Post by dgriffin on Mar 13, 2010 10:32:05 GMT -5
I'm just finishing and have really enjoyed this book. In part, my memory is jogged by Kearns retelling of events I either read about or can still hear my parents and uncles and aunts discussing. And too, I've stood in Eleanor's small library off the living room in her Val Kill "cottage," now part of the National Park system. Strangely, I've never visited the Roosevelt estate house, only 15 or 20 miles from me in Hyde Park. But I will this spring, my interest renewed.
Kearn's portrait of Eleanor and Franklin is kind, but not overly apologetic. I got the biggest kick from Eleanor's public and quite obvious disagreement with many of her husband's national policies. He'd make an announcement about one issue or another on Monday and by Friday, she was carefully disputing it in her nationally syndicated column. Some thought this fracture to be contrived, because FDR was quite liberal, but prevented from pushing his ideas by the need to work with groups of disparate beliefs in Congress.
The book is a portrait of one hung up guy, who because of it or in spite of it, was a fantastic politician. And one strong lady who dedicated her life to fighting for liberal causes. As World War II dawns, we see her fighting to maintain the liberal strides made in the New Deal, a fight against the businessmen and conservatives who would use war to line their own pockets and turn the back the progress made by working men and minorities. But even the money grubbers are presented as human. And their contributions to the war effort are aptly described. These were the men who in four years time turned a practically demilitarized country into a major war machine. The production numbers are simply fantastic.
It's easy to forget that the "liberal" causes of yesterday would by most of us today be considered basic human rights.
I call myself conservative (not" A Conservative"), but I don't think as many conservatives did earlier in the 20th century that all the unions are Commies, women should stay in the home, blacks are inferior and God meant for some of us to be rich and the rest poor.