WRITING TO MRS. ROOSEVELT

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 July 1936, Page 3

WRITING TO MRS. ROOSEVELT

WOMEN TELL THEIR TROUBLES

Each month about 400 worried women write Mis Roosevelt and poui out their financial and family woes (says the “Christian Science Monitor”).

'lhe mass-mood of this distress sector of Mrs Roosevelt’s vast correspondence is epitomised by the plaint of an Alabama woman whose husband, “farming on halves," had “gone to the relief” for food and clothes for “seven children, tour girls, and three boys, six in school.” “So when he came home and told inc they would not help us, 1 was so worried I didn't sleep that night, and I lay awake and studied what in this world to do,” she wrote. “Nothing to eat but corn bread and not much of that and nothing to plow this year and you came to my mind. In my mind, I know how you look, so 1 decided to write to you.”

It was the March thaw that proved a last straw for the woman in Ohio whose letter ran:

“I went down to-day to get 25 cents worth of coal and the sled pulled so hard in the slush I went back for the wagon and the wheel came off right in the square and the coal fell all over and everyone just tee-heed at me and I live one mile from town. I am so dead tired to-night."

A Virginian wrote; “I have been so to the suffering point I am going to appeal to you in this crisis, believing you will not expose me. Is pride a cu,rse! “It is despairing and nerve racking to have home and family life going to pieces,” confided a New Jersey woman whose husband was once a railroad designer and draftsman.

AN OLD GARAGE HER HOME

From Arkansas came this

“I am 30 years old, have a high school education, also a baby daughter and a great desire to make a success in life for her despite the fact I live in an old' garage without windows and very little furniture.” Relatively few of these letters come from cranks. Most of them reveal somewhere in the text they are a direct result of articles written by and concerning Mrs Roosevelt, of her having passed near them in her travels, or of some radio speech she has made.

Not one of them goes into <i waste basket. They are opened and read at the White House. Mrs Rooseveß herself reads an amazing amount of the prodigious pile, thus getting acquainted with women in every state and their specific problems. In this task she is aided by her secretary, Malvina Thompson Scbcider. Then, because these particular letters concern women and some phase of the employment problem, they are sent, in Whitehouse envelopes, to Mrs Ellen S. Woodward, asistant administrator in charge of the women’s division, Works Progress Administration.

Some letters that especially arouse .Mrs Roosevelt’s interest carry marginal suggestions in her handwriting. Others arc annotated by Mrs Scheider. These notes are sent simply as suggestions. In each case the problem presented by the letter-writer is referred back to the state from which her b iter came.

-To each woman who has written Mis Roosevelt, Mis Woodward sends an individual reply. The writing oi these letters is a highly specialised job handled by a very small staff.

An especial dictum in some one state may cause a series of letters. An Alabama woman wrote she’d found herself a Wl’A job only to be ruled out because she had a son, aged 11.

“This is only one case out of several hundred mothers who were denied employment due to a ruling which exists in Government works in Alabama. We have been classified in a group called ‘mother aid’ and are being paid 4dol. per week for two in family by the county welfare department. for which we are giving 15 hours work per week.” she reported, asking “fair play.” She must have won her point for the notation on her file was “working.”

Other Alabama mothers wrote, complaining off the inadequacy of widows’ and mothers’ pensions as compared with their former status on federal relief.

AID FOR ALABAMA. Since their letters were written, however, Alabama has received a first grant of 45,000d01. for aid to dependent children under the Social Security Act. Wrote one woman of 62: “All other efforts having proven vain, I am submitting my proibem of unemployment to you. . . I am in perfect physical condition. I could walk if iiccessary eight hours a day. I have a house but will soon lose it unless I receive gainful employment. . . President Wilson sent me a certificate for making more socks than any woman in our Red Cross unit.” On the strength of that knitting, she got a job as a WPA sewing room supervisor.

Another had a detailed record oi 25 years in excellent positions, including a place on a national magazine, no longer printed.

“For nearly two years, though I have tried every means possible, I am still unemployed,” she wrote. “I am sole support of an aged parent. Aly cash reserves are exhausted.” She got a job on the project, “Urban study’ of consumer purchases,” under the WPA.

These women in general are advised to apply to vocational agencies for retraining advice. A privately financed research study is being made on the retraining problem, which may prove helpful.

The aged can only be referred to ■their state on old-age pensions—if there is one. The Social Security Act is also explained to them. FILLING IN THE GAPS. Where a slate old-age law starts at 70 and WPA work leaves off at 6a, persons in between those ages can only be advised to apply to their county welfare agencies. On lost jobs, low wages, and long hours for women, some of it in private industry and attributed to the fail of the N.R.A.. some of it in public places, .Mrs Roosevelt gets a Hood of information.

One woman who went seeking a job as gaol matron, and didn’t get it,

promptly reported to Mrs Roosevelt. “I found the matron who works from midnight to S a.in. and the matron who works from 4 p.m. to midnight, have no time off during the tv. o months that they work those two shifts.

“So these two matrons work GO days or more without a day off. In a time of so much unemployment it seems hard that a woman should be required to work over two months without a day of rest when so many need work. And this one came from a Missouri woman:

“I know it is an impossibility for ycu to even hear a report on all the' mail you receive, but it seems to relieve our minds to turn to someone that, has a kind personality and tell our troubles to them, and so I am turning to you. "I am a widow, 45, in a small town with a shirt factory. 1 make .'idol. a week on an average. I was country school teacher before marrying, I am trying to get my girl through high school. My son. 17, died. Taxes are taking our home. I come of pioneer settlers here who have always owned a home and never have we asked or received help. Thank you for taking up your time.” Where relief wages prove inadequate because of large families or illness, Mrs Rosevelt is likely to hear l cf it. A Georgia woman, fourth wife of a man who was father to 20 children, six of them hers, wrote her thankfulness that one boy was sent to a CCC camp. She was 45, her husband 81 and too infirm to work. Her security wage wouldn’t stretch for food and clothes. Sometimes local investigation shows facts misrepresented. Others are heart-warming in straightforward honesty that stands up under the most minute There’s one especially fine file which concerns the appeal of a woman in Kansas on behalf of her sister in Texas. The neatly typed letter was a concise and able setting forth of a situation of the Texas woman. DESERTED BY HUSBAND. Deserted by her husband and with I four small children, she went to live with parents glad to help her until her father died and city paving in front of the home forced a mortgage on it. Her married sisters who would be glad to take the mother in, couldn’t however take six extias.

And the honest “P.S." of the Kansas woman was: “1 have tried to give yott A filfiin, unsentimental statement of the facts, but of course this letter is prompted only by the desire to help

my sister if there is any way to do so.” The Texas woman was given work in sewing room at 29d01. a month, later was re-classified and became a supervisor at 35d01. a month. This plan, necessitating her mother staying at home to care for the children, was recognised as a temporary stopgap. and she was advised to apply tor a mollier’s pension. Her eldest son aas certified for a youth project.