Franklin D. Roosevelt: Typed Letter Signed as President....

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Franklin D. Roosevelt. Typed Letter Signed. One page (conjoining leaves), The White House, Washington, April 22, 1938, as FDR was gearing up for the off-year Congressional elections in 1938, in his infamous attempt to purge conservative elements of the Democratic Party, to Dorothy McAllister (Mrs. Thomas F. McAllister). FDR writes: "My dear Mrs. McAllister:-/ I will be glad if you will convey to the delegates of the Regional Conference for Democratic Women of Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico and Missouri my sincere thanks for their thoughtfulness in forwarding to me, through you, the resolution adopted at their Regional Conference in Oklahoma City on April fourteenth. I deeply appreciate this splendid token of loyalty and support./ Very sincerely yours,/ Franklin D. Roosevelt." Dorothy Smith McAllister became the Director of the Women's Division of the Democratic National Committee in 1937. At the 1940 Democratic National Convention she became the first woman to deliver a full-fledged speech on a policy matter before a Presidential convention. Her speech demanded that women be given equal representation on all of the convention's major committees. Although a feminist, she opposed a resolution before the 1940 convention that proposed a women's equal rights amendment. She believed such an amendment actually would cause women to lose some of the protections they already had. She reportedly persuaded Eleanor Roosevelt to write a letter to the convention in opposition to the amendment. Later in life she was appointed to several Michigan state commissions as well as several Federal commissions. A fabulous letter from a key female supporter of FDR during a key political campaign in which FDR makes sure he thanks the organized Democratic women voters for their support of his Presidency.