American Voices: Ordinary People Respond to the New Deal

Franklin Roosevelt’s fireside chats and his relief programs prompted thousands of ordinary Americans to write directly to the president and his wife, Eleanor. Taken together, their letters offer a vivid portrait of depression-era America that includes popular support for, and opposition to, the New Deal.

Mrs. M. H. A.

Mrs. M. H. A. worked in the County Court House in Eureka, California.

June 14, 1934

Dear Mrs. Roosevelt:

I know you are overburdened with requests for help and if my plea cannot be recognized, I’ll understand it is because you have so many others, all of them worthy. …

My husband and I are a young couple of very simple, almost poor families. We married eight years ago on the proverbial shoe-string but with a wealth of love. … We managed to build our home and furnish it comfortably. … Then came the depression. My work has continued and my salary alone has just been sufficient to make our monthly payments on the house and keep our bills paid. … But with the exception of two and one-half months work with the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey under the C.W.A. [Civil Works Administration], my husband has not had work since August, 1932.

My salary could continue to keep us going, but I am to have a baby. … I can get a leave of absence from my job for a year. But can’t you, won’t you do something so my husband can have a job, at least during that year? …

As I said before, if it were only ourselves, or if there were something we could do about it, we would never ask for help.

We have always stood on our own feet and been proud and happy. But you are a mother and you’ll understand this crisis.

Very sincerely yours,

Mrs. M. H. A.

Unsigned Letter

This unsigned letter came from a factory worker in Paris, Texas.

November 23, 1936

Dear President,

[N]ow that we have had a land Slide [in the election of 1936] and done just what was best for our country … I do believe you Will Strain a point to help the ones who helped you mostly & that is the Working Class of People I am not smart or I would be in a different line of work & better up in ever way yet I will know you are the one & only President that ever helped a Working Class of People. …

I am a White Man American age, 47 married wife 2children in high School am a Finishing room foreman I mean a Working foreman & am in a furniture Factory here in Paris Texas where thaire is 175 to 200 Working & when the NRA [National Recovery Administration] came in I was Proud to See my fellow workmen Rec 30 Per hour in Place of 8 cents to 20 cents Per hour. …

I can’t see for my life President why a man must toil &work his life out in Such factories 10 long hours ever day except Sunday for a small sum of 15 cents to 35 cents per hour & pay the high cost of honest & deason living expences. …

please see if something can be done to help this one Class of Working People the factories are a man killer not venelated or kept up just a bunch of Republickins Grafters 90/100 of them Please help us some way I Pray to God for relief. I am a Christian … and a truthful man & have not told you wrong & am for you to the end.

[not signed]

R. A.

R. A. was sixty-nine years old and an architect and builder in Lincoln, Nebraska.

May 19/34

Dear Mrs Roosevelt:

In the Presidents inaugral address delivered from the capitol steps the afternoon of his inaugration he made mention of The Forgotten Man, and I with thousands of others am wondering if the folk who was borned here in America some 60 or 70 years a go are this Forgotten Man, the President had in mind, if we are this Forgotten Man then we are still Forgotten.

We who have tried to be diligent in our support of this most wonderful nation of ours boath social and other wise, we in our younger days tried to do our duty without complaining. …

And now a great calamity has come upon us and seemingly no cause of our own it has swept away what little savings we had accumulated and we are left in a condition that is imposible for us to correct, for two very prominent reasons if no more.

First we have grown to what is termed Old Age, this befalls every man.

Second, … we are confronted on every hand with the young generation, taking our places, this of corse is what we have looked forward to in training our children. But with the extra ordinary crisese which left us helpless and placed us in the position that our fathers did not have to contend with. …

We have been honorable citizens all along our journey, calamity and old age has forced its self upon us please do not send us to the Poor Farm but instead allow us the small pension of $40.00 per month. …

Mrs. Roosevelt I am asking a personal favor of you as it seems to be the only means through which I may be able to reach the President, some evening very soon, as you and Mr. Roosevelt are having dinner together privately will you ask him to read this. And we American citizens will ever remember your kindness.

Yours very truly.

R. A.

M. A.

M. A. was a woman who held a low-level salaried position in a corporation.

Jan. 18, 1937

[Dear Mrs. Roosevelt:]

I … was simply astounded to think that anyone could be nitwit enough to wish to be included in the so called social security act if they could possibly avoid it. Call it by any name you wish it, in my opinion, (and that of many people I know) [it] is nothing but downright stealing. …

I am not an “economic royalist,” just an ordinary white collar worker at $1600 per [year — about $23,600 in 2009]. Please show this to the president and ask him to remember the wishes of the forgotten man, that is, the one who dared to vote against him. We expect to be tramped on but we do wish the stepping would be a little less hard.

Security at the price of freedom is never desired by intelligent people.

M. A.

M. A. H.

M. A. H. was a widow who ran a small farm in Columbus, Indiana.

December 14, 1937

Mrs. Roosevelt:

I suppose from your point of view the work relief, old age pensions, slum clearance and all the rest seems like a perfect remedy for all the ills of this country, but I would like for you to see the results, as the other half see them.

We have always had a shiftless, never-do-well class of people whose one and only aim in life is to live without work. I have been rubbing elbows with this class for nearly sixty years and have tried to help some of the most promising and have seen others try to help them, but it can’t be done. We cannot help those who will not try to help themselves and if they do try a square deal is all they need, … let each one paddle their own canoe, or sink. …

I live alone on a farm and have not raised any crops for the last two years as there was no help to be had. I am feeding the stock and have been cutting the wood to keep my home fires burning. There are several reliefers around here now who have been kicked off relief but they refuse to work unless they can get relief hours and wages, but they are so worthless no one can afford to hire them. … They are just a fair sample of the class of people on whom so much of our hard earned tax-money is being squandered and on whom so much sympathy is being wasted. …

You people who have plenty of this worlds goods and whose money comes easy have no idea of the heart-breaking toil and self-denial which is the lot of the working people who are trying to make an honest living, and then to have to shoulder all these unjust burdens seems like the last straw. … No one should have the right to vote theirself a living at the expense of the tax payers. …

M. A. H.

Sources (in order): Robert S. McElvaine, Down & Out in the Great Depression (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), 54–55; Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, eds., “Slaves of the Depression”: Worker’s Letters About Life on the Job (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 21; Robert S. McElvaine, Down & Out in the Great Depression (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), 97, 147, 143.

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