National Affairs: Housekeeper's Week

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Last week was a busy one for Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt. For seven years the First Lady has left citizens bemused by her energy, her speeches, her candor, her clubs, her charities, her children, the range of her interests, the breadth of her sympathy, and the way she got around. She has been less like the traditional First Lady than like the busy mistress of some great estate, with the whole U. S. as the household. Upstairs, downstairs, morning to night, seven days a week, with never a cross word, she has noted spots of dust on the chandelier, the need for paint on the outlying houses, that dust accumulating in Oklahoma, those new curtains for San Francisco.

The U. S., at first astonished, then annoyed, then amused at her flying trips to coal mines and reclamation projects, has gradually settled back like some impressed but comfort-loving onlooker, to wonder how she found time to do it all.

Busy as every week has been, last week was busier:

To Washington Junior Leaguers she suggested that women who work and do not need their pay should use their money to increase jobs.

To 500 women attending the Household Employment Symposium at Manhattan's Roosevelt Hotel, she urged that domestic work be put on a professional basis. Most fluttered guest at the lunch was one Mildred Stewart, a maid, who sat between Mrs. Roosevelt and feminist Author Fannie Hurst. Mrs. Roosevelt listened to Miss Stewart's speech: "As trained workers we don't feel we have anything to gain from a union ... we have discussed the advantages of social security but we haven't fallen for the arguments of either C. I. O. or A. F. of L. organizers."

Guest of honor at a dinner at the Astor Hotel given by The Churchman, Protestant

Episcopal magazine, which gave her its annual award for "Promotion of Good Will and Understanding Among All Peoples," she heard herself praised for her "genius of goodness," heard even more hearty praise from The Churchman's Dr. Shipler.

Back to Washington she hurried, to see what was happening to youth and the Dies Committee. Trouble began long ago. If the whole U. S. is considered the great house of democracy, then Martin Dies has been like a newcomer who believes he has uncovered a terrific scandal in the family. Said he rudely: Why, the place is full of Communists. Liberals hush-hushed, feared a Red-hunt, kept saying Martin Dies had made a mistake—he should be after Fascists, not Communists. But when the Dies Committee began to talk about U. S. youth, found youth organizations mixed up with evil companions, hinted that youth had been out all night with the Reds, could no longer tell right from Red, Mrs. Roosevelt rushed to youth's defense like an outraged mother hen defending her chick's good name.

Summons. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and Mrs. Roosevelt was having tea in Manhattan with Frances Williams, 25, administrative secretary of the American Youth Congress, when a telegram arrived. It called for an ex-head of the Youth Congress, who had requested an opportunity to testify before the Dies Committee, to appear at ten the next morning. American Youth Congress has had Mrs. Roosevelt's support from the start, and she has denied that its leaders are Communists.*

But this looked like the biggest attack so far.