Moral Basis of Democracy, The.
One of Two Copies:
Eleanor Roosevelt’s
Roosevelt, Eleanor. The Moral Basis of Democracy. New York: Howell, Soskin & Co. (1940).
8vo.; black cloth stamped in gilt; spine lightly rubbed. In a specially made quarter morocco slipcase.
First edition, presentation issue; one of only two copies printed, for the author and her husband, FDR. The colophon reads, “Of this presentation edition two copies have been made/ one for the author, the other for President Roosevelt.”
A strong expression of Mrs. Roosevelt’s democratic faith, her book is no mere piece of Fourth of July puffery. She refuses to ignore the ugly failures of American life, and uses them as a spur to greater dedication to American ideals and bolder action:
We have allowed a situation to arise where many people are debased by poverty or the accident of race, in our own country, and therefore have no stake in Democracy….No one can honestly claim that either the Indians or the Negroes of this country are free. These are obvious examples of conditions which are not compatible with the theory of Democracy. We have a poverty which enslaves, and racial prejudice which does the same….It is quite obvious that we do not practice a Christ-like way of living in our relationship to submerged people, and here again we see that a kind of religion which gives us a sense of obligation about living with a deeper interest in the way of our neighbors is an essential to the success of Democracy.
The book also contains a bold and unequivocal denunciation of totalitarianism, this at a time when many Americans wanted no part of Hitler’s war against Britain and France, and some, like Anne Morrow Lindbergh, even argued for an accommodation with the Nazi “wave of the future.” Americans, Mrs. Roosevelt argued, were already at war—“an economic war and a war of philosophies. We are opposing a force which, under the rule of one man, completely organizes all business and all individuals….This one man in Europe has no limit on what he can spend for the things he desires to bring about. If he wants quantities of armaments, he simply goes ahead and has quantities of armament.” Coexistence with such a tyrant was impossible: “Our Democracies must realize that from the point of view of the individual and his liberty, there is no hope in the future if the totalitarian philosophy becomes dominant in the world.”
Provenance: Eleanor Roosevelt; by descent to her son; acquired by Glenn Horowitz Bookseller from Irene Roosevelt Aitken, John’s widow.
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