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

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A wonderful typed letter signed "Franklin D. Roosevelt," Washington, D.C., November 7, 1941,a month to the day preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 8vo, on The White House Washington letterhead, to Senator Carl A. Hatch of New Mexico. FDR writes: "Dear Carl:–/ Thank you for yours of October first. I wholly agree with you that Straus and his staff have done a very good piece of work./ Always sincerely,/ Franklin D. Roosevelt." From 1933-1949, Carl Atwood Hatch (1889-1963) served as a United States Senator from New Mexico. A forceful advocate for a federal minimum wage law, anti-racketeering controls, expansion of the national parks, and reciprocal lowering of trade barriers, Hatch also insisted upon cleansing the election process. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections for the Seventy-seventh Congress (1941-1943), Hatch authored and managed the successful adoption of the so-called "Hatch Act." That law curbed the worst abuses of the old patronage system of politics by severely restricting the permissible political activities of employees of the federal government. A nice example of FDR's relationship with members of the United States Senate. FDR most probably is referring to Nathan Straus, Jr. in his letter to Senator Hatch. Straus was the Administrator of the United States Housing Authority from 1937 to 1942. Attached to the verso of FDR's letter to Senator Hatch is an original newspaper clipping with Senator Hatch's photograph with his United States Senatorial colleagues in attending the funeral services of Senator Alva B. Adams of Colorado in 1941.