O'Donnell v. First Lady

Brightly hop-skipping from one thought to another, as her practice is in press conferences, Eleanor Roosevelt said: "It doesn't help a country to have families with twelve children and no food; it helps to have whatever number of children they can feed and educate decently. . . ."

Whether Mrs. Roosevelt meant more than she said or said more than she meant was not quite clear to anyone but the New York Daily News's mischief-mongering Columnist John O'Donnell, whose apparent mission in life is to make anti-Roosevelt mountains out of any molehill he can stumble on. With characteristically unpleasant glee he commented: "For the first time in the history of the Republic, the First Lady . . . has proclaimed publicly from the Executive Mansion that she favors birth control--at least for the lower classes. . . . A White House smash punch directed at the Catholic Church. . . ."

As often, Columnist O'Donnell was in for a disappointment. By week's end, few Catholic newspapers had risen to the bait. In Washington, the Rev. Dr. Edgar Schmiedeler, a Catholic welfare official, promptly issued a widely-syndicated press statement: "I think some of Mrs. Roosevelt's remarks are tantamount--unwittingly so, of course--to a decided disservice to the country. . . ." In Boston, the usually aggressive Pilot was quite calm: "Read carefully, read very carefully, Mrs. Roosevelt's statement might pass muster. Possibly it's correct that we should encourage 'really good families,' rather than 'indiscriminate large families' . . . gauged solely from an economic viewpoint. [But] it is unpleasant to meet a sneer, however oblique and qualified, at 'families of twelve children.' And . . . it's irritating to meet a text so involved that it has to be read and re-read."

Columnist O'Donnell would have to try again.

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