History Project

[JaeSon5]

Wendell Wilkie

Born in Elwood, Indiana, on February 18, 1892, Wendell Wilkie was the German descendant of Indiana, Hoosier. As a student, he was exceptionally bright and received all A’s on his report card. With his intelligence, he decided to study law and college and become a lawyer. Although he had no prior reputation or experience, his charismatic and honest personality instantly appealed to the masses, and he was nominated at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia to the chant of “We want Wilkie!”
(new para)Wendell Wilkie, a lawyer and utilities executive, is running against Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940, despite the fact that Wilkie (now Republican) was a former Democrat. Wilkie's platform was anti-New Deal and criticized the government's lack of military readiness. Roosevelt forestalled the military issue, however, by expanding military contracts. In retaliation, Wilkie reversed his approach and accused Roosevelt of "warmongering”
(new para) Wendell Wilkie and Franklin D. Roosevelt are rivals for the 1940 election, Roosevelt promising New Deal initiatives to start relief organizations for the depression, and Wilkie castigating the government's military unpreparedness and preaching anti-New Deal talk. They knew each other as competitors for the same prize-the presidency. It's plausible that Wilkie could have arranged for Eleanor's demise in order to cripple Roosevelt's campaign and render him "legless" once more.

Nancy Cook

Nancy Cook was born on August 26, 1884 in Massena, New York. She attended Syracuse University. Marion Dickerman was born April 11, 1890 in Westfield, New York. She studied for two years at Wellesley College before transferring to Syracuse University. At Syracuse, they met each other and became life-long friends. After a brief teaching assignment in Canisteo, New York, in 1913 Dickerman moved to Fulton, New York where she taught American history and became reacquainted with Syracuse classmate Nancy Cook, who taught arts and handicrafts at Fulton High School. The two women would become lifelong partners, living together almost their entire adult lives, sharing a life dedicated to politics, education, and progressive reform.
(new para)Dickerman and Cook met ER in June 1922 when Dickerman accompanied Cook, then the executive secretary of the Women's Division of the State Democratic Committee, to Hyde Park for a weekend visit. The three women, sharing political ideas and tremendous energy, became fast friends, working together for the Women's Trade Union League, the League of Women Voters, and the Democratic National Committee. As ER recalled in her autobiography, "Miss Cook and Miss Dickerman and I . . . had been from the first drawn together through the work which we were doing together. This is, I think, one of the most satisfactory ways of making and keeping friends."(2) By 1927, in addition to their political work, the three women would share the Val-Kill property, Val-Kill Industries, and the Todhunter School. Their friendship would last more than fifteen years.
(new para)In the summer of 1938, FDR named Dickerman to the President's Commission to Study Industrial Relations in Great Britain and Sweden and while she was abroad, ER and Cook had a serious disagreement, "a long and tragic talk" in which the friends "said things that ought not to have been said." By October 1938, their friendship had dissolved. ER felt that they had no difficulties in previous years because she had no objection to Dickerman's "wishes." Now that she did, she thought Dickerman did not respect her opinion. Furthermore, as Blanche Cook argues, ER resented Dickerman's inference that she and Cook had helped create ER. Although Dickerman remained close to FDR, her future involvement with ER involved only Christmas and birthday gifts. The legal disentanglement of their relationship would take most of 1939. The emotional toll was just as great. Due to this argument, and the long strained relationship afterwards, Cook would have had the motive to kill Eleanor.

[JaeSon5]

John Edgar Hoover

Potential assassins lurked everywhere, even in the agencies of the U.S. government. Those with enough power to carry out malicious deeds were the ones to be feared. An example of such a person was the Director of the F.B.I., John Edgar Hoover. Reining control over the agency and harboring prejudices toward African Americans, Hoover was certainly capable of being the murderer of Eleanor Roosevelt.
John Edgar Hoover became the Director of the F.B.I. in 1924. He improved the workers of the agency and earned a good reputation, and he developed a crime laboratory, a training institution, and even a fingerprint file. Before becoming the Director, he was the assistant of the Attorney General of the Department of Justice, A. Mitchell Palmer. During that time, Hoover directed raids against suspicious radical communist aliens; he roughly arrested the people without considering the possibility that they might be innocent. Additionally, he was very prejudiced against blacks and people who defended racial justice, including Eleanor Roosevelt. In fact, the F.B.I. had an extremely long dossier on Eleanor, filled with her civil rights activities and the resulting outrage they caused. Hoover also began a rumor that Eleanor had “Negro Blood,” which therefore instigated her to commit perverse acts. It is evident that Hoover had no respect and reverence for the nation’s most active First Lady.
John Edgar Hoover was one of the people who despised and fought against Eleanor Roosevelt’s progressive efforts for civil rights. He was biased against blacks and racial justice fighters, which caused him to be sloppy and unjust in his work; he conducted arrests without doing a proper investigation. With the connections of the F.B.I. in the palm of his hand and a record of outrages toward Eleanor’s endeavor for minority rights in the other, Hoover had both the motive and the ability to commit the assassination. He had already attacked Eleanor’s reputation; what was to stop him from attacking her person?

[Varda Oiolosseo]

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