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Anna Louise Strong letter to Eleanor Roosevelt regarding the Munich crisis, May 4, 1938
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| Title | Anna Louise Strong letter to Eleanor Roosevelt regarding the Munich crisis, May 4, 1938 |
| Author | Strong, Anna Louise (1885-1970) |
| Publication Date | 1938 |
| Notes | In this letter to Eleanor Roosevelt, Anna Louise Strong discusses the increasingly tense situation in Europe, particularly the embargo of Spain and the possibility of Hitler and Mussolini intervening in the dispute. She advises Roosevelt not to allow Sumner Welles to "muddle this thing again". Strong argues that the President, having unilaterally proclaimed the embargo, has the right to revoke it in the light of possible Italian and German involvement. She believes the lifting of the embargo needn't necessarily mean selling arms to Franco's forces, as "we have traditionally opposed selling munitions to insurrectionists, but not to regular governments." Strong counters the argument put forward by the media that lifting of the embargo will meddle in European affairs by contending that issuing the embargo in the first place was already "the most awful meddling, in violation of all past international precedent". She believes lifting the embargo will "give us leadership of the democratic forces of the world, which are terribly in the doldrums". Strong believes that, with the support of "Nye, Pittman and Borah", along with many scientists and students, the President can take action swiftly. From her perspective, "we are just one hand's breadth from either saving the world from disaster, or helping to shove it down the abyss." |
| Contextual Notes | Anna Louise Strong (1885-1970) was an American journalist and political activist throughout her life. After spending much of the 1910s working as a progressive advocate for child welfare, she became involved in the labor movement in Seattle, and through that movement increasingly identified herself with international communism. This advocacy, along with her work for the Seattle Union Record, connected her to the events surrounding the Seattle General Strike in 1919. Strong later left Seattle, and spent much of the 1920s and 1930s living in the Soviet Union, meeting with men such as Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin, and writing books about her experiences for Western audiences in an attempt to build support for the USSR. During World War II, she continued to promote the cause of communism, although her support for the Chinese communist movement ultimately alienated her from the government in Moscow, limiting her to one visit to the Soviet Union in the final two decades of her life. She spent most of those years living in the People's Republic of China, befriending Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, and continuing to publish books and articles in support of communism until the end of her life.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) was First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945 as the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (as well as being the niece of an earlier American president, Theodore Roosevelt). In the 1930s, she had become a prominent advocate for the New Deal and the African-American civil rights movement. During World War II, she became an advocate for the United Nations, and later served as the United States' delegate to the U.N., chairing the commission that composed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. |
| Subjects (LCSH) | Strong, Anna Louise, 1885-1970--Correspondence; Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962--Correspondence; Munich Four-Power Agreement (1938); Spain--History--Civil War, 1936-1939 |
| Digital Collection | Pamphlet and Textual Documents Collection
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| Digital ID Number | PAM0386 |
| Ordering Information | To order a reproduction or inquire about permissions contact: photos@u.washington.edu. Please cite the Order Number. |
| Repository | University of Washington Libraries. Special Collections Division |
| Repository Collection | Anna Louise Strong papers. Accession No. 1309-001. Box 4/16 |
| Object Type | Letter (correspondence)
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| Physical Description | 1 leaf; 28 x 20 cm. |
| Digital Reproduction Information | Scanned from original text or image at 150 dpi saved in TIFF format, resized and enhanced using Adobe Photoshop, and imported as JPEG2000 using Contentdm software's JPEG2000 Extension. 2010. |
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