Block, Siteadmin, SkipCaptcha, Upload, Automoderated users, delete, edit, move, nsTeam2RO, nsTeam2RW, nsTeam2_talkRO, nsTeam2_talkRW, protect, rollback, Administrators, template
294,103
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 1:
Line 1: − + + + + + + + + Line 23:
Line 30: +
edit
'''Harry Lloyd Hopkins''' (August 17 1890 – January 29 1946) was a close advisor to President [[Franklin Roosevelt]] and was frequently known as the Assistant President. While working in the White House, Hopkins is not known to have recieved any pay or to have been a federal employee.
'''Harry Lloyd Hopkins''' (August 17 1890 – January 29 1946) was a close advisor to President [[Franklin Roosevelt]] and was frequently known as the Assistant President. The President referred to him as Harry the Hop. While working in the White House, Hopkins is not known to have recieved any pay or to have been a federal employee.
==New Deal==
Hopkins married as a young man a fellow welfare worker. They had three sons. In 1930 his wife filed suit against him for absolute divorce in New York State, the charge being infidelity. She secured the divorce and an order for the payment of $5,000 a year in alimony. Hopkins was making $10,000 a year at the time. Shortly after the divorce, he took a second wife. He became WPA Administrator at a salary of $10,000 a year. Marquis W. Childs, in an article in the ''[[Saturday Evening Post]]'' of April 19 and 26, 1941, said Hopkins was hard pressed for funds under the circumstances and was having a difficult time meeting the alimony payments to his first wife. To cure this situation, social workers were brought together to raise a fund of $5,000 a year to take care of Hopkins' alimony. A number of small salaried little social welfare workers were assessed to discharge Hopkins' natural obligation to support his own children. In theory the money was collected to pay him for his lectures. This arrangement went on for two years. Then in January, 1936, his salary was raised to $12,000 and the welfare workers were relieved of the burden of Hopkins' alimony.
Childs relates in the same article, that during those WPA days, Hopkins, who was so pressed for funds was, with the men around him, playing poker with losses so stiff they ran to $500 or $600 an evening and that he found the time and the means to run up for weekends to the homes of some of the wealthy friends and to make frequent visits to the race tracks at Saratoga, Pimlico and Warrenton. ''[[Life magazine]]'' has printed much the same stories about him.
==Mission to Moscow==
During the war years, Hopkins acted as FDR's unofficial emissary to [[Winston Churchill]] and [[Joseph Stalin]], and as administrator of Lend-Lease.
During the war years, Hopkins acted as FDR's unofficial emissary to [[Winston Churchill]] and [[Joseph Stalin]], and as administrator of Lend-Lease.
*[http://www.nps.gov/elro/glossary/hopkins-harry.htm Harry Hopkins, The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers]
*[http://www.nps.gov/elro/glossary/hopkins-harry.htm Harry Hopkins, The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers]
*[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-6/de_toledo2.html Interview with Ralph de Toladano]
*[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-6/de_toledo2.html Interview with Ralph de Toladano]
*[http://www.archives.gov/legislative/guide/senate/chapter-18-1921-1946.html#18D-8 Special Committee to Investigate Unemployment and Relief (June 10, 1937).
[[Category:biographies]]
[[Category:biographies]]