Letter from Harry S. Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt

Jl, THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON January 19, 1948 Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Replying to yours of the sixteenth in regard to Mrs. Anna Rosenberg, of course, I'd be glad to use Mrs. Rosenberg any time and anywhere - she is a very able person. I've been making a real fight for all the social things I've advocated ever since I've been here. You will remember, if I hadn't made the fight Henry never would have gotten through the Senate on his last adventure into the Cabinet, We are faced with a very serious situation in the Congress now, however, because we have more Democrats who are help- ing the Republicans than we have Republicans who are helping the Democrats in both Houses. There has only been one time in this whole Congress that the Democrats have voted together and that was on an amendment to the Interim Aid Program. We have at least six Senators on the Democratic side who always vote with the Republicans on any forward looking measure and there are only three Republicans on whom we can count in the Senate. Of course, I intend to continue to make all the fight I am capable of making, just as I always have done. With the help of yourself and forward looking people like you, I think we can make some impression but I am not at all optimistic about the final results. As you can very well remember even when we had a so-called Democratic Congress we had more Democrats who voted with the Republicans than Republicans who voted with the Democrats in both Houses and that situation hasn't improved one bit since the last election. I think I am as familiar with procedure in the Congress as any- body possibly can be and I use every means at my command to make use of that familarity. We did succeed in getting an Interim Aid measure through but when it comes to social reforms those people simply are not interested in social reform - in fact they'd like to turn the clock back.