The Great Depression; Interview with Trude Lash. Part 2

CAMERA CREW MEMBER

Set, and mark. Tilt it, thank you.

INTERVIEWER:

You mentioned something, you were just talking about the Wagner-Rogers Act and I want to go back to that, you were saying, when the bill died, or when they withdrew the bill it was a very sad day, can you reflect that for a little bit, what happened, and what the feeling was when all those efforts, when you realized they weren't going to come to anything?

TRUDE LASH:

Well, when the Wagner-Rogers Bill died, I was in Washington. We had known, as a matter of fact, for a number of days that it would die, that Wagner would have to withdraw it, because the President had not agreed to make it a priority. Unfortunately, we had to agree that, of course, the danger was very real, that this bill would be used to really decimate the quota figures that existed. So, everybody had to give in, and of course, this was, Mrs. Roosevelt worked very closely with Wagner and Edith, Wagner was really the one who worked for this bill, mostly, as he did for so many good bills. Walter White, who was the head of the NAACP, who was in and out every day...I'd like to say one thing here, at no point did Mrs. Roosevelt doubt that the President would make the decision he'd have to make, that this was not lack of interest or lack of caring. You know that, so many people now in this revisionist [laughs] era say the President didn't care enough. None of us believed that, and Mrs. Roosevelt, who cared very deeply, knew that that wasn't the reason. The reason was that, politically, it just did not work. The forces that were against this were so strong that they couldn't be overcome at that time. This was, after all, already early in 1939, when it was already clear that probably there would be war. And—

INTERVIEWER:

We better stop for a second.

INTERVIEWER:

—why the President had to do what he had to do, just start with that again, why didn't President Roosevelt, particularly when the end was in sight, why didn't President Roosevelt come out and support the bill publicly?

TRUDE LASH:

President Roosevelt did support the bill—

INTERVIEWER:

Can you start again, I'm sorry—

TRUDE LASH:

But—

INTERVIEWER:

Hang on a second, just—

CAMERA CREW MEMBER

OK.

INTERVIEWER:

Start again.

TRUDE LASH:

President Roosevelt did support the bill, and let it be known, and whenever he was asked he would say yes, he was for the bill, and if it came to his desk he would sign it. But President Roosevelt did not fight for it, and the reason he didn't, was that he couldn't afford to. Now, some, there are some people who say, Yes, he could, and there are different opinions, but he was convinced, and all the people around him who were on our side, who were for the bill, were convinced that the, those opposed, had it in their power to simply stop other legislation that was absolutely necessary for the nation from passing, and the President would be stopped in the work that he absolutely had to do. So, we had to accept that, accept, so many preparations had been made to bring children over, so many groups both in England and in Switzerland were waiting for the gates to open to these children, and that was all finished, except for a small trickle under the existing quota. So that's what made it such a sad day.

INTERVIEWER:

What, you, I want to talk about Mrs. Roosevelt and this bill, you said that she was very much involved in it. Was she, did she feel very strongly about it, and when the siren goes away we'll talk about this. Why don't we cut?

CAMERA CREW MEMBER

And slate when you need to. Good, anytime, take five.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, so, let's talk some about Mrs. Roosevelt and the Wagner, and the Child Refugee Bill. What was her, how strongly did she feel about it, and what did she do to try [inaudible]?

TRUDE LASH:

Mrs. Roosevelt, of course, was the main support for this bill, as for so many other good bills. She started by talking with people about the possibility of developing a bill, a legislative protection for children who wanted to come. Then she followed step by step, she consulted about who should come on the committee, she received Senator Wagner and Rogers at the White House, she asked how she could help them, she held hands when people got desperate. She kept herself informed and kept the President informed, but she didn't just do this, this bill, you know, there was an endless, endless stream of little notes and of letters she sent on to him, of questions she sent, of answers he sent back, so that, that, he was fully informed about what was happening and very often gave some very good advice on what should happen next. But she never did anything openly towards the outside without first consulting him. She was very clear that he was elected, and she was not, and that it was easier for her to have strong convictions and stand up for those convictions than for him, when he had to take into consideration the Congress, which after all, he hadn't elected, and a very, at that time, very conservative Senate which also he hadn't elected. So she was politically always very clear, marvelous politician.

INTERVIEWER:

What did she do publicly for this Wagner-Rogers Bill? What did—

TRUDE LASH:

She spoke, she spoke. She spoke for many, many groups—

INTERVIEWER:

I'm sorry, could you start saying 'Mrs. Roosevelt'?

TRUDE LASH:

Mrs.—

INTERVIEWER:

No, no, that's all right, that's fine.

TRUDE LASH:

Mrs. Roosevelt made her support known in many different ways, and she did this for this bill, the Wagner-Rogers Bill, as for many other bills. She accepted very gladly invitations to come and speak to even very small groups, and explain to them what the bill meant. She wasn't always invited where she'd like to be invited, namely, to those people who should be convinced and whose opinions should be changed, sometimes she was, but very often she wasn't. She wrote in her column, she wrote articles, she was heard on the radio again and again and again. She was actually, actually tireless, whenever there was something where she might be of help, there she was. But when she was invited to do something that seemed a little questionable, first she would go to the Oval Office.

INTERVIEWER:

You once told me a story about, either you were speaking at the Cosmopolitan Club or she was speaking at the Cosmopolitan Club, and how people didn't really believe that this was going on, that this was a, that people didn't believe that this was a life and death situation—

TRUDE LASH:

I was speaking, yeah. I, I was invited to explain what the Nazis wanted, believe it or not, that the Cosmopolitan Club wanted to know. I decided I would consult the Nazi writings, the Nazi Bible and the Nazi literature, and I would state what the Nazis wanted, which from the beginning was the subjugation of Europe and the world, and a pure, a pure German nation without any outside blood influences, particularly of Jewish blood. When I was through at the Cosmopolitan Club, even while I was talking, people were a little restless. I was accused that I was rabble-rousing, and that I was painting the situation much too darkly, that they had been, many of them had been in Germany and things in Germany were really marvelous. You see, that was true, too, that when you went to Germany it was very clean and shining, and for, everywhere these bundesheer matrons singing...

CAMERA CREW MEMBER

I'm sorry, we, we got a little bob in there.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, oh, from the mic, OK, can you cut?

CAMERA CREW MEMBER

No, I'm still going, we're still rolling. You're OK now.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, let's, let's pick it up with why these people didn't believe you, why didn't [inaudible] people—

TRUDE LASH:

Because we were really quite an isolationist nation, and because we didn't believe what we read because it was so very bad, particularly not about persecution of Jews and of political dissidents, it wasn't only Jews, because there was a great deal of Nazi propaganda in this country. I remember at dinner parties were there these wonderful-looking young men, blond young men, who were ever so polite, and forever clicking their heels and kissing hands, very flattering. The propaganda institutional system in this country of the Nazis was tremendous, and so people didn't want to believe, and they did like to travel to Europe, and they did find the trains were on time, and they did find people were polite because they were supposed to be polite. So, unless, unless you really studied the politics and unless you knew the inside, you could be deceived, you could. Not if you really wanted to know, but you could. And the President was so very clearly, of course, what was going on, he knew very early what was up.

TRUDE LASH:

He was one of the early leaders who was absolutely and totally anti-Nazi.

INTERVIEWER:

OK.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER

Speeding, [unintelligible] mark.

INTERVIEWER:

The ship, the St. Louis?

TRUDE LASH:

Yeah, about which one can't say very much, but I'll say what I know.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER

Fifteen, fifty-six.

TRUDE LASH:

It wasn't sunk. The turning back of the ship.

INTERVIEWER:

Can you describe what you recall of that incident, of that international incident of the St. Louis coming to Cuba, and we know that it got, they were invalid visas and whatnot. What, what happened when they tried to come to this country?

TRUDE LASH:

I remember very well the incident of the St. Louis, that's the name of the ship that was turned back, though I don't remember details, I remember just the general impression and the horror that this happened. The St. Louis was turned back because the papers were not valid, and had been, the St. Louis had been warned that they would be turned back, that they could not come and land in this country. But they decided to proceed anyway, but they had been warned. But of course it was a terrible thing to happen, and it's among one of the things that many people will quote when they tell you that, that Roosevelt did much too little to save Jews. You know, there are a good many books that have been written, and there are articles that are coming out almost every few weeks—

INTERVIEWER:

But was there an awareness at that time that this was a critical situation, was there an awareness that if this ship got turned back this was very dangerous to these people?

TRUDE LASH:

I can't, who was aware that it was dangerous, who was aware. I can't say that many people were aware. It wasn't discussed that much in the press. Surely the people at the government level were aware that this was a desperate attempt to force their hands. I don't know, I don't know whether there were discussions about this, or whether it was simply left in the hands of those responsible to let ships in, the highest authority would be the State Department. I can't tell you who in the end was responsible, I don't really know, but one would have to say, the buck stops here, so in the end it is the President, but this, this story of the ship at that time was not considered as terrible as it has been considered since then. That's all I can really say.

INTERVIEWER:

Why do you think they didn't let these, I mean, it was only a thousand people, why do you think that the State Department refused, and the President, you know, as you say, the buck stops here, why do you think that there was a refusal to, to grant this request?

TRUDE LASH:

Basically?

INTERVIEWER:

Mm-hm.

TRUDE LASH:

Why was there a refusal to let the St. Louis in? I think basically it was for the same reasons that there was such tremendous opposition in this country against letting anybody in, against letting refugees in. That, that, there was a strong feeling in the country, and there had been a lot of propaganda in the country, that the people who arrived in this country are not going to be desirable citizens. And that, the powers in this country were arranged in such a way that they could squeeze the President into not doing things he wanted to do, because then they could prevent him from doing things he had to do.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, I want to switch, can you stop for a second? I want to switch gears.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER

Speeding. Stick it. Take seven.

INTERVIEWER:

So what was, particularly around this anti-lynching, which was Walter White's real crusade—

TRUDE LASH:

Yes.

INTERVIEWER:

—what was his relationship with Mrs. Roosevelt, what kind of relationship did they have, how strongly did she feel about the issue and, and what was their relationship?

TRUDE LASH:

Mrs. Roosevelt had a very good and close relationship with Walter White, who was, of course, a very charming man, and who was very, very skillful in representing the, his organization, NAACP, but then black people in general. He was a very courageous man. They had known each other, as she said, in 20s, but not very well, but then, when

Mrs. Roosevelt

came to the White House, and immediately invited Walter White, then relationship became better and better. The marvelous thing about it, and that I saw later, both of them were very honest with each other, she would never try to fool Walter, and he would tell her exactly how he felt and what he thought black people felt, and what they were going to do. Or try to do. Then she

would discuss with the President, and she would be the link, she was the bridge, so that the President would sometimes see Walter White when he had no intention of seeing him, he didn't see that many people,

and Walter White could try to convince the President of what he wanted and had to do. When I was around, it had to do mostly with employment of black people, and black people in the Army and the Navy, because then we were re-arming, and the Army and Navy were reforming, and black people were kept out or in labor battalions, and it took a long time to change that. She would also sometimes warn Walter White that he was going too far, not because he was going too far absolutely, but because he was going too far at that moment, and she would point out to him what had to be weighed. Now, she didn't expect him to follow her always, she just felt he had to know, and she understood—she never understood violence, but she understood when people became bothersome. People around the President'd say, Walter White was bothersome, indeed he was, he never gave up. So, Mrs. Roosevelt always was there for him and try to smooth feelings down when the President got impatient. But basically, you know, the President had the same feelings. It wasn't that Mrs. Roosevelt was a liberal and the President was not, it wasn't that the President, just one day somebody gave him a list with the Four Freedoms, that wasn't the way that it happened at all, that's what he believed. And that's what he wanted to fight for, but then here he was, elected as the head of a government for a whole people, and he was forever in trouble. Forever in trouble, ever, and of course, being very skillful, he got more through than other Presidents—

INTERVIEWER:

But, if I may interrupt, what, how are we doing with sound, are we all right, can we go now?

CAMERA CREW MEMBER

Yeah.

INTERVIEWER:

OK.

TRUDE LASH:

What?

INTERVIEWER:

Was it very frustrating for Mrs. Roosevelt to believe in these things like the anti-lynching law, like the refugee bill, but she couldn't get the President—was it frustrating for her that she had these beliefs and they were very strong beliefs, but that she couldn't really move the President to perhaps act as he might have. How did she feel about that?

TRUDE LASH:

That, Mrs. Roosevelt, could, how did

Mrs. Roosevelt

feel about not being able to move the President to act as he might have, she wouldn't have phrased it that way.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, how would she?

TRUDE LASH:

She

was terribly frustrated that certain things didn't happen

, but in the end, she accepted the President's judgment because she knew what he thought, and what he felt, and what he wanted, but she was impatient,

and she wished to God it weren't so, but it was,

and in the end she had to accept it.

And in the end she made people understand why progress was slower than, than they hoped it would be. She also told them not to give up, and for goodness' sake not to become meek and not fight very hard, 'cause she always wanted them to fight just as hard, and push just as hard

as they needed to and wanted to. Only, they must also understand that there were certain realities that were as immovable as mountains at that time, which was a difficult, a difficult time for, for the President from the point of view of foreign policy, relationship with England, trying to get a boat to re-arm, and a thousand other issues. It wasn't such a very wealthy time, you had unemployment, there was a lot of unrest. And there were all those Father Coughlins and Gerald Smiths too.

INTERVIEWER:

That's, can you tell me about the Father Coughlins and the Gerald Smiths? What about them, what kind of—

TRUDE LASH:

Well, they were demagogues, and—

INTERVIEWER:

Can you say, \"Father Coughlin—\"

TRUDE LASH:

Father Coughlin, Father Coughlin gave speeches, religious speeches which were totally political, pro-Nazi speeches, and Gerald Smith was a \"pure America\" kind of a guy, who was also pretty pro-Nazi, I think, let's say I think. And here they were, and people were listening to them, and they were, really, pretty destructive. They were certainly anti the government, and they accused the government of being run by Jews, and they accused Mrs. Roosevelt of, of being half-Jewish or whatever they thought of at the moment, and whatever, wherever they could disorient people, they did, and they worked together, of course, very closely with the isolationists, and so together they made quite a brew, to get people excited. And since all of us always need a scapegoat somewhere, they were more—

TRUDE LASH:

—successful for a longer time than they need have been, but finally, they were defeated.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, great. So what roll, we just ran out, and what roll-