NOTABLE WOMAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22834, 19 March 1936, Page 18

NOTABLE WOMAN

ANNA ELEANOR ROOSEVELT PLACE IN AMERICAN LIFE. One morning I was sitting in company with half a dozen other journalists talking to President Roosevelt in his little study at Hyde Park, the old Roosevelt family mansion overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York, relates Douglas Williams, New York correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph. The routine of our daily conference had been completed, questions had been aaked and answered, and the conversation had turned to lighter topics. An animated discussion was in full swing as to the respective merits of the Newspapermen's and the Presidential baseball teams, when suddenly the door leading to the main part of the house opened, and a slim, dark-haired woman entered unannounced. Her hair was combed straight back over her head, and she wore no make-up. She was dressed in a pair of not-too-well-fitting jodhpurs and a plain white blouse, and was hatless

Bending over, she kissed the President and wished him good morning—all in the most natural manner, without affectation, and with obviously real affection. It was Mrs Roosevelt, just setting forth on her morning ride, and a few seconds later, through the window, I saw her swing into her saddle and canter away down the gravelled driveway. It is probably safe to say that never has the White House at Washington contained a President's wife who occupies a more important place in American life than Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. Her unceasing activities as adviser, diplomat, and social worker have definitely made her the President's partner —it is truej without official title, but still with great responsibilities. She is a woman of amazing and untiring energy. She is always going somewhere in a great hurry—by motor car, aeroplane, train or horseback. Since she entered the White House three years ago she has probably used more petrol and purchased more train and aeroplane tickets than any other woman in public life anywhere in the world. In her first year as mistress of the White House she travelled more thou 40,000 miles. The speedometer on her own little blue car, which she loves to drive alone and unescorted, showed a mileage of nearly 20,000. A trained public speaker, she makes more public appearances in a month than many other Presidents' wives have done in the whole course of their husbands' terms of office. Reporters endeavouring to keep up with linr become exhausted. On one typical day she Inspected her son's rooms at Harvard College; Ladled out soup at n chanty kitchen ; Went down a conl mine; Reviewed policemen; Laid a corner-stone; Inaugurated a swimming pool; Visited a then!re. In her journeys alone in her car, she thinks nothing of motoring from Washington to New York, a distance of 240 miles, in under seven hours. She justifies her wanderings by explaining that she is constantly looking for " sore spots." " There are," she said in a recent speed), "a great many social injustices in the United States, and it is surprising how few people actually know about them. A sore spot in any one State, unless it is cured, is sure some day to affect the whole country." Mrs Roosevelt, arouses constant criti-

cism, but her personality is so delightfully disarming, and the motives underlying her actions so well founded, that her critics make small headway against a vast volume of popular approval. A daily subject of discussion by housewives in a thousand different homes, she is denounced as a publicity seeker and as a "Radical," or, alternatively, as an aimless busybody. On one occasion she made remarks about the guzzling habits of young ladies of to-day, and a deputation of so-called " women leaders" labelled her innocuous and rather amusing address as " an insult to American girlhood." On another occasion, at a Texas airport, rushing to snatch a hasty breakfast between planes, she avoided an opportunity to be photographed arm in arm with the famous woman Governor of Texas, Mrs Miriam Ferguson, and within a few hours papers all over the State were complaining bitterly that the First Lady had snubbed Texas by preferring her mdrning coffee and grapefruit to a close-up with " Ma" Ferguson.

Tijese and similar attacks, however, do not upset her, and she accepts all criticism and chaff with unfailing good humour. A nationally-published magazine once produced a cartoon showing two grimy coal-miners gazing openmouthed at n female figure advancing upon them through a shaft deep 1 underground. " Gosh, it's Mrs Roosevelt," said the caption, and all America laughed. But so did Mrs Roosevelt when a girl reporter snowed it to her the following day. From much experience she has become one cf America's most active and successful broadcasters, and her income from this source, plus her output of articles for magazines and papers, cannot be much less than £20,000 a year. On the air she receives £IOO a minute, and docs not attempt to deny that sh" is paid such magnificent remuneration because she happens to be the President's wife. All these earnings go to her multifarious, charities, chiefly concerned with school and health work in various destitute sections of the country. Her immediate family are reported to adore her, and the President has never in any way showed any disposition to check or hamper any of her activities. A widely circulated anecdote well illustrates the feeling of goodwill mingled with humour which the American public, holds towards Mrs Roosevelt. A father was telling his small son the story of Robinson Crusoe —"An' there on the sand Crusoe suddenly saw two footprints. Whose do you think they were?" The boy paused a moment, and then replied with sudden conviction: "Mrs Roosevelt's, papa." All in all she is deservedly popular. Only fl few months ago a convention held at. a State college unanimously elected her as '" the greatest woman personality and the most unselfish woman in the United States."