The Demonization of Hillary Rodham Clinton and (Anna) Eleanor Roosevelt

Why have two prominent First Ladies been thoroughly attacked and vilified in the press as if they had no feelings at all? These two women share genuine social concerns for children, for public health, and for other good causes! Eleanor had even been attacked for her looks. I shall never forget when, just after the birth of my second child, the obstetrician came into my room at the hospital. Barely asking me how I was feeling, he began to sound off about “buck-toothed Eleanor.” At the time there was a popular musical on Broadway called Anything Goes. One of its lines was “If Mrs. R. with all her trimmings can broadcast a bed by Simmons, then Franklin knows, anything goes!” (Mrs. Roosevelt at that time had a radio program sponsored by the Simmons Mattress Company.) It made no difference to her critics that she had a daily column, “My Day,” which had a large reading public nationwide and addressed the concerns of women.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, for her part, has the effrontery to continue to retain her maiden name. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., published “Hating Hillary” in the New Yorker Magazine (February 26 – March 4, 1996), from which I will extract samples of the abuse heaped upon her. William Safire called her a “congenital liar” and David Letterman, on his late-night talk show, made this crude joke: “These are the top ten surprises of the O.J. Simpson video…. No. 5: The revelation that the gloves are Hillary’s size” (See the New York Times, July 7, 1996). To me it is not funny to portray the First Lady as guilty of committing a double murder! Pat Robertson, the TV preacher and founder of the Christian Coalition, in speeches, newsletters, and TV appearances denounces “the Enemy of the Day — humanists, homosexuals, liberals, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and feminists” (Robert Boston, The Most Dangerous Man in America? Pat Robertson and the Rise of the Christian Coalition, 1996, p. 64). In the face of such unreasonable criticism it is time we ask, why is there such naked hatred of these two women? Is it partly because of their much publicized activity?

Eleanor had good reason to be as active as she was. Because of FDR’s paralysis, she became his eyes and ears and was quite thorough in her investigations. She became a ubiquitous presence. There is a well-known, much reproduced New Yorker cartoon of a cart descending into a coal mine to visit the men underground. The caption reads, “My God! Here comes Eleanor!”

Why was this First Lady so resented? In the first place, she came after First Ladies of a very traditional stripe, such as Mrs. Harding,

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Mrs. Coolidge, and Mrs. Hoover — remembered for leading the Girl Scouts, not the downtrodden of society. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (her maiden as well as married name) was born an aristocrat, among Republicans. She was not even interested in the vote for women. However, her interests changed when she became the wife of the Governor of New York, just as Hillary Rodham Clinton changed when her husband was elected Governor of Arkansas and then President.

Mrs. Roosevelt really cared about what happened to people; she had grown up wanting to be of service and now found her outlet. There was something in her righteousness, however, her [heavy] touch, which was without lightness or humor. She was an all-powerful, all-seeing mother — a strict superego. Her public speaking voice was high-pitched and unpleasant to listen to, at least until one of FDR’s advisors, Louis Howe, took her in hand and helped her learn how to modulate it and feel comfortable speaking in public.

In the thirties and forties, before the Feminist Movement, there was a basic resentment against wives who became politically active. Women were supposed to stay at home as wives and mothers, supporters of their husbands. So, for many reasons, Eleanor was roundly and viciously attacked by people like the columnist Westbrook Pegler.

Now, turning to Hillary. As we know, she is a bright, successful lawyer, Yale Law School graduate, wife, and mother. Early in his administration, Bill Clinton appointed her to head a committee to devise a new health plan. The committee made a number of mistakes, partly out of inexperience with Washington politics. Critics complained of the committee’s not holding public hearings and of wanting to change too many aspects of health care. Opposition by the medical establishment and the insurance companies as well as partisan politics were successful in defeating the Clinton Health Plan.

Similarly, Mrs. Roosevelt was given a job by her husband. Since she wanted to be a part of the war effort, the First Lady was appointed to the Office of Civilian Defense, headed by New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. But air raid drills and the creation of underground hiding places in case of an attack were not what interested her. Rather, she wanted to create a women’s volunteer group that would see to it there was adequate daycare as well as maternal and child health care because women in increasing numbers were going to work in the war effort.

Then came the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States’ active involvement in the war. Congress took over: its members did not think that LaGuardia could run New York City and also focus on the Office of Civilian Defense. Many people had begun to criticize Mrs. Roosevelt’s activities and appointments despite her creation of a powerful committee to get the job done and to offer political protection (See Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 1971, pp. 640-653). In the era of FDR the people of the United States, or their representatives (or both), clearly were not ready for an activist First Lady.

Hillary Clinton also followed a number of wives of Presidents who did not aspire to open involvement in public life: Mrs. Truman, Mrs. Eisenhower, Mrs. Nixon, Mrs. Reagan (who was roundly criticized for being too much the power behind the throne), and of course, Mrs. Bush. The latter, with her white hair and matronly figure, was seen as waiting at home for George. President Bush encouraged women to emulate her volunteer activities included in the “thousand points of light” and available to (middle-class) women. And, of course, Barbara Bush was best known for her best-selling book about the White House dog, Millie!

A number of writers have tried to understand why there is such hatred of Hillary Clinton. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in his article “Hating Hillary” mentioned above, asked various prominent people the reasons for their intense dislike of this woman. Sally Quinn, a Washington insider, answered him with an old joke. It is about a farmer who faces a series of catastrophes that leave him bankrupt. He asks God, “Why me, Lord?” And the Lord answers, “I don’t know, there’s something about you that pisses me off.” Quinn paused, then said, “That’s the problem — there’s just something about her that pisses people off.” Arianna Huffington, a syndicated columnist and the Greek-born wife of the wealthy and conservative Californian, Michael Huffington, said, “A lot of people are

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uncomfortable with her self-righteousness.” Peggy Noonan, a speechwriter for both Reagan and Bush, spoke of “her ‘apple-cheeked certitude’ that is ‘political in its nature and grating in its effects’” (pp. 116-118). I do not have the space to quote further the multifarious examples of negative feelings for the First Lady.

There is what is called “the strong woman bogey.” Though some say it’s nonsense, from a psychological perspective I believe that men still feel threatened by powerful women who can compete, take away their jobs, and perhaps, worst of all, are not dependent creatures focused on making men happy.

Frank Rich, in his column for the New York Times (“Jo Rodham March,” January 15, 1995), wrote about how Newton Gingrich’s mother twice during television interviews had the temerity to call Mrs. Clinton a “bitch.” He continued, “No one so much as considered giving the First Lady an apology, even if only out of minimal respect for her office.” I also firmly agree with his conclusion, “You don’t have to love Mrs. Clinton, or share her politics, to feel her demonization tells us much less about who she is than it does about a country that still feels threatened when its little women grow tall,” as it was with Eleanor Roosevelt! At least polls show that women are much more favorably inclined towards Hillary than are men.

One of Mrs. Clinton’s slips, in a brief show of impatience during the 1992 Presidential campaign, caused trouble for her when, in answer to a question, she said, “Well, I could be at home baking brownies!” The media is most unforgiving. She has been the subject of enormous moral criticism during the Whitewater hearings. There is irony in Alfonse D’Amato, whose ethics were proven to be questionable, being the leader of the Senate pack trying to crucify Hillary.

The political fallout of this abuse has been costly for Mrs. Clinton. In spite of the favorable reception of her book on support for the education of children, It Takes a Village, her public image has been treated carefully by the White House. She is excluded from weekly meetings of the inner circle of Clinton’s political advisers, even though her chief of staff, Maggie Williams, attends. “If she took part,” officials said, “critics would accuse her of too much influence on the campaign.”

Michael D. McCurry, the White House press secretary, said, “No matter what she does, people will characterize her unfairly” (Maureen Dowd, “Liddy, Hillary and Nancy,” New York Times, July 18, 1996). As of this writing on August 16, 1996, the Times reports that a role at the Democratic Convention for Mrs. Clinton is being carefully worked out for her. It is still only “hinted” that she will make a speech at the convention in Chicago, her hometown.

Another similarity between the two First Ladies is their husbands’ unfaithfulness. We are told that Eleanor stopped having intercourse with Franklin after the birth of her sixth child within ten years. She was devastated when she found a correspondence between FDR and her social secretary, Lucy Mercer. She offered him a divorce which his mother, Sara, roundly opposed — it would have been devastating to his political ambitions. Eleanor admitted how depressed she was after this discovery in 1919. Despite this crisis, she and Franklin developed feelings of closeness and dependency that, for her, were once more shaken when she learned that Lucy was with her husband in Warm Springs when he died.

We know little about Hillary’s response to the Gennifer Flowers business despite the candidate’s wife standing by her man on national television and denouncing Flowers’ allegations as “trash [sold to the tabloids for] cash.” Bob Woodward in his book, The Choice (1996), took up this matter in his material about Hillary’s relationship with her therapist, Jean Houston. It seems that Houston is a strong and outgoing person, who inspired confidence in Mrs. Clinton. Hillary accepted some of Dr. Houston’s advice and got into imaginary conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt. It was natural enough for her to feel empathy for the person of a First Lady who was famous in her lifetime and also the subject of great criticism. Hillary was interested, so we are told, in how Eleanor had dealt with all the vilification she had received.

There is poetic justice in the fact that Mrs. Roosevelt, after she left the White House, was appointed to the committee creating the United Nations and was instrumental in writing

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the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights. In her travels on a multitude of missions for good causes, both public and private, Eleanor Roosevelt became known as “First Lady of the World!” We do not know how history will ultimately judge Hillary Clinton.

On a wonderful note, the two worlds of these women did come together in a most dignified and appropriate way. The New York Historical Society had an exhibit, “Becoming Eleanor Roosevelt: The Early New York Years, 1884-1933.” In it there was a lovely picture of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the White House with Franklin D. Roosevelt III along with Herbert Zohn and others who are active members of the group raising funds for a larger-than-life statue of Eleanor Roosevelt by Penelope Jencks. This memorial will be unveiled in the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Park in New York’s Riverside Park, at 72nd Street, this coming [now past] October. It will be one of the very few statues of women in New York City and a fitting tribute to a First Lady who accomplished much in the face of enormous criticism and demonization.

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