First Lady's Week

Far-darting Eleanor Roosevelt was in California last week. "I see no reason for our entering the war--as yet," she said in Los Angeles. "How unnecessary," she wrote (in My Day) of a headlined demand that her husband give an ironclad pledge of peace. Interviewed about Third Term (see p. 19), she said: "My own personal opinion--and not as the wife of a President--is that except in extraordinary circumstances we should stick to our tradition. ..." She lectured. She stayed at Son Jimmy's Beverly Hills apartment, regretfully recorded that he was away (on movie business). Accustomed to big airliners, she flew in a small (four-passenger) plane from Los Angeles to central California's fertile San Joaquin Valley, there had the biggest day of a big week.

In company with Cinemactors Helen Gahagan and Melvyn Douglas, she saw Okies at home: overalled migrant farmers, their wives and children in poor Sunday best, in squatters' camps by roadsides, private camps on big farms. U.S. Government camps and a Federal cooperative farm. "My, ain't they nice!" said a migrant wife at Visalia, admiring Mrs. Roosevelt's manicure hands (see cut). " A fine lady," said Mrs. W.N. Pace. "She's nice looking, too--just as homey as we are."

Squalid, squatty towns appalled Mrs. Roosevelt ("At one place I saw a water pipe line next to a privy"). She judged planned private camps for Okies to be somewhat better, Government camps, with sheet-metal huts and neatly ordered community laundries, recreation halls and self-governing councils, best of all. But in none of these stopgaps, said she, lay a solution to California's problem ("We must get these people back on land that they own"). A reporter asked whether, having seen the Okies, she thought that Novelist John Steinbeck had exaggerated. "I have never believed that The Grapes of Wrath was exaggerated," said Eleanor Roosevelt.

In San Francisco, Mrs. Roosevelt confirmed reports that she is about to join radio's cliff hangers and soap operas. In radio parlance, cliffhangers are dramas devoted largely to the perils of Pauline, who is frequently hanging from a cliff or its theatrical equivalent when a day's installment ends. Soap operas are milder thrillers, designed primarily to entertain housewives. Eleanor Roosevelt in her seventh paid radio job will dangle from no cliffs, but she will broadcast for a soap company at an hour when the air is loaded with troubled heroines. At 1:15-1:30 p.m. (E. S. T.) on April 30, Tuesdays and Thursdays thereafter, Sweetheart Toilet Soap Presents Eleanor Roosevelt will be heard over NBC's Red Network. Current Sweetheart Soapster is Baritone Jack Berch, whose Song Club (piano, banjo, swing accordion) has for its theme song: Hello, There, Anybody Home?

Politics excluded (NBC otherwise would have to give equal airtime to disputants), Broadcaster Roosevelt can say what she pleases, may have guest stars if she wishes. Her sponsor is prospering Manhattan Soap Co., whose Sweetheart cakes retail for around 6-c-, sell mostly in groceries. Sweetheart Soap presumably will pay Mrs. Roosevelt her standard rate: $3,000 per 15-minute broadcast.

Since Eleanor Roosevelt began radiorating for pay in 1932 (after her husband was elected President), she has worked for Simmons ("Beautyrest") mattresses, Johns-Manville building materials, typewriters (for a group of manufacturers), Selby shoes, Pond's cold cream. Total proceeds: about $150,000. Until she learned better, she gave all of it to charity, paid the taxes on it herself. Now she deducts income taxes first, hands out the rest. Her favorite outlet is the American Friends (Quaker) Service Committee, which will receive her net proceeds from Sweetheart Soap.

An indignant citizen once figured that Mrs. Roosevelt got $3,000 for six minutes on the air, said nobody could be worth $500 a minute. Eleanor Roosevelt agreed, added that she got it only because she was the President's wife. Partly because she is the President's wife, partly because she is in her own right a first-rate radio attraction, Movie & Radio Guide last week graded her for voice quality (good); delivery (excellent); mannerisms (very good); poise (good); logic (good). Total score: 93, placing her No. 2 in Movie & Radio "Guide's ratings" of radiorators. No. 1: Franklin Roosevelt (97%).

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