Becoming Madam Secretary

by Stephanie Dray

Some cried out for a dictator like that swaggering bully Mussolini in Italy. But my countrymen elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt—a man who couldn’t walk, much less swagger.

Churchill once said that meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne, and that knowing him was like drinking it.

I say his true political gift was that he liked people…and he made them feel liked.

He was a shameless political animal, happy to let his underlings execute plans, take credit for them if they succeeded, or pretend he had nothing to do with them if they flopped.

“And I see you have a fine education. Mount Holyoke College. Wharton Business School. And now New York’s School of Philanthropy.

“Why economics?” I echoed gamely. “Because many people in America believe poverty is a moral problem having to do with sloth or some other sin we can blame on individuals. But I believe poverty in America is an economic problem that can be solved…and I intend to solve it.”

But I had never, and would never, get used to watching little children march off each morning to spend their day rag picking or threading needles or toiling over dangerous machines for a few coins, cruel overseers barking at them without a care for the butchery that might result.

And when I think back on my life, I can’t help but see a sly winking pattern to it. A web of strange coincidences, lucky decisions, and chance meetings with people whose destiny it was to shape the modern world.

Those pillars of rectitude wanted to feed only so-called worthy children, but a corrupt Irish boss helped when no one else would, and I wouldn’t soon forget it.

All in all, it was an exhilarating neighborhood, filled with youthful energy, but also what I now know to be outrageous pretension. We were drunk on art and intellectualism. We were also ardent and insufferable reformers.

To think I’d considered resigning, quitting, taking a step back from my work… Well, any thought of that burned away in that fire. I had to ask myself why I’d been at a tea party in that square on that day, on that hour. Why had God put me there in that very spot to bear witness? There could be only one answer. God had called me to do something about these injustices. And I would answer that call or die trying.

I secretly longed for a child and a family like this for myself, and it made me wonder if it was truly possible for a woman to have a public career and still have a happy homelife, or if that was a blessing reserved only for men.

Given the insurance money, the shirtwaist kings would actually profit from the fire. The law, as it stood, incentivized men to work girls to exhaustion and even burn them alive. Which was why I intended to topple the law as it stood…

“My dear girl, making a few enemies is how you know you’re doing things right.”

“So very much. Because to be loved, really loved, one must be known, and I find that terrifying. In truth, I think it takes courage—real spiritual daring—to allow oneself to be known.”

Love made a new woman of me. Someone less guarded. Someone who scribbled poems in notebooks on a whim. Someone less apt to keep everything inside. Love even made me a little more forgiving…

For there in that church, I was reminded that marriage was for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part. And we were both still very much alive.

I thought it a disgrace that America had the highest rate of infant mortality of any developed nation in the world. I knew, from painful personal experience, New York City was a dangerous place to give birth. Thus, as a tribute to the babies I’d lost, I volunteered to be the executive secretary for the Maternity Center Association,

We were saving little lives at a time when the war was chewing people up, and at long last, I again felt as if I were thriving, doing important work that made a real difference in the world.

You get to know people on a train in a way that you wouldn’t otherwise. People relax a little together. They let down their guard. Even Franklin Roosevelt—and I don’t think I’ve ever known a man quite so guarded.

And, of course, that America was still a work in progress. A theme we’d return to many times in our lives…

We shared it. An unexpected silent communion, during which I decided that Franklin Delano Roosevelt might be a more complex man than I had ever guessed.

Because Mrs. Walker was what I’d come to call a mothball wife. The kind politicians treated like a fancy old hat, to be taken out of mothball storage for public functions.

“That people want to feel heard. Everybody wants to have that sense of belonging, of being on the inside. No one wants to be left out. So it’s not such a trial to indulge them.”

I was coming to the uncomfortable realization that other women felt a strong personal investment in my career. Even those who weren’t my friends. Beyond any policy I might advance, they wanted to see me succeed. As if my rise validated their own ambitions and self-worth as women. It was both an honor and terribly humbling to hold such a mantle.

It is abnormal for industry to throw back upon the community the human wreckage due to its wear and tear. The hazards of sickness, accident, invalidism, involuntary unemployment, and old age should be provided for through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use.

There in Chicago, as the Democratic nominee for the presidency, he said, “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a New Deal for the American people.”

This isn’t Paul, I said when he accused me of being his jailer. This isn’t Paul, I said of the seething, silent stranger he became. This isn’t Paul, I said when he accused me of being an impersonator, demanding to know what I had done with his real wife.

Only my loyal little dog knew that I curled up in bed at night with one of Paul’s old sweaters, feeling as if absolutely everything in my world were coming to an end…

I was afraid to take this job. Before now, I’d been able to call upon reserves of courage, but my tears were the manifestation of a fear I simply couldn’t grapple with. Not merely a fear of failure. A fear of leaving behind a terrible legacy in my wake…

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” With these words, he injected hope directly into our veins.

“He’s going to start the world war all over again. The maniac told me so himself. At the time, I thought it laughable that he could convince the German people to vote away their own rights and let him do as he pleased. I’m not laughing now.”

“Yes, and so is the president. He’s gambling on me, and I’m gambling on you, and the country is gambling on the lot of us, so we’d best not let them down.”

We’d also passed more than seventy laws. Laws to help farmers, modernize food production, and keep people in their homes. We’d allocated money to build roads, bridges, and vital national infrastructure. We’d started dams that would provide electricity to remote areas. We’d regulated working conditions, raised wages, and, at long last, prohibited child labor everywhere in the country.

People want security. In their personal lives and in their society. They want social security. You might remember that when I talked about it in those terms on the campaign trail, they went wild.”

It helped to remember that I was doing it for other girls her age, just starting out in life, without prospects.

“Miss Perkins, sometimes there’s a man—or a woman—who is made for a moment. I happen to think you were made for this one.”

FDR looked at the cameras and spoke directly to the American people. “Today, a hope of many years’ standing is in large part fulfilled.” He wanted the citizenry to understand that “if, as our Constitution tells us, our Federal government was established among other things ‘to promote the general welfare,’ it is our plain duty to provide for that security upon which our welfare depends.”

So maybe a spark of madness was what it took to accomplish anything truly revolutionary in this world.

My grandmother always said that in America, one must be prepared to go up suddenly or come down suddenly, and one has to do either with grace.

Social Security—which was expanded again and again to cover more Americans of every race and creed—is now so much a part of American psychology that I truly believe no politician, political party, or political group can possibly destroy it and maintain a democratic system.

That’s what progress is. And everything we do now should be with that shadow of our very difficult past in our minds and the hope we may meet our task as our predecessors met theirs.”

I often say that as secretary of labor, I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and my country. Now maybe I can rest easy in the knowledge that a new generation has taken up the cause.