into him.
• Upon swearing being sworn in for his third term, Roosevelt whispered to the chief justice, "I don't know how you feel about this, but I'm getting sick of it." 
• Franklin sucked at dealing with his supposed loved ones getting sick: "He was turned off by people who could no longer fit into his game." He just kinda....coolly blocked off unpleasantness like his favorite people becoming too ill to be what he wanted. Oy. That said, Franklin did plan on leaving Missy half of his estate to take care of her had he died before her, disinheriting his kids. 
• More Franklin on reading: "Asked by a reporter if he had read Kathleen Winsor's racy 1944 best-seller, Forever Amber, he answered, "Only the dirty parts." 
• "Roosevelt, in contrast, treats all problems impersonally as if they had no organic relation to him--people the same way. Otherwise he could not have stood three terms in office." 
• Cousin Polly Delano, everybody! "After the first lady met Churchill, the only thing Polly wanted to know was whether he was sexy. Eleanor answered wearily, "I just don't know, Polly, I just don't know." 
• Uh.....there was going to be "a cast of polio patients to perform a blackface minstrel show for him." OH DEAR LORD I CAN'T. This is on the day Franklin died. "The performers, stunned, hung about the playhouse, weeping, their grief incongruous in their painted faces and clown costumes of pink shirts, green vests, white pants, huge orange cardboard neckties, and pie-sized buttons." 
• Daisy Suckley on the Roosevelts: "The fact that they could not relax together, or play together, is the tragedy of their joint lives, for I believe, from everything that I have seen of them, that they had everything else in common." 
• Poor Anna Roosevelt: felt like she had to give in and aid and abet her dad in sneaking around because he was dying, got caught after he died.
• On Eleanor and all of her romantic friendships: "She was the third person with Nan Cook and Marion Dickerman. And then there was Joe Lash and Trude, and Mrs. Roosevelt was the third person in that relationship. Then there was David and Edna, and again she was the third person. Mrs. Roosevelt was always the loving outsider." 
• "Historians might debate the ranking of the greatest presidents, but among eminent American women, Eleanor Roosevelt almost invariably ranks first." 
• "But Mrs. Roosevelt, don't you think people love you for yourself?" "No, dear, I don't." 

Hey, it was dishy. Four stars. 

Herbert Hoover

By William E. Leuchtenburg.

See, now THIS is how you write a short presidential biography of a not-so-good president! Take note, authors of Benjamin Harrison and especially William McKinley! This is choice! This is good stuff! This is exactly what I want out of a presidential biography! What's good about this one? You definitely get a sense of what the guy was like and what he did and why he did what he did. This guy is generally kind of a dour turd, but also has his good points, and you sort of wonder in a sense why his good side didn't exactly help with regards to having to deal with the Great Depression.

Opening quote of the book: "Writing about Herbert Hoover is like trying to describe the interior of a citadel where every drawbridge is up and every porticullis down." -George Creel.

This made me concerned at how dull this was likely to be, but darned if the author didn't make it work! 

Hoover facts and moments:

• He was raised Quaker and orphaned as a child, basically having no fun whatsoever and growing up hungry. The author chalks this up to developing the good and bad points of his personality (workhorse, not showing, self-reliant, trusting the community to help the needy, good works, peaceful), but he rebelled later on and "smoked, drank, swore, danced, patronized the theater, and profaned the Sabbath. Of Quakerism, he remarked, "I never worked very hard at it."
• Hoover eventually made it to Stanford in California, and California was basically heaven for him. (As a native, I agree.) Unfortunately, even for a Stanford grad he was a horrible speller and writer, with his writing described as "like balls of glue dropped from a rooftop." "After repeatedly failing to satisfy an English requirement, he disposed of it only because a science professor mopped up his punctuation and grammar." 
• "He never ceased to believe his country was the greatest nation on earth; that Westerners, especially Californians, were the most gifted of Americans; and that finest of all were Stanford men." "On that campus he found acceptance, he found his metier, he found his future wife, he almost found himself."  Hoover went into geology. 
• Personalitywise, he was dour, unsmiling, untalking, not into eye contact, super blunt, and awkward. (Guess what we'd probably assume he's got these days.) However, he became somewhat of a BMOC for hating fraternities, and insisting on not being paid while being class treasurer. "He was without humor and, so far as anyone could tell, without emotion." He "felt like a wet crow" at parties and grunted a lot.
• However, he would celebrate holidays, hide eggs, dress up as Santa, etc. He sent home a lot of money to needy friends and relatives, by stealth. He was a generous guy, privately.
• Brand Whitlock said he "has a genius for organization and for getting things done, and beneath it all, with his great intelligence...has a wonderful human heart." Of course, later the same guy calls him "What a bully! He would even bully a poor exiled King!" 
• He became a trustee of Stanford and got a lot of things done, "almost every reform we have dreamed of has slipped through as if oiled." He also got salary raises for assistant professors, as well as a lot of new buildings. 
• Hoover worked overseas for a lot of years, which he didn't like. He did great careerwise and moneywise (became a multimillionaire), was a hard boss, and uh, liked "correcting the perversities and incompetence of men."  He would disappear from his family for long periods, "having learned nothing from his own painful childhood." He blamed others when things went wrong, didn't like any criticism, was compared to a volcano, insisted on having his own way and threw shit fits if he didn't get it. "He can express himself so accurately and so indignantly that his victim will go off nursing a grudge for the rest of his natural life." 

How did this super pleasant guy manage to get married when I can't? Just asking, universe.

• Hoover wrote a lot of books, with terrible writing and spelling. 
• "It has got to be recognized by everybody...that I am the boss, and that any attempts to minimize the importance of my leadership would do...infinite harm," said he. "Many who had dealings with Hoover found him chilling." 
• He was freaking great during WW1, working with all kinds of countries. He was extremely good at keeping people fed. 
• "Though Hoover was seeking office as nominee of a major political party, he did not want to be mistaken for a politician. He dreaded hitting the campaign trail." "Hoover had only one liability: he seemed to be a cold fish." "Not even Coolidge, a legendary sourpuss, could abide Hoover's ill nature." One writer asked, "Is Hoover Human?" Good question.
• However, "for many he was, despite his lack of magnetism, heroic." Hence his winning the presidency.
• Even Hoover himself said "If some unprecedented calamity should come upon the nation...I would be sacrificed to the unreasoning disappointment of a people who expected too much."
• His wife: "If you want to get the gloomiest view of any subject on earth, ask Bert about it."
• "The president had no sense of how to reach out to a desperate nation." 
• Hoover opposed any sort of dole and claimed that nobody actually starved. He was more concerned with the government running a deficit and wanted tax increases and cuts in government spending. He only got into the idea of mobilizing the national government because he had lost faith in bankers and had run out of other options for sources of credit. 
• In 1932, war veterans were attacked in the streets by the government. FDR on this topic: "Well, this elects me."
• Another quote: "If the election were held tomorrow, any Democratic candidate who had not been convicted of anything more than rape or murder would defeat Mr. Hoover."
• While on the campaign trail, people tried to pull spikes out of the railroad ties and/or blow him up with dynamite. Someone sent him a telegram saying "Vote for Roosevelt and make it unanimous."
• In 1928 some parents named their kid "Herbert Hoover Jones," and five years later petitioned the court to change it to "Franklin D. Roosevelt Jones" so as to relieve him from chagrin and mortification. 
• Hoover thought Roosevelt had "comparatively little vision." You know nothing, Herbert Hoover.
• During the lame duck period, Hoover wrote "Roosvelt" (he can't spell) a ten page letter lecturing him and telling him what to say. Roosevelt ignored it. Later while at tea, Hoover kept it up to the point where FDR said that he was sure his son Jimmy wanted to punch him in the eye. 
• Hoover basically sucked and was hated until the Truman administration, when Truman recruited him to help with the worldwide food crisis, saying that nobody else in the country could do that job. 

The wit and wisdom of Herbert Hoover, who finally developed a sense of humor in his old age:

• "I'm the only person of distinction who's ever had a depression named after him."
• "When his niece revealed that she did not know how to cope with speakers who ran on and on, Hoover told her: "You just pass them up a little note and you just write on it "your fly is open" and he'll sit down right away."
• "Asked how he managed to endure the many years when leaders of both parties treated him as a pariah, he replied, "I outlived the bastards."
• "He labored on a history of FDR and the New Deal so unbalanced that--to protect Hoover's reputation--it has been hidden away. On one occasion, asked what he was doing in the middle of the night, he retorted, "I'm making my Roosevelt book more pungent." 
• "He was so hard of hearing that his secretaries had to shout. That was all right, Hoover told a visitor. "I'm used to being hollered at." 

Four stars. Excellent job on this particular topic! I waited with great delight for more pungent comments and quotes every other page and was not disappointed. 

Woodrow Wilson

By Louis Auchincloss.

Okay, this is an improvement from the last book. What was my impression of Wilson? Sexist, wants female attention, really obsessed with the League of Nations, getting into a feud with his bestie, having a stroke. There you go.

Notable moments in the book:

• His wife Edith was hiding as best she could how badly her husband was doing, claiming that he'd said yes or no to whatever and nobody would know the difference. But I about threw up when I read this sentence: "Her excuse that she had no interest in the president of the United States but only in her husband was less that of a free American woman than of a Hindu wife who has no obligation to society beyond that of her duty to her lord and master, ending with that of throwing herself on his funeral pyre." THE FUCK?!?!
• Post-big stroke, Wilson was doing super terribly both physically and mentally. He'd had two before "and though in each case his recovery had seemed complete, there is evidence that these strokes took some toll on his temperament. We shall see that there were always two Woodrow Wilsons, and that the tragedy of his bad health understandably contributed to the lesser and not the greater of the two." 
• He was racist, or "he never quite shook off the condescending southern attitude towards blacks." The author passes it off as "nine out of ten men raised as he was would have thought the same." Oy.
• He was reserved and shy and picky in who he liked, so gee, somehow he didn't have a lot of friends.
• That said, he was actually a very popular professor (as in, voted most so! frequently!) and would do comic impersonations at parties. 
• He had a flirtation with a married lady, Mary Peck, while also married. Maybe went all the way? 
• "He could appear to be two different men, the one scarcely aware of what the other was thinking."
• "If we find it hard at times to understand the two sides of Wilson's nature, it may be helpful to remember that he had the same difficulty."
• Wilson was brokenhearted when his first wife died, then fell in love again within a year, something that other people found distasteful. 
• More talk about Edith that made me want to vomit: "She worshiped him as the great man of his era and saw her role as one of constant and unquestioning support, a kind of priestess at the alar of a deity."
• This was published in 2000 and the author takes some time to make some cracks about impeachment.
• Wilson was going to make 30 major speeches...and then had the big stroke. Oy. 
• Wilson also pretty much went mental after the stroke, insisting that the Secret Service chase after drivers who passed him, firing the secretary of state for holding meetings, etc. 
• The author would like to blame Edith and the doctor for what went on with the league, apparently?
• Edith claimed that the doctor warned her that every time she took a problem to her husband, "you are turning a knife in an open wound" and she should solve things without her husband. "It seems to me most unlikely that a doctor would have taken it on himself to give such drastic advice where the governance of the nation was at stake; at any rate he was conveniently dead when Edith saw fit to make public his alleged recommendation." 

I dunno, this is kind of a dicey book and skeevy towards Edith (did she deserve it? I dunno, but I felt icky), but at least it had some more personality? Two and a half stars. 

William McKinley

By Kevin Phillips.

This was literally the worst presidential biography I have ever read. Seriously, I thought Benjamin Harrison was pretty dull, but that was a roller coaster ride of excitement compared to THIS.

From the book:

"Who really was he? What did he achieve? Why didn't I have a fuller picture--and what forces had led him to being so widely and unfairly dismissed?"

We'll cover that one below.

"McKinley was no Washington or Lincoln. This portrait will describe an upright and effective president of the solid second rank. His insistence on making friends, orchestrating consensus, and avoiding acrimony probably bars him from the first rank."

Um....none of that sounds....bad? Or preventing one from being first rank? I mean, really, if we're ranking presidents, usually the top ones are the ones who had to deal with the worst crises and dealt with them pretty successfully. It doesn't sound like McKinley had massive drama going on during his term to really test his mettle. 

It sounds like the problem with writing about McKinley is that he didn't leave a whole lot of personality/paperwork behind him (same issue with say, Martin Van Buren) and was a stoic personality. There's not much you can say about him personally at all to get a sense of the dude, which is definitely a problem in writing a biography of the guy. So the book almost entirely focuses on the issues of the day, which were frankly uninteresting to read about and not super controversial to me reading about them now. The crack I made about tariffs in Benjamin Harrison? Very much true here. I was super super bored. 

The most interesting fact about McKinley from this book is that his wife became handicapped and when she started having convulsions at the dinner table he'd throw a napkin over her face. I...do not know what to make of this at all. It is mentioned later that he would carry her out at times as well, which sounds more reasonable than just pitching fabric over her face in public. 

He also received honorary doctorates from two women's colleges, which is nice, and he told people that "I am glad that we are demonstrating in the United States today that the boy should have no more advantage than the girl." This is compared to Cleveland, who said that "the relative positions of men and women were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence." I do not look forward to eventually reading about Cleveland. This book also goes on for a few pages about the "mugwumps" (WHY THE HELL DID ANYONE DECIDE TO CALL THEMSELVES THIS, it's worse than "Whigs," even) and what they were for and how they were sexist. Whee. 

I will also note that THIS IS A PRESIDENT WHO GOT ASSASSINATED. Why did he get assassinated? By whom, and when? What was the story? I HAVE NO IDEA FROM READING THIS BOOK BECAUSE THE AUTHOR BARELY MENTIONS THAT THE GUY DIED AT ALL. His murderer and/or the motives or how it happened or ANYTHING are completely skipped in favor of musing over Theodore Roosevelt and figuring out McKinley's legacy and trying to compare him to the greats and figuring out how he's second tier. Seriously?! I was so bored reading this, but at least I had a murder to look forward to to jazz it up a bit* and we don't even get THAT because...why? That was news. That was important. Why the heck did you skip this as much as you possibly could in a biography? 

* I'm being snarky on "jazz it up a bit," but seriously, I was curious about the assassination after reading all the crazy details of Garfield's, and I don't even remember what this book review said about McKinley's at this point. I need to reread it. On a related note, I read up on Garfield and Arthur back in the day and I canNOT find the written reviews here, the hell? 

This is a snooze to read and not recommended. One star. 

In other news, I recently got a copy of Assassination Vacation (previously read as a library book) and started rereading it and that was FAR better and more interesting regarding McKinley. 

Benjamin Harrison

By Charles W. Calhoun.

Now that the Turd Administration is over with, I decided to go back to reading presidential biographies, a project I originally started back in 2016 and mostly quit after Arthur for ... obvious election reasons depressing me. Anyway, while I couldn't find a Cleveland biography at the nearest library to me these days (I don't feel arsed to hit the nearby college library like I used to for these things), I did pick up several "American Presidents" books again for the presidents one doesn't want to spend too much time reading about. Hence, Benjamin Harrison.

Lordy, this is a fairly boring book. It has moments here and there, but man, both Benjamin and the period of time his presidency was in were bo-ring. I started making lists of "you know a presidential biography is boring when they talk about tariffs a LOT" and "you know a presidential biography is boring when they start talking about how hard it is to build a cabinet and lists everyone in it" (Team of Rivals being the one book that's interesting in that regard....though Andrew Jackson's feuding first Cabinet comes next) and "you know a presidential biography is boring when they just list names of everyone living in the house." Benjamin was also a born-again Christian, so he's boring in that regard too. Even Benjamin thought other people thought he was a bore (page 22). 

The ongoing mystery in this book is "why did he lose after 4 years when Henry Adams thought he was an excellent president?" "He succeeded too well," the author concludes on page 4. ???? Also, Benjamin wasn't too into patronages, and that pissed people right off during the Gilded Age. Also, his wife died right before the election, which is sad.

Anyway: Christian, got married young, did some military time, is William Henry Harrison's grandson, won the election. Unlike his grandfather, he smartly wore a "chamois undersuit" to his rainy inauguration. He also had hordes of his relatives move in--I note that his son-in-law avoided the house and his brother-in-law, it felt like the author was trying to stir up a bit of drama.

Harrison was the kind of guy to do other people's work, wrote his own speeches and prepared his own papers, and filled in for his absent cabinet members. He was also sensible enough to not just accept whoever wanted a patronage for what without investigating it first. He was formal and cold to most people unless he knew them well. He took in his ill secretary, and personally gave CPR (or whatever they called it then) to the navy secretary when his house burned down and let him move in too. 

And then he had to deal with James Blaine. It's been like five years since I read about this time period, but I thought, "Wasn't Blaine a pain in the ass?" Why yes, yes, he was to everyone. The family was kind of snooty and fake, and Blaine called out sick a lot. Blaine was both the sort who was genuinely frequently ill AND was also likely to "call out sick" and who knows which one he'd be doing. At one point Blaine was expected to give a speech, then he didn't show up, and Benjamin "did not learn the subject of his banquet toast until he sat down at the table and read it in the program." Good thing he improvised well! 

Benjamin on Native Americans: still thought that "civilizing" them was the way and anyone with complaints should register them "peacefully" with the government. Ooookay then. On the other hand, he supported African-American rights enough that Frederick Douglass--who as I recall was buds with Lincoln--declared that "to my mind, we never had a greater President."

Benjamin didn't enjoy the job, and god knows he didn't miss it after he was out of it, but felt chagrined at being voted out, a bit. 

I'll note that Benjamin's wife Carrie/Caroline had a young widowed niece, Mame Dimmick, who comes up in this book a LOT a lot a lot, moves in and "looks after" Benjamin. Foreshadowing, she becomes wife #2! Nothing at all creepy about that, amirite? Uh, Benjamin's daughter sure thought it was, and she and her family made a break from this drama. Can't say I blame her.

Anyway, I'm going to give this two stars. Not sure if it's dull due to the guy, the times, or the author, but for a short read that took me a few hours, it was a dullish few hours. 

 

 

Franklin and Eleanor

By Hazel Rowley.

Well, this is certainly interesting and is fairly blatant about what went on in that relationship!

This is a duel biography of the Roosevelts, focusing on relationships rather than the politics. It especially focuses on how roughly halfway(?) through the marriage, Franklin cheated on Eleanor with Lucy Mercer. Even though there doesn't seem to be any formal announcements of "that's it, we're living separate romantic lives" mentioned, that's clearly what happened. 

Now, I've always rather liked the Roosevelts. Other than the internment camps* FDR has always sounded like a top good president, and Eleanor as the best first lady, and Roosevelts in general tend to be fascinating people. But in addition to FDR being "first obviously handicapped president, managed to get elected a bunch of times and fight a world war while dealing with that," and Eleanor being "first bisexual first lady, that we know of anyway," I feel like they may be the most famous old-timey polyamorous couple before polyamory became A Thing. 

• He's probably done some other things that aren't great too, just can't think of any and I haven't read any super involved books on his presidency yet.

I like to make this joke about the Roosevelts: "he had a girlfriend, she had a girlfriend...." In reality, he seems to have had tons of girlfriends--I think I've lost track of 'em all-- and Eleanor had both girlfriends and boyfriends! Now, while we don't know how many of those actually involved sex--I think we can be pretty sure that Lucy Mercer and Lorena Hickok definitely got laid (and I just got some library books on both of those ladies to check!), but anyone else I think is a giant question mark-- the word "romantic friendship" comes up a lot, a lot a lot a lot. I'm not sure if FDR was literally up for boning after getting polio, but he certainly had a lot of lady friends hanging around/working for him/shacking up with/* kind of a harem? going on? Which Eleanor knew about and was pretty much friends with everybody.** Likewise, it seems pretty open secret that Eleanor hung out with lesbians*** and FDR was absolutely cool with it and befriended her girlfriends. Eleanor also seems to have had several "passionate friendships" with dudes as well. Very intriguing! Even Lewis Howe, FDR's best politics guy, seems to have been on close, platonic terms with both of them. I'm not sure what to call that particular dynamic, but it sounds very nice. 

• Seriously, he shacked up with Missy for years and kept making promises to do so with other ladies.
• * Except for Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, who everyone was totally threatened by when she came back into FDR's life.
• ** Eleanor also definitely shacked up with some of her people. Repeatedly.

In general, Team Roosevelt sounds like it was very nice people to work for! My impression is that their employees loved them and they sound charismatic (especially FDR) as heck.

In addition to dealing with politics, illness, kids, and revolving doors of inamoratas and inamoratos, there's also Sara Delano Roosevelt, a My Beloved Smother if ever there was one. FDR has always struck me as being a very stereotypical Aquarius guy: loves his friends, doesn't love having emotions, likes having a lot of people around, wants to be detached. This probably helped him a great deal with regards to being the only child of a smothering mom with a lot of money and not much else to do in life but focus on him, in that he doesn't sound super upset about dealing with her shit. But poor Eleanor: grows up an orphan, suddenly has a smother-mother, starts out being friendly and appeasing, and then the older she gets, the less and less fucks she gives. That's gratifying to hear about.

Okay, so list of memorable things:

• Eleanor's bisexuality sounds like it was going on early, as a lot of girls at her girls' school had crushes on her and were giving her flowers. That's nice.
• Franklin and his urge to get married early: "Marriage was his only chance for sexual fulfillment. It would also mean freedom from his mother."
• Franklin had some kind of secret code in case his mother snooped through his papers. "Cryptologists have cracked the code, but not the meaning," whatever THAT last bit means. For the record: it substituted numbers for vowels and deleted the tops or bottoms of consonants.
• Previous to Eleanor, Franklin dated Alice Sohier, who reported that he was ah, very fresh. "Franklin had to be slapped--hard." Alice refused his proposal, as he wanted six children and "I did not wish to be a cow."
• Franklin knew how to manipulate his mom to want to go to Europe. "I really want you to tell me what you would want me to do," he wrote, claiming it'd be good for him, but he didn't want to be away from her and he wouldn't want to go unless she could decide not to care, and it would be so selfish of him.... He got to go. 
• Of course his mother wasn't happy to hear he'd proposed to anyone, and asked him to keep the engagement secret for a year. However, his mother had all the money. Eventually Franklin stands up to mummy and she backs down. 
• "Franklin was used to his mother, and had long ago chosen his way of dealing with her--lies, evasion, and feigned docility." 
• Franklin didn't exactly bother to hide his affection for Lucy Mercer, even around his relatives. Alice Roosevelt kept asking Franklin and Lucy to dinner together (she haaaaaaaaaaated Eleanor) and tried to hint to Eleanor's face what was going on. Eleanor ignored this. 
• Wow, did Roosevelt's doctor ever straight up lie to the press, claiming "you can say definitely that he will not be crippled." Louis Howe talked him into saying that, and then at the same time sent some letter "allegedly" from Franklin to the publisher of the NYT claiming he had doubts about that. 
• Louis Howe's wife Grace apparently told him that she hated him and that she loathed his touch. OUUUUUCH. She accused him of having an affair with Eleanor and he pointed out those facts to her. He then claims they're just friends and "Do you want me to give that up too? So many things you don't want--what is there that you do?" Geez, lady. You don't want him but you won't let anyone else have him either? 
• Even when recently paralyzed, Franklin's vibing with his nurse, Enda Rockey. And his secretary, Missy LeHand. 
• For years, Franklin is shacking up with Missy, taking her on a houseboat, to cottages, White Springs, the White House.... "If the adoring Missy could help him feel like a man again, Eleanor was not going to complain." While on the boat, "all wander round in pyjamas, nighties, and bathing suits!" Also, "Missy was willing to put up with cold nights, seasickness, sunburn, mosquitos, and hours of vain rod-holding in order to be with Franklin." "Vain rod-holding?!" snicker
• "If he was going to get back into political life he would have to be able to walk." Louis Howe was quite the engineer: figuring that being handicapped would cancel out Franklin's being an aristocrat. But he should never be photographed in the wheelchair or ever be seen being carried. "The public knew that Franklin Roosevelt had polio, but it was generally believed that he had recovered his ability to walk." He had to be seen upright, on crutches.
• Eleanor's first lesbians were a couple, Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman, who joined the Roosevelt inner circle/"gang." Everyone mutually adored each other, but the extended family was horrified. Franklin offered to build the ladies (all three of 'em) their own house on his land to live in together. 
• Twenty years in/halfway through the marriage and "By now it was clear to all their friends that Franklin and Eleanor were no longer a traditional couple. They had independent lives, which involved other close companions." 
• "One of the things that gave Franklin the most satisfaction was to provide the opportunity for people to do what they did best... While everyone in the group relied on everyone else, they also opened up each other's horizons. Franklin approved of this kind of bold social arrangement."
• Eleanor by now has crawled out of her shell, doesn't want to go back in, and "Eleanor had finished with trying to please Mama."
• Mama hates everything that's going on--Louis, Missy, Eleanor no longer being meek, Franklin being handicapped and trying to get back into politics--so she lords it over the grandchildren instead. Franklin just tells all the kids to figure it out with Granny. Eleanor gripes about Mama's "side slaps" and "we'd like to chew her up." 
• Franklin straight up calls Val-Kill, the house built for Eleanor/Nancy/Marion, a "love nest." "Franklin was taking a subversive delight in Eleanor's new life." Eleanor embroiders all their initials on the towels and linens. Mama hates it. "Mama did not dare to drop in without an invitation."
• Marion was the crankier one and at one point gets the idea that Franklin's not going to pay for the swimming hole. He basically writes back along the lines of, where did this come from, I adore y'all, and "If I had you here I would spank you both and then kiss you." eyebrow raised
• "Franklin had Warm Springs; Eleanor had Val-Kill. Franklin had Missy; Eleanor had Nancy and Marion. Both had Louis Howe." POLYAMORY!!!!
• "Franklin was away from home for 116 weeks between 1925 and 1928. His mother was with him for two of these; Eleanor for four; Missy for 110. There is never a hint of complaint in Eleanor's letters to Franklin." She accepted that one person could not fulfill every need. 
• Franklin's speechwriter, Sam Rosenman: "Roosevelt loved people, and they learned quickly to return that affection... He was not concerned with distinctions of wealth or special position or religious beliefs. This was a new kind of man in politics for me: one who did not seem to care--or even know--whether you were a Catholic, Protestant or Jew."
• Poor Missy: once Franklin becomes governor, she can't obviously be alone with him. Move into the mansion, he says! 
• "FDR often referred to himself as "Father." He liked to think of the community around him as a big, happy family." POLYAMORY!
• "Even when he was president of the United States, arguably the most powerful man in the world, FDR would still have to go to his mother with his cap in hand."
• Another one of Eleanor's romantic friendships: Earl Miller, family bodyguard. Franklin liked him. Louis/Marion/Nancy sound jealous. Even James Roosevelt suspected his mother of having an affair with Earl. The author assumes it didn't get sexual since Earl preferred younger women. We'll never know, since most of their letters were burned. But at one point, Earl and Missy dated!...until he decided to marry a teenager instead. Earl claimed he dated Missy to fend off gossip and that's why he married someone he didn't love, too. 
• Louis Howe could be very blunt when he didn't like what Franklin wanted to do. Overheard one day: "You're going for a swim? Well, go ahead, dammit, and I hope to God you drown!" 
• Sam Rosenman and his wife move into the governor's mansion at FDR's request. "Dorothy and I knew the gossip about Missy and FDR and tried to figure out what that relationship was." "The Rosenmans remained as mystified as everyone else." A friend of Eleanor's claimed there was no affair. "He loves Missy. She's quite essential to him....But as to an affair--no."
• "By accepting Missy into the household as if it went without saying, Eleanor provided a cover. Her friends, just like Franklin's, knew not to add fuel to the endless gossip. Meanwhile, Eleanor's relationship with her bodyguard was also causing tongues to wag."
• Meet Lorena Hickok, obvious lesbian and "nation's foremost female political journalist." Imagine the awkwardness of her dating the first lady with regards to her job.... she could report on all this dirt, but.... Louis Howe on the topic: "A reporter should never get too close to the news source." She had to give up her job and get a new one. When she was at the White House, they "snipped" her out of photos. I
• Eleanor didn't give a crap about the gossip. 
• Hick, however, wasn't too happy in the relationship after awhile, specifically after Eleanor became first lady and was obviously very busy with that. 
• "There were to be no pictures depicting the president's handicap. It was not permitted to photograph FDR in his wheelchair. If his braces could be seen at the bottom of his trousers, the photos were to be retouched." They could do that then?!? "There was no television in those days, of course, and all newsreel coverage of FDR was carefully orchestrated. FDR was shown standing, he was shown sitting; Early did not permit cameras to show FDR "walking." From today's perspective, it is astounding that the press stuck to the rules. Even journalists who disliked Roosevelt respected the dignity of a handicapped man.... The limitations on press coverage of FDR were so effective that for twelve long years, most Americans had no idea that their president could not walk." 
• FDR had no qualms about inviting people into his bathroom while he shaved or got dressed. "Take a seat on the can," he would tell them cheerfully." 
• The White House food during the Roosevelts' time there was notoriously bad. (She reminds me of Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School, in which we find out that the notoriously terrible school cook, Miss Mush, is actually really good at it if she only has to cook for a few people. The more she has to cook for, the worse she gets.) 
• How FDR stayed calm: "Once you've spent two years trying to wiggle one toe, everything is in proportion." 
• Elliott Roosevelt said that for all his mother's writings, "she managed to conceal her personality completely....We read her articles and marveled how she created the image of a total stranger, not the detached, harried, fault-finding wife and parent we knew." 
• In one of her books, Eleanor used the word "darky," having no idea it was derogatory and the ah...presumably white people who read the book before publication didn't notice. When an African-American lady wrote to share her offense, Eleanor apologized and asked what she preferred instead. Nice. 
• More girlfriends of Franklin: Daisy Suckley, who kept a journal of all of this stuff for posterity, and Dorothy Schiff.  The latter doesn't sound like she was all that into him and didn't sleep with him, though she said she probably would have had he asked. And then there's Crown Princess Marthe, who FDR offer to put up at his house. She sounds like an admiring teenage giggler, somehow, even though she had 3 kids.
• Eleanor ends up having a nasty breakup with Marion and Nancy after Nancy says everything they all did together was to build up Eleanor. Eleanor cut them off after that, saying she'd be cordial since they lived next door, but that was it. Nancy regretted it and she and Marion went to Franklin for aid, but it doesn't sound like he wanted to assist at that point, and we're told that "he, like all of Eleanor's friends, took the view that Marion and Nancy had abused Eleanor's goodwill over the years." 
• I'm not sure if this counts as "romantic friendship" or not, but Eleanor was close to her secretary, Malvina "Tommy" Thompson. When Tommy needed nursing, Eleanor did it, including giving her shots in the rear! 
• The Roosevelts wanted to offer the king and queen of England hot dogs. People were outraged. Especially Mama. Eleanor cared not and got cheerfully snarky about this topic in her column, pointing out that other food would be around. 
• I feel sorry for Missy: she had a huge stroke, got paralyzed, lost her ability to talk, and died young. 
• Another "romantic friendship" for Eleanor is the younger Joe Lash, who already has a married girlfriend that Eleanor befriends too. "I'll be at the house soon after six and waiting to both kiss and spank you," Eleanor wrote him. She wrote him a series of letters when he went into the military. 
• An FBI informant watched when Eleanor went to visit Joe in a hotel room. They didn't leave except for lunch one day. 
• "The FBI file on Eleanor Roosevelt was to be more than three thousand pages long,  one of the thickest files in the entire FBI collection." 
• FDR ran for a third term because WW2 was beginning. He ran for a fourth term even though he knew he was dying because he felt like he needed to see it through. "FDR could not tell anyone about his health. Not Eleanor. Not Anna. Not his sons. No one. This was a pact between him and his doctors. Posterity must never know that FDR had run for a fourth term when he knew he was dying." He claimed that he did not believe the doctors were telling him everything.
• "There was something obsessive about the love FDR inspired in others. The members of his inner circle almost vied with each other to prove how much they loved him." All his girlfriends had their little jealousies and kept an eye out for who got preferential treatment. "The women liked to tell themselves that the president needed them, that they were making up for Eleanor's lacks." 
• When Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd came back into FDR's life after her husband died, she apparently thought he'd been terribly lonely for years. WITH THAT HAREM?!?! 
• Lucy was the one person nobody was open about, and Lucy would sneak off to Warm Springs to visit, which she did on the day he died. Lucy ran for it, but the remaining harem hanging around the house were forced to tell Eleanor that she'd been there. AWKWARD. 
• Eleanor's final "romantic friendship" was Dr. David Gurewitsch, who she had as her doctor and she ended up shacking up with him and his wife. Uh.....? She called him "the most precious person in the world." 

I'll note in the acknowledgements at the back of the book, the author said "I learned quickly that all sources, both primary and secondary, were unreliable. There was so much that could not be said, even in private letters." The author did read Hick and Eleanor's letters (more on that later), Joe Lash's letters and journals and other writings, and Daisy Suckley's "thousands of diaries" kept under her bed. "Without that suitcase, this would have been a different book." She also claims that Blanche Wiesen Cook is who suggested that it got physical with Hick and Earl. 

Anyway, this is juicy as all heck and compelling reading. Four and a half stars.