Eleanor Roosevelt to Florence Kitchelt
Eleanor Roosevelt to Florence Kitchelt
23 July 1946 [Hyde Park]
My dear Mrs. Kitchelt:
I think you overemphasize the importance of the Equal Rights Amendment and I can not agree with you that the passage of that Amendment will really help women particularly the groups that need help most in this country.
I have no prejudice about this. I am purely practical.
Very sincerely yours,
TLS FLCKP, MCR-S
1. Throughout the 1940s, ER's position on the ERA remained that which she asserted in a May 1945 My Day column: "I feel that if we work to remove from our statute books those laws which discriminate against women today, we might accomplish more and do it in a shorter time than will be possible through the passage of this amendment." See also Document 120 (Florence Kitchelt to ER, 9 July 1946, AERP; "Florence Kitchelt, 1874–1961," Finding Aid, Florence Ledyard Cross Kitchelt Papers, CtY).
On Faith and Governance
When the Federal Council of Churches secretary Walter Van Kirk bemoaned the inability of churches to apply spiritual principles to government and social practice, ER, whose The Moral Basis of Democracy also called for a political and legal system grounded in the Social Gospel1, offered the following column calling for churches to develop "greater responsibility for the conditions existing in society."