“the only thing we have to fear is fear itself....”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his landmark first Inaugural Address at the U.S. Capitol, on March 4, 1933. Many consider the speech to be one of the greatest in American history. On the day of the inauguration, the country was at the lowest point of the worst depression in American history. The banks had closed in thirty-two of the forty-eight states (plus the District of Columbia), unemployment was above 25 percent, farms were failing, and two million people were homeless. The New York Federal Reserve Bank would not be able to open the very next day, as panicky customers had withdrawn huge sums in the previous days. In this context, Roosevelt set forth a positive message addressing the country’s greatest needs: relief, recovery, and reform. His confidence, optimism, and the massive amount of “New Deal” legislation he sent to Congress in the first one hundred days of his administration did much to reassure the American people that better times were on the way.

“We have been passing through a period of depression longer than that of the World War and more corrosive in its effects. We have before us a work of recovery and reconstruction.”

This typed report was compiled in two weeks amidst a violent nationwide textile strike. In addition to Roosevelt initialing it twice, it is signed by his the chairman of the commission, and by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve on a Presidential cabinet, in which role she played an important part in writing critical New Deal legislation, including the Social Security Act. The report was personally given to FDR at a meeting at Hyde Park to discuss the board’s findings which successfully brought an end to the strike.

“Please accept sincerest thanks for your telegram of September twenty-seventh. It is heartening and I appreciate much your sending it.”

FDR thanks Republican New York City attorney Frederick R. Coudert Jr. for a telegram received a day earlier, September 27, 1938. On that date, in response to Hitler’s threat to annex the western third of Czechoslovakia, known as the Sudetenland, Roosevelt sent a message urging German Chancellor Adolf Hitler to avoid the “incalculable disaster which would result to the entire world from the outbreak of European war” and “the mutilation and death of millions of citizens.”

“No realistic American can expect from a dictator’s peace international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion–or even good business. Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our neighbors.”

The Missy LeHand Archive, comprising some 1,400 pieces, is the most important grouping of original documents still in private hands from such a central figure in FDR’s political and personal life. In conjunction with Glenn Horowitz Booksellers, we are offering the archive, intact, directly from Ms. LeHand’s heirs.

Highlights of the archive include more than forty signed Presidential Addresses, mainly rare Press Release printings from the day the speeches were delivered in 1937-1941. In addition to the Four Freedoms Speech, this group includes his first Inaugural Addresses, his December 1940 “Arsenal of Democracy” speech, fireside chats, and other historic addresses.

Missy’s official papers long ago moved to the FDR Library in Hyde Park; this collection constitutes the personal letters, signed books, photos and documents she received from her boss. The FDR Library in Hyde Park has working drafts of a number of these speeches, and official printed copies, but does not have signed copies of most. In fact, for many of the addresses here, it is literally impossible for a better FDR association copy to come on the market, ever.

“Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay.”

This remarkable document, signed by President Harry S. Truman and by him for British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Chairman Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China, sets forth their terms for Japan’s surrender. Within days, Churchill had been replaced as prime minister, and within two weeks, the United States Air Force had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 15, Japanese Emperor Hirohito accepted the terms of the Declaration.

In this brief letter, General A. C. McAuliffe agrees to inscribe a copy of a unit history of the 103^rd Infantry Division for the New York attorney and autograph collector Ashley T. Cole after he returns to Washington from atomic tests in the Pacific Ocean. This letter was written between the test denotations of the fourth and fifth atomic bombs ever exploded.

Unit historians Ralph Mueller and Jerry Turk wrote Report after Action: The Story of the 103^rd Infantry Division with illustrations by artist Bill Barker, and it was published in 1945. Because McAuliffe led the 103^rd through the end of the war in Europe, Cole wanted to get his autograph on the brief volume.

“As I was deprived of the possibility of taking part in the meetings of the Executive, I ask to be allowed to appoint a member to be the head of Defence … paragraph ‘C’ should be changed, by way of adding a demand for an immediate agreement that a temporary Government be formulated…”

This fascinating letter by freshman Congressman and future president Gerald R. Ford to a Catholic college president in Michigan defends his early record on civil rights legislation.

“Personally, I have lived by and believe in the fundamental principle of equality of opportunity regardless of race, color or creed. I am in favor of such a policy for all citizens and will cooperate to accomplish that objective by the most practical and effective methods.”

“The continuance of the compromise is dependent, first and foremost, on the degree of tolerance that people who hold opposing outlooks can show through a mutual love of Israel.”

Golda Meyerson (she would change her name to Meir in 1956), promotes the idea of Mapam (the Marxist United Workers’ Party) joining Sharett’s Mapai (Workers’ Party) government. Hazan, the recipient, was one of Mapam’s co-founders.

“I came to recognize that your service as Foreign Minister was not for the good of the country, although I did not cease to value your talents and dedication....”

Medical researchers wanted to gather “aeromedical” data and test effects on the Project Mercury astronaut’s body of “significant and unusual stresses of manned capsule flight.” The stresses they were looking into included weightlessness, acceleration tolerance, radiation, noise vibration, thermal stresses, and hypobaric and environmental control system effects. At the time, some scientists believed that weightlessness could lead to circulatory failure, disorientation, gastrointestinal and urinary disturbances, and lack of muscular coordination. The key conclusion of Project Mercury’s biomedical program was that human beings could function in the space environment for incrementally increasing flight durations of more than one day.

“If the crisis had become more pronounced, if there had been a total blockade ...would we have had a serious run on gold? … It should be possible for us to get better coordination with the western governments…”

In this typed draft, with Kennedy’s handwritten corrections, the President asks Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon about the monetary implications of a prolonged Cuban missile crisis.

“a discussion upon a section of a Malitia bill freeing the wife & children of the slave that enlist will occupy most if not all the day.”

This artifact came from Arnold “Pappy” Noel (1922-2009), a longtime news photographer who at that time was in the Public Affairs Office of the Secretary of Defense. Noel earned his nickname in World War II as a B-29 tail gunner. After the war and his retirement, he joined United Press International as a newsreel and still photographer, filming presidential and White House events, marches on Washington and Selma, fires and riots in Washington and Detroit, and early NASA events. At the 1968 Democratic Convention, he became part of the story when he was injured and arrested for refusing to hand over his film of “excessive abuse of law enforcement agents towards demonstrators.” He was president of the White House Press Photographers Association for two years, leaving the press corps to work as a public affairs assistant to President Ford.

“He needs to do a lot of soul searching for he is the kind of guy we fear. His opportunity to spread his views and his cleverness will continue to be a stumbling block before we reach peace here at home.”

Picasso donated a pen and ink “machines of war” drawing that served as the basis of this print to use in promoting the anti-war march planned for November 13-15, 1969. 250,000 or more people attended the march.