Letter, Everett M. Hill to Franklin D. Roosevelt

A THE FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH HOQUIAM, WASHINGTON 1DT EVERETT M. HILL, PASTOR October 19, 1935 The Hon. Franklin D. Roosevelt President of the United States, Washington, D. C., My dear Mr. President: Your letter of the 24th of September was received and read with interest. For a man of my profession to receive a letter from the President is an unusual proceeding but I imagine that all the ministers appreciated it. As to whether we are able to give you any useful counsel is something else again. Hoquiam being an industrial community has had, of course, a difficult five years and since the beginning of a return to prosperity there have been two strikes, prolonging the agony. However I am convinced by a careful study that employers, at least a strong minority, are more to be blamed for strikes than the men. Mill owners demand too large a margin of profit. I could tell you some interesting stories to substantiate this statement but will not impose on your patience. As I am one of the two delegates from Hoquiam to the Townsend Plan Con- vention in Chicago, Oct. 24-27,-Judge Campell of the Superior Court here is the other-you can judge that I am interested in social security. I congratulate you upon the passage, at the last session of Congress, of your Social Security bill. But I believe that you will agree with me that it is only a start. For a country as rich as this to pension it's old people on the basis of a dollar a day doesn't sound just right. I did not vote for you for President, having been trained in my native state of Maine in the Republican party, but it seems to me that you should be reelected in 1936 in order for you to push further to the left which, I believe is the eventual solution of our national problem. I want no system of govern- ment imported from Europe. But I am convinced that our only hope of a stable American civilization is in a greater socialization of government with a com- mensurate leveling up of the average individual's income. Stuart Chase in his "Economy of Abundance" suggests this. Perhaps, if by some strange manifestation of divine providence! you should see this letter, you might call it rather personal. If so let me make it more so by suggesting that the wife of our President has a wider social vision than her husband, even though she doesn't believe in the Townsend plan. But that makes me think of what my mother used to say, when I was a boy and had said some- thing somewhat advanced, "Everett, you've spelt and you may be excused." Doubt- less you will feel like saying the same thing. By the way, I want to most heartily commend your stand on our trade with Italy and Ethiopia. We must not become entangled in the war across the water. Well, success to you. I suspect my father would end a like letter by say- ing that he was praying for you. Maybe I am. Most Camit M cordially yours, Hill Everett M. Hill.