good afternoon and welcome. i am patrick fahy a member of the archive staff and on behalf of the library museum i would like to welcome you to the annual roosevelts reading festival. we are fortunate enough to have c-span with us and our session is being recorded. therefore if you would like to ask a question in the session, please use the microphone over here to the left so that people at home will be able to hear the question as well. president roosevelt envisioned the land of the library to become the premier research institution for studying the entire roosevelt era. the room is consistently one of the busiest of all of the presidential libraries into this year's group of authors reflects a wide variety of research done on the grounds. if you love the reading festival, and i'm sure you do, and want to support this and other programs i do encourage you to become a per roosevelt library member. you can join today by seeing warren at the leadership table at the end of the hallway. and if you haven't had a chance yet please, go next door to see the special exhibition images of internment the incarceration of japanese americans during world war ii. with that said let's go over some of the protocols for the session today carey at the top of each hour the session begins with a three-minute author talk. we can conclude the festival with the keynote address that will happen right here. it's now my pleasure to introduce our offer, geraldine hawkins. working here at the fdr national historical site at eleanor roosevelt vanderbilt mansion. at th david roosevelt birthplace and statue of liberty and the burial ground national monument as well as massachusetts at the john fitzgerald historical site and the orchard house. geraldine majored in history. studying journalism at new york's school continuing education and served as an intern at the national journalism center in washington, d.c. and a public affairs officer for the u.s. navy reserve. thank you for your service. the byline is including human events, images and all hands of the magazine at the u.s. navy and where she enjoys her many friends many of whom are here today and the hundreds of books in the ever-growing collection. please join me in welcoming off her geraldine hawkins. [applause] there are two people before i begin, two people in the audience today. i would hope to acknowledge them on c-span. my good friend linda and alan the front row. i forgot to do so in my book. it's a great honor to see so many people here. she showed him a bible that she carried since childhood. and belonged to her father. despite the pages falling out she wondered if the minister knew where she might have it repaired. after he gave the information she needed, he sensed that she still had something she wanted to discuss. her father died under circumstances that might not be considered quite moral and in a strict religious signs that the minister think that this could be a barrier to his being in heaven when the friend announced the details roosevelt told him the father had a drinking problem living with a woman that was not his wife and he had a few mistresses and one of them had a child out of wedlock. the priest told her he wouldn't keep her father out on that basis and furthermore, god must be more generous than any of us otherwise there is no hope for anyone. mrs. roosevelt told her friend she was relieved and happy to hear she's also that she had always loved her father and would love to see him again. one person was elliott roosevelt of 67 years after his death, his daughter at the conclusion of her own remarkable life would be preoccupied with meeting him in the hereafter. what made his memory so compelling most historians of the roosevelt family have taken a view of the situation similar to that of alice longworth. poor eleanor, theodore results daughter remembered, she took everything to most o, most of a, so tremendously seriously. if only she had about a little levity into her life, she had a miserable childhood which i don't think she ever quite got over and there was her exquisite empty headed mother who was one of the most beautiful women of her time. she made her feel unwanted and unattractive. then there was her father who was the black sheep of the family. someone should write something and there was this attractive young man who ruined himself a drink. once he started hitting the bottle, the slide downhill was spectacular. my father was always trying to save him from some predicament. conversations about the problem was frequent when i was young i detailed because it would stop when i entered the room so i started listening at the keyhole and learned of my father's departure in the arms of nice mistresses who were responsible about him. apparently he had a form of epilepsy which wasn't helped by the drinking. i have only vague recollections of him. it would set off at such a pace that when they hardly touch the ground he died when i was about ten and there was a lot of grief in the family. i am told that there is a picture somewhere of grieving a good deal. two of the mistresses doing the same on either side of a large picture with hi of his wife loog detached over the deathbed. the black sheep finally succumbed. i was always intrigued by the contrast. it must have had a dreadful effect. she always does it on him and had been kept away from him. much of her shyness and insecurity stemmed from her enforced separation and unhappiness that it created. she always made a tremendous effort to do everything she thought was expected of her. she was always so good and so nice about everybody that i became quite intolerable. franklin have to sneak the occasional martini even when he was in the white house but i suppose the riproaring example would have been enough to keep anyone off the drink for life and. what sort of black sheep would write i thought of you all day long and pray for your happiness and that of your precious small brother and urged his daughter to cultivate selfishness, generosity, loving tenderness and cheerfulness. he wrote you are your father's love and joy. he dominated my life while he lived in was the love of my life for many years after he died. he never accomplished anything to the world at large unless the personality that left a mark on the friends and associates could be counted as important. no less important in our daily lives are the people who only touch us personally. he never could listen or learn to control. with him, the hard ways dominated always with him a greahave had agreat love and tes the predominating note. he loved people for the kindness that was in them and his friends might be millionaires. the occupations and positions meant nothing to him the only they themselves counted. he loved his children dearly and was thoughtful of us always. he always called me little now it like many children i lived a dream life with him so the memory is a vivid living thing jimmy. one friend said of elliott if personal popularity could be so popularity there was nothing beyond the reach of elliott roosevelt. elliott roosevelt was born number 28 east 20th street in manhattan serene park district. his column wa home was reconstry years after he died as a monument to the triumphant wife of his brother. nowadays the national historical site sits amidst the brochure stores, delicacies and into the rough and tumble of new york life. one has to proceed east on 20th crossing park avenue with a soft glow of street lamps and foliage in order to glimpse the privilege and peacefulness enjoyed by wealthy new yorkers in the days before the civil war. this provided the backdrop for the lively roosevelt family which at the time of the birth of february 1860 consisted of theodore senior, that his father, his wife, martha, her sister, the daughter, theodore junior called t., and elliott. another daughter would complete the family, so there you have theodore senior and their four children. it is difficult to imagine how any child could have had more loving parents dan elliott roosevelt. president theodore roosevelt wrote of his father many years later i was fortunate in having a father whom i've always been able to regard as an ideal man. he really di did combine the strength and courage in oil and energy of the strongest man with the tenderness, cleanliness and purity of a woman. in all my childhood he never laid a hand on me about one that i always knew in case it became necessary, he wouldn' you woulde slightest hesitation in doing so again. in a certain sense, my fear of him i would have hated and dreaded beyond measure to have him know i have been guilty of a lie over of cruelty or bullying or uncleanliness or cowardice, "-end-double-quote. when the father was buying of intestinal cancer at the age of 46, theodore junior who was the way at harvard during his last days in most of his suffering perhaps the loss of his father would be the ultimate disaster for which elliott would never quite recover reflecting on theodore senior's wife, his daughter wrote nothing is as difficult as to achieve success in this world if one is filled with great tolerance and human kindness. his son have great tolerance and abundance. only alcoholism would prevent him from living a life that was happy and productive as that of his father. this is a family he wasn't embarrassed to open with the citation my darling sweetest of fathers and to address his mother dear little mother. theodore elliott would regularly refer to each other as dear old beloved brother. the affectionate nature of the family stemmed from the warmth of theodore senior. he worked in the family is plateglass business, roosevelt and the songs on maiden lane in lower manhattan. but his real interest was in the philanthropic and the charitable work in which he was involved, in particular the newsboys lodging house where he spent a great deal of time and to which he took his children. anne's children, frail and scholarly whereas elliott was vigorous. elliott's robust constitution offset the highly emotional nature. he felt protected because of the frequent attacks of asthma. he seems to have an unusually tender heart. he was frequently called upon to protect his brother from rough boys willing to take advantage of the same child classes. for a young man known for having a mild disposition and a general unwillingness to display other than an even temper, his readiness to use his fists to come to the aid testifies to the bond between the boys. elliott was more comfortable with other children in the setting in which he could act on his father's concern for the fortunate. his family enjoyed telling a story at the time at the age of seven athletes went on to play. elliott would refer to his father as ideal. it was perhaps an ideal for which to drive. he was called le within the family and kept calling himself nel was more focused than he. he took care of his appearances made sure he was impeccably groomed. in this he was the opposite of his brother. elliott seemed to have realized from an earlier age that has most notable gift as well as his principal defense and heightening lee competitive and demanding masculine world with his charm. when they begin to build up strength in the small gymnasium their father had installed on the second floor of the house on east 20th street, elliott was his partner and wrestling and boxing. they kept journals of their athletic competitions. as theodore grew in strength and confidence, his brother steadily lost ground in both of these areas until, by a strange twist, the role of the brothers was reversed. elliott roosevelt was 14 when something started to go wrong inside his brain. his intelligence was far above average but he was hardly a genius like his father and by the time he reached his teens, he was undoubtedly feeling outdistance intellectually. he was unsure of himself and his place in the scheme of things. what will i become, he wrote to his father, are there not a large number of partners in the store? i think he would be the boy to put in the store if you want to be sure of that, because he is quicker and a more sure kind of boy, though i will try my best to be as good as you if it is in me but it is hard. during the summit of the 14th year it was decided that theodore and not elliott would go to harvard. this decision had to do primarily with the mysterious illness. he had begun to have periods of delirium, fainting spells, blackouts, rushing of blood to his head that made him scream out. suddenly he was afraid to sleep by himself and frightened of the dark. it's so funny my illness comes from the nerves and is in serious but my body is getting so thin i can get a handful of skin off my stomach and my arms and legs look like i have the strength of the baby, he wrote to his brother. i jumped involuntarily at the slightest sound and have headaches. some historians have suggested that despite elliott retreated into illness as a way of avoiding competition with his brother. this conclusion presupposes all illnesses psychosomatic and it seems an unfair assumption. nevertheless there is little doubt that even as a very small boy, elliott felt he was in the shadow. the. certainly elliott tried to do his best. i think all my teachers are satisfied with me but in the same letter dated early in the terms october 1, he added yesterday during my lesson without the slightest warning i have a rush of blood to my head it hurts me so i can't remember what happened. i remember ice cream dot anyway the are brought me over to his house and i leave for a couple of hours. i am well so don't worry about me. you want to know all about me, don't you? ps don't forget about the rights to me often. the prep school career turned out to be aborted. he had to leave on account of his health and has been subject to the rush of blood to his head and exerted himself both physically and mentally. archie gracey wrote to his mother. he studied and when they fainted after leaving the table and fell down. his brother came up to take him home. currently, theodore senior decided at this point his sensitive son needed some toughening up. perhaps life on an arm army posn texas would do him some good. elliott thrived in texas. his friendliness and love of fun more than compensated for the fact that he was a wealthy easterner and city dweller at that. he had a remarkable ability to turn nearly everyone he met and befriended including people with whom he would seem to have little in common. elliott felt guilty about being treated so well and for being ill, i'm sorry he felt guilty about being treated so well for being ill and in his letters attempted to convince his father that he was a healthy and brave lad. father it strikes me by being down here is very pleasant but nevertheless i feel well enough to study and here i am spending all of your money as if i were to. i don't believe i will ever be more while they im. it's too late to think of this but the doctor doesn't think i'm sick and altogether i feel like a general fraud who ought to be studying. i'm having a lovely time there is no doubt about that, and i am ever so much obliged to you for gettingiving it to your loving , elliott. and so it was elliott roosevelt and not theodore was the first to get a taste of the strenuous life. shortly after this, elliott's father became ill with what turned out to be intestinal cancer and died within a few weeks. the cancer had spread so rapidly that theodore wasn't called home from harvard and it felt a elliott to attend to his father and comfort his mother and sisters who said elliott theorist of their father with a devotion so tender it was more like that of a woman. elliott wrote in his diary by god my father what agonies are suffered. this experience seems to have cut a ground out from under elliott and he was left without an anchor or guide. his brother theodore wrote and i fully realized the extent of my loss i think i shall go mad. but he didn't have it in him to go mad. his way of dealing with tragedy was to avoid confronting it by burying himself in his work and interest. he considered it morbid to focus on anything other than getting on with his life forcing the pain under until it was too dead to throb. when his first wife died, he left all references out of his diary and never spoke of her again even to their daughter and made no mentioning of her in the memoir. elliott didn't have that kind of discipline and was that they didn't give it a different temperament and tightly. theodore had a sense of purpose and direction which his life should go. elliott had no confidence in his ability or conviction of his own importance. it seems to have been around this time he began to drink. he decided to take part of his inheritance and travel around the world. while aboard ship he spent a great deal of time with his distant cousins james and sarah roosevelt who were on their honeymoon. sometimes later they asked him to be a godfather to their baby. even though alia at the time was only 21. he replied to the request with a characteristic difference he wrote he considered himself not good enough to be the godfather of such rare people and implied he would have turned down the high honor you offer me had brought my dear mother persuaded me that i should accept. the trip lasted 16 months in which he spent much time in places like india and tibet and left letters about hunting which theodore must have savored. elliott wrote poetry all his life and on this journey abroad he spent much time composing poetry, terry tales. these are now kept in the archives of the franklin d. roosevelt library in hyde park, right over there. from a young man is sensitive and introspective as elliott, one would expect melancholy verse, and some of it is precisely that. most of his output though is more in this vein. beautiful potato doomed to fade, play hard to be severed by the ruthless state. via wealth with slumber but spring will call the from by your bed. then they'll shall bloom in light of day and moved nicely by the moon software a toe on my plate to welcome sites help stimulate my appetite. this collection also contains clues to his taste in books. his father had given him volumes by such novelists as dickens and george mcdonald. when he returned elliott had seen more of the world and most do even today. there was a fight however. he became ill with what he called indiana fever, another ailment that would continue to plague him. at this time, elliott felt the need to find some gainful employment. he joined the real estate firm with his brother-in-law douglas robyn today and worked in their office at 106 broadway. what he really enjoyed was the long island the social world. despite the health problems, he wrote, played polo and was considered he accomplished horse men of new york. elliott was brilliant and his niece alice would call elbow in the treatment of needing the ability to make anyone he talked to feel they were the most important person he'd ever met. his daughter maintain elliott was gracious to everyone regardless of their rank or station. he was conscientious about spending time at one of his father's favorite charities at the lodging house in new york. he was so popular there whenever he came to visit they clapped and snapped their feet. he was different from his brother and that he left what he called the foolish trick of theodore. perhaps there is no more important component o to the character than the steadfast revolution come of theodore roosevelt wrote. he's going to make a great man or who is going to count in any way in life must make up his mind not to overcome a thousand obstacles but to win in spite. there was another crucial difference summarized by their sister. if i were to do something he thought was wrong, theodore would never forgive me. when elliott, no matter how much he might despise in 1883 in a house party given by franklin roosevelt and loretta lamarr, he announced his engagement to anna rebecca. eleanor roosevelt would describe her mother as one of the most beautiful women i've ever met and it is said that once when anna was having her portrait painted, robert browning asked if he might be allowed to sit for a while she was that compelling. and i came from a social family that was known for beautiful women. their family home was in a state along the hudson called a terrace. they were married december the third in 1833 at the calvary episcopal church of 21st street and park avenue in the park area where elliott was born. historians have not been kind at all to anna roosevelt. while the adjective used most frequently to describe elliott is loving, anna is invariably referred to as cold. it is true that she was the product of a family in which social acceptance and good looks were what mattered most and if she ever questioned this way of looking at things we have no record of it. when elliott was spontaneous, and i believed that nothing was so much to be desired of self-control. historian davis suggested perhaps the real problem was a lack of self to be controlled. eleanor roosevelt's memories of her mother sketch a portrait of a woman that was reserved and cool even with her daughter. eleanor still had two little brothers elliott junior in hall. her mother favored the boys and was unsuccessful and concealing the fact. and i tried to be a good mother to her daughter but was unable to hide her disappointment but eleanor looked like a roosevelt and therefore she was a lovely child in all her mother could see is that she wasn't going to be a stunning battle in the tradition of the women. she took to calling her granny in front of visitors and hurting her by doing so. from the very first however there seems to be an intensity between eleanor and elliott. he was the only person who didn't treat me like a criminal, she said on one occasion. perhaps it was their shared sense of the world's disapproval that drew them together. as a lamarr grew and depended more and more of her father for support, the less he was therefore. in fairness to anna it must be said she married a man with a drinking problem and was bewildered by her husband increasing unpredictability. this was in the days before alcoholics anonymous and anna didn't have a support group for which she could turn to help. alcoholism wasn't seen as a disease. those who suffered were perceived as lacking willpower. it would be several generations before a reformed alcoholic is a compassionate clergyman hammered out the 12 steps in the church of edifice in which elliott roosevelt married. elliott made resolutions again and again which he found himself unable to keep. the more he failed, the deeper the despair. he was not able to apply himself to his work aside from the time he was enjoying himself as a sportsman he doesn't seem in any way to have been a competitive tight and there remains the competitive problems of the headaches and indian fever. at the root of n. alcoholic is a mystery but it may be said that elliott wasn't suited for the business world. professor william t. young has within the epic demanded of men in the marketplace but it didn't stop there. the effectiveness of the business world demand of an interim man must it be in control of himself and his psyche to a competitive edge. the passion's material and untrustworthy or the greatest enemy in the age of scientific management the mind itself must be carefully managed. elliott didn't fit in with this picture. the greatest success was inspiring others. he was loved for his kindness and his goodwill. it's difficult to know at what stage his marriage began to fall apart and it isn't within the scope of this address to discuss his mistresses at length. there were three that we know of but this is whafor this is whate sympathetic concern of his brother. edmund morris writes as far as theodore roosevelt was concerned, alcoholism is a disease that could be treated and cured but infidelity was a crime pure and simple that couldn't be forgiven or understood. it was against order, decency and of civilization and it was a desecration of the holy marriage could. doctor vernon johnson has written by definition a chemically dependent person is out of touch with reality and rather than being the symptom of an underlying emotional or physical disorder chemical dependency causes many such problems or aggravates those that already exist. chemical dependency seems to rest on human life in such a way that it effectively blocks any other care we might want to deliver to liberals may be wrong with the individual. now every bizarre behavior is rationalized away and a person is swept further from reality and deeper into delusion. eventually the emotional distress becomes a chronic condition. the alcoholic feels awful even when he isn't drinking. theodore roosevelt probably didn't mean to be hard on the elliott at the time not much was understood about alcoholism. the typical opinion was expressed in its 1882 tracks. every soul is worth saving that if the choice is to be made, drunkards are about the last to be taken a hold of. theodore may have elliott on his mind when he wrote that the man that makes up for ten days in difference to duty by 11 days more of a repentance about that is a scanned use in the world. in order to find out what happened to elliott i would love to tell you but we are running out of time and i think the only solution is to purchase my book. [laughter] i have so much more i want to tell you but i just want to know if anybody has any questions. i'm going to read you one last thing. this is a letter that elliott wrote to eleanor october 9, 1892. my darling daughter, many happy returns of the birthday. i'm thinking of you always have to wish for my baby girl, joy and perfect happiness in your young life. because father isn't with you isn't because he doesn't love you for i love you tenderly and dearly and maybe soon i will come back strong and we will have good times together like we used to have. love your mother for me and be gentle and good to her especially now while she is and while. goodbye in my little daughter caught up with you, your devoted father, elliott roosevelt. well, i just wonder if anybody has any questions at this point. i've set up for you, you kind of have this sense of who elliott was and in what ways in which his father took after him and the ways in which she might have been formed by this very confusing and in some ways loving and in some ways conflict of household. yes ma'am. >> [inaudible] i'm sorry. i'm supposed to tell you to go over and speak into the microphone. i forgot totally. >> i don't know if haunted is the right word but eleanor roosevelt have so many alcoholics and her family. she went with her grandmother after her mother died, her younger brother by the alcoholism, she never drinks for the rest of her life. i don't know if she ever drank at all so it was kind of a haunting left by the bad that seemed to mushroom into her whole family constellation. >> i think that is true it certainly goes from generation to generation. as you mentioned her brother it is a recurring motif in the story of the roosevelt family. anybody else? >> i've read about incidents where roosevelt was not very nice to eleanor. one day in new york city where apparently they went to a club and he left her outside and several hours later she asked for the doorman asked her who she was waiting for and she said my father and he said she left hours ago and apparently he'd been put in a cab and taken away and left her there. did she not present that or how did she build that into the picture of her father? >> if she resented that she never let anybody know. i think she was always very loyal to his memory simply because the only thing that mattered to the children is love and i mean the kind that you can see and feel. parents love you just buy fact they get up and go to work and provide a roof over your head. her mother of course was the responsible one. she felt love from her father because he'd been a friend, as she said he is th he's the onlyo didn't treat me like a criminal. he had a very understanding heart most of the time she was very lighthearted and kind to her except a few isolated incidents that were very jarring. so because he was the light of her life as she said when she was little, i don't think she was ever going to compromise that memory in any way. >> i don't have a question that i thought maybe to end this in a little levity, i've taken many tour groups to the site and you've been the interpreter on many of them. i used to enjoy when you would do a little bit of eleanor come in by the possible you could do one here for the audience. >> it would depend on it would be easier for me if you have a specific question in mind. i would be happy to address any topic you would care to raise. [applause] actually i just learned something. i used to love the children's biographies when i was little and the first time i ever heard the voice was in a creepy horror movie called what's the matter with helen but i don't recommend because it is scary. but it's set during the great depression and opens with actual newsreel footage and the first time i ever heard fdr, i love his voice, i was delighted. but then eleanor roosevelt, she says i'm pleased to be making this visit to puerto rico. [applause] >> could i ask geraldine and eleanor come as i know that geraldine spent a lot o and spee time looking at photographs in the archives, i would like to know if geraldine and in eleanor's voice had a particular photograph potentially as elliott and eleanor that was her favorite? >> there's a picture of my father around at the age of ten and geraldine added that the sweetest one in the family. one can see this as he's wearing not exactly a little suit but it is velvet and it has costs and it just looks terribly sweet. [applause] >> [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] >> right now i'm reading this book called dreamland. this is a book about the history of opioids in the country. it's a nonfiction book but it's absolutely fascinating. we have an epidemic in our country right now where we have more deaths drug overdose than car accidents and this book lays out the foundation for how we got there. i'm not finished with it yet but i think it should be required reading if we move towards creating policy to deal with the opioid epidemic in the country. >> booktv wants to know what you're reading. send your list on twitter@booktv or instead graham at mac booktv or post on the facebook page facebook.com/booktv. .. >> [inaudible conversations] welcome to the hudson institute i am a senior fellow